Fascist Victory Parade Story

The Spanish Civil War Fascist triumph took some time to organize. Madrid fell to Franco's forces at the end of March 1939, and the victory celebrations didn't take place until May of that year! On the 19th of May the army marched past Franco who stood on a high narrow rostrum with two massive Italian Fascist style columns, which bore his name repeated three times, in the center above a huge shield bearing the arms of Spain was the word "Victoria". Franco wore a red beret of the Requetes, close behind him stood the Primate Cardinal of Spain and the Grand Vizier of Morocco. As the troops went by Franco raised his arm in the Roman salute which had been adopted by the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las J.O.N.S. Fascist party in 1937, a salute not to be officially abolished in Spain until the other fascist European regimes fell in 1945.

Tons of flowers had been strewn down the Paseo Castellano parade route, carnations and roses to be trampled by Franco's victorious soldiers, and yet to be defeated European Fascist Allies. The Moorish standard-bearer, at the foot of the rostrum, was in his glory, as the leading battalion of Italian Blackshirts paraded past, followed by motorized units, then for five solid hours the Spanish troops of the Navarrese army corps, the Zaragoza battalions playing fifes, the Legionaries in pale blue shirts, the Moroccan troops, the red bereted Spanish Falangist Party Youth, the main body of the Falange preceded by a ram with a monkey on its back. Overhead bomber aircraft filled the sky. German troops of the Condor Legion brought up the rear of the parade.

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