Spanish Civil War

:Alternative meaning: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823

Introduction

Political background

From 1934 to 1936, the Second Spanish Republic was governed by a center-right coalition that included the conservative Catholic Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA) as well as liberal politicans. This coalition had reached power by default after the conservative government had lost the municipal elections in 1934. In the face of widespread social unrest they fled. The internal contradictions in the government led to a limited ability to take action or make decisions. During this time, there were general strikes in Valencia and Zaragoza, street conflicts in Madrid and Barcelona, and a miners' uprising in Asturias, which was put down forcefully by the troops commanded by General López Ochoa and the Legionnaires commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Juan Yagüe, under the direction of Minister of War Diego Hidalgo. During this time, the government expended great efforts to annul the social gains that had been made in the previous years, especially in agrarian reform.

Related Topics:
Second Spanish Republic - Coalition - Catholic - Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas - Strikes - Valencia - Zaragoza - Madrid - Barcelona - Miners' uprising in Asturias - López Ochoa - The Legionnaires - Juan Yagüe - Diego Hidalgo - Agrarian reform

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As internal disagreements mounted in the coalition, a radicalisation of the situation in the country was under way. Strikes were frequent, violence was rife, and communists and anarchists killed clergy, burned churches and persecuted people deemed to be conservative. After a series of governmental crises, the elections of February 16, 1936 brought to power a Popular Front government supported by the parties of the left and centre and opposed by those of the right. The new government was unstable, and on April 7 1936, President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora was deposed by the new Parliament, which named Prime Minister Manuel Azaña as the new President.

Related Topics:
Election - February 16 - 1936 - Popular Front - April 7 - Niceto Alcalá-Zamora - Parliament - Prime Minister - Manuel Azaña - President

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During this period of rising tensions, according to official sources, 330 people were assassinated and 1,511 were wounded in politically-related violence; records show 213 failed assassination attempts, 113 general strikes, and the destruction of 160 religious buildings;{{ref|Carroll}} the actual numbers may be higher. On 12 July 1936, José Castillo, a lieutenant in the Assault Guards and member of the Socialist Party, was murdered by a 'far right' group in Madrid. The following day a group of Assault Guards officers took revenge by murdering José Calvo Sotelo, a Member of Parliament and one of the leaders of the extreme anti-republican opposition, as well as a former finance minister under the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. This assassination precipitated the following events.

Related Topics:
Assassination - 12 July - 1936 - José Castillo - José Calvo Sotelo - Miguel Primo de Rivera

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On July 17, 1936, the conservative rebellion long feared by the leftist Popular Front government of Prime-Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga began. Casares Quiroga, who had succeeded Azaña in the office, had in the previous weeks exiled the military officers suspected of conspiracy, including General Manuel Goded y Llopis and General Francisco Franco, sent to the Balearic Islands and to the Canary Islands, respectively. The rebellion was not only a military coup; it also had a substantial civilian component. The rebels had hoped to gain immediate control of the capital, Madrid, and all the other important cities of Spain. Seville, Pamplona, Cádiz, Jerez de la Frontera, Córdoba, Zaragoza and Oviedo all fell under control of the Nationalists but failed in Barcelona and Madrid. Because of this, a protracted civil war ensued.

Related Topics:
July 17 - 1936 - Santiago Casares Quiroga - Manuel Goded y Llopis - Francisco Franco - Balearic Islands - Canary Islands - Seville - Pamplona - Cádiz - Jerez de la Frontera - Córdoba - Zaragoza - Oviedo - Barcelona - Madrid

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The active participants in the war covered the entire gamut of the political positions and ideologies of the time. The Nationalist side included the fascists of the Falange, Carlist and Legitimist monarchists; Spanish nationalists; and most conservatives. On the Republican side were most liberals, Basque and Catalan nationalists, socialists, Stalinist and Trotskyist communists, and anarchists of varying ideologies.

Related Topics:
Falange - Carlist - Legitimist - Basque - Catalan - Socialist - Stalinist - Trotskyist - Communists - Anarchists - Ideologies

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To view the political alignments from another perspective, the Nationalists included the majority of the Catholic clergy and of practicing Catholics (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, the majority of landowners, and many businessmen. The Republicans included most urban workers, peasants, and much of the educated middle class, especially those who were not entrepreneurs.

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The leaders of the rebellion were the generals Francisco Franco, Emilio Mola, and José Sanjurjo. Sanjurjo was the unquestioned leader of the uprising, but he was killed in a plane crash on July 20 as he was going to Spain to take control of the rebel side. Franco, the overall commander of the Spanish army since 1933 and already a noted pro-Fascist, flew from the Canary Islands to the Spanish colonies in Morocco and took command there. For the remaining three years of the war, Franco was the effective commander of all the Nationalists.

Related Topics:
Francisco Franco - Emilio Mola - José Sanjurjo - Canary Islands - Morocco

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One of the Nationalists' principal motives, claimed at the time of their initial uprising, was to confront the anticlericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Roman Catholic Church, which was censured for its support for the monarchy and which many on the Republican side blamed for the ills of the country. In the opening days of the war, churches, convents, and other religious buildings were burnt without action on the part of the Republican authorities to prevent it. Articles 24 and 26 of the Constitution of the Republic banned the Jesuits, which deeply offended many of the Nationalists. Notwithstanding these religious matters, the Basque nationalists, who nearly all sided with the Republic, were, for the most part, practicing Catholics. Pope John Paul II later canonised several of these martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, murdered for being priests or nuns.

Related Topics:
Anticlericalism - Roman Catholic Church - Jesuits - Pope John Paul II - Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War

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Foreign involvement

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The rebellion was opposed by the government (with the troops that remained loyal to the Republic), as well as by Socialist, Communist and anarchist groups. The British government was officially neutral but still maintained an arms embargo on Spain and actively discouraged the anti-fascist participation of their citizens. The last president, Juan Negrín, hoped that with the beginning of the Second World War, the European powers (mainly Britain and France) finally would help the Republic, but neither Britain nor France, supported the Republic. Both fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany violated the embargo and sent troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie and Legión Cóndor), aircraft, and weapons to support Franco. The Italian contribution amounted to over 60000 troops at the height of the war. In addition, there were a few volunteer troops from other nations who fought with the Nationalists, such as Eoin O'Duffy of Ireland, and including such romantic Catholic intellectuals as the poet Roy Campbell. On July 27, 1936 the first squadron of Italian airplanes sent by Benito Mussolini arrived in Spain.{{ref|Mussolini1}}

Related Topics:
Socialist - Communist - Anarchist - British - Fascist Italy - Benito Mussolini - Nazi Germany - Corpo Truppe Volontarie - Legión Cóndor - Eoin O'Duffy - Ireland - Roy Campbell - July 27

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Thanks to the Franco-British arms embargo, the Government of the Republic could receive aid and purchase arms only from the Soviet Union, which was thousands of miles away and in economic disarray itself. These arms included 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armored cars, hundreds of thousands of small arms, and 30,000 tons of ammunition (some of which was defective). To pay for these armaments the Republicans used US$500 million dollars in gold reserves. At the start of the war Spain had the world's fourth largest reserve of gold, about US$750 million http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPrussia.htm, although some assets were frozen by the French government. While some have contended that the Soviet government was motivated by the desire to sell arms and that they charged extortionate prices http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/review_arms_gold.html, they also sent more than 2,000 personnel, mainly tank crews and pilots, who actively participated in the war, including in combat, on the Republican side http://www.oneparty.co.uk/compass/compass/com12301.html. Later, the "Moscow gold" was an issue during the Spanish transition to democracy. Mexico also aided the Republicans by providing rifles and food. Throughout the war, the efforts of the elected government of the Republic to resist the rebel army were hampered by Franco-British 'non-intervention', long supply lines and intermittent availability of weapons of widely variable quality.

Related Topics:
Soviet Union - US$ - Tank - Pilot - Moscow gold - Spanish transition to democracy - Mexico - Food

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Volunteers from many countries fought in Spain, most of them on the Republican side. 40,000 men and women fought in the International Brigades, organised in close conjunction with the Comintern to aid the Spanish Republicans.

Related Topics:
International Brigade - Comintern

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Others fought as members of the CNT and POUM militias.

Related Topics:
CNT - POUM

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'Spain' became the cause celebre for the left-leaning intelligentsia across the Western world, and many prominent artists and writers entered the Republic's service (as well a larger number of foreign left-wing working class men, for whom the war offered not only idealistic adventure but an escape from post-Depression unemployment). Among the more famous foreigners participating on the Republic's side were Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, who went on to write about his experiences in Homage to Catalonia. Orwell's novel Animal Farm was loosely inspired by his experiences, and those of other Trotskyists, at the hands of Stalinists when the Popular Front began to fight within itself, as were the torture scenes in 1984. Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was inspired by his experiences in Spain. The third part of Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy ('A Moment of War') is also based on his Civil War experiences, (though the accuracy of some of his recollections has been disputed). Norman Bethune used the opportunity to develop the special skills of battlefield medicine. As a casual visitor Errol Flynn used a fake report of his death at the battlefront to promote his movies.

Related Topics:
Cause celebre - Ernest Hemingway - George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia - Animal Farm - Trotskyist - Stalinist - 1984 - For Whom the Bell Tolls - Laurie Lee - Norman Bethune - Battlefield medicine - Errol Flynn

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However, while the Nationalists were receiving substantial overt aid in the form of arms and troops from Germany and Italy, the Republicans received no aid from any major world powers (e.g., Britain, France or the United States) besides the aforementioned Soviet contribution. Britain and France were deeply divided politically and had weak governments, while the United States was isolationist, neutralist, and unconcerned with what it saw as an internal matter in a European country. Many in these countries were also shocked by the violence practiced by anarchist and POUM militias - and reported by a relatively free press in the Republican zone - and feared Stalinist influence over the Republican government. Reprisals, assassinations and other atrocities in the rebel zone were, of course, not reported nearly as widely.

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Germany and the USSR used the war as a testing ground for faster tanks and aircraft that were just becoming available at the time. The Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter and Junkers Ju 52 transport/bomber were both used in the Spanish Civil War. The Soviets provided Polikarpov I-15 and Polikarpov I-16 fighters. The Spanish Civil War was also an example of total war, where the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by the Legión Cóndor, as depicted by Pablo Picasso in Guernica, foreshadowed episodes of World War II such as the bombing campaign on Britain by the Nazis and the bombing of Dresden by the Allies.

Related Topics:
Messerschmitt - Me-109 fighter - Junkers Ju 52 - Polikarpov I-15 - Polikarpov I-16 - Total war - Bombing of the Basque town of Guernica - Legión Cóndor - Pablo Picasso - Guernica - World War II - Bombing of Dresden

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