‘Seeds of Spain’: Scouting,Monarchy and National Construction,1912–1931

Boy Scouts and Nationalism

The youth movement created by General Robert Baden-Powell in 1907 was the most successful of the twentieth century. It touched upon a range of social variables as broad as religion, class, gender, age, citizenship, national identity and empire. Nevertheless, it has been given scant attention by historians, except in terms of the biography of its founder and scouting’s first steps in the United Kingdom. The greater part of the existing literature on the scouts has come from within the movement itself, and suffers from complacency. Although the foundation of scouting formed part of a broad wave of contemporary concern for adolescence, seen by this time as a specific and crucial stage in human existence, the movement had two particular features that facilitated its expansion. One was its educational programme, which combined self-sufficiency, altruism and contact with the natural environment. The second was its capacity to adapt itself to the most varied settings, which allowed its followers to choose which of the elements from the common repertory they were most interested in. It thus came to reflect not only the singularities of the different countries in which it was established, but their internal divisions as well. ⁶

In the example that has been most extensively studied, that of Britain, scholars have debated the kind of adults the movement set out to forge, whether citizens or soldiers. If some have underlined its civic aspects, focused on the formation of character, the majority have inserted scouting within Edwardian military culture. The latter interpretation is endorsed by the career of Baden-Powell himself, marked by the Boer War, during which he had become a popular hero, and Social-Darwinist concerns about the deterioration of the race and imperial decadence, always with a masculine tone. From their first moments the scouts suffered accusations of militarism. Their founders abhorred paramilitary youth groups, but did so because they thought that their own boys, having received the opposite of a rigid, mechanical training, would be better soldiers, combining free will and obedience, versatile skills and comradeship. This tendency only began to be attenuated in the 1920s, with a shift towards pacifist internationalism. This was not achieved without difficulty, and centred on collaboration between English-speaking countries. ⁷

In any case, the conception of citizenship upheld by Baden-Powell did not distinguish between the civilian and military spheres, and idealized the discipline that prepared adolescents to be loyal to the established order, each in their place like ‘bricks in a wall’. One of his most cherished models was Japan, which had stunned the West when it defeated Russia in 1905. Figures as prominent as Ernest Thompson Seton, Chief Scout of the United States, whose idealization of Native American customs inspired some of the association’s methods, accused Baden-Powell of turning the scouts into a pre-military academy. Even so, the American Boy Scouts themselves had close links with the National Rifle Association (NRA), thanks to the amalgam of firearms, masculinity and patriotism. ⁸

Nationalistic language and practices permeated the scout movement. In Great Britain, the scouts set out to guard the country and the empire, always alert – their motto was ‘Be Prepared’ – to the possibility of an enemy attack. Like British nationalism in general, they incorporated an imperial mission. ⁹ The national ideal of Baden-Powell, expressing the fears of the middle class, abominated the kind of delinquent youth that had been corrupted by urban life, and sought salvation in nature, the cradle of the nation’s essence. Overall, the aspiration was to create patriotic ‘gentlemen’, imbued with the values taught in the elitist public schools. To achieve this, the scout project invented a tradition equivalent to the code of the Japanese samurai, that of medieval chivalry, which similarly revolved around the notion of honour. Extended to the middle and working classes, these myths would give cohesion to the nation. Ruralist portrayals of the homeland, chivalric romance, cross-class nationalism and the promise of individual independence, all in an attractive, enjoyable setting, formed a mixture that proved irresistible for the young. ¹⁰

Outside the United Kingdom, scouting formed a major element in the national-construction processes in many other territories. The various national narratives or stereotypes, and the cult of national symbols, were disseminated along with it. The largest scouting group in France up to the First World War, the secular Éclaireurs de France, was directly influenced by the army, and promoted anti-German feeling. The Polish version, the Harcerstwo, had been founded before the war in Austrian Poland, but its members subsequently joined the nationalist legions formed to fight the Russians and, once an independent state was declared in 1918, dedicated themselves to military training. There were also Zionist and Imperial Japanese scouts. Until they were banned or absorbed by the youth organizations of dictatorships with totalitarian ambitions, such as the Soviet Union or Fascist Italy, scouts played a significant role in numerous nationalist and nation-building projects. ¹¹

The popularity of the movement among adolescent boys and its usefulness as a channel of socio-political organization meant that scouting organizations enjoyed the support of the authorities. They were especially supported by the various European royal families, which sought thereby to extend the fusion of monarchy and nation that had been underway since the previous century. Hence one often saw male members of these families wearing the scout uniform. In Great Britain, the royal family presided over scout gatherings such as the imperial scout jamboree, and the Prince of Wales acted as Chief Scout of Wales. In the Russian Empire, scouting gained momentum thanks to the support of the last Tsar and progressed under military direction, and his son the Tsarevich was a member. The Italian dynasty also became involved in the Corpo Nationale Giovani Esploratori e Sploratrice Italiani. ¹² This combination of militarism, nationalism and monarchism, so prominent in the scouts in the period from 1907 to 1939, can help us to understand the progress of scouting in Spain.

Regenerators of the Fatherland

Scouting soon arrived in Spain; a permanent association was formed in 1912, only five years after the movement’s launch in Britain. Prior to that date, there had been several other failed attempts to create similar groups, evidence of the attractiveness of the formula. In Madrid, initiatives of this kind had originated among military officers, and in the Socialist centre the Casa del Pueblo. Meanwhile, in Barcelona the Jovestels [‘young stars’] de Catalunya had appeared, formed by Catalan nationalists and federalist republicans. Bishops and centres of religious education undertook their own initiatives. However, the project that succeeded above of all others was that of Teodoro de Iradier, a cavalry officer – like Baden-Powell – with experience in education. ¹³ Eager to create a great patriotic association, Captain Iradier studied those of various countries, and decided upon the Boy Scouts. He obtained information from Baden-Powell himself and the French Éclaireurs, brothers in Latin blood, and gave it a ‘national tone’. His Spanish-nationalist zeal led him to change the English text of the ‘scout promise’, the movement’s initiation rite, replacing ‘to help others, whatever it costs me’ with ‘to love my fatherland, be useful to it at all times and respect its laws’. ¹⁴

Underlying this enterprise was an idea of regenerationism, the anxiety to bring about Spain’s recovery after its humiliating defeat in the colonial war of 1898, known as el desastre (‘the Disaster’), with the conviction that, if such a gigantic task were to be confronted, it could only be entrusted to the young, since their elders were beyond redemption. ‘In Spain there is a race of boys, but no race of men’, Iradier told his readers. It was necessary to overcome the national vices, such as individualism and partisan divisions, in order to make children ‘the future regenerators of our Fatherland’. As in Britain, despite all the differences between the two countries, national regeneration provided the impulse behind scouting. ¹⁵ These goals were in harmony with the military culture of the time, which since the 1898 debacle had turned against the parties in government, accused of being selfish and corrupt, and wished to strengthen Spanish national identity in order to respond to the emerging sub-state nationalisms of the Catalans and Basques. The Spanish Boy Scouts or Exploradores would be dedicated to this task, as an additional element within the ‘nationalizing’ efforts of the army. ¹⁶

Iradier’s principal collaborator was Arturo Cuyás, a veteran Catalan writer and businessman who had recently returned from the United States, from where he had led campaigns to preserve the Spanish identity of Cuba. Basing himself on American models, Cuyás invested all his Spanish nationalism in a mission to educate young people to save Spain. Hence in 1913 he titled one of his books Hace falta un muchacho (‘A Boy is Needed’), in obvious reference to the regenerationist motto ‘hace falta un hombre’ (‘a man is needed’), with its connotations of providential salvation. In it he argued for a programme that would inculcate into adolescents ‘the three loves, for God, Fatherland and family’. The aim was to kindle a patriotism based on a positive evaluation of things Spanish and the cultivation of the will. This was in his judgement the role of the Exploradores. ¹⁷

This regenerationism was combined, as in Britain, with references to the redemption of childhood. Hence the ideal figure of the Explorador was placed in opposition to that of the golfo, the Spanish equivalent of a hooligan, the adolescent hanging around the streets and given over to crime, who was a particular cause for concern for the social reformers who abounded in the scout movement. The flag-bearers of this cause saw in the scouts a perfect blend of hygiene and virile discipline, with the capacity to rescue those golfos who were still potentially healthy. ¹⁸ The Spanish scouts therefore campaigned against gambling clubs and cafés, tobacco, alcohol and other aspects of commercial youth leisure culture, such as the ‘deleterious and morbid’ influence of the cinema. Few voices were raised against the dire living conditions that affected around half of Spanish children, with shortages of food and schools. ¹⁹

In accordance with the desire for unity and redemption, the Spanish scouts sought to end class antagonisms, since young people from all social origins would cooperate in their ranks. As one scout wrote, among the Exploradores there were neither ‘rich children with disdain for poor children, nor poor children who feel hate or envy towards the rich’. ²⁰ This egalitarian and harmonious ideal co-existed with another that was also explicit among the founders of the movement, the aspiration to mould the cream of society, who would go on to guide others towards progress. In the words of Iradier, the intention was to bring together a ‘selection from among Spanish youth’. A goal that was shared by many other very different bodies at the time, from the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, bastion of progressive liberal education in Spain, to the schools of the Jesuits. ²¹

Iradier’s plans thus reflected concerns that were very widely shared in the Spain of 1912, but it was only possible for them to take concrete shape thanks to the support of Alfonso XIII, who demonstrated an immediate and sustained enthusiasm for the project. The monarch shared the movement’s nationalistic and regenerationist illusions and, like his fellow royalty in Britain and Italy, had embarked upon a process of nationalization of the monarchy that aspired to establish it as a common, shared symbol; although, like the emperors of Germany or Russia, he was not prepared to see any of his own powers diminished in return. On the contrary, he saw his role as that of an active patriotic king, standing above party politics and in direct communication with the people. The Exploradores fitted into this framework with ease. ²²

The crown tirelessly promoted scouting. King Alfonso and his relatives made donations to the movement, and in 1913 Iradier was appointed an honorary aide-de-camp. The king reviewed scout gatherings, opened exhibitions and accepted the honorary presidency of the association. He awarded numerous decorations to its members and was also the first monarch to don the scout uniform, a gesture of considerable symbolic value. The Spanish royal family was the most closely involved in scouting of all the European dynasties. The Exploradores received a level of support from royalty that could only be compared to that obtained by the Red Cross or a few sporting clubs. ²³

Royal patronage was followed by that of the state. The association rapidly confirmed a budget subsidy that amounted to nearly half its annual income. In 1914, it was accorded official status. Subsequently it benefited from other legislative measures, and received assistance in many forms from municipal authorities. The association’s statutes and regulations, approved in 1912, set out a structure that was centralized and hierarchical, in which all decisions went through the executive committees and scarcely anything was left to the choice of the young members, in contrast to the model put forward by Baden-Powell. ²⁴

Its expansion was immediate and spectacular. At the beginning of 1914 there were around 18,000 Exploradores between 10 and 18 years old, mostly concentrated in the cities and the southern regions. In France in the same year the equivalent organization had 12,000 members, while in Spain a year later the Juventudes Socialistas (Socialist Youth) had only a little over 6000. The fame of the scouts filled newspaper pages and cinema screens, an Anís del Explorador (anise-flavoured liqueur) and caramelos exploradores (sweets or candies) were advertised, and shops that provided the scouts’ regulation uniforms and equipment proliferated. ²⁵ In regions where alternative nationalisms had developed, the scouts encountered some difficulties. This occurred above all in Bilbao, where attacks from Basque nationalists ruined the first attempts to set up scout groups. Eventually a local committee was set up, although at the same time the Basque nationalists successfully expanded their own youth and hiking groups. In Barcelona, by contrast, the strength of the Catalanists, who also promoted hiking and outdoor activities, did not prevent the formation of an official scout group. ²⁶

The avalanche of royal favour also drew in the aristocracy, beginning with the highest ranks. The association’s first president was, up until his death, the Duke of Tamames, a Senator and Dean of the Grandees of Spain, the highest level of the nobility, portrayed as a patriarch full of ‘lordly patriotism’ whose palace always had a place laid at table for anyone who wanted to visit him. ²⁷ In 1917, he was succeeded by the Duke of San Pedro de Galatino, another Senator who was close to the royal family. The scouting association enabled the aristocracy to display a certain vocation of service to Spain, in a manner that accorded with their conservative values, and in a hierarchy headed by the King. Following them came the provincial notables of the Liberal and Conservative parties, which alternated in power under the constitutional regime. It was in no way strange that political rivals from both parties were able to collaborate in the Exploradores. From Murcia, the Conservative Isidoro de la Cierva, brother of the great cacique or local boss of the region Juan de la Cierva, began a long career in the scout leadership. ²⁸

However, the most active elements in the scout leadership were military officers, as was equally the case in Britain and France until the organization began to produce its own leaders. Prominent among the founders were Iradier’s comrades from the cavalry, and many other instructors and influential figures also came from the army. Alongside them, and a few landowners, the largest contingent hailed from the professional classes: lawyers, pharmacists, doctors, engineers, teachers, writers and journalists who shared in the prevailing mood of regenerationism. In mining areas, the initiative was taken by the mining companies, many of them foreign-owned. There were also a great many interconnections with other centres of provincial bourgeois socializing, such as the local social clubs. The scout movement held particularly close links with the Tiro Nacional, a shooting association that also boasted the King as a patron and had nationalistic goals, and which represented the closest thing to the NRA that existed in Spain. Overall, as a body, the scouts’ patrons and supporters could be described as monarchist civil society. ²⁹

In general, the Exploradores de España were well received by public opinion. However, they also came under severe criticism from both left and right. While the one side accused them of militarism, as in Britain, the other censured them for secularism, as in France. Republican and socialist circles denounced their methods, since in their judgement the scouts imposed a herd-like discipline, overlooked problems such as child poverty or exploitation, and proposed to remedy everything by ‘swearing loyalty to the flag, crying God save the King and complying with the commandments of Holy Mother Church’. The scouts had scarcely any contact with the principal institution that promoted progressive education in Spain, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. ³⁰

Nevertheless, the most important criticisms they had to face came from the traditionalist sectors, broadly speaking, of the Catholic Church. In the original British model for the scout movement, religion was not seen as an impediment to recruitment, since the only expectation was that each scout would comply with the requirements of his own faith. Iradier had maintained this premise, which did not contemplate atheism but rather left the question of religion to individual families. This was not acceptable in traditionalist circles, whose members, like their counterparts in France, denounced the idea as a rationalist plan to tear children away from their beliefs. A suspicion of Freemasonry and Protestantism hung in the air. The Bishop of Barcelona warned against an institution that was ‘certainly of a rather strange kind, and opposed to our ancient Christian character’. What was inadmissible in the scouts for traditionalists was their religious neutrality, which Spanish Catholics, as the official Church of the state, had held at bay in the country’s schools, and were not about to permit in a national association endorsed by the King. Some Catholic figures were more favourable towards the Exploradores, such as the bishops of Toledo and Granada, but at the same time Catholic schools also began to create their own alternative groups. ³¹

Faced with this offensive, the scout leadership pointed out that religion was indeed mentioned in the Scout Promise and guaranteed that boys could go to Mass before Sunday outings as well as denying any Masonic influences (although it was true that there were some Masons among its activists). In response to clerical attacks, Iradier lauded the religious tolerance of the Exploradores. ³² However, criticisms of Captain Iradier were also heard from within the movement, complaining of administrative failings. Cuyás and the president of the local committee in Madrid, Francisco García Molinas, described him as authoritarian and intransigent towards Catholics, and of paying more attention to physical rather than moral education. These attacks fed through into anonymous accusations in pamphlets and the press. ³³

In February 1915, these tensions resulted in the resignation of Iradier as General Secretary. With this gesture he wished to do away with the ‘prejudices of a political and religious nature’ that were damaging the association’s work. The founder was left as a marginal figure. ³⁴ Shortly afterwards the Exploradores were amalgamated with the local Catholic scout groups of Madrid. According to ecclesiastical sources at the time, this meant that the scout movement would subsequently have a spiritual as well as patriotic nature. However, the Church never entirely abandoned its suspicions of an organization that it was unable to dominate. ³⁵

Iradier, who saw himself as an honest worker betrayed by ungrateful colleagues, had left a profound mark on the movement. His charisma was undeniable, and the boys around him regarded him as almost god-like. His name was raised in association with later disputes and projects, and heard again as the author of the official patriotic ‘Catechism’ of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, in which, paradoxically, he wrote extensively about the nature of constitutional rights. ³⁶ He ended up being imprisoned by both sides during the Civil War, first by the Republican militias and then by the Francoists, who put him on trial as a Freemason.

Spanish Nationalism, Scout Style

The preparation of the future regenerators of Spain adhered closely to the set of activities laid down by the association, which gave a central role to the cultivation of patriotism. They were reported upon in the conventional press and a wide range of scouting publications, both handbooks and magazines, from the national El Explorador to local bulletins with titles such as Patria (‘Fatherland’) or Siempre Adelante (‘Ever Forward’), the motto of the Spanish scouts. These activities began with excursions on Sundays and holidays, which included hikes, gymnastics, games and talks, without leaving a single minute in which to get bored. The same format was extended in the longer scout camps, which were generally held on land owned by the King or the association’s patrons, the aristocrats and major landowners of each district. For weekday activities, the scout groups’ buildings contained workshops, libraries and, in the most luxurious, gymnasiums and fencing rooms. In regular talks, scout leaders or invited guests spoke to the boys about scouting practices or subjects such as the geography and history of Spain. Educational sessions that aroused less enthusiasm than the movement’s more recreational activities. ³⁷

Some excursions had the special purpose of travelling to other areas to spread the message of scouting, and took on the appearance almost of official visits, with special trains, crowds to greet them at stations and receptions provided by the principal figures of local society. Some scout groups travelled to the ceremonies at which other new recruits made the Scout Promise. Regular camps and excursions served to construct an imaginary scout community, as did the commemorations of the first time each group had undertaken them. Equally, the long special hikes around the Spanish countryside, tests of resilience that were reported in the press and sometimes covered in whole books, enabled the scouts to get to know their homeland and perceive it as a united entity. ³⁸

Nationalistic indoctrination was explicit from the first moments of the movement, since the membership booklets each scout carried indicated one essential aim: to love Spain, conceived of as a near-eternal nation of which one had to be proud, even when, like a mater dolorosa, it was going through difficult times. Hence, scout literature perpetuated patriotic themes that had been well established for over a century. Scouts were taught not to tolerate any belittling of the nation, even when the defects it was accused of were real. ³⁹ Highlighted among the most outstanding features of Spain were its landscapes, history and language, in the singular, since only Castilian Spanish was mentioned. And the Fatherland was at one with the monarchy, embodied by the royal family, who appeared on many of El Explorador’s front pages. In these reports, Don Alfonso XIII astutely directed the destiny of Spain, and protected the association. ⁴⁰

The ideals of behaviour that were offered to children were in accord with the established canon of Spanish nationalist history. Scouts were encouraged to worship the heroes who had taken part in moments of glory, like those in the great epic of the conquest of the Americas, or in the tireless defence of national independence. According to Cuyás, it was necessary to show boys that they were descended ‘from a race of strong, valiant, intrepid, hardy and tenacious men’. Nothing was better suited to this task than the example of the rugged determination of the first explorers of America. In a recurring argument, the cruel colonization of the English was compared negatively with the humanitarian work of Spaniards. The Hispanic titans should be considered ‘professors of energy’, as they were described in a work in praise of Spain’s achievements by the American hispanist Charles Lummis, translated by Cuyás. Similarly, boys were taught about the nation’s exploits in the war against Napoleon, known in Spain as the War of Independence. ⁴¹

The veneration of national glories was extended to writers, the champions of the Castilian Spanish language. Beginning with Miguel de Cervantes, author of the ‘national bible’, Don Quijote de la Mancha. For the 300-year anniversary of his death in 1916, the scouts heard lectures about him, placed flowers on his statue and began an appeal for funds to finance a great national monument to the writer. ⁴² The canon also included living masters, such as the Zaragoza-born nationalist and liberal journalist Mariano de Cavia. To congratulate him for the award of a medal by the King, an Aragonese scout group hiked to Madrid with a message from the people of his home region, in an adventure that was applauded endlessly. ⁴³

Scout groups held evening events where they recited poetry and sang songs in praise of Spain, and organized competitions for patriotic stories and postcards. They also offered a prize for the best patriotic catechism, ‘so that when published extensively it may enliven and sustain the sacred love for Spain’. Promoted amid the rapid rise of sub-state nationalisms and the labour conflicts that followed the world war, this initiative, which followed the traditional pattern of questions and answers that had been tried and tested for a century, was one of a series of efforts made at the time to foster Spanish nationalism among the young. In 1919, a committee that included the future dictator General Primo de Rivera – highly active in the scouts since their foundation – awarded the prize to the work of Juan Antonio Dimas, a lawyer and protégé of Cuyás. In his creed Dimas distinguished between patriotism felt every day and false displays of flag-waving, and also lauded the natural beauties of the country, condemned separatists and advised against strikes. ⁴⁴

A year later the same prize was won by a priest, who assured his readers that one could not be a good patriot if one was not a good Christian. ‘What will you say to a Spaniard who is not a Catholic?’, he asked, to which the answer was ‘That he is a false and illegitimate child, since he abominates his most venerated traditions’. The Spanish nationalism of the scouts thus developed around a common core that was conservative, monarchist and military, even reactionary, in thrall to a glorious past. It was not always religiously based, and nor was the movement subordinate to the Catholic movements that expanded notably after 1920. Nevertheless, the influence of the Church within scouting had increased after the defenestration of Iradier, whose own ‘catechism’, in contrast to the second winner of the association’s prize, scarcely mentioned religious issues. ⁴⁵

The fundamental nucleus of the scout creed lay in the cult of the flag, a feature of military nationalism that impregnated the entire movement. Each troop had its own standard, a red and yellow national flag, with a green band across it. At scout camps it was raised and lowered to single cries of ‘¡Viva España!’, to which the rest of the troop responded with ‘¡Viva!, ¡Sí!, ¡Sí¡, hurrah!’, and raised their staffs with their hats on top. The significance of the flag left no room for doubt; it symbolized the fatherland, its unity and vigour, and acted as a spur to greater struggles for the nation’s sake. If they wished to advance up the hierarchy, scouts had to have a good knowledge of its history. They owed it respect, and continually paid homage to it. One scout who died in Málaga was buried wrapped in his standard. In this instance the mimetic imitation of army practices was complete. ⁴⁶

Ceremonies to take the Scout Promise became public events with a notable local impact, when the scouts who attained a certain rank repeated the oath and paraded beneath their standard, in a ritual very similar to the one carried out by new recruits to the Spanish army. In the scout events, as in the military juras or ‘oath-taking’ ceremonies, there were Masses, parades, the selection of a distinguished lady as Madrina or ‘patroness’ of the standard and patriotic speeches. Moreover, Exploradores also attended the actual oath-taking ceremonies for military recruits, which by this time had been made into real military-patriotic festivals. The Exploradores’ own anthem was also dedicated to a Fatherland that could be summed up in the flag. ⁴⁷

The leaders of scouting did not want it to be confused with the batallones escolares or ‘school batallions’, groups that had been created following a French model to provide military training, and were commonly vilified as comical and harmful to education. There were some continuities between the two organizations, but the greatest similarity was in their emphasis on pre-military training, a characteristic also common to the scout movements of other countries. Iradier, like Baden-Powell, had underlined the utility of the knowledge acquired by the scouts in terms of their future military obligations. For, as a draft plan for the Spanish scouts presented to the King hammered home, by the time he reached the age of 18 the scout would be a tireless rambler, accustomed to life outdoors, ready to obey and equipped with a thousand skills. Every part of the organization reiterated endlessly the supreme obligation to die for Spain, a demand that was accentuated by the grim panorama created by the Great War. ⁴⁸

The Explorador, as well as being a good soldier, was also expected to develop into a Spanish hidalgo, a figure of nobility. In Spain scouting also celebrated Saint George, the patron saint of knight-errants, and saw itself as ‘a new Order of Chivalry, whose knights are devotees of the religion of the fatherland’. ⁴⁹ Moreover in the Hispanic version of these models of masculinity there was a further aspect: a belief in a national psychology anchored in hidalguía, the character of a hidalgo, an imperishable quality of the Spanish spirit that was composed of a sense of justice and an idealized concept of honour. Not for nothing could the scout be distinguished by keeping his word, and never lying. An aristocratic and military ideal that looked back to the golden age of the Spanish Empire, brought up to date to make it compatible with bourgeois values such as hard work, this was an ideal that was held widely at the time, even among the commercial middle class. ⁵⁰

Hidalguía and gentlemanliness obliged scouts to respect all women, whom they were required to treat in the same way as their own sisters and mothers. This model stood in opposition to that of the Spanish ‘Don Juan’, the male incapable of controlling his passions, seen as useless in the task of national resurgence. The association’s first pamphlets contained instructions to scouts to take their hats off to girls, give up their seats for them and never place a hand on them or make flirtatious remarks. Women were the repository of the honour of men. ⁵¹ Spain, unlike many other countries, did not have a female branch of scouting until 1934. Some embryonic groups had arisen that encouraged girls to be good mothers, but hostility from Catholic sectors hampered their development. It was not until 1930 that a proposal was presented to the government to establish a girls’ branch of the Exploradores. The instigator of the plan, Cándida Cadenas, a school inspector who had observed girl scouts in the United States, envisaged the guides as a means of restoring a femininity that had been lost due to social modernization. ⁵²

Improving the race, another element inseparable from the regeneration of the fatherland, also demanded exercise in the open air. As in Britain, the world of nature was attributed moral benefits, and counterposed to the cities. The obsession for gymnastics and sports in the scouts served to combat the lamentable statistics on poor health and physique in recent recruits to the Spanish army. The Exploradores took part in sports festivals and competitions, especially long-distance running races and the particular championships of the Tiro Nacional shooting association. ⁵³ Physical activity was also thought to be an aid in the struggle against perversions. Veiled allusions were made to masturbation – ‘the repugnant and accursed vice’ – and boys were warned more openly that sexual incontinence ‘[causes] degeneration of the organism and shortens life’. ⁵⁴

Scout virtues included obedience, loyalty to the authorities, helping one’s neighbour and saving, a custom that was thought to be uncommon among Spaniards. The best boys appeared on the scout roll of honour. Scouting magazines reported acts of ‘heroic charity’, such as saving people in danger, which generated their own heroes. The Valladolid scout Luciano Bastardo, who placed himself between a group of children and a rabid dog, received medals and thanks from the king. The scouts gained a degree of prestige, to the point where impostors even appeared who tried to collect money dressed in scout uniforms. ⁵⁵ The scouts also stressed companionship and camaraderie, without differences of class. Despite this, the extent to which they were able to attract poor boys was limited; groups were formed in charity schools and the scouts’ patrons financed the purchase of equipment, an insurmountable barrier for the poor, but the bulk of boys still came from the middle and upper classes. The scouts’ uniforms and manners provoked ridicule among working-class children. In the new districts on the fringes of Madrid they were laughed at, and ‘stones and empty bottles rained down on the columns of Exploradores’. ⁵⁶

At the Service of the Monarchy

The internal crisis of 1915 following the fall of Iradier had a profound effect on the Exploradores. Their leaders denied it, and claimed a year later that they still had 20,000 members, but in confidential documents they acknowledged a decline and attributed it to ‘the idiosyncrasy of our people, easily attracted to all sorts of enthusiasms and new ideas, but without the constancy [needed] for these ideas to crystallize’. This slump, noted above all in Madrid, took some time to overcome. In 1921, the organization’s official magazine stated that, of 26,000 Exploradores officially registered, only around half regularly took part in its activities, and two years later it talked about ‘six or eight thousand boys’. A figure that was very low if compared with the hundreds of thousands of scouts in the British Empire or the United States, but still not insubstantial in relation to the numbers of just 40,000 to 50,000 pupils aged between 12 and 18 who were enrolled in secondary education in Spain at that time. Membership of the Socialist Youth in 1921 did not exceed 3500. ⁵⁷

The association suffered from structural problems, such as a shortage of scout leaders, but sought the remedy to all its ills in assistance from the state, which it hoped would provide tangible benefits and so be an effective lure for the families of prospective scouts. The Exploradores obtained a notable accolade in 1920, when they were formally declared a ‘national’ organization and the sole official scout movement in Spain. Subsequently members of its National Council were appointed by royal order. New statutes and regulations were introduced in 1922 which made the association still more centralized, reasserted its patriotic aims and penalized any criticism of the government within the scout movement. Nevertheless, the official assistance it sought was only partially achieved, since it was refused educational privileges, and the demand for scouts to be given advantages when they came to do their military service was left pending. Even so, the association did obtain a doubling of its subsidy from the state in 1923. ⁵⁸

The movement also heavily emphasized its schools for preliminary military training, which were expected to instruct the Exploradores before they properly began their military service at the age of 21. An experimental nucleus had existed to develop this role since 1916, giving special attention to patriotic education. After 1920, this model was extended to the whole country, and helped to compensate for the shortage of scout leaders. Army influence also grew stronger in other ways in the post-world-war period, with officers providing almost 40 per cent of the organization’s leaders between 1916 and 1920. ⁵⁹ Their warlike ardour stood in contrast to the more pacifist tone taken by international scouting in the atmosphere set by the League of Nations. There were some reflections of an anti-war spirit, such as when a scout group visited the destroyed cities of France, but the leaders of Spanish scouting did not hesitate to speak of ‘satisfying the impulse in every properly formed boy to admire the great feats and virile exploits of war’, as the General Secretary of the Exploradores Colonel Antonio Trucharte did in front of Baden-Powell himself in 1922. ⁶⁰

Great prominence was given to the colonial campaigns in the Moroccan Protectorate, which had replaced those across the ocean in the visions of Spanish imperialists and nourished the growth of militaristic nationalism, a more threadbare version of British popular imperialism. However, the scouts’ interest in North Africa only really shot up after a fresh military desastre, that of Annual, which left over 10,000 Spanish soldiers dead south of the enclave of Melilla in July 1921. Scout groups experienced an intense fever of nationalism that branched out into campaigns to aid the wounded, services to enable combatants to contact their families, and ‘patriotic pageants’ and mass parades by scouts at railway stations and docksides to see troops off to Morocco. At the same time, they also threw themselves into providing support for former scouts who were fighting or had fallen in battle. While a scout troop in Tortosa sent its encouragement to a former assistant scout leader who had vindicated the national honour in the face of the ‘perfidious Moorish rabble’, an Aragonese recruit reported back to his former fellows on how useful he was finding his scout experience to be at the front. The scout movement’s connections with the colonial army deepened still further during the 1920s, when General José Millán-Astray, founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, joined its leadership. An admirer of the samurais, Millán-Astray had drawn up a creed for his Legionaries that had certain points of contact with the scout code, such as the emphasis on comradeship, though he was also obsessed with an irrationalist cult of death that was unknown in scouting. ⁶¹

All these tendencies meant that attacks upon the militarism of the Exploradores only intensified. The most influential criticism came from Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most widely respected intellectuals of the era, who argued that scouting had done away with the spontaneity of play, and made children sick of ‘the uniform, and the staff, and [standing in] ranks, and the drum’. The movement’s educational methods transmitted a patriotism of ‘rags’ and not of ‘living fibre’. His observations echoed the old distrust of liberal intellectuals for the official nationalism of the monarchy – the same kind that the Exploradores professed – as artificial and superficial. ⁶²

The response from the movement, which accused its critics of being ignorant of its methods, came in the form of a return to the scouting’s essence, mitigating the crudest aspects of militarism. The most decisive contribution was that of Juan Antonio Dimas (‘Grey Wolf’), a lawyer in the juvenile courts and indefatigable scout leader. Beginning with his first troop in Murcia and then from 1920 in the organization in Madrid, he had introduced more attractive methods such as the system of patrols recommended by the international scouting bodies, with small groups that encouraged the children’s participation in decisions, and promoted the ‘Indian Games’ introduced by Seton. This brought less pomp and discipline, and more enjoyment. ⁶³ Overall, Dimas moved the Spanish scouts closer to international tendencies within scouting. This was not, however, in any way incompatible with the goal of creating patriots, now with more ‘fibre’, since a confident faith was placed in the effectiveness of the campfire, the magic of which sent shivers through the young, and could be taken advantage of to recall ‘the noble splendours of Spain’. In 1927, Dimas was appointed general advisor to the scout association, and two years later a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber. ⁶⁴

These efforts bore fruit, especially in Madrid, and by 1926 the Exploradores had 22,500 members, equivalent to around a tenth of the membership claimed by the fast-growing Catholic youth organizations. ⁶⁵ There were still huge variations between different parts of Spain, and the success of scouting in each area depended on the degree to which local elites were involved and whether it was seen as socially useful. One of the most striking examples was that of Granada, where the scouts were able to count on the patronage of the Church and the Duke of San Pedro. The driving force behind scouting in the province was the priest and sociologist Luis López-Dóriga, who applied methods he had learnt abroad. With a strong concern for social and labour issues, he set up a school for scouts with free classes, basic military training and funds to pay for the continuing education of outstanding pupils. In Murcia, the scouts created an academy to prepare for the examinations for entry to public service. The Granada scouts would later be punished for the commitment to the working class of López-Dóriga, who eventually became a Republican deputy, was expelled from the Church and ended his life in exile in México. Behind every larger scout group there was an individual believer devoted to the cause, such as a naturalist and archaeologist in Jaén, or a naval medical officer in La Coruña. ⁶⁶

In many cities, the Exploradores served as an embellishment to a varied range of social events. They appeared, for example, at charitable occasions. However, their speciality was nationalistic celebrations, such as the Fiesta del Árbol or ‘Tree Festival’, which was particularly promoted because it related each town to the wider fatherland, nature and religion. Another was the Día de la Raza or ‘Day of the Race’, officially declared a national holiday in 1918, and held each 12 October in commemoration of the discovery of America by Columbus, when floral tributes were laid at his monuments – an occasion similar to the celebrations of Empire Day among the British Boy Scouts. ⁶⁷ At the same time the contacts between Spanish scouts and those of other countries also reinforced international relationships, on the occasion of visits by heads of state, or from 1920 onwards in the regular international jamborees, at which the Spanish delegation had the status of a founder member. ⁶⁸

The dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera following the coup d’état in September 1923, endorsed by Alfonso XIII, which suspended the constitutional regime, gave a final boost to the Exploradores de España, who in return offered their support to the new political system and contributed to expanding its social base. After all, the General and his sons had all been scouts. The Duke of San Pedro de Galatino, opposed to the dictator, was replaced as president of the national council by García Molinas, a former Senator and an influential figure in local politics in Madrid, where he exercised control over a network of charitable organizations and devoted special attention to children. ⁶⁹ His earlier adherence to the liberal left did not prevent him from finding himself in harmony on many issues with the authoritarian government. To begin with he further reinforced the movement’s links to the monarchy, which had never neglected the Spanish scouts. In the following years the scouts organized a proliferation of events to honour the Prince of Asturias, the heir to the throne, and his brothers. When the time came for the silver jubilee of Alfonso XIII’s official reign in 1927, the Exploradores collaborated in a collection to aid the building of the University City in Madrid, the King’s favourite project. He was referred to as the ‘King of Youth’, and his saint’s day was celebrated. ⁷⁰

The association became, in effect, an integral element in the nationalist policies of the dictatorship. Its supporters established connections with the Somatén, the civilian militia that assisted in maintaining order, and the Unión Patriótica or Patriotic Union, the single party of the regime, with which it shared facilities and ceremonies. Primo’s military directorate ordered its government delegates, military officers despatched to municipalities to override the constitutional authorities and promote Spanish nationalism, to create local scout councils and provide them with funds. ⁷¹ Scout troops that had disappeared were resuscitated. These groups, whose activities revolved around the periodic tours made by Primo de Rivera, never missed any patriotic occasion, such as the celebrations in 1925 of the landings that brought a successful conclusion to the campaign in Morocco. ⁷²

Moreover, scouting was deployed as a tool for ‘Spanishizing’ Catalonia, where the authorities proposed to extirpate the indigenous form of nationalism. Hence the Exploradores staged spectacular festivals in Barcelona. In Girona, one of the most nationalist of the Catalan cities, the scout association was directly created by the Civil Governor, who made determined efforts to make the students in the local secondary school into perfect Spaniards. The scout troop operated in Castilian Spanish, not Catalan, and organized a wide range of events, but disappeared immediately with the fall of the regime. ⁷³ Simultaneously, the government also wished to bring together a range of previously unconnected initiatives to strengthen its citizen base in a single organization, which would take advantage of the record and experience of the Tiro Nacional, the schools of military gymnastics and the Exploradores. This organization for pre-military and gymnastic training took time to take shape, but the scouts did achieve one of their most often-repeated demands, for a reduction in military service for their members, with a deduction of 45 days. The Barcelona Exhibition of 1929 enabled the Spanish movement to show off its achievements to the world with a jamboree. ⁷⁴

From the end of the 1920s Spanish scouting underwent a continual series of transformations. The organization’s structure was simplified and regional federations created. It had to adapt, above all, to the new political context brought about by the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931. Not only did it have to change its symbols to eliminate indications of monarchism, but it also had to operate without subsidies. Nevertheless, and in spite of the obvious associations it had through its links to the departed King and fallen dictatorship, it managed to survive and win the support of the President of the Republic, thanks to the good offices of another military officer and former scout, José Miaja, subsequently known as one of the most prominent generals of the Republican army during the Civil War. Rather surprisingly, it moved, without too many difficulties, from celebrating authoritarian nationalism to taking part in Republican festivals. Competitors arose among the emerging youth movements of the different political groupings and, within scouting itself, from Catalan nationalists – in both religious and Republican variants – and Catholics, who founded, in imitation of the Scouts de France, the Scouts Hispanos. The Exploradores kept the latter at bay thanks to the maintenance of their status as the only movement with official recognition. ⁷⁵ After contrasting experiences during the Civil War, in April 1940 the Asociación de los Exploradores de España was abolished by a new dictatorship, that of General Francisco Franco, which, like the Fascist regime in Italy, only permitted the existence of one youth organization, its own.

Conclusions

Between 1912 and 1931, scouting in Spain shared some of the essential features of other branches of the global scout movement, into which it was fully integrated. It was born out of concerns for adolescence and national regeneration that were common at the turn of the twentieth century, coloured in Spain by the anxieties that followed the ‘Disaster’ of 1898. In the course of its development, it also stood out for its support for the established order, whether constitutional or authoritarian, devotion to the monarchy and military determination to prepare boys to be soldiers. It made the nurturing of national feeling its principal objective, and even committed itself to imperialist campaigns. It only diverged from its parent organization when, in the 1920s, it maintained this military and patriotic ethos despite the advance of internationalist and pacifist tendencies within scouting.

The scout movement consequently became one of the main instruments of nationalization employed by the monarchy of Alfonso XIII, part of a process that developed in parallel with the evolution of other European monarchies. The ‘King Scout’ pampered the association, which responded with constant tributes to the royal family. In the wake of royal patronage, prominent aristocrats also took part, hoping in this way to demonstrate their involvement in public affairs, along with a broad spectrum of provincial elites that included politicians and, above all, middle-class professionals who shared the movement’s nationalistic and regenerationist goals. Together these groups formed monarchist civil society. The collaboration between the army and these sectors of society demonstrated that, far from being isolated, the military were ready and willing to participate in collective projects. Overall, a mobilization of energies of this kind belies the image of supposed passivity and a lack of interest in national construction among the Spanish ruling elites.

The literature of the movement reveals a pattern of nationalist indoctrination that adapted the premises of scouting to the mould of Spanish conservative nationalism. At its centre was the masculine model of the hidalgo, the Hispanic gentleman, unquestioning of differentiated gender roles and with an air of a feudal caste. The patriotic and pre-military preparation given by the Exploradores revolved around commemorations, the cult of the national flag and involvement in all kinds of nationalistic events. The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera did no more than bring together and orchestrate previous elements from within the association’s Spanish-nationalist practices, but without establishing a single organization for young people on the totalitarian model. The influence of the Church increased over time, but it never controlled the organization. In short, the Spanish nationalism of the scouts followed the same line of evolution as that taken by the King and the majority of military officers, from a regenerationism compatible with a tolerant liberal framework to a nationalism that was religiously defined, intransigent and reactionary.

The Asociación de los Exploradores aroused expectations that it could not fulfil. To its first founders it seemed a failure in relation to their initial hopes, although the decline that came after its triumphal launch was followed by a notable revival. It was dependent at all times on the support of the state and adopted a highly centralized structure, which left scarcely any margin for autonomy, pluralism – religious or regional – or decision-making from below. This was probably the cause of its relative lack of attractiveness and dynamism, later palliated by the import of new methods and the arrival of better-prepared scout leaders. Its real successes were linked to individual initiatives at a local level, and to the extent to which it succeeded in creating an imaginary community, uniting boys across the country. Nevertheless, it did not cease to be one of the most important youth movements in Spain during the first three decades of the twentieth century, in a country in which participation in this kind of association was little developed. While a long way from penetrating poorer communities, it responded well to a demand among elites and the middle classes. In 1937, when it celebrated its 25th anniversary, the movement’s leaders claimed that half a million Spaniards had passed through the association. ⁷⁶ Perhaps it had not turned them into unshakeable monarchists, given the painless transition to the Republic a few years earlier, but it had certainly moulded their national identity.