The Spanish Civil War in perspective 1
In retrospect, it sometimes became difficult to remember why the Spanish Civil War had been fought at all. Francoists had assumed for decades after the war that Spain would remain what they had made it - Catholic, authoritarian, nationalist and centralist. They suddenly found themselves living in a society full of the features they had sought to eradicate. It was now pluralist, tolerant, federal and multilingual. Militarism disappeared. Instead of the Second Republic being an anomalous period...
The first defence of Madrid July 1936
of aircraft to be dispatched. At the end of July, about 70 aircraft were sent across the border to Barcelona, including Potez 54 bombers and Dewoitine 371 fighters. The Popular Front government in France was divided, and subjected to two quite different pressures. One was the desire to bolster another government that had come into office as the result of a Popular Front electoral victory, against a right-wing coup that would create a pro-fascist Spain. But the other was a fear of alienating...
The growth of unrest
Labour radicalisation was evident in strikes and unrest in both industry and agriculture. Indeed, the Republican-Socialist coalition repressed strikes and imposed law and order by the same rough methods as previous governments. An Anarchist general strike in the summer of 1931 was crushed by the army, leaving 30 people dead. In the village of Castilblanco, in Badajoz province, in Extremadura, a demonstration by rural workers who were members of the Socialist agricultural union the FNTT National...
in ESPAA
and Fascist regimes supporting Franco, and the Soviet Union supporting the Republic -with momentous consequences for the war in Spain. So too did volunteers from dozens of countries who joined the International Brigades and defended the Republic, and a small number, mainly from Ireland, who briefly fought on the other side. Britain and France adopted the second option and pursued a policy of non-intervention aimed at limiting the conflict by making arms sales to Spain illegal. Foreign...
Teruel
The Republicans were first to launch a new offensive, at Teruel, in southern Arag n, on 15 December. Arag n had already seen action in late August, when the Republicans took the small but heavily defended town of Belchite, south and a little east of Saragossa, at enormous cost. They failed to get much further, and failed too in their aim of diverting Nationalist forces away from the northern campaign. Earlier in August the Republican government had decided to dismantle the Council of Arag n as...
Nationalist advances
By the end of June 1937 it was evident that the Nationalists were steadily conquering Republican territory, in a bitter war of attrition. It was also ever clearer that Nationalist Spain was Franco Spain. In April 1937 Franco quelled the claims of Falangists and Carlists to separate political identities by decreeing the unification of all political forces, under his leadership. Monarchist traditionalists and revolutionary fascists suddenly found themselves unwillingly incorporated, with everyone...
Battles round Madrid November 1936 March 1937
a small scale. Otherwise, the Republic had no choice but to pay inflated prices for often sub-standard guns, ammunition and aeroplanes purchased on the black market in Paris, or Prague, or in the United States, in addition to paying over the odds for Soviet supplies. On 25 October Finance Minister Negrin shipped the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain to Moscow, as downpayment. The first consignments of Soviet tanks, aircraft, armoured lorries, anti-aircraft guns and artillery were already in...
Culture
Both the strength of ideological commitment and the problems it created were apparent in one of the most notable artistic features of the war - Republican poster art. The Nationalists produced some posters too, but not on a comparable scale, nor of such variety and power. They did not need to. Military victory was their greatest propaganda tool. Moreover, the swift concentration of military and governmental powers in Franco's hands at the end of September 1936 enabled them to set up a central...
The battle for Madrid November 1936
General Francisco Franco, in 1936. Franco's military strategy was one of territorial reconquest. He was determined that bit by bit the whole of Spain would be under his control, even if this meant a long war of attrition. His terms for the end of the conflict were always unconditional surrender by the Republicans. Topham Picturepoint General Francisco Franco, in 1936. Franco's military strategy was one of territorial reconquest. He was determined that bit by bit the whole of Spain would be...
Women and war two
For some women, the Spanish Civil War was genuinely emancipatory. Young women on the Republican side joined trade unions, engaged in politics, took up all sorts of war work, and even briefly served as soldiers in the militias. The necessities of war and the outbreak of social revolution combined to open up these new roles. Even in the traditional culture of Nationalist Spain, young, middle-class, Catholic women found they could go out without chaperones, and many of them worked outside the home...
The fall of Malaga to the Nationalists 78 February 1937
Republicans were seized and executed on a scale not experienced since Badajoz. The violence of the repression alarmed Italian leaders, just as the plight of those fleeing along the road to Almer a appalled many observers. This was a civil war in which cruelty as well as heroism was commonplace, because each side loathed and feared everything that the other stood for. A bizarre symbol of one of the different cultural worlds that the two sides broadly represented made an unexpected appearance in...
Saturnino Carod
Saturnino Carod, also interviewed by Ronald Fraser, began the war as convinced of the importance of defending the Republic as Antonio Izu was about destroying it. He was the son of a poor agricultural labourer in Arag n, and had begun working at the age of six. As an adult, he joined the CNT and learned to read. Before the war Saturnino had become CNT regional propaganda secretary in Saragossa, preaching anarchism in the local villages. He escaped from Saragossa during the rising, and joined an...