The Santoña Agreement, or Pact of Santoña, was an agreement signed in the town of

Guriezo Guriezo is a municipality located in the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain. According to the 2013 census, the town has a population of 2,424 inhabitants. Its capital is El Puente. Settlements History Megalithic evidence from the surrou ...

, near

Santoña Santoña is a town in the eastern coast of the autonomous community of Cantabria, on the north coast of Spain. It is situated by the bay of the same name. It is from the capital Santander. Santoña is divided into two zones, an urban plain, and ...

Cantabria Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...

, on 24 August 1937, during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

, between politicians close to the

Basque Nationalist Party The Basque Nationalist Party (, EAJ ; es, Partido Nacionalista Vasco, PNV; french: Parti Nationaliste Basque, PNB; EAJ-PNV), officially Basque National Party in English,) was rejected by party members in November 2011. Nonetheless, the party did ...

( es, Partido Nacionalista Vasco - PNV), fighting for the Spanish Republicans, and

Italian forces The Italian Armed Forces ( it, Forze armate italiane, ) encompass the Italian Army, the Italian Navy and the Italian Air Force. A fourth branch of the armed forces, known as the Carabinieri, take on the role as the nation's military police and ar ...

, fighting for

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 193 ...

. During the

Battle of Santander The Battle of Santander was a battle fought in the War in the North campaign of the Spanish Civil War during the summer of 1937. Santander's fall on 26 August assured the Nationalist conquest of the province of Santander, now Cantabria. The ba ...

, the Francoist troops pierced through the Republican defense lines. The Republican troops, including the

Basque army (spelled in modern eu, Eusko Gudarostea, lit=Basque army) was the name of the army commanded by the Basque Government during the Spanish Civil War. It was formed by Basque nationalists, socialists, communists, anarchists and republicans under ...

, retreated to the west in a disorderly fashion, with numerous desertions. After the fall of Bilbao, almost all of Basque territory had fallen into Franco's hands.

Juan de Ajuriaguerra ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

, the president of the

Biscay Biscay (; eu, Bizkaia ; es, Vizcaya ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao. ...

Regional Council of the PNV, negotiated a surrender agreement with the Italian army command. The PNV offered to surrender the Basque army in exchange of its prisoners being treated as

prisoners-of-war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

under Italian command and PNV members being allowed to go to exile on British ships. The

Basque nationalist Basque nationalism ( eu, eusko abertzaletasuna ; es, nacionalismo vasco; french: nationalisme basque) is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the po ...

units of the Republican army in the Basque territory, fighting under the direction of Basque President José Antonio Aguirre, met at Santoña and surrendered to the Italian forces on 24 August. When news of the agreement arrived to his headquarters, Franco cancelled the agreement and ordered the immediate jailing of the 22,000 captured soldiers in Santoña's El Dueso Prison. Three months later, around half of them had been freed, and the other half remained in prison, and 510 were sentenced to death, a smaller reprisal proportion than registered elsewhere. Ajuriaguerra, the highest rank in the PNV, was released from prison in 1943. Because the agreement was carried out by the PNV behind the Republican government's back, the agreement is also known as the Santoña Treason.

References

Bibliography

*Cándano, Xuan. ''El pacto de Santoña (1937): La rendición del nacionalismo vasco al fascismo'' (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2006) (Spanish) * Granja Sainz, J.L. de la, ''Entre el pacto de San Sebastián y el de Santoña (1930-1937)'' (Madrid: Historia 16, 1998). 271 (Spanish) Battles of the Spanish Civil War Conflicts in 1937 1937 in Spain 1937 in politics History of Cantabria Basque history Battles involving Italy 1937 treaties {{Cantabria-stub

See also

References

Bibliography