Item: i101517

Authentic Coin of:

Spain
Francisco Franco – Caudillo of Spain: 1 October 1936 – 20 November 197
1966 Silver 100 Pesetas 34mm (18.70 grams) 0.800 Silver (0.4887 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 797
FRANCISCO FRANCO CAUDILLO DE ESPANA POR LA G. DE DOIS, (Spanish: “Caudillo of Spain, by the Grace of God”), Head of Francisco Franco right; 1966 below.
100 PTS, Assorted emblems within flower design; crown above.
Edge lettering:
UN GRANDE LIBRE

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A caudillo, from Latin capitellum, diminutive of caput “head”) was a military-landowner that possessed political power and exercised it in a form considered authoritarian by detractors. The term can be translated into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman and has been used to refer to charismatic populist leaders. Caudillos were very influential in the history of Hispanic America and have a legacy that has influenced political movements in the modern day.

The term originally described leaders possessing military power, such as Indibilis and Mandonius, Viriathus, Almanzor (sometimes in the modern historiography), Don Pelayo and other fighters of the Reconquista, and others such as Simón Bolivar, Francisco Franco and Juan Perón. In Hispanic America, another sense developed of the caudillo as a demagogic lawyer and politician, with the populist Jorge Eliécer Gaitán having been honored with the title “Caudillo of The Colombian People”. Other uses of the term referred to leaders without state responsibilities like cacique in Spain and those wielding oligarchical-plutocratic power.

Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (Spanish pronunciation:  4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and the head of state of Spain from 1936/1939 until his death in 1975. Coming from a military family background, he became the youngest general in Spain and one of the youngest generals in Europe in the 1920s.

As a strong conservative, he was shocked when the monarchy was removed and replaced with a republic in 1931. With the 1936 elections, the conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups lost by a narrow margin and the leftist Popular Front came to power. Looking to overthrow the republic, Franco and other generals staged a partially successful coup, which started the Spanish Civil War. With the death of the other generals, Franco quickly became his faction’s only leader.

Franco’s ultranationalist faction received military support from several fascist groups, especially Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, while the Republican side was supported by Spanish communists and anarchists. It also received help from the Soviet Union, Mexico, and the International Brigades. Leaving half a million dead, the war was eventually won by Franco in 1939. He established an autocratic dictatorship, which he defined as a totalitarian state. Franco proclaimed himself head of state and government under the title El Caudillo (the Chief), a term similar to Il Duce (Italian) and Der Führer (German). During the Francoist regime, only one political party was legal: a merger of the monarchist party and the fascist party that helped him during the war, FET y de las JONS.

Franco led a series of politically-motivated violent acts, including but not limited to concentration camps, forced labor and executions, mostly against political and ideological enemies, causing an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 deaths, depending on how death in the more than 190 concentration camps is considered. Franco’s Spain maintained an official policy of neutrality during World War II, with the exception of the Blue Division. By the 1950s, the nature of his regime changed from an extreme form of dictatorship to a semi-pluralist authoritarian system. During the Cold War Franco appeared as one of the world’s foremost anticommunist figures; consequently his regime was assisted by the United States, and was asked to join the United Nations and come under NATO’s protection. By the 1960s Spain saw progressive economic development and timid democratic improvements.

After a 36-year rule, Franco died in 1975. He restored the monarchy before his death, which made King Juan Carlos I his successor; he betrayed Franco and led the Spanish transition to democracy. After a referendum, a new constitution was adopted, which effectively created a democratic regime in Spain.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country mostly located on the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, with there also being two large archipelagoes, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands off the African Atlantic coast, two cities, Ceuta and Melilla, on the African mainland and several small islands in the Alboran Sea near the African coast. The country’s mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north and northeast by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. It is the only European country to have a border with an African country (Morocco) and its African territory accounts for nearly 5% of its population, mostly in the Canary Islands but also in Ceuta and Melilla.

Flag & Coat of Arms

With an area of 505,990 km² (195,360 sq mi), Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, and the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spain’s capital and largest city is Madrid; other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao and Málaga.

Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Sp(a)n or Spania. At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations in migration from Central Europe invaded the Iberian peninsula and established themselves in relatively independent realms in its western provinces, including the Sueves, Alans and Vandals. Eventually, the Visigoths would integrate by force all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces into the Kingdom of Toledo that more or less unified politically, ecclesiastically and legally all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was then known in documents as Hispania.

The Visigothic kingdom fell to the Moors except in the north where shortly after started a process known as Reconquista. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs, who completed the eight centuries-long Reconquista in 1492. In the early modern period, Spain became one of history’s first global empires, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over 500 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world’s second most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.

Spain is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state. It is a major developed country with the world’s fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Eurozone, the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), OSCE, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and many other international organisations. Spain has a “permanent invitation” to the G20 summits that occur generally once a year.