José María Gil Robles y Quiñones, born Salamanca 27 November 1898 and died in Madrid 14 September 1980 was a Spanish patriot and anti-Communist significant during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). He was a lawyer, politician, deputy in the Cortes republicanas entre 1931 y 1939 and Minister of War in 1935.
WIFE Carmen Gil Robles y Quiñones de León née Carmen Gil Delgado Armada (c. 1900-?)
PARENTS Prof. Enrique Gil Robles (1849-1908) and Petra Quiñones Armesto (?-?)
SIBLINGS José Manuel Gil Robles and Carmen Gil Robles
CHILDREN José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1935-) and Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1944-)
He graduated in Law at the University of Salamanca in 1919, following more or less the same path taken by his father. In his youth he was an active member in Catholic political and social organizations.
Doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, in 1922 he obtained the chair of Political Law at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife.
On his return to Madrid, he was an important part of the writing of the Catholic newspaper El Debate, directed by Ángel Herrera Oria (1886-1968).
He was named secretary of the National Catholic-Agrarian Confederation Confederación Nacional Católico-Agraria (CNCA) and in 1922 he joined the Popular Social Party Partido Social Popular (PSP), led by Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo (1873-1946).
During and after the stewardship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), Head of Government and President of he Military Command Jefe del Gobierno y Presidente del Directorio militar, he collaborated with José Calvo Sotelo (1893-1936). As General Director of the Local Administration director general de la Administración Local, he helped draft the Municipal Statute Estatuto Municipal.
During the Republic (1931-1936) Gil Robles y Quiñones ran on the Agrarian Bloc Bloque Agrario ticket and was elected deputy in the first elections of the Second Republic, held in June 1931, two months after its proclamation. He intervened in the Constituent Cortes, in which he stood out for his opposition to the anti-religion policy of the new republican regime since he was a member of the commission that worked on drafting the constitution.
He took part in the debate on the religious question in the 1931 Constitution in defense of the “possibilistic” posibilista Catholic line advocated by Cardinal Francisco de Asís Vidal y Barraquer (1868-1943) and was willing to accept, with nuances, the declaration of secularism of the State, provided that the “rights of the Church” were recognized, including those of religious orders. His intervention concluded with a warning:
"We understand that the constitutional project, as drafted is a religious persecution project and, therefore, we cannot accept it under these conditions ... We affirm that, within the law, without violence, without appeals to force, without wars that our doctrine forbids us, we will declare hostility to the draft Constitution on the assumption that a persecutory measure will be approved, both in the constitutional text and potentially for the future; that, from the moment a text of this nature was approved, we would declare a new constituent period open."
In 1931 he became a member of National Action Acción Nacional, created shortly before by Ángel Herrera Oria and renamed in 1932 as Popular Action, when Gil-Robles was already one of its main leaders.
He defended the position of accidentalism, according to which the important thing was not the form of the State (monarchy or republic), but that it defended the interests of the Church. This collided with other positions, which declared themselves opposed to the Republic from the beginning.
At the end of February and the beginning of March 1933 he participated in the creation of the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), by merging with Acción Popular.
In the electoral speeches of the November 1933 campaign he affirmed that democracy was simply the "means" to reach the corporate state.
His new party won the election, but with a small majority (115 seats of 450), which made him unable to form a government. He supported the new cabinet chaired by Alejandro Lerroux García (1864-1949) in that same month, as well as the following, also headed by other figures of the Lerroux' Radical Republican Party Partido Republicano Radical (PRR).
On 6 May 1935 he was appointed Minister of War by Lerroux, a position from which he would promote several soldiers who would end up having a great role during the subsequent Civil War. Thus, he ordered that General Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975) to take charge of the command of the Central General Staff, and General Emilio Mola Vidal "El Director" (1887-1937) return to active duty and take command of the forces of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco Protectorado español de Marruecos.
General Joaquín Fanjul Goñi (1880-1936) was appointed undersecretary Colonel José Enrique Varela Iglesias (1891-1951) was placed on his staff. In return, Manuel Azaña Díaz' cronies (1880-1940) disappeared from the ministry, the Courts of Honor Tribunales de Honor were restored and religious acts were authorized in the barracks.
He continued in office in the following cabinet, chaired since September of that year by the independent . His political attitude, contrary to the direction given by the latter to the economy, led to his resignation in He resigned in December 1935 after clashing with the economic policies of Joaquín Chapaprieta y Torregrosa (1871-1951).
After the victory of the pro-Communist Popular Front Frente Popular in the February 1936 elections, he became the head of the parliamentary opposition.
On the morning of 15 February 1936, Gil-Robles delivered an impassioned speech before the permanent Deputation of the Courts Diputación permanente de las Cortes in which he gave up the notion of civil coexistence with the new leftist and anti-clerical government and immediately left Spain and went to France.
Expelled from there by the André Léon Blum (1872-1950), he went to Portugal.
During the Spanish Civil War, he instructed his supporters to support the rebel side, while giving his party funds to General Emilio Mola. Gil-Robles said in his memoirs that he was not aware of any military conspiracy.
The conflict ended in April 1939, supported the monarchical cause. He was a member of the Private Council of the Count of Barcelona Consejo Privado del conde de Barcelona (Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993), father of the future King Juan Carlos I de España (1938-) and tried to reach an agreement in 1948 with the socialist leader Indalecio Prieto Tuero (1883-1962) to achieve the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy in what was called the San Juan de Luz Pact Pacto de San Juan de Luz.
In 1953 he returned to Spain, where he supported various opponents of the regime. He was banished in 1962 for participating in June of that year in an anti-Franco meeting in Munich (the so-called Munich Contubernio), which also earned him the opprobrium of the Count of Barcelona.
After Franco's death in 1975 and the subsequent reign of Juan Carlos I and the Spanish Transition, he tried to recover his political role defending the traditional positions of European Christian democracy. He was supported in this task by one of his sons, José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado.
The attempt failed and he finally turned away from political life.
WORKS
In Spanish
No fue posible la paz, Barcelona, Ariel, 1968.
Por un Estado de derecho, Barcelona, Ariel, 1969.
Pensamiento político, 1962-1969, Hergon, 1970.
Discursos parlamentarios, Madrid, Taurus, 1971.
Cicerón y Augusto: vigencia de un planteamiento político, Barcelona, Ariel, 1974.
Marginalia política, Barcelona, Ariel, 1975.
La monarquía por la que yo luché, Madrid, Taurus, 1976.
La aventura de las autonomías, Madrid, Rialp, 1980
con José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado, Control y autonomías, Cívitas, 1986.
con Enrique Gil Robles, Tratado de derecho político: según los principios de la filosofía y del derecho cristianos, 3ª ed., Madrid, Afrodisio Aguado, 1961-1963.
In French
L'Espagne dans les chaînes, L'Action paroissiale, 1937.
con José Calvo Sotelo y Luis Jordana de Pozas, Question 3e: L'autonomie municipale, enquête au sujet des relations entre le pouvoir central et les pouvoirs locaux.
WIFE Carmen Gil Robles y Quiñones de León née Carmen Gil Delgado Armada (c. 1900-?)
PARENTS Prof. Enrique Gil Robles (1849-1908) and Petra Quiñones Armesto (?-?)
SIBLINGS José Manuel Gil Robles and Carmen Gil Robles
CHILDREN José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1935-) and Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1944-)
He graduated in Law at the University of Salamanca in 1919, following more or less the same path taken by his father. In his youth he was an active member in Catholic political and social organizations.
Doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, in 1922 he obtained the chair of Political Law at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife.
On his return to Madrid, he was an important part of the writing of the Catholic newspaper El Debate, directed by Ángel Herrera Oria (1886-1968).
He was named secretary of the National Catholic-Agrarian Confederation Confederación Nacional Católico-Agraria (CNCA) and in 1922 he joined the Popular Social Party Partido Social Popular (PSP), led by Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo (1873-1946).
During and after the stewardship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), Head of Government and President of he Military Command Jefe del Gobierno y Presidente del Directorio militar, he collaborated with José Calvo Sotelo (1893-1936). As General Director of the Local Administration director general de la Administración Local, he helped draft the Municipal Statute Estatuto Municipal.
During the Republic (1931-1936) Gil Robles y Quiñones ran on the Agrarian Bloc Bloque Agrario ticket and was elected deputy in the first elections of the Second Republic, held in June 1931, two months after its proclamation. He intervened in the Constituent Cortes, in which he stood out for his opposition to the anti-religion policy of the new republican regime since he was a member of the commission that worked on drafting the constitution.
He took part in the debate on the religious question in the 1931 Constitution in defense of the “possibilistic” posibilista Catholic line advocated by Cardinal Francisco de Asís Vidal y Barraquer (1868-1943) and was willing to accept, with nuances, the declaration of secularism of the State, provided that the “rights of the Church” were recognized, including those of religious orders. His intervention concluded with a warning:
"We understand that the constitutional project, as drafted is a religious persecution project and, therefore, we cannot accept it under these conditions ... We affirm that, within the law, without violence, without appeals to force, without wars that our doctrine forbids us, we will declare hostility to the draft Constitution on the assumption that a persecutory measure will be approved, both in the constitutional text and potentially for the future; that, from the moment a text of this nature was approved, we would declare a new constituent period open."
In 1931 he became a member of National Action Acción Nacional, created shortly before by Ángel Herrera Oria and renamed in 1932 as Popular Action, when Gil-Robles was already one of its main leaders.
He defended the position of accidentalism, according to which the important thing was not the form of the State (monarchy or republic), but that it defended the interests of the Church. This collided with other positions, which declared themselves opposed to the Republic from the beginning.
At the end of February and the beginning of March 1933 he participated in the creation of the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), by merging with Acción Popular.
In the electoral speeches of the November 1933 campaign he affirmed that democracy was simply the "means" to reach the corporate state.
His new party won the election, but with a small majority (115 seats of 450), which made him unable to form a government. He supported the new cabinet chaired by Alejandro Lerroux García (1864-1949) in that same month, as well as the following, also headed by other figures of the Lerroux' Radical Republican Party Partido Republicano Radical (PRR).
On 6 May 1935 he was appointed Minister of War by Lerroux, a position from which he would promote several soldiers who would end up having a great role during the subsequent Civil War. Thus, he ordered that General Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975) to take charge of the command of the Central General Staff, and General Emilio Mola Vidal "El Director" (1887-1937) return to active duty and take command of the forces of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco Protectorado español de Marruecos.
General Joaquín Fanjul Goñi (1880-1936) was appointed undersecretary Colonel José Enrique Varela Iglesias (1891-1951) was placed on his staff. In return, Manuel Azaña Díaz' cronies (1880-1940) disappeared from the ministry, the Courts of Honor Tribunales de Honor were restored and religious acts were authorized in the barracks.
He continued in office in the following cabinet, chaired since September of that year by the independent . His political attitude, contrary to the direction given by the latter to the economy, led to his resignation in He resigned in December 1935 after clashing with the economic policies of Joaquín Chapaprieta y Torregrosa (1871-1951).
After the victory of the pro-Communist Popular Front Frente Popular in the February 1936 elections, he became the head of the parliamentary opposition.
On the morning of 15 February 1936, Gil-Robles delivered an impassioned speech before the permanent Deputation of the Courts Diputación permanente de las Cortes in which he gave up the notion of civil coexistence with the new leftist and anti-clerical government and immediately left Spain and went to France.
Expelled from there by the André Léon Blum (1872-1950), he went to Portugal.
During the Spanish Civil War, he instructed his supporters to support the rebel side, while giving his party funds to General Emilio Mola. Gil-Robles said in his memoirs that he was not aware of any military conspiracy.
The conflict ended in April 1939, supported the monarchical cause. He was a member of the Private Council of the Count of Barcelona Consejo Privado del conde de Barcelona (Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993), father of the future King Juan Carlos I de España (1938-) and tried to reach an agreement in 1948 with the socialist leader Indalecio Prieto Tuero (1883-1962) to achieve the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy in what was called the San Juan de Luz Pact Pacto de San Juan de Luz.
In 1953 he returned to Spain, where he supported various opponents of the regime. He was banished in 1962 for participating in June of that year in an anti-Franco meeting in Munich (the so-called Munich Contubernio), which also earned him the opprobrium of the Count of Barcelona.
After Franco's death in 1975 and the subsequent reign of Juan Carlos I and the Spanish Transition, he tried to recover his political role defending the traditional positions of European Christian democracy. He was supported in this task by one of his sons, José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado.
The attempt failed and he finally turned away from political life.
WORKS
In Spanish
No fue posible la paz, Barcelona, Ariel, 1968.
Por un Estado de derecho, Barcelona, Ariel, 1969.
Pensamiento político, 1962-1969, Hergon, 1970.
Discursos parlamentarios, Madrid, Taurus, 1971.
Cicerón y Augusto: vigencia de un planteamiento político, Barcelona, Ariel, 1974.
Marginalia política, Barcelona, Ariel, 1975.
La monarquía por la que yo luché, Madrid, Taurus, 1976.
La aventura de las autonomías, Madrid, Rialp, 1980
con José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado, Control y autonomías, Cívitas, 1986.
con Enrique Gil Robles, Tratado de derecho político: según los principios de la filosofía y del derecho cristianos, 3ª ed., Madrid, Afrodisio Aguado, 1961-1963.
In French
L'Espagne dans les chaînes, L'Action paroissiale, 1937.
con José Calvo Sotelo y Luis Jordana de Pozas, Question 3e: L'autonomie municipale, enquête au sujet des relations entre le pouvoir central et les pouvoirs locaux.
José María Gil Robles y Quiñones, born Salamanca 27 November 1898 and died in Madrid 14 September 1980 was a Spanish patriot and anti-Communist significant during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). He was a lawyer, politician, deputy in the Cortes republicanas entre 1931 y 1939 and Minister of War in 1935.
WIFE Carmen Gil Robles y Quiñones de León née Carmen Gil Delgado Armada (c. 1900-?)
PARENTS Prof. Enrique Gil Robles (1849-1908) and Petra Quiñones Armesto (?-?)
SIBLINGS José Manuel Gil Robles and Carmen Gil Robles
CHILDREN José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1935-) and Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1944-)
He graduated in Law at the University of Salamanca in 1919, following more or less the same path taken by his father. In his youth he was an active member in Catholic political and social organizations.
Doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, in 1922 he obtained the chair of Political Law at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife.
On his return to Madrid, he was an important part of the writing of the Catholic newspaper El Debate, directed by Ángel Herrera Oria (1886-1968).
He was named secretary of the National Catholic-Agrarian Confederation Confederación Nacional Católico-Agraria (CNCA) and in 1922 he joined the Popular Social Party Partido Social Popular (PSP), led by Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo (1873-1946).
During and after the stewardship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), Head of Government and President of he Military Command Jefe del Gobierno y Presidente del Directorio militar, he collaborated with José Calvo Sotelo (1893-1936). As General Director of the Local Administration director general de la Administración Local, he helped draft the Municipal Statute Estatuto Municipal.
During the Republic (1931-1936) Gil Robles y Quiñones ran on the Agrarian Bloc Bloque Agrario ticket and was elected deputy in the first elections of the Second Republic, held in June 1931, two months after its proclamation. He intervened in the Constituent Cortes, in which he stood out for his opposition to the anti-religion policy of the new republican regime since he was a member of the commission that worked on drafting the constitution.
He took part in the debate on the religious question in the 1931 Constitution in defense of the “possibilistic” posibilista Catholic line advocated by Cardinal Francisco de Asís Vidal y Barraquer (1868-1943) and was willing to accept, with nuances, the declaration of secularism of the State, provided that the “rights of the Church” were recognized, including those of religious orders. His intervention concluded with a warning:
"We understand that the constitutional project, as drafted is a religious persecution project and, therefore, we cannot accept it under these conditions ... We affirm that, within the law, without violence, without appeals to force, without wars that our doctrine forbids us, we will declare hostility to the draft Constitution on the assumption that a persecutory measure will be approved, both in the constitutional text and potentially for the future; that, from the moment a text of this nature was approved, we would declare a new constituent period open."
In 1931 he became a member of National Action Acción Nacional, created shortly before by Ángel Herrera Oria and renamed in 1932 as Popular Action, when Gil-Robles was already one of its main leaders.
He defended the position of accidentalism, according to which the important thing was not the form of the State (monarchy or republic), but that it defended the interests of the Church. This collided with other positions, which declared themselves opposed to the Republic from the beginning.
At the end of February and the beginning of March 1933 he participated in the creation of the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), by merging with Acción Popular.
In the electoral speeches of the November 1933 campaign he affirmed that democracy was simply the "means" to reach the corporate state.
His new party won the election, but with a small majority (115 seats of 450), which made him unable to form a government. He supported the new cabinet chaired by Alejandro Lerroux García (1864-1949) in that same month, as well as the following, also headed by other figures of the Lerroux' Radical Republican Party Partido Republicano Radical (PRR).
On 6 May 1935 he was appointed Minister of War by Lerroux, a position from which he would promote several soldiers who would end up having a great role during the subsequent Civil War. Thus, he ordered that General Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975) to take charge of the command of the Central General Staff, and General Emilio Mola Vidal "El Director" (1887-1937) return to active duty and take command of the forces of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco Protectorado español de Marruecos.
General Joaquín Fanjul Goñi (1880-1936) was appointed undersecretary Colonel José Enrique Varela Iglesias (1891-1951) was placed on his staff. In return, Manuel Azaña Díaz' cronies (1880-1940) disappeared from the ministry, the Courts of Honor Tribunales de Honor were restored and religious acts were authorized in the barracks.
He continued in office in the following cabinet, chaired since September of that year by the independent . His political attitude, contrary to the direction given by the latter to the economy, led to his resignation in He resigned in December 1935 after clashing with the economic policies of Joaquín Chapaprieta y Torregrosa (1871-1951).
After the victory of the pro-Communist Popular Front Frente Popular in the February 1936 elections, he became the head of the parliamentary opposition.
On the morning of 15 February 1936, Gil-Robles delivered an impassioned speech before the permanent Deputation of the Courts Diputación permanente de las Cortes in which he gave up the notion of civil coexistence with the new leftist and anti-clerical government and immediately left Spain and went to France.
Expelled from there by the André Léon Blum (1872-1950), he went to Portugal.
During the Spanish Civil War, he instructed his supporters to support the rebel side, while giving his party funds to General Emilio Mola. Gil-Robles said in his memoirs that he was not aware of any military conspiracy.
The conflict ended in April 1939, supported the monarchical cause. He was a member of the Private Council of the Count of Barcelona Consejo Privado del conde de Barcelona (Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993), father of the future King Juan Carlos I de España (1938-) and tried to reach an agreement in 1948 with the socialist leader Indalecio Prieto Tuero (1883-1962) to achieve the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy in what was called the San Juan de Luz Pact Pacto de San Juan de Luz.
In 1953 he returned to Spain, where he supported various opponents of the regime. He was banished in 1962 for participating in June of that year in an anti-Franco meeting in Munich (the so-called Munich Contubernio), which also earned him the opprobrium of the Count of Barcelona.
After Franco's death in 1975 and the subsequent reign of Juan Carlos I and the Spanish Transition, he tried to recover his political role defending the traditional positions of European Christian democracy. He was supported in this task by one of his sons, José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado.
The attempt failed and he finally turned away from political life.
WORKS
In Spanish
No fue posible la paz, Barcelona, Ariel, 1968.
Por un Estado de derecho, Barcelona, Ariel, 1969.
Pensamiento político, 1962-1969, Hergon, 1970.
Discursos parlamentarios, Madrid, Taurus, 1971.
Cicerón y Augusto: vigencia de un planteamiento político, Barcelona, Ariel, 1974.
Marginalia política, Barcelona, Ariel, 1975.
La monarquía por la que yo luché, Madrid, Taurus, 1976.
La aventura de las autonomías, Madrid, Rialp, 1980
con José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado, Control y autonomías, Cívitas, 1986.
con Enrique Gil Robles, Tratado de derecho político: según los principios de la filosofía y del derecho cristianos, 3ª ed., Madrid, Afrodisio Aguado, 1961-1963.
In French
L'Espagne dans les chaînes, L'Action paroissiale, 1937.
con José Calvo Sotelo y Luis Jordana de Pozas, Question 3e: L'autonomie municipale, enquête au sujet des relations entre le pouvoir central et les pouvoirs locaux.
WIFE Carmen Gil Robles y Quiñones de León née Carmen Gil Delgado Armada (c. 1900-?)
PARENTS Prof. Enrique Gil Robles (1849-1908) and Petra Quiñones Armesto (?-?)
SIBLINGS José Manuel Gil Robles and Carmen Gil Robles
CHILDREN José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1935-) and Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (1944-)
He graduated in Law at the University of Salamanca in 1919, following more or less the same path taken by his father. In his youth he was an active member in Catholic political and social organizations.
Doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, in 1922 he obtained the chair of Political Law at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife.
On his return to Madrid, he was an important part of the writing of the Catholic newspaper El Debate, directed by Ángel Herrera Oria (1886-1968).
He was named secretary of the National Catholic-Agrarian Confederation Confederación Nacional Católico-Agraria (CNCA) and in 1922 he joined the Popular Social Party Partido Social Popular (PSP), led by Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo (1873-1946).
During and after the stewardship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), Head of Government and President of he Military Command Jefe del Gobierno y Presidente del Directorio militar, he collaborated with José Calvo Sotelo (1893-1936). As General Director of the Local Administration director general de la Administración Local, he helped draft the Municipal Statute Estatuto Municipal.
During the Republic (1931-1936) Gil Robles y Quiñones ran on the Agrarian Bloc Bloque Agrario ticket and was elected deputy in the first elections of the Second Republic, held in June 1931, two months after its proclamation. He intervened in the Constituent Cortes, in which he stood out for his opposition to the anti-religion policy of the new republican regime since he was a member of the commission that worked on drafting the constitution.
He took part in the debate on the religious question in the 1931 Constitution in defense of the “possibilistic” posibilista Catholic line advocated by Cardinal Francisco de Asís Vidal y Barraquer (1868-1943) and was willing to accept, with nuances, the declaration of secularism of the State, provided that the “rights of the Church” were recognized, including those of religious orders. His intervention concluded with a warning:
"We understand that the constitutional project, as drafted is a religious persecution project and, therefore, we cannot accept it under these conditions ... We affirm that, within the law, without violence, without appeals to force, without wars that our doctrine forbids us, we will declare hostility to the draft Constitution on the assumption that a persecutory measure will be approved, both in the constitutional text and potentially for the future; that, from the moment a text of this nature was approved, we would declare a new constituent period open."
In 1931 he became a member of National Action Acción Nacional, created shortly before by Ángel Herrera Oria and renamed in 1932 as Popular Action, when Gil-Robles was already one of its main leaders.
He defended the position of accidentalism, according to which the important thing was not the form of the State (monarchy or republic), but that it defended the interests of the Church. This collided with other positions, which declared themselves opposed to the Republic from the beginning.
At the end of February and the beginning of March 1933 he participated in the creation of the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA), by merging with Acción Popular.
In the electoral speeches of the November 1933 campaign he affirmed that democracy was simply the "means" to reach the corporate state.
His new party won the election, but with a small majority (115 seats of 450), which made him unable to form a government. He supported the new cabinet chaired by Alejandro Lerroux García (1864-1949) in that same month, as well as the following, also headed by other figures of the Lerroux' Radical Republican Party Partido Republicano Radical (PRR).
On 6 May 1935 he was appointed Minister of War by Lerroux, a position from which he would promote several soldiers who would end up having a great role during the subsequent Civil War. Thus, he ordered that General Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892-1975) to take charge of the command of the Central General Staff, and General Emilio Mola Vidal "El Director" (1887-1937) return to active duty and take command of the forces of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco Protectorado español de Marruecos.
General Joaquín Fanjul Goñi (1880-1936) was appointed undersecretary Colonel José Enrique Varela Iglesias (1891-1951) was placed on his staff. In return, Manuel Azaña Díaz' cronies (1880-1940) disappeared from the ministry, the Courts of Honor Tribunales de Honor were restored and religious acts were authorized in the barracks.
He continued in office in the following cabinet, chaired since September of that year by the independent . His political attitude, contrary to the direction given by the latter to the economy, led to his resignation in He resigned in December 1935 after clashing with the economic policies of Joaquín Chapaprieta y Torregrosa (1871-1951).
After the victory of the pro-Communist Popular Front Frente Popular in the February 1936 elections, he became the head of the parliamentary opposition.
On the morning of 15 February 1936, Gil-Robles delivered an impassioned speech before the permanent Deputation of the Courts Diputación permanente de las Cortes in which he gave up the notion of civil coexistence with the new leftist and anti-clerical government and immediately left Spain and went to France.
Expelled from there by the André Léon Blum (1872-1950), he went to Portugal.
During the Spanish Civil War, he instructed his supporters to support the rebel side, while giving his party funds to General Emilio Mola. Gil-Robles said in his memoirs that he was not aware of any military conspiracy.
The conflict ended in April 1939, supported the monarchical cause. He was a member of the Private Council of the Count of Barcelona Consejo Privado del conde de Barcelona (Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993), father of the future King Juan Carlos I de España (1938-) and tried to reach an agreement in 1948 with the socialist leader Indalecio Prieto Tuero (1883-1962) to achieve the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy in what was called the San Juan de Luz Pact Pacto de San Juan de Luz.
In 1953 he returned to Spain, where he supported various opponents of the regime. He was banished in 1962 for participating in June of that year in an anti-Franco meeting in Munich (the so-called Munich Contubernio), which also earned him the opprobrium of the Count of Barcelona.
After Franco's death in 1975 and the subsequent reign of Juan Carlos I and the Spanish Transition, he tried to recover his political role defending the traditional positions of European Christian democracy. He was supported in this task by one of his sons, José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado.
The attempt failed and he finally turned away from political life.
WORKS
In Spanish
No fue posible la paz, Barcelona, Ariel, 1968.
Por un Estado de derecho, Barcelona, Ariel, 1969.
Pensamiento político, 1962-1969, Hergon, 1970.
Discursos parlamentarios, Madrid, Taurus, 1971.
Cicerón y Augusto: vigencia de un planteamiento político, Barcelona, Ariel, 1974.
Marginalia política, Barcelona, Ariel, 1975.
La monarquía por la que yo luché, Madrid, Taurus, 1976.
La aventura de las autonomías, Madrid, Rialp, 1980
con José María Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado, Control y autonomías, Cívitas, 1986.
con Enrique Gil Robles, Tratado de derecho político: según los principios de la filosofía y del derecho cristianos, 3ª ed., Madrid, Afrodisio Aguado, 1961-1963.
In French
L'Espagne dans les chaînes, L'Action paroissiale, 1937.
con José Calvo Sotelo y Luis Jordana de Pozas, Question 3e: L'autonomie municipale, enquête au sujet des relations entre le pouvoir central et les pouvoirs locaux.
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