source: The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction, Helen Graham

The civil war started with a coup on July 17-18th, 1936

1: Origins

Three crucial factors:

There were extremely uneven levels of development within Spain
the cultural influence of Catholicism
Spain’s army had an intolerant political culture in its officer corps

Traditional order was coming under strain

1923: soft military coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera (had backing of the king)

1930: army opposition brought Primo down

1931: republic was declared peacefully

Uneven Levels of Development

There was a debate over how Spain should modernize itself economically

The WWI caused social change - economic boom, severe inflation and dislocation

Political parties were illegal in the 1920s, so professional associations became more powerful

progressive industrial elites (based in Catalan textile sector)
large landowners in souther half of Spain

It was similar to the American deep south - landless peasants lived like slaves
urban professional sector & industrial workers - wanted political voice
CNT: anarcho-syndicalist trade union movement

Catholicism

embraced order and hierarchy

church’s monopoly on truth was challenged by political liberalism and cultural pluralism

local priests were allies of landowners and souther police - made rural poor anticlerical

Catholics didn’t like being constrained, but had no tolerance for non-catholics

Spain’s Army

Spain lost its empire in 1898 - deprived the over-large officer corps of any meaningful external role

powerful myth that civilian politicians had been responsible for the final loss of empire
disliked metropolitan Spanish society and politics
took charge of Spain’s main military academy at Zaragoza

Spain’s military class was becoming increasingly isolated

Junior officers stood to lose a lot of money from the Republican reforms

Large Southern Landowners

used religious issues to mobilize poor northern smallholders to act against their own interests

Franco

entered the military academy in 1907 (at the age of 15)

Made his career in the colonial Army of Africa

Progressive Republicans in Power

Coalition of socially progressive Republicans and Socialists

Republicans wanted social reform: land ownership, education, state-church relations, the army
Socialists wanted welfare
The coalition was less effective because of big ideological differences between republicans and socialists

Republican Reforms were designed to increase economic democracy, which is a prerequisite for political democracy

Agrarian reform intended to create smallholding peasantry in souther Spain. They’d be loyal to repluclicans
separation of church and state - no more subsidy to clergy (alienated many poor priests)
- unpopular interference with Catholic culture
- opposition to women’s suffrage. Thought women would be influenced by the church
- secularization was impolitic, ill thought-out and counterproductive
education - more money to non-religious primary education
army reform - to bring the army under civilian and constitutional control
- Tried to close down military academy at Zaragoza, enraging Africanistas

These reforms were extremely ambitious

too many at once
attempted during a depression
opposed by Spain’s traditional elites (landowners, church, millitary)

Their reforms made them enemies, but never actually went into affect

2: Rebellion

The coup began on July 17th, 1936

started in Spanish North Africa (Morocco)
spread to mainland Spain the next day (provincial garrison revolts)

one result was the government in Madrid didn’t have a functioning army

trade unions and political parties had to find an army
used a combination of the (loyal) police and the worker militia
quelled the urban garrison revolts

Republican/progressive areas tended to be areas where the rebellion didn’t take hold

Catalonia and Valencia stayed Republican throughout the war
Madrid was the capital of the Republic

No area of Spain was entirely conservative

people with Republican sympathies in conservative areas had to publicly embrace the rebellion
often led to betrayals

A week after the initial coup, the rebels got planes from Hitler and Mussolini

used to transport their troops to Spain

The government didn’t have power outside of Madrid

people used the chaos to settle personal vendettas (post-coup violence and pre-war conflicts)
lots of violence against the powerful. Priests and monks were killed
the violence damaged the Republic’s credibility abroad when it needed external support

Violence in rebel areas: goal was purification

local civilian elites declared this
fascists saw killings as cleansing the community of pollution
this applied to anyone who benefited from the Republic, whether they were political or not: teachers and intellectuals, “new” women, self-educated workers
at first, vigilantes killed people. However, these vigilantes usually either had close links to rightist organizations, or they were working with the authorities

This meant that there was killing on both sides, but there was an asymmetry to it: the republicans didn’t have the ability to stop the violence. The rebels did, but they chose not to

For rebels, liberal politics were the problem, and the solution was terror

it undid the Republic’s redistribution of social and economic power
it created a complicity between the rebel authorities and everyone who turned against their friends & family

Home was no longer safe

people migrated back home after the coup, but their former neighbors killed them

General Francisco Franco headed The Army of Africa

As the Army of Africa moved through the souther half of Spain, large landowners reclaimed their land. They killed Rural laborers

This warfare was similar to colonial campaigns agains insubordinate indigenous peoples
They faced a local civilian population with no real weapons, so they tore through the southern half of Spain
Spain had used poison gas against people in Morocco

Franco’s political belief was that alien political ideas had occupied Spain

“I will save Spain from Marxism whatever the cost” “And if that means shooting half of Spain” “As I said, whatever the cost”

The Catholic Church provided legitimacy to the rebels, so they got very little bad press abroad

The Spanish left cared more about workers’ rights than the wrongs of colonization

General Emilio Mola nominal leader of the rebellion

3: The Republic at War

Non-Intervention treaty (August 1936) that Britain and France signed with Germany and Italy

said they wouldn’t deliver war material to Spain
Britain and France honored it. Germany and Italy didn’t
This gave the rebels a huge advantage over the republic

Why did Britain & France allow this to happen?

Idea was to prevent Spanish war from escalating into a European conflict
Also, the British thought that a rebel victory would preserve more capital, which affected British investments
Also, Britain’s governing elite had political, personal and financial connections to conservative Spain

Britain and France were screwing the republic over

They knew Germany and Italy were not honoring the treaty, but they didn’t do anything about it
Britain refused the republic’s navy the right to review in Gibraltar or Tangier
France reneged on its initial promise to send war material

Hitler and Mussolini’s aid was strategically motivated, although ideology also played apart

The Soviet Union provisioned military aid in November 1936. This aid was just in time

At first, the Soviets backed Non-Intervention
They thought the Republic would win under these circumstances if the fascists honored the agreement
The soviets never acknowledged the military assistance

anti-fascists came to Spain to fight

International Brigrades (about 35,000)
most were already political exiles
a quarter of the volunteers were Jewish - were actively anti-fascist
Example: Canadian volunteers who had fled Finland’s nationalist leader around 1918
The brigades were diverse, which made them antithetical to the fascist ideals of purification
brigades were used as shock troops and sustained high casualties
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade included 90 black Americans
- Oliver Law - first military commander in US history to lead a nonsegregated unit of troops

Foreign medical volunteers joined too

developed new types of emergency treatment, like blood transfusion techniques

Women generally weren’t recruited to help fight

The European communist movement organized most of the international brigades and lobbied governments to lift non-intervention

Comintern (Communist International)
PCF (French Communist Party)

The Republican military command were hostile to the international brigades

because reasons

Volunteers weren’t prepared for the war

military discipline
harsh warfare
antiquated weaponry

Conditions in Madrid

the first air raids of their kind to happen anywhere in Europe

War Refugees first went to Madrid, then Barcelona and Valencia - severe culture shock

The rebel army besieged Madrid

Fascist Help

Hitler and Mussolini recognized rebel Spain in November 1936, provided weaponry and manpower (75,000 troops)

Internal fighting

The Republic distrusted their professional army officers, and the coup had shattered army unity

There were political tensions between the center and periphery

the central Republican government clashed with the Basque regional authority

PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) sought sovereign rights

Before the war, there had already been political rivalries between different groups

the war intensified them
clashes between socialists-led trade unions, communists and Catalan communists

Basque fell in the summer of 1937

this happened just as the republican military was beginning to cohere

also guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines

Republic’s Propaganda

used photomontage as a weapon

depicted their own soldiers as mechanized and modernist
the fascists didn’t do this because photomontage was modernist and cosmopolitan

Cultural Bolshevism

the Nazis coined this term to describe avant-garde cultural production

degenerate art - Nazi Germany’s term for modern art

idea that a culture can degenerate like a biological organism was widespread, especially among conservative sectors in Europe

Soviet fashion became popular

the styles were superficial and had little to do with Marxist-Leninism

Wartime Madrid

The government tried to centralize power

local governments and trade unions had gained more power since the war had started

The government re-introduced market forces to the food supply

this hit the urban poor the hardest. They couldn’t afford the black market and they had no contacts in the countryside

Housing shortage - 350,000 refugees by the end of 1936 meant a 10% population increase

extra pressure on housing and food in the poorest inner city areas

May Days - period of time where [radicalized workers and the urban poor] staged [social and political protests] in Barcelona

these caused sectarian political struggles
Soviet intelligence was involved somehow
Italian secret police assassinated an Italian anarchist in Barcelona during this time

Andrue Nin - leader of Catalan-based dissent party

Spanish/Catalan communists worked with the Comintern to assassinate hime

Checas - illegal prisons, appeared in Republican territory in the aftermath of the military uprising

political parties, unions and militia established their on detention agencies

It became more common to incorporate women and young people into the war effort

this was partly due the the increased popularity of the Soviet Union

4: Rebel Spain

Francoist Spain was much more ideologically homogeneous

Franco

People in power died by accident or got executed by the rebels. Also Franco had control of the Army of Africa at the beginning of the war

Franco’s mission was to “save Spain”

this shaped his military strategy
he probably thought he was justified in terrorizing civilians

Franco’s military strategy:

colonize the metropolis
destroy the “alien” republican culture in the cities
purify Spain from everything that didn’t align with his values

Franco thought that industrial cities caused moral pollution

The war was more about controlling people than about controlling territory
Franco was prepared to incur losses among his troops

Franco thought that the Army had an absolute right to impose its will on society

Thought that military organization was the best way to structure a society

Franco deported Spanish Republicans to Nazi concentration camps in 1940

Wartime stuff

Estado Campamental - “Battlefield state”

By mobilizing Spain’s armies, Franco was achieving the “ideal Spain”

The rebels used a lot of air raides

they backfired. Caused more hatred than fear

Falange - a group

leader got executed by Republicans

Blue Division fought with the German armies on the eastern front (1941)

old shirt Falangists joined this

Seccion Femenina (SF) - women’s section of the Falange. An “army” of unmarried, economically independent women

Urban and provincial middle class women joined this
Women were mobilized for health and welfare needs
not used for industrial war work
valued domesticity and subservience

Anti-Comintern pact - (February 1939) agreement between Germany, Japan and Italy

After the victory

Spaniards had to denounce their neighbors to military tribunals

this happened after Franco’s military victory in April 1936

The government took all the wealth and property by passing legislation

Captured Republican Soldiers

they were often recycled

especially the ones who had been conscripts in the first place
after the war, they faced political investigation

Political commissars were usually shot

international brigaders were usually shot

This meant that Franco was breaking the Geneva Conventions

Propoganda

Commercial cinema was becoming more popular

Francoist authorities censored them carefully
Hollywood productions were an important component of popular cinema

Help from Germany and Italy

Hitler and Mussolini wanted a fast victory

They increased their aid for this outcome
Franco advanced his army slowly and deliberately
This caused political tension

Franco depended heavily on Italian military hardware

Germany and Italy provided airpower, and Franco needed it

Why did this alliance happen? All three dictators wanted to expand their territories

they would turn a blind eye to each other’s imperial actions
Nazi Germany was disrupting the international status quo, which meant more opportunities to gain territory
Spain would disrupt French and English imperial interests, since it was in an important strategic position

There was an ideological divide between Francoists and Nazis over the Catholic church

Nazis were trying to take society beyond sectarian allegiances

Passive France and Britain

British government didn’t think that a Francoist victory would pose a threat to their interests. They didn’t help much

The Church

the Vatican didn’t like the radical aspects of fascism, or its exaltation of the state

opposed Nazism for its atheistic dimension
this is why the Vatican publicly condemned Hitler’s racism
This was very bad for Franco

The Vatican attempted to broker peace settlements with Franco

The Vatican established full diplomatic relations in 1938, when a rebel victory seemed imminent

Spain’s Catholic hierarchy aligned itself with Franco

shared hostility with rationalism, liberalism, socialism and communism

Franco’s government would mix in fascist symbols during ceremonial occasions

5: The Republic besieged

The rebels were way better equipped than the Republic

Portuguese authorities unloaded German and Italian supplies at their ports
most of the middle-ranking officers were on Franco’s side

Stalin sent materiel to the republic (including planes and tanks)

This was crucial for their survival

Non-Intervention prevented the Republic from buying war material on its own behalf

this is a big reason why it needed Soviet help

The Republic also didn’t have access to its money

the outgoing cabinet transferred Spain’s gold reserves out of the country right before the war (two weeks after the coup)

Mexico was the only country that helped the Republic as a broker

Eastern European countries (mainly Poland) sold armaments to the Republic

The Republic had to overpay for everything because of Non-Intervention

Had to pay cash up front (unlike the rebels, which bought everything on credit)

Delivery was a nightmare

The Soviets made the Republic transport everything they bought

Germans and Italians illegally attacked all ships bound for Republic ports

They allowed Franco to set up a blockade

French help

The blockade meant that all military aid had to go over land, through France

The French were afraid of being surrounded by fascists, so they practiced “relaxed Non-Intervention”

goods could go over the French border to Spain, but this route was unpredictable

A Fractured Republic

There were “five armies, not one”, mainly due to regional groupings

During 1938, the Republican camp had many political divisions

the more defeats it suffered, the more divisions there were

central Republican versus the regional government of Catalonia

Catalonia had one of the deepest independent political and cultural traditions in Spain. When Negrin assumed control of the Catalan war industry, he caused another fracture

The Fall of Asturias

October 1937 - made it clear that the Republic wouldn’t win

no more coal industry
no more northern army (200k soldiers)

Battle of Teruel

winter 1937-8 - made it even more clear that the Republic wouldn’t win

was a diversionary campaign
that was an especially cold winter
Republicans captured the city in January, but Franco got it back in a counter offensive
clear turning point of the war
Franco captured the city, 15k prisoners and lots of military equipment

The rebels took Vinaros

The rebels separated Catalonia from the central-south Republican zone

this was very bad for the Republic, but Franco diverted troops south to Valencia because he thought that France would have to intervene if he sent troops to Catalonia

The point was to attack the Republic’s human resources as much as possible

Anglo-Italian agreement

April 1938 Britain signed this right after the rebels took a significant victory

Britain pressured France to close its frontier to Spain

Italy was still sinking Britain’s merchant ships, so this didn’t make much sense

Soviet help

Soviet technical advisors (about 700 of them) helped Spanish commanders and officers

military engineers, technicians, strategists and experts in irregular warfare

By 1938, Stalin thought that the Republic couldn’t win, so he stopped helping in any significant way

there were foreign volunteers, but they were basically symbolic

The longer the Republic resisted, the longer it distracted Germany, so Stalin did continue to help

Internal Fracturing

When Negrin did the following, he damaged morale in Catalonia:

move the Republican government to Barcelona
assumed direct control of Catalan war industry

Catalonia had the deepest independent political and cultural traditions in Spain

socialists vs communists

these were the two mass movements sustaining the war effort
had rivalies before the war that grew more intense during the war

Juan Negrin

Republican prime minister, took office in May 1937

tried to get Non-Intervention lifted
good at international diplomacy
Non-Intervention basically ended when Hitler occupied Austria in March 1938, but it was too late by then

Values

Negrin prioritized Republican morale, tried to strengthen Spain’s constitutional order

Designed his wartime measures to reinforce liberal market-based values, instead of collectivist or anti-capitalist values

Wanted to normalize the Catholic Church, even though he was a secular rationalist

wanted to reintroduce public worship

The communist ideology did not appeal to him

Actions Aborad

Britain and France were afraid of the conflict extending to the rest of Europe, so they opposed Negrin’s bid to have Non-Intervention lifted at the league of Nations

Negrin made a number of trips abroad in 1938 to meet with fascists

he wanted to prevent reprisals and guarantee the integrity of Spain

Politics at home

Negrin was starting to rely on the communists more than on his own party, which caused problems

He needed the communists because of their commitment to a policy of resistance

Downfall

By spring 1938, the Republic couldn’t serve its civilian population effectively

Catalonia Isolated

Communication between Catalonia and the central zone was hazardous

It was difficult to travel there, since the rebels controlled sea and air between the two zones

rebels torpedoed sea traffic

Food had to come from France, but there wasn’t enough food coming across the border. Also, whether it came at all depended on politics

Militarization

The Republican zone was militarizing under the pressure of war, which backfired

conscription was becoming more aggressive, which made communities resentful
soldiers were living off the land, which increased social tension

The fifth column

All major Republican cities had organized networks of spies and saboteurs

it was difficult for the Republic to deal with these spies without resorting to fascistic surveillance and interrogation techniques
this contrasted with how the Francoists dealth with spies, which gave the fascists an advantage

Played a major role in the eventual hand over to Franco

Battle at Ebro

July - November 1938. The last big battle during the war

Republic’s last gamble
three objectives:
- protect Valencia from Franco
- restore contact with Catalonia
- demonstrate to the world that the Republican army was resilient (success - the Brits noticed the victory, and noticed how reliant Franco was on Italy and Germany)

Franco paid the Nazi’s in mining rights. In exchange, they guaranteed his air superiority during the battle at Ebro

This was a testing ground for Blitzkrieg tactics
also for Soviet armored vehicles

the republicans retreated in November because of the Munich agreement

The agreement

Britain and France signed a deal with Germany and Italy

It said that Hitler could invade Czechoslovakia, which was the last functioning democracy in central eastern Europe
this undermined Negrin’s credibility and his resistance strategy

POUM Trial

October 1938 (so duing the battle of Ebro) - POUM leaders publicly supported a rebellion

the trial observed the constitutional process

The downfall

Negrin knew that if he surrendured, Franco would not negotiate

he planned on resisting

Las of Political Responsibilities law pushed by Franco in February 1939

blanket repression, meant that there would be reprisals against Republican population
retroactively punished people

Other republican and socialist leaders thought that they could negotiate pease with Franco, even though it was clear they couldn’t

Armies surrendured to Franco in March 1939

Negrin had continued resisting because he believed that Britain and France would help Republican Spain

Refugees

There were about 600k refugees trying to escape from Republican Spain at the end of the war