I've done some articles on some really obscure periods. However, the Spanish Civil War (or SCW) happens to be one of the least discussed 20th century conflicts among military history buffs. I thought that I would shed some light on this subject by talking about two books that I've read in the past year: The Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas and The Legion Condor by Hans Ries and Hans Ring.
The Spanish Civil War is a 1000 page reissue of Thomas's classic work on the conflict. The book goes into a detailed account of the conflict's genesis, different political factions, initial battles, and subsequent foreign intervention by fascist and communist governments. Thomas looks at the Republican and Nationalist forces, their armies, and fortunes as the war progressed. I almost lost track of the different Republican factions, which ranged from liberals, labor, and social democrats to anarchists, Troskyites and communists. You could see the nationalists slowly gaining the upper hand over their disunited enemy, which was often busy fighting themselves!
Descriptions of battles ranged from WWI trench warfare to early blitzkrieg as the two sides fought each other from 1936-39. There is also quite a bit of reading tided up with Spanish politics (or its failures) that some people might find boring. I found The Spanish Civil War excellent (though heavy) reading and highly recommend it.
The other book, The Legion Condor, is a semi-autobiographical account of the Luftwaffe's participation in the Spanish Civil War by Ries & Ring. It looks at the air battles with particular focus on the Legion Condor's fighting record. The authors do an effective job in this regard with first hand accounts of dog fights, bombing raids, and the daily grind of air combat. They also try to cover the Italian and Russian participation in the conflict to a lesser degree. The Legion Condor also went into excellent detail covering some of the technical aspects of the aircraft involved and logistical support that covered their maintenance. Overall, it gave some ideas for scenarios and an air war campaign if I ever got involved in a SCW campaign. I hope it has aroused your interest in this precursor to WWII. My next article will be a review of a rule set and figure lines for wargaming the conflict.
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