page_title: Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros
section_title: Frentepopulista
hierarchical_section_title: Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros / Frentepopulista
context_page_description: Ignacio Pío Juan Hidalgo de Cisneros y López-Montenegro was a Spanish military aviator. He is known as commander of the Republican air force during the Spanish Civil War. He is also noted as one of few aristocrats who joined the Spanish Communist Party and author of war memoirs, published in the 1960s.
context_section_description: Already before commencing his diplomatic mission Hidalgo de Cisneros co-drafted plans to purge the aviation corps of officers considered monarchist or reactionary; he was disappointed to see that the Republican minister did not act on his advice. Uneasy about representing an anti-democratic Lerroux government, he welcomed the 1934 revolution as a response given by the working people to reactionary forces. Later that year he travelled from Rome to Madrid and engineered a plot to move Prieto out of the country, in his aviation officer uniform driving the socialist leader in the trunk of his car from Madrid almost to the French frontier. Following an official visit to Nazi Germany he met the imprisoned Manuel Azaña and briefed him on co-operation between the Spanish Right and the Nazis; he was profoundly disappointed by what he perceived a cowardly and self-interested response of the Republican leader. In the summer of 1935 at his own request Hidalgo was recalled from Rome and assigned to cartographic section of General Staff, where he used to show up every day with a fresh issue of El socialista ostentatiously on display.  Later that year he was assigned to the Seville air base, considered bulwark of the monarchist military.
  Following victory of Popular Front Hidalgo de Cisneros was nominated adjutant to Nuñez de Prado, the newly appointed head of the Air Force, later promoted to ADC of the prime minister. He again compiled the list of officers considered reactionary to be purged and was again disappointed by inaction of the minister Giral, the prime minister Cesares Quiroga and the president Azaña. In the early summer of 1936 he tried to prevent an expected rebellion in the air forces by organizing semi-official vigilance service, partially based on socialist and communist conspiracy network. Following the actual coup, once Nuñez de Prado was captured and executed by the rebels, Hidalgo de Cisneros tried to co-ordinate command of the air forces before in September 1936 Prieto, than the new minister of defense, nominated him head of Air General Staff, effectively commander of Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española.
  During his first months in command Hidalgo de Cisneros shuttled the squadrons between airports concentrating aircraft on key Nationalist advance routes, tried to co-ordinate logistics and to make up for the loss of pilots, most of whom opted for the rebels; despite having been head of military aviation, he also flew combat sorties himself. In the fall of 1936 he supervised arrival of Soviet aircraft and airmen. Increasingly perplexed by lack of discipline and chaos among the Republicans, he blamed the anarchists for disorganizing the military effort and the socialists, unwilling to confront FAI and CNT, for appeasement and indecision. Though ignorant about and indeed uninterested in the communist theoretical vision, he appreciated PCE for discipline and military contribution, impressed also by military support provided by the Soviet Union. As a result, at unspecified time in late 1936 Hidalgo de Cisneros joined the PCE.
caption: Flag of Popular Front