After the death of Jose Sanjurjo on 20 July 1936, Mola commanded the Nationalists in the north of Spain, while Franco operated in the south.

He died in a plane crash in bad weather, leaving Franco as the pre-eminent Nationalist leader for the rest of the war.

The Cuban War of Independence split his family; while his father served in the Spanish forces, his maternal uncle Leoncio Vidal was a leading revolutionary fighter.

While General José Sanjurjo, in exile in Portugal, remained the recognized leader, Mola was delegated the authority within the organization to plan operations in Spain.

[4] Known as "the Director", Mola sent secret instructions to the various military units to be involved in the uprising and worked out a detailed plan for a post-coup government.

Agrarian issues were to be resolved by regional commissions with the aim of developing small holdings, but allowing for collective cultivation in some circumstances.

His dim view of the capabilities of monarchist militias and the conservative Catholic party Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), as well as only limited support from the Falange, led him as late as 9 July to consider the possibility of having to flee to France if it failed.

[9][page needed] He famously declared: ... "we must extend the terror; we must impose the impression of dominion while eliminating without scruples everyone who does not think as we do (Spanish: eliminando sin escrupulos a todos los que no piensen como nosotros)".

With the death of Sanjurjo, Mola established a multi-member governing body for the so-called "Nationalist zone" (zona nacional) called the National Defense Junta.

A junta in Burgos proved unable to set overall strategy; thus, Franco was chosen commander-in-chief at a meeting of ranking generals on 21 September.

[13][14] Mola died on 3 June 1937, when the Airspeed Envoy twin-engined aircraft in which he was travelling flew into the side of a mountain in bad weather while returning to Vitoria.