Marmaduke Grove

Marmaduke Grove is a Chilean socialist politician currently living in Santiago, in the Commune of Santiago within the greater Anarchist Free Territory of South America.

## Marmaduke Grove

### *Political Party*

N/A (unaffiliated, but allied with the FTSA)

## **Early Life**

Grove was born in Copiapó, Chile, the son of lawyer, José Marmaduke Grove Abalos and Ana Vallejo Burgoa. His first studies were in School Nº 1 of Copiapó and later at the local Liceum. From a very young age he was interested in the army, and in 1892, was accepted to the Chilean Naval Academy. Very shortly before graduation, he participated in the so-called “Stale-bread rebellion”, as a result of which he was expelled from the navy. That incident proved to be his turning point and from then on he declared his motto to be an “*undying love for the underdogs and for true justice*”.

In 1897, Grove was accepted in the Military Academy, from which he graduated as an artillery sub-lieutenant. At the Military Academy, he was a classmate of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Arturo Puga Osorio, both of whom he remained in contact with for the rest of his long military and political life. In 1906 he was sent to Germany to specialize in artillery, and remained there until 1911. By 1912 he had become a freemason and the following year he joined the War Academy. Later he was transferred to the Tacna Garrison, where he remained until 1917 during which he married Rebeca Valenzuela, with whom he had six children.

Grove had a brilliant military career, and from 1920 to 1924 he was Under-Director of the Military Academy. After being promoted to Colonel, he was named Director of the Air Force Academy in 1925.

## **Life as a politician and exile**

1924 also marked Grove's beginnings in politics. On September 3, 1924, he had a notorious participation in the incident known as the "saber rattling", where 56 military officers protested against their low salaries. The next day the officers involved created the "military committee" to defend themselves from the government. He was selected to carry the petitions to the president. These included increase of the military salaries, changes to the income tax, constitutional reforms, and changes to the employment code. He also was in charge of obtaining the support from the navy officers, which he got. He also tried his hand at journalism, and had a column in the newspaper *La Nación* supporting the committee, under the byline of Ekud.

This incident was a turning point. Even though the petitions were approved, the committee was not dissolved. President Arturo Alessandri, noticing that he had lost control over these officers, resigned and left the country on September 10. This led to the creation of a Government Junta, with the participation of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.

In 1925 Grove started a long period of travels through Europe, as military attaché. When Carlos Ibáñez del Campo became president, he was confirmed as military attaché in London, as a way to keep him outside the country. While in London, he contacted ex-president Alessandri who was also in exile. Together they started to conspire against Ibáñez. On January 17, 1929, together with also exiled General Enrique Bravo and major Carlos Millán, they signed the “Calais pact" and sworn themselves to bring democracy back to Chile. In November of that year, a meeting of the conspirators was discovered at Dover by the Ibáñez agents, and on November 28 he was sent into retirement from the army and deported to Buenos Aires.

Once in Argentina, Grove immediately started to conspire again. On September 21, 1930, he flew to Chile in a little red plane and landed in Concepción. The plan failed and Grove, together with lieutenant Carlos Charlín Ojeda were arrested and deported to Easter Island. He managed to escape from there on board a French corvette bound for Tahiti, and from there he went to Marseilles. Nonetheless he only was able to return to Chile after the fall of Ibáñez on July 26, 1931.

Once back in Chile, President Juan Esteban Montero reincorporated Grove to the Army and on March 17, 1932 promoted him to Air Commodore and named him Air Force Commander-in-chief. It was also around this time where he decided to run for presidency in the October 1932 elections, seeing an opportunity as the public’s support for socialism grew, but it also worried the military as it became increasingly radicalized.

1 month before the elections, Bartolomé Guillermo Blanche Espejo, alongside the army and navy mutinied and revolted against the current government, not wanting to face a possible future where Chile is another leftist state. Their revolt turned out to be successful, and Chile became a far-right militaristic state, and just 1 week late Marmaduke fled to the FTSA out of fear for his life, where he stayed indefinitely in Buenos Aires, supporting, albeit indirectly radical trade unions and organizations that had long been suppressed thanks to Espejo’s rule. But the Caribbean War and Chilean participation brought an opportunity. While Grove was a libertarian socialist, supporting trade unions and workers organizations while distancing himself from Chilean communist movements, he wasn’t an anarchists, but for the time aligned himself with the FTSA so he could return to Chile if Chile lost the war, which they did. After the Panama Accords almost all of central and southern Chile were incorporated into the FTSA, and with this it brought Marmaduke the opportunity to leave Buenos Aires for Santiago. Espejo and his supporters were dead or underground while the Chilean military was in shambles preventing any large resistance movement from growing in the FTSA.

## **Return from exile**

2 months after the Panama Accords were ratified Grove was once again back in Santiago, now backing the FTSA and spent his time working with unions and organizations aimed at alienating poverty and unemployment. Today, Grove is a respected and honored man within Chilean society, even as some people oppose him allying with the FTSA.