Introduction

The Spanish Civil War, fought between July 17, 1936 and April 1, 1939, cost Spain over one-half million people, and the Insurgent victory placed the nation in a state of suspended animation for thirty years. As the war progressed, it drew the participation of thousands of non-Spaniards.

The supine and hypocritical attitude of the western democracies towards the intervention by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on the side of the Insurgents encouraged the dictators in the belief that they could do anything they pleased.

Background

The direct cause of the Spanish Civil War was an attempted coup detat by a portion of the army against a newly elected government. The Spanish Republic was only five years old in 1936; the venal monarchy of Alphonso XIII had been overthrown in a bloodless revolution in April 1931. But this revolution represented little more than a change of administrations, for Spain's social problems went mostly unaddressed.

Spanish elections in February 1936 then gave victory to the Popular Front, a coalition of socialist, regionalist, and progressive parties, and though the new administration's program was hardly revolutionary, it advocated a number of ideas hateful to Spanish conservatives: universal suffrage including women, free education for all citizens, Basque and Catalan autonomy, reduced military spending, and other such subversive concepts.

One problem area the Republic had addressed was reform of the army. In 1931, Spain's army numbered around 260,000, with one officer for every eleven men and one general for every 1,266. Grossly overstaffed, many of the army's units were mere phantoms, existing only to provide employment for officers.

The army reform of 1931 reduced the army from twenty-four divisions to eleven, but these were real units of more or less proper strength and composition. The number of officers fell by around 12,000, but enlisted strength stayed the same.

As a result, Spain had 12,000 bored, unemployed military men, many of whom occupied themselves with conspiracies against their former employer.

The main plotters of the 1936 coup were two senior generals: Sanjuro, a portly caricature of a Latin general (then exiled in Portugal for another less well-prepared revolt in 1932), and the ascetic and studious Mola, widely considered one of the army's intellectuals. Most of the other plotters were junior officers, many of them attracted to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and to fascism's Spanish manifestation, the Falange. Dislike of the new government was especially strong among the officers of Spain's colonial troops. Belatedly joining the plotters a month before the coup was Spain's youngest general officer, a cautious, apolitical man named Franco.

Franco had an excellent reputation which he had earned during the difficult wars in Morocco in the 1920s as commander of the Spanish Foreign Legion, an organization similar to its French model in its ferocity and disdain of death. He joined the conspiracy on the condition that he be given command of the Army of Africa, as the troops in Spanish Morocco were called. The Army of Africa was certain to rebel when the time came, and it was the only part of the Spanish armed forces ready for combat.

The rebellion started in Morocco on July 17, 1936, and the garrisons on the peninsula rose the following day. However, much to the distress of the conservatives, the rebellion failed or didn't happen at all in much of the country. After the first week, forces loyal to the Republic still held about two thirds of the country, including all the large cities except Sevilla and Zaragoza.

On the other hand, the Army's revolt touched off a social revolution. The trade unions and leftist political parties largely seized control of the nation from the indecisive government of the Second Republic. A fearsome reign of terror then swept all of Spain.

In rebel territory, it was a sentence of death to hold a trade union card or to have voted for a liberal or left political party. In the area theoretically under control of the government, thousands of army officers, political conservatives, and Catholic clergy were murdered, while many thousands more were imprisoned as the Spanish poor took vengeance on their class enemies.

A unique aspect of Spanish political life was the large and dedicated anarchist movement. Basically, these people opposed all government, and in Republican Spain in late 1936, their ideal was almost attained. Many cities and towns declared themselves independent Republics, such as the "Independent Republic of Malaga," and refused to acknowledge any authority other than the local council. They often seized all privately held property for the free use of the public, declared money illegal, and closed all churches. The social disorder in the Loyalist zone almost unraveled that part of the Army which remained with the government. All discipline and cohesion was lost.

Spanish Civil War

Introduction and Background
The First Six Months
Foreign Involvement
War in the Summer of 1937
Politics and The Aragon Front
The Czech Crisis and End of War
Bibliographical Note
Who Was Who in the SCW?