Works Cited, The Spanish Labyrinth

There, however, the analogy ends: discipline was lax, for there was no real bond of union. They had no military feats to their credit, for the Army and the Carlists did all the fighting and the Old Shirts, who alone could have given it some cohesion, had been swamped by the new arrivals. There was not even a real führer, for Franco was merely one general among many who had come to power through an accident and who was singularly lacking in all führer-like qualities. Their own leader, José Antonio, had met his death in a Republican firing squad. Thus the Falange never succeeded in becoming a coherent Fascist party, but remained an amorphous flock of job hunters united to a disreputable but vociferous Iron Guard. But it had no rivals, for the Army, divided as it was between pro-Falangists and Monarchists, pro-Germans and those who were jealous of the foreigners, and taken up with the waging of the war, tended to withdraw from politics.

Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth (Canto Classics) (pp. 539-540). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.