The training ship Juan Sebastian Elcano sailed for her 81th training cruise

[Asdrúbal el Bello]

With a slight delay. She sailed on January 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3tTdaA2Qhs

[sourdough]

Very nice!

[John Odom]

A beautiful ship! Thanks for posting. The Red-Yellow-Red flag there is the one that put my Daddy before the firing squad and for which my family was almost killed by the fascists in 1936. I have forgiven the Japanese, and can nook at the Hinomaru (Meat Ball) flag without anger So I should be able to look at the Fascist Spanish flag neutrally too, But it will take a little longer. The Spain of today is not the Spain of 1936.

[Asdrúbal el Bello]

Oh, best of ignorance is that it is easily curable.

The origin of the Spanish flag is in the eighteenth century, almost contemporaneous with the flag of the United States. In 1785 a decree by King Charles III set the flags of the Reales Armadas and merchant marine.

68991

But the flag of the Army and United continued to be the white of the Bourbons.

6899068989

In May 1808 the Spanish people rose against French rule and started the War of Independence (Peninsular War). With the king prisoner in France, the Spanish liberals opposed to France and to absolute monarchy gathered in Cadiz, protected by its defenders and by the Royal Navy, and wrote a Constitution in 1812. Cadiz was a Armada port and the Navy flag (red-yellow-red) was taken as a symbol of liberal ideas.

Returning King Ferdinand VII in 1814 was restored absolutism, but the defensors of the sovereignty of the nation take the flag of the Navy as a national flag, opposed at the king absolute power (that is something that will always be a pride for many sailors like me). When liberalism triumphed in Spain, in 1835, the Navy flag was incorporated as national flag opposed to the old white flag absolutist. Since 1843 is the official flag of Spain.

That was until 1931. That year, the Spanish Republicans were at the goverment exploiting municipal elections and the popular movement of urban workers (which led to the burning of churches and convents and the first persecutions of the Catholic Church). The national flag was replaced by another, invented the previous year as the party republican flag (red, yellow and purple).

68988

National flags were removed by decree, especially causing pain in the Armada, which had as its own since 1785.

When in July 1936 the fascist military revolt occurred, one of the first things they do is, of course, recovering the previous national flag. Of course, it is with anger and hatred toward what they considered an earlier contempt, and in many cities forced to submit to it (in Cartagena, for example, the first troops entering the city on March 31th, 1939 parade behind the flag). But for a large part of the people meant the return to the flag and the traditional symbols of the Spanish nation. In 1981 he set the current Spanish flag, which has the same colors as the flag of the navy in 1785 with the modern coat of SM King D. Juan Carlos.

It is my honor to tell you that that red-yellow-red flag is honored as the national flag of Spain for over two centuries by generations of Spanish and the blood of hundreds of thousands of Spanish who died for it.

[John Odom]

Have you read my web page (link in my signature)? That will explain my emotional response. I am aware of the history you cited above and I know My response to the flag was emotional. I said that I should overcome that response as I have my hatred of the Japanese and the "Meat Ball" flag. I am Very glad Spain has returned to democracy under King Juan Carlos.

[Asdrúbal el Bello]

Well, the simbols are a delicate thing. In some states of the United States, for example, the flag of Stars and Stripes is seen as the symbol of a power imposed, while The Stainless Banner flag is feeling like the heart flag (although for much of the population represent the tyranny of slavery). In short, are delicate things. Tell a Spanish that him flag...

So I should be able to look at the Fascist Spanish flag Neutrally too, But it will take a little longer.

it seems like something ... inadequate.

[John Odom]

I certainly meant no offense. I was only expressing how I felt, which was based on my family experience.

[astraltrader]

Have you read my web page (link in my signature)? That will explain my emotional response. I am aware of the history you cited above and I know My response to the flag was emotional. I said that I should overcome that response as I have my hatred of the Japanese and the "Meat Ball" flag. I am Very glad Spain has returned to democracy under King Juan Carlos.


Me too John. It is often the case though that the passage of time puts a different complexion on things. For example there are those who believe that King Juan Carlos would not be where he is today without the intervention and help provided by General Franco.

[Asdrúbal el Bello]

Me too John. It is often the case though that the passage of time puts a different complexion on things. For example there are those who believe that King Juan Carlos would not be where he is today without the intervention and help provided by General Franco.

Oh god, is this a political forum? Because if you wants to speak of this, i'm History teacher. King Juan Carlos is direct descendent of Henry of Borboun, king of France and Navarre from 1589. What´s Franco in this history? Spain exist before the Civil War.

[mik43]

Asdrubal

Many thanks for the history lesson on the flags of Espana, I found it very interesting.

Mik

[John Odom]

A nice article about the "Elcano" on the official Armada Espanola site:

http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/buques_superficie/15_Buque_escuela

There is a lot of other interesting material on the rest of the site, too.

[astraltrader]

Oh god, is this a political forum? Because if you wants to speak of this, i'm History teacher. King Juan Carlos is direct descendent of Henry of Borboun, king of France and Navarre from 1589. What´s Franco in this history? Spain exist before the Civil War.


With due respect I stick by my point that Juan Carlos was designated King of Spain according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco.

The Spanish throne had been vacant for thirty-eight years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the next ruler of Spain.

Within a few days of the Generals death Juan Carlos became King of Spain.

It had long been Franco`s intention for Juan Carlos to be his heir apparent. After all Juan Carlos met and consulted Franco many times and often performed official and ceremonial state functions alongside the dictator and for most of those years, Juan Carlos publicly supported Franco's regime.

That is all I meant.
__________________

[Asdrúbal el Bello]

With due respect I stick by my point that Juan Carlos was designated King of Spain according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco.

The Spanish throne had been vacant for thirty-eight years in 1969 when Franco named Juan Carlos as the next ruler of Spain.

Within a few days of the Generals death Juan Carlos became King of Spain.

It had long been Franco`s intention for Juan Carlos to be his heir apparent. After all Juan Carlos met and consulted Franco many times and often performed official and ceremonial state functions alongside the dictator and for most of those years, Juan Carlos publicly supported Franco's regime.

That is all I meant.
__________________

Well. Let's we go!

The relationship between Franco and the Spanish royal house is long and long before the Civil War. HM King Alfonso XIII, head of the House of Bourbon of Spain, was best man at the wedding of commander Franco (at age 31), popular hero of the war in Morocco in 1923, favors his military career and became a "king protected man" in the army. That caused him problems when the Republic came in 1931.

When Civil War broke out in July 1936 Franco takes control of Morocco Army and was named after various events October 1st "Generalissimo" of the rebels. At that time he received a personal letter from King Alfonso, In which the monarch, exiled in Rome, offered his cooperation and defined himself as "early Falange man". Likewise, the Prince of Asturias, Don Juan, lieutenant in the Royal Navy, went to Spain to join the rebells, but was rejected. Both the King and Don Juan believed in a restoration of the monarchy after the war, but Franco refused. In 1937 I rejected letters for Alfonso XIII (who called him a traitor) and announced the creation of a fascist state in Spain, and the Falange as a fascist party.

After the end of World War 2, Don Juan, after his father died, tried to form a movement towards the restoration of a democratic monarchy, and sought the support of former Republican and the Western allies. But Franco was violently opposed to relinquish power. Finally in 1948 Don Juan and Franco came to a personal covenant on the Don Juan did not return to Spain, but his son Juan Carlos, then 12 years old, would be educated in the Spanish military academies.

A dramatic moment, and perhaps legendary, occurred in February 1968 in Madrid at the Christening of the son of Don Juan Carlos, Don Felipe, Prince of Asturias current. The ceremony was attended his grandfather, Don Juan (the first time he stepped on Spain since 1936) and her great-grandmother, Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena of Battenberg, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, (the first time she stepped on Spain since 1931). At the ceremony attended by Franco, and says the legend, that the dowager queen, Victoria Eugenia, who was greet with cheers at the airport and on the Streets of Madrid by people who still remembered her as the queen of Spain forty years earlier, went to Franco,whom she knew personally (and despised) from when I was a young captain, and said with all the authority of a queen of Spain and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria:

"General, here are the three (Don Juan, Don Juan Carlos and Don Felipe.) Choose"

HM Queen Victoria Eugenia died in April next year and two months after Franco announced that his successor would be Don Juan Carlos, and that the monarchy would be restored to his death. Obviously Don Juan was not satisfied, and broke off relations with his son and with Franco. Franco died in November 1975, King Juan Carlos became king on 22 November. (Not without previous there were dark political maneuvering around a cousin of Don Juan Carlos, Don Alfonso, the favorite grandson of Queen Victoria Eugenia, who married Franco's granddaughter.)

Before a year SM King Juan Carlos forced to resign the first minister, imposed by Franco, and appointed Adolfo Suárez (July 1st 1976), which initiated a process of democratization. In May 1977 Don Juan abdicated his rights in his son. In June 1977 the first democratic elections held, in November 1977 Don Felipe was proclaimed Prince of Asturias and December 27th 1978 the King signed the Spanish Constitution which provided, after approval by the Cortes (Parliament) and the nation referendum In which Spain was once again, after more than half a century, a parliamentary monarchy. In February 1981 a final attempt by pro-Franco generals ex prevent the consolidation of democracy, was aborted by the personal involvement of His Majesty King Don Juan Carlos

And please, this is a naval forum, not political. My flag and my king are my flag and my king.

[astraltrader]

All very interesting and true my friend. I think it goes to show that King Don Juan most certainly eventually embraced democracy during the latter parts of Franco`s rule.

Please dont regard these posts as politics but an indivisible part of history.