At the end of November, retired members of Spain’s military sent two letters directly to the country’s King Felipe VI, expressing concerns about the “social-communist” government in Madrid and the danger it poses—or so they said—to Spanish unity. In these emotional missives—one signed by 73 formerly senior army officers, the other by 39 retired air force officers—the retirees address the monarch explicitly as head of the armed forces, and pledge their allegiance to the “homeland,” the “national cohesion” of which, they claim, has been weakened by the minority government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
These extraordinary letters were followed by a manifesto along similar lines, published on Dec. 6, the day on which Spaniards approved their 1978 Constitution in a national referendum. This one described Spain’s Socialist-led government as “a serious risk to the unity of Spain and its constitutional order,” and was signed by more than 400 former members of the Spanish military, as well as by one of former dictator Francisco Franco’s grandsons.
