The General Who Had Two Deaths

 

The General Who Had Two Deaths

When the works on the Plaza de Andalucía in Úbeda were undertaken in the 1990s involving the construction of an underground car park, one of the city's more controversial monuments, the one erected to honour General Leopoldo Saro, Count of Ixdain, accused of being a symbol of Francoism, was removed from public view. The statue and its stone basement, a work by Jaén native Jacinto Higueras, was stored in a municipal warehouse to be lost and forgotten about. It would lie there for seven years with the bronze suffering some minor damage and the head of the figure of Victory from the stone plinth on which it stood would disappear altogether. However in 2006, a controversy at the heart of the city government would lead to a major fall-out between political parties that threatened to bring down a fragile coalition and would ultimately see the return of General Saro to the Plaza de Andalucía. 

Born in the then Spanish colony of Cuba in January 1878, son of a Spanish colonel stationed on the island, Leopoldo Saro Marín followed his father into military service and joined the Toledo Infantry Academy as a very young man. After graduating, he was assigned as ensign to his native Cuba. A few months before the island was lost in the Spanish-American war of 1898, Saro, now lieutenant, returned to the Peninsula and actively participated in Spain's campaign in Africa, The War of Melilla, where he demonstrated his abilities as a military strategist and by 1909 he had reached the rank of Comandante.

Saro first forged his links with Úbeda when around this time he married Ubetense Josefa Obdulia Saro Moya (no relation, this was not a "cousins" wedding) and settles in the city. In 1910, Úbeda's civic leaders named him "Adoptive Son", and from this point on his relationship with Úbeda would intensify. He began to have significant authority over the day to day running of the city. In 1912, the now newly appointed Lieutenant Colonel Saro was asked to exert his influence to increase the strength of the Civil Guard, which he successfully did. Later, in 1920, as Chief Colonel of the King's Infantry Regiment, he arranged for the infantry band to perform at the San Miguel Fair in Úbeda to the delight of the city's residents. 

The following year, Saro is further promoted to Brigadier General  following his particularly impressive performance in the Rif War, and in 1923, when returning from the campaign in Africa, the Corporation travels to the Linares Baeza railway station to receive him. The whole city of Úbeda closed down for the day to welcome home their hero.

Following Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup d'état in Spain in September 1923 and the establishment of a military dictatorship, Saro became a key figure in Spanish politics allowing him influence even further for the benefit of his adoptive home. He supported the development of the Baeza-Utiel railway and managed the building of an irrigation channel. But probably his greatest civil works came in the construction of four school groups, a cinema, the opening of the Municipal Library, the School of Arts and Crafts and was behind the conversion of a palace to become the second "Parador de Turismo" in Spain as well as the reconstruction of the Casa de las Torres. 

In recognition of his achievements, Úbeda baptised its main square, formerly known as "Plaza de Toldeo", with the name of "Plaza del General Saro" in 1927 and on 11th July of that year the Permanent Commission of the City Council decided to further recognise his contributions to civic life by agreeing to the erection of a statue in his honour. In 1928 the City Council contributed 5,000 pesetas to a popular subscription made amongst the residents of Úbeda that had been opened to pay for the monument. The town council also commissioned a portrait of Saro by the painter José María Tamayo to be hung in the Town Hall.

The statue was inaugurated in 1930, but a few months later the dictatorship collapsed and a new Republic was established. The following year the city requested that the family remove the statue from the square and in May 1931 it was dismantled and taken to the family finca of "El Teatino" where it remained. 

In 1936, just a few weeks after the uprising that sparked the Spanish Civil War, Saro found himself at his home in Madrid where he was sought out, arrested and executed by Republican forces. At the same time, Republican militia were searching for him back in Úbeda but finding the finca empty, decided to shoot his statue instead, rip it from its plinth and throw it into a water deposit where it would lay for the following three years.

Following the end of the Civil War, the statue was recovered and the entire monument was reinstalled in the "Plaza del Mercado" (now "Plaza del 1 de Mayo") then called the "Plaza del Generalísimo" in Úbeda. (It seems somewhat curious that in the Plaza named for the Generalísimo the city should choose to place a statue of a different general) 

At the end of the 1950s the Saro monument was dismantled again and moved back to the "Plaza del General Saro", today "Plaza de Andalucía", where it would stand until it was removed by the left of centre government of the city when the works to create the underground car park began. The decision aroused a bitter controversy. For seven years it laid lost and abandoned in a municipal warehouse until in the early 2000s, the right of centre Popular Party (PP) mayor, ruling under a coalition with the left-wing Andalucía Party (PA), decided to once again return the statue to the square. The decision by the mayor brought to light confrontation between the two government partners. The Andalusians, who controlled the area of Urban Planning of the city, were highly critical of the PP decision to return the statue to the square. The PA leader, Francisco Mendieta did not hesitate in pointing out that Saro was a military leader under the military coup and subsequent dictatorship of Primera de Rivera

It was surprising, however, that the proposal by the PP was supported in a council meeting by both the socialist party, PSOE, that had had it removed in the first place, and United Left (IU), the former Communist Party. The only party that voted against it was the PA who proposed as an alternative to transfer the effigy to the Civil Guard academy.

The PP mayor, Juan Pizarro, hid behind the 4,000 signature petition that was presented to the town hall by residents who requested the restitution of the statue. As Saro had been killed only a few weeks after the uprising that started the Civil War in Spain, it was never documented as to where his sympathies lay.  However, Francisco Mendieta criticized the ambiguity shown by the PSOE and IU for not expressly opposing its restitution. "He was a military coup leader, but there they have their decisions," he said. The socialist deputy spokesman, Juan Clemente, pointed out that his group "Did not want to fuel any confrontation." In his opinion the statue, highly criticized by the Úbeda born writer Antonio Muñoz Molina, who refers to the officer as General Orduña in his work The Polish Rider, "Has its history," although Clemente admitted that another location could be sought. Juan Jurado, of IU, said, "It's an issue that we are not going to make bad blood from," and then recognised a certain "contradiction" in his position with that of his group at the federal level. According to Jurado, General Saro "was a military chief (during a coup), although he favoured the city."

Interestingly, the controversy surrounding the statue had no continuity with the portrait of Saro that still hangs in the plenary hall of the City Council of Úbeda, albeit a newer version after the original was destroyed back in the 1930s.

Sixteen years on and the statue still stands in the "Plaza de Andalucía", with its bullet holes from the 1930s, and the controversy over its reinstatement now seems well forgotten and, to some degree, so does General Saro himself. Tucked to one side of a very ordinary square, looking over the overly frequented entrance of an underground car park, it now has a somewhat unkempt appearance. With letters missing from the inscription and some figures of the plinth sporting a distinct ginger tinge to their coiffures from the still uncleaned Saharan Dust that fell weeks ago, I get the distinct impression that "the General who had two deaths" may not be as favoured a son of Úbeda that we were led to believe but more a pawn in a political game of power and prestige.