Spanish civil war

Spanish civil war 1936-39, conflict in which the conservative and traditionalist forces in Spain rose against and finally overthrew the second Spanish republic.

The Second Republic

The second republic, proclaimed after the fall of the monarchy in 1931, was at first dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists, among them Niceto Alcalá Zamora , Francisco Largo Caballero , and Manuel Azaña . They began a broad-ranging attack on the traditional, privileged structure of Spanish society: Some large estates were redistributed; church and state were separated; and an antiwar, antimilitarist policy was proclaimed. With their interests and their ideals threatened, the landed aristocracy, the church, and a large military clique, as well as monarchists and Carlists , rallied against the government, as did the new fascist party, the Falange .

The government's idealistic reforms failed to satisfy the left-wing radicals and did little to ameliorate the lot of the lower classes, who increasingly engaged in protest movements against it. The forces of the right gained a majority in the 1933 elections, and a series of weak coalition governments followed. Most of these were under the premiership of the moderate republican Alejandro Lerroux , but he was more or less dependent on the right wing and its leader José María Gil Robles . As a result many of the republican reforms were ignored or set aside. Left-wing strikes and risings buffeted the government, especially during the revolution of Oct., 1934, while the political right, equally dissatisfied, increasingly resorted to plots and violence.

Outbreak of War

When the electoral victory (1936) of the Popular Front (composed of liberals, Socialists, and Communists) augured a renewal of leftist reforms, revolutionary sentiment on the right consolidated. In July, 1936, Gen. Francisco Franco led an army revolt in Morocco. Rightist groups rebelled in Spain, and the army officers led most of their forces into the revolutionary (Nationalist or Insurgent) camp. In N Spain the revolutionists, under Gen. Emilio Mola , quickly overran most of Old Castile, Navarre, and W Aragon. They also captured some key cities in the south.

Catalonia —where socialism and anarchism were strong, and which had been granted autonomy—remained republican (Loyalist). The Basques too sided with the republicans to protect their local liberties. This traditional Spanish separatism asserted itself particularly in republican territory and hindered effective military organization. By Nov., 1936, the Nationalists had Madrid under siege, but while the new republican government of Francisco Largo Caballero (to which the anarchists had been admitted) struggled to organize an effective army, the first incoming International Brigade helped the Loyalists hold the city.

Foreign Participation

The International Brigades—multinational groups of volunteers (many of them Communists) that were organized mostly in France—represented only a small part of the foreign participation in the war. From the first and throughout the war, Italy and Germany aided Franco with an abundance of planes, tanks, and other materiel. Germany sent some 10,000 aviators and technicians; Italy sent large numbers of "volunteers," probably about 70,000. Great Britain and France, anxious to prevent a general European conflagration, proposed a nonintervention pact, which was signed in Aug., 1936, by 27 nations. The signatories included Italy, Germany, and the USSR, all of whom failed to keep their promises. The Spanish republic became dependent for supplies on the Soviet Union, which used its military aid to achieve its own political goals.

Nationalist Victory

As the war progressed the situation played into the hands of the Communists, who at the outset had been of negligible importance. The Loyalists ranks were riven by factional strife, which intensified as the Loyalist military position worsened; among its manifestations was the Communists' suppression of the anarchists and the Trotskyite Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista (POUM). On the Nationalist side internal conflict also existed, especially between the military and the fascists, but Franco was able to surmount it and consolidate his position. Gradually the Nationalists wore down Loyalist strength. Bilbao, the last republican center in the north, fell in June, 1937, and in a series of attacks from March to June, 1938, the Nationalists drove to the Mediterranean and cut the republican territory in two. Late in 1938, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia, and Barcelona was taken in Jan., 1939. With the loss of Catalonia the Loyalist cause became hopeless. Republican efforts for a negotiated peace failed, and on Apr. 1, 1939, the victorious Nationalists entered Madrid. Italy and Germany had recognized the Franco regime in 1936, Great Britain and France did so in Feb., 1939; international recognition of Franco's authoritarian government quickly followed.

Influence

For Germany and Italy the Spanish civil war served as a testing ground for the blitzkrieg and other techniques of warfare that would be used in World War II; for the European democracies it was another step down the road of appeasement; and for the politically conscious youth of the 1930s who joined the International Brigades, saving the Spanish republic was the idealistic cause of the era, a cause to which many gave their lives. For the Spanish people the civil war was an encounter whose huge toll of lives and material devastation were unparalleled in centuries of Spanish history.

Bibliography

See F. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit (1937); G. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938); G. Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth (1943); H. Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (1961); R. Rosenstone, Crusade of the Left (1969); R. Carr, ed., The Republic and the Civil War in Spain (1971); G. Jackson, The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (1965).

Spanish Civil War (1936–9), arising from a military revolt led by General Francisco Franco against the centre‐left Popular Front government of the Spanish republic. The struggle in Spain divided Irish political life, causing tensions between political parties and inducing Irishmen to fight on both sides. Perceived to be part of a worldwide struggle between communism and Catholicism, the nationalist side under Franco was supported by the Catholic bishops and by most of the Irish press and political parties. However, despite much public pressure to recognize Franco's government, Fianna Fáil took a neutral stance. Alleged republican attacks upon the Spanish church and clergy in particular aroused public opinion. Meetings organized by the Irish Christian Front, set up to aid Franco and fight against the ‘threat of communism’, were extremely well attended.

The hierarchy supported a national collection for Spain, and helped Eoin O'Duffy to visit Franco. He returned to Ireland and began to organize an Irish Brigade to fight on Franco's side. He eventually led a force of about 700 former Blueshirts to Spain, which did not see much action and soon returned home disillusioned. One of the few organizations to support the republican side in Spain was the dormant Republican Congress. Its leaders called upon Irishmen to help Spain in its fight against fascism. About 150–200 men, mainly former Republican Congress and some Irish Republican Army, formed the Connolly Column of the International Brigade under Frank Ryan. They were involved in serious fighting and casualties were high, including Ryan, who was eventually captured and ended up in Nazi Germany, where he died.

Joost Augusteijn

Spanish Civil War (1936–9) The first ‘modern’ civil war, an all-out confrontation involving the extensive use of an air force, naval power, and mechanized armed units. It began on 18 July 1936 as an attempted army coup led by Franco involving Spanish elite forces in Morocco, in order to topple the anticlerical, anti-landowning Popular Front government. By 21 July 1936, Franco was in control of Morocco, the Balearic Islands, the conservative and firmly Roman Catholic Navarre, Old Castile, Leon, and the cities of Seville and Saragossa. The Republicans had remained in control of most of the territory, and were helped by the loyalty of the air force and the navy. This advantage was lessened through the help of the German Luftwaffe (air force). Most importantly, the Republicans were riven by disunity and lack of organization and coordination within and between their forces, often culminating in anarchy. By contrast, the Nationalists under Franco were united around his command. From September 1936, the new Republican leader, Largo Caballero, improved the efficiency of the forces, and managed to halt Franco's advance on the outskirts of Madrid in November 1936.

The failure to take Madrid led Franco to prepare for a long battle. He consolidated his popular base through the use of the Falange, and began a series of military operations aimed at extending the territory under his control. By June 1937, the tide had shifted decisively in Franco's favour, as he had taken control of the Basque country and the prosperous industrial regions of northern Spain. Subsequently, he no longer had to fight on two fronts. Meanwhile, Largo Caballero had been replaced as Prime Minister by Negrín in May 1937. Negrín's immense efforts at restructuring the Republican forces, and at reconciling previously hostile sections of the population to the regime through abandoning its programme of social and economic revolution, came too late, however. Tired and exhausted, the Republic crumbled in early 1939, with Franco declaring victory on 1 April 1939. The war, which had cost the lives of over half a million people, furthered the polarization of Spanish society between urban workers, anticlerical socialists and Communists, and landless labourers on the one hand, and the army, landowning and propertied elites, and monarchist middle classes supported by the Roman Catholic Church on the other. These divisions were heightened by Franco's recriminations against his former enemies after the war, when tens of thousands of Republicans were executed.