page_title: Ignacio Baleztena Ascárate
section_title: Politician
hierarchical_section_title: Ignacio Baleztena Ascárate / Politician
caption_attribution_description: English: Don Javier in 1960 Español: Don Javier de Borbón y Braganza el día de la boda de su hija la Infanta Francisca en 1960
context_page_description: Ignacio Baleztena Ascárate was a Navarrese folk customs expert, a Carlist politician and soldier
context_section_description: Since early youth Baleztena was active in juvenile Jaimist organisations. In 1919 he took part in Magna Junta Carlista de Biarritz and set up a new Carlist weekly Radica, representing the movement first in the Pamplona ayuntamiento and in the 1920s in the Deputación Foral. He considered taking part in "controlled" elections, planned by Berenguer in 1930. During first months of the Republic he forged a Carlist-nationalist alliance prior to the 1931 elections and engaged in works on vasco-navarrese autonomy. Initially in favour, he withdrew his support when governmental draft moved religious issues from autonomous to central portfolio. Member of the regional Carlist authorities, he got the family Pamplona house set ablaze by the leftist hit-squad in 1932. In 1933 he briefly headed the Navarrese Requeté.
  In the spring of 1936 Baleztena negotiated Carlist support with Mola, within Carlism forming the faction pressing unconditional Carlist adherence to the coup. Upon the outbreak of hostilities the Baleztena houses turned into important insurgent centres. Ignacio helped to organise Tercio de San Miguel; in the mayhem that followed he is noted for saving Leftist supporters and POWs. Late July he volunteered to Tercio María de las Nieves battalion and served in Aragón, later on transferred to Tercio de Cristo Rey, deployed on the Madrid front and serving until the end of the war on the on-and-off basis. His stance towards unification is highly unclear, though it soon evolved into opposition; contesting Carlist amalgamation into Movimiento, he brusquely rejected Franco's blandishments. During the Second World War the Baleztenas helped the French refugees and demonstrated anti-Axis sympathies. They are usually considered members of the intransigent "bando falcondista", though Ignacio made also some conciliatory gestures towards Francoism. In the late 1940s the Baleztena brothers strived to rebuild clandestine or semi-official Carlist structures, both counted among Navarrese Carlist leaders. In 1952 Ignacio engineered one of the most humiliating snubs that Franco had to take. As late as 1954 he occasionally went into hiding, having been easy target of Falangist vengeance.
  The Baleztenas voiced against a union with Juanistas, which did not necessarily amount to endorsing Don Javier's claim to the throne. In the mid-1950s they criticised Fal Conde as too conciliatory towards Francoism. Some scholars claim that they engineered a plot to remove Fal, though his actual dismissal and new course adopted by Carlism suited the competing "unionistas" faction more. When the Huguistas appeared on the scene in the late 1950s, the Baleztenas seemed rather skeptical. Though they lent some support to Carlos Hugo and maintained cordial relations with the Carlist claimant Don Javier until the late 1960s, they confronted the progressives when power struggle erupted within Carlism in the mid-1960s. The last success of the Baleztenas was regaining control over El Pensamiento Navarro in 1970, a short-lived victory as early 1970s Ignacio was expulsed from the socialist-dominated Partido Carlista.
caption: Don Javier, 1960
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