Portuguese Legion Command

The Portuguese Legion was created in 1936, on the model of German and Italian fascist movements. It brought together the most radical elements of the Portuguese right and, as early as the following year, took the army’s place in the 28 May parade. In the last years of the regime, it had an intelligence service with a complex network of informers and acted as shock troops, playing a prominent part in arresting demonstrators and raiding institutions linked to the opposition.³ In the provinces, prior censorship often worked out of the premises of public bodies such as the Legion, barracks or town halls.⁴ Before he became the “Fearless General” (general sem medo), Humberto Delgado held senior posts in it: as one of its leaders, he visited Spain during the civil war, at the invitation of the Falangists.⁵

On 25 April 1974, the Legion’s general command was here, in Largo da Penha de França.¹ Late in the morning, the MFA Command Post sent a column from the Cavalry Practical School, reinforced by soldiers from other units that had joined the Movement, to secure its surrender. At around 13:30, Major Jaime Neves’s column took up positions on Rua da Penha de França and Calçada do Poço dos Mouros and gave fifteen minutes for the surrender. Before the time was up, the commander, General Pereira de Castro, surrendered, and the Movement’s forces entered the barracks: “Morocco occupied without incident”.⁷ A few days later, the MFA dismantled the Legion, with strong popular support.³

Twenty-five years later, in an RTP programme by Diana Andringa, Commander Sá Leal, who had chaired the committee that wound it up, spoke of the information gathered on nearly a million people — “a large part of that information was dangerously bad” — and summed up: “The Legion was not a paper tiger, because it still roared and could still do some harm”.³