If their spies spoke Basque as a secret code

The espionage stories They are fascinating. Video games like Spanish ‘Commandos‘They have one of their best characters in the spy and the sagas of’Impossible mission‘ either ‘007‘are sustained (At least in the first deliveries) in that work of espionage and Double agents. Something fundamental is the encryption of conversations, but … why devise a complex system so that the enemy does not discover what you speak if they exist languages ​​that do not speak so many people? In Spain there is one that is homeless: The Basque.

And, precisely, one of the legends of the spies Spaniards is the use of Basque so that enemies do not discover the plans. But as usually happens, there is as much reality as a myth in this story.

Felipe II’s networks. Let’s start at the beginning and one of the clearest uses of Basque in a espionage network. In the second half of the 16th century, things in Spain were uneasy. The reason was that Henry III of Navarra, king of Navarra since 1572, had religious ideas contrary to the Spanish monarch Felipe II. While Felipe was a staunch Catholic, Enrique became Protestantism. The problem is that in 1589 Enrique III of France and ‘Our’ Enrique III inherited the French throne as Henry IV.

Felipe did not make a hint of grace because he did not want a Protestant to occupy the throne of a great neighboring country and, as a defender of Catholicism and Spanish hegemony, supported the Catholic League and proposed to his daughter Isabelgranddaughter of Enrique II of France, as queen of the Gallic country. He did not set the proposal and that caused a rivalry that made the Pyrenean situation complex.

Lady of Urtubia. Enrique, in the end, returned to the path of Catholicism in 1593, so things have already calmed down and was recognized in full as king of France. Now, although Enrique IV’s conversion calmed the situation, the tension did not disappear at all, and our spy comes into play: Aimée de Urtubia. This woman belonging to the nobility shipment Between 1597 and 1598, at least 19 letters to the mayor of Fuenterrabía and Captain General of Guipúzcoa.

In them there was relevant information about military and political events in France and Navarra during the Religion wars and allowed the Catholics of Felipe II to record the situation in France. The peculiarity is that the letters were written in Basque, which assured that they would only be “decipherd” if they fell into someone who controlled the language. And it was his native language, detail that is not less.

In whatever, their letters were referred to the Secretary General for the North, which speaks well of the importance that the information of the ‘Lady of Urtubia’ had in the strategy of the administration of Felipe II. In 1598 the Paz de Vervins with which Felipe stopped intervening in French affairs. Although the agreement had not been reached, Felipe would not have interfered with more because he died that year.

Second World War. There is proof of Aimée’s letters, but … the legend of the Basque among the Spanish spies comes from there? Well, not quite. Time to make a leap to Second World War. Spies are key to operations such as day d or even for war stratagems that confuse the enemy. The Enigma machine It was the great Nazi tool to encrypt messages and Basque … too?

Myth. The United States, of course, considered the use of little known languages ​​to make secret communications. Instead of creating language, Americans used Native American languages ​​such as Navajo or CREE to generate safe messages. It would be rare for a German to speak Navajo, go. And, to expand networks in Europe, they also thought of the ‘Basque Code Talkers‘.

This was basically reused Euskera to produce indecipherable messages for the enemy. To the Not being an Indo -European languageor the enemy had a dictionary, or would not find out anything. In fact, some publications of years ago affirm that Basque was used as a code in the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. The problem is that it is … false.

And reality. A subsequent investigation carried out by historians Pedro J. Oiarzabal and Guillermo Taberilla, demonstrated that Americans may consider the use of Basque as ‘Code Talk’, but it was not carried out. Investigating American and British military archives, they did not find that they support the use of Basque in that context. American captain Frank Carranza, grandson of Basque emigrants, would have been one of the architects of the legend, supported by the historical fact of the relationship between the secret services of the Basque Government In exile and the OSS American.

Now, something that could feed the myth is that there were Basque spies involved in the conflict. José Laradogoitia Menchaca, or “Bromine”, He was a Basque pastor who worked as a double agent during the war. For whom? First for the Nazis, but then he went to the allied side, transmitting false information to the Nazis. And the investigation of Oiarzabal and Tabernilla, regardless of denying the myth, He left a pearl: Vicelehendakari of the Basque Government in exile worked as a spy for the British.

In the end, Basque soldiers may speak in Basque between them and I find it funny to think that some Nazi intercepted that communication and gave mental somersaults trying to decipher the ‘code’.

Image | Screen of ‘Call of Duty ww2’

In Xataka | The US landed on an empty island during World War II. In nine days it had more than 300 casualties