It was not a quixotic act. Given that Pardo Zancada joined Tejero when for many the coup had already practically been neutralized, many thought that his was a quixotic act or what is often designated a quixotic act: a noble gesture of loyalty to a lost cause. It was not: it’s true that, unlike many of his comrades, Pardo Zancada demonstrated he was no coward, just as it is true that he was an idealist with his imagination too inflamed by the reverence for the crock of Francoist heroism and a radical too soaked in the ideological concoction of the far right to be intimidated at the last moment, but it’s not true that his action was a quixotic act. It was an act of war: strictly speaking, the only act of war that had occurred since Tejero occupied the Cortes and Milans the streets of Valencia, and therefore the necessary pinprick to incite the military and let loose those repressed golpista outbursts that had been agitating the barracks for many hours, the spark that could ignite the powder keg of the Brunete Division and, with it, that of the whole Army. For this reason Pardo Zancada’s move was dangerous; for this reason and perhaps for another. Although on 23 February he was acting under the orders of Milans, it’s possible that Pardo Zancada was connected more or less closely to a group of colonels connected in turn to San Martín or captained by San Martín, a group that, as was explained in November of the previous year in Manuel Fernández-Monzón Altolaguirre’s report entitled ‘Panorama of Operations Under Way’, had spent months planning a hard coup the aim of which was the establishment of a presidential republic or a military directorate; San Martín and Pardo Zancada had climbed aboard Milans and Armada’s monarchist coup at the last moment, but, this having failed, the colonels’ coup was perhaps the only visible alternative for the golpistas in the midst of the reigning nervousness, confusion and chaos, and Pardo Zancada’s action could be a means, although perhaps not to activate that operation, to activate its organizers, accomplices and sympathizers of its organizers, incorporating them into the attempted coup and dragging Milans and other Captains General by force into a coup that could no longer be staged with the King, but only against the King.
In spite of the fact that at half past one in the morning perhaps few people feared that contingency might be enough of a counterirritant to hand triumph to the golpistas, Pardo Zancada’s first moments in the Cortes seemed to confirm these dark predictions. His column’s arrival lifted the spirits of the rebel Civil Guards, who were beginning to fall victim to fatigue and discouragement, aware that the failure of the negotiation between Armada and Tejero had impeded a favourable outcome of the hostage-taking and every moment that passed made it less likely that the Army would come to its assistance; but, as well as briefly boosting the rebels’ morale — allowing them to believe that the Brunete Division had finally joined the coup and this detachment was just the bridgehead of the expected general movement — as soon as he put himself at Tejero’s orders Pardo Zancada concentrated on the task of rousing other units to rebellion: armed with a division telephone book that he’d got from headquarters and jumping from one phone to another as those directing the siege of the Cortes cut his communications with the exterior until leaving only four or five phones working of the eighty in the building, Pardo Zancada spoke (from an office on the ground floor of the new building, from the switchboard, from the press box) with several officers at Brunete with troops at their command; after reporting to San Martín at headquarters, he spoke to Colonel Centeno Estévez, of the 11th Mechanized Brigade, to Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Pardo de Santayana, of the Anti-aircraft Artillery Group, to Colonel Pontijas, of the XII Armoured Brigade, to Lieutenant Colonel Santa Pau Corzán, of the 14th Villaviciosa Cavalry Regiment. The conversation with each of them was similar: Pardo Zancada informed them of what he’d done and then urged them to follow his example, assuring them that many others were getting ready to imitate his gesture and all they had to do was get a tank on Carrera de San Jerónimo for the coup to be irreversible. The reactions to his telephonic harangues oscillated between Pardo de Santayana’s defeatism and Santa Pau Corzán’s enthusiasm (‘Don’t worry, Ricardo, we won’t leave you there with your ass hanging out! We’re coming with you!’), and by half past three in the morning his efforts seemed to be bearing fruit when one of Milans’ adjutants phoned the Cortes to announce that the Villaviciosa and Pavía Cavalry Regiments had just rebelled and were on their way to Carrera de San Jerónimo. It wasn’t true, but — thanks to Lieutenant Colonel De Meer and Colonel Valencia Remón, who until well into the early hours were on the brink of sending the tanks out of the barracks — it was very close to being so; at least two or three other units from the Brunete were also very close to imitating Pardo Zancada. He also failed when he wanted to disseminate a manifesto outlining the golpistas’ reasons: the newspaper El Alcázar refused to publish it in its pages; the radio station La Voz de Madrid claimed to have technical problems in order not to broadcast it: both thus deprived the major of a means of propaganda directed at overcoming the indecision of his comrades-in-arms all over the country.
Shortly after receiving the news of this double setback Pardo Zancada called Valencia and spoke to Milans. It was the last time he did so that night; although the major didn’t know it, by then Milans had understood for several hours that the coup was drawing to a close. Minutes after the King’s televised address and Tejero’s refusal to obey him from the office in the new building of the Cortes, sealing the failure of his soft coup, Milans received a telex from the Zarzuela in which he was urged dramatically to put a stop to his uprising. In it, after reiterating his decision to defend constitutional order, the King said: ‘Any coup d’état cannot hide behind the King, it is against the King.’ And he also said: ‘I order you to withdraw all the units that you have mobilized.’ And also: ‘I order you to tell Tejero to desist immediately.’ And finally: ‘I swear that I will neither abdicate the Crown nor abandon Spain. Whoever rebels is ready to provoke a new civil war and will bear responsibility for doing so.’ This ultimatum appears to have overcome the resistance of Milans, who as soon as he received it dispatched to all his tactical groups the order to return to quarters, but the tension at the Captaincy General of Valencia would be prolonged for another several hours yet, and not only because of the failed attempts to arrest its incumbent directed from Army General Headquarters by General Gabeiras, but most of all because Milans was still tormented by doubts and not entirely ready to let his arm be twisted, as if he were relying on some straggling support that might still afford victory to the golpistas, or perhaps as if he were ashamed of abandoning the occupiers of the Cortes to their fate, having sent them there himself. There was no more support, no one dared to disobey the King, the colonels led by San Martín or linked to San Martín decided to keep waiting in the hope that a more auspicious occasion would arise and, after convincing themselves that nothing could be done for Tejero and Pardo Zancada either (or that the best thing they could do for them was precisely to abandon them, to provoke their surrender and end the occupation), Milans admitted his defeat. That’s what he eventually said to Pardo Zancada the last time they spoke by telephone that night: that no Captaincy General was backing the coup and that he’d returned his troops to quarters and rescinded the edict proclaiming a state of emergency; to this he added only that Pardo Zancada should try to persuade Tejero to accept the agreement that Armada had offered him and the lieutenant colonel had rejected hours before. At that moment the request was absurd, as well as futile, and they both knew it was futile and absurd. General, sir, said Pardo Zancada. Wouldn’t you like to speak to the lieutenant colonel yourself? No, answered Milans. You speak to him. Yes, sir, General, said Pardo Zancada. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir? No, nothing, said Milans. Take care, Pardo.