The war began after the partial failure of thecoup d'état of July 1936 against the Popular Front government by a group of generals of theSpanish Republican Armed Forces, with GeneralEmilio Mola as the primary planner and leader and GeneralJosé Sanjurjo as a figurehead.[12][13] The Nationalist faction was supported by several conservative groups, includingCEDA, monarchists, including both the opposingAlfonsists and the religious conservativeCarlists, and theFalange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party.[14] The uprising was supported by military units inMorocco,Pamplona,Burgos,Zaragoza,Valladolid,Cádiz,Córdoba,Málaga, andSeville. However, rebelling units in almost all important cities did not gain control. Those cities remained in the hands of the government, leaving Spain militarily and politically divided. The Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support fromFascist Italy andNazi Germany while the Republican side received support from theSoviet Union and Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom,France, and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government but followed an official policy ofnon-intervention. Despite this policy, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict, mostly in the pro-RepublicanInternational Brigades.
Franco gradually emerged as the primary leader of the Nationalist side. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937. They besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west. After much ofCatalonia was captured in 1938 and 1939, and Madrid cut off from Barcelona, the Republican military position became hopeless. On 5 March 1939, in response to an alleged increasing communist dominance of the Republican government and the deteriorating military situation, ColonelSegismundo Casado led amilitary coup against the Republican government, intending to seek peace with the Nationalists. These peace overtures, however, were rejected by Franco. Following internal conflict between Republican factions in Madrid in the same month, Franco entered the capital and declared victory on 1 April 1939. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fled to refugee camps insouthern France.[15] Those associated with the losing Republicans who stayed were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. Franco established a dictatorship.[14]
The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired worldwide and for the many atrocities that occurred.Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces so they could consolidate their future regime.[16]Mass executions also took place in areas controlled by the Republicans,[17] with the participation of local authorities varying from location to location.[18][19]
On 12 April 1931, the Republicans won the elections and theSecond Spanish Republic was proclaimed two days later. KingAlfonso XIII went into exile.
Spain was neutral in World War I. Following the war, wide swathes of Spanish society, including the armed forces, united in hopes of removing thecorrupt central government of the country inMadrid, but these circles were ultimately unsuccessful.[27] Popular perception ofcommunism as a major threat significantly increased during this period.[28]
There was little support for the monarchy in the major cities. Consequently,King Alfonso XIII of Spain relented to popular pressure and called municipal elections for 12 April 1931.Left-wing entities such as theSocialist and Liberal Republicans won almost all the provincial capitals and, following the resignation of Aznar's government, Alfonso XIII fled the country.[30] At this time, theSecond Spanish Republic was formed. This republic remained in power until the beginning of the civil war five years later.[31]
The revolutionary committee headed byNiceto Alcalá-Zamora became the provisional government, with Alcalá-Zamora himself aspresident andhead of state.[32] The republic had broad support from all segments of society.[33]
In May 1931, an incident in which a taxi driver was attacked outside a monarchist club sparked anti-clerical violence throughoutMadrid and south-west portion of the country. The slow response on the part of the government disillusioned the right and reinforced their view that theRepublic was determined to persecute the church. In June and July, theConfederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) called severalstrikes, which led to a violent incident between CNT members and theCivil Guard and a brutal crackdown by the Civil Guard and thearmy against the CNT inSeville. This led many workers to believe the Second Spanish Republic was just as oppressive as the monarchy, and the CNT announced its intention of overthrowing it viarevolution.[34]
Constituent Cortes and left-wing government (1931–1933)
Elections in June 1931 returned a large majority of Republicans and Socialists.[22] With the onset of theGreat Depression, the government tried to assist rural Spain by instituting aneight-hour day and redistributingland tenure to farm workers.[35][36] The rural workers lived in some of the worst poverty in Europe at the time and the government tried to increase their wages and improve working conditions. This estranged small and medium landholders who used hired labour. The Law of Municipal Boundaries forbade owners from hiring workers outside their locality. When some localities had labour shortages, the law shut out workers seeking extra income as pickers.
Newly established labour arbitration boards regulated salaries, contracts, and working hours, but were more favourable to workers than employers. Class struggle intensified as landowners turned to counterrevolutionary organisations and local oligarchs. Strikes, workplace theft, arson, robbery and assaults on shops, strikebreakers, employers and machines became increasingly common.[37]
The Church was a frequent target of the revolutionary left in the republic and in the war. During the Civil War, revolutionariesdestroyed or burned some 20,000 churches, along with church artwork and tombs, books, archives, and palaces.[38][39] A vast number of affected buildings are today defunct. The church in the picture, inElche was burned during the initial stages of the war
RepublicanManuel Azaña became prime minister of a minority government in October 1931.[40][41]Fascism remained a reactive threat and it was facilitated by controversial reforms to the military.[42] In December, a new reformist, liberal and democraticconstitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broadsecularisation of the Catholic country, which included the abolition of Catholic schools and charities, a move which was met with opposition.[43]
In November 1933, the right-wing parties won thegeneral election.[44] The causal factors were increased resentment of the incumbent government caused by a controversial decree implementing land reform,[45] by theCasas Viejas incident,[46] and the formation of a right-wing alliance,Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups (CEDA). Another factor was the recent enfranchisement of women, most of whom voted for centre-right parties.[47] According toStanley G. Payne andJesús Palacios Tapias, left Republicans attempted to haveNiceto Alcalá Zamora cancel the electoral results but did not succeed. Despite CEDA's electoral victory, PresidentAlcalá-Zamora declined to invite its leader, Gil Robles, to form a government, fearing CEDA's monarchist sympathies and proposed changes to the constitution. Instead, he invited theRadical Republican Party'sAlejandro Lerroux to do so.[48]
Events in the period after November 1933, called the "black biennium", seemed to make a civil war more likely.[49] Alejandro Lerroux of the Radical Republican Party (RRP) formed a government, reversing changes made by the previous administration[50] and granting amnesty to the collaborators of the unsuccessful uprising by GeneralJosé Sanjurjo in August 1932.[51][52] Some monarchists joined with the then fascist-nationalistFalange Española y de las JONS ("Falange") to help achieve their aims.[53] Open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities, and militancy continued to increase,[54] reflecting a movement towards radical upheaval, rather than peaceful democratic means as solutions.[55] A small insurrection by anarchists occurred in December 1933 in response to CEDA's victory, in which around 100 people died.[56] After a year of intense pressure, CEDA, the party with the most seats in parliament, finally succeeded in forcing the acceptance of three ministries. The Socialists (PSOE) and Communists reacted with an insurrection for which they had been preparing for nine months.[57]
The rebellion developed into a bloody uprising known as theRevolution of 1934. Fairly well armed revolutionaries managed to take the whole province of Asturias, murdering numerous policemen, clergymen and civilians, destroying religious buildings including churches, convents and part of the university at Oviedo.[58] Rebels in the occupied areas proclaimed revolution for the workers and abolished the existing currency.[59] The rebellion was crushed in two weeks by theSpanish Navy and theSpanish Republican Army, the latter using mainlyMoorishcolonial troops fromSpanish Morocco.[60] Azaña was in Barcelona that day, and the Lerroux-CEDA government tried to implicate him. He was arrested and charged with complicity. In fact, Azaña had no connection with the rebellion and was released from prison in January 1935.[61]
In sparking an uprising, the non-anarchist socialists, like the anarchists, manifested their conviction that the existing political order was illegitimate.[62] The Spanish historianSalvador de Madariaga, an Azaña supporter and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco, wrote a sharp criticism of the left's participation in the revolt: "The uprising of 1934 is unforgivable. The argument that Mr Gil Robles tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false. With the rebellion of 1934, the Spanish left lost even the shadow of moral authority to condemn the rebellion of 1936."[63]
Reversals of land reform resulted in expulsions, firings and arbitrary changes to working conditions in the central and southern countryside in 1935, with landowners' behaviour at times reaching "genuine cruelty", which included violence against farmworkers and socialists, causing several deaths. One historian argued that the behaviour of the right in the southern countryside was one of the main causes of hatred during the Civil War and possibly even the Civil War itself.[64] Landowners taunted workers by saying that if they went hungry, they should "Go eat the Republic!"[65][66] Bosses fired leftist workers and imprisoned trade union and socialist militants; wages were reduced to "salaries of hunger".[67]
In 1935, the government, led by theRadical Republican Party, had now endured a series of crises. After a number of corruption scandals, PresidentNiceto Alcalá-Zamora, who was hostile to this government, called another election.
ThePopular Front narrowly won the1936 general election. The revolutionary left-wing masses took to the streets and freed prisoners. In the thirty-six hours following the election, sixteen people were killed (mostly by police officers attempting to maintain order or to intervene in violent clashes) and thirty-nine were seriously injured. Additionally, fifty churches and seventy conservative political centres were attacked or set ablaze.[68]Manuel Azaña was called to form a government before the electoral process had ended. He shortly replaced Zamora as president, taking advantage of a constitutional loophole. Convinced that the left was no longer willing to follow the rule of law and that its vision of Spain was under threat, the right abandoned the parliamentary option and began planning to overthrow the republic, rather than to control it.[69] Disenchantment with Azaña's rule was also voiced byMiguel de Unamuno, a republican and one of Spain's most respected intellectuals who, in June 1936, told a reporter who published his statement inEl Adelanto that PresidentManuel Azaña should commit suicide "as a patriotic act".[70]
Laia Balcells observes that polarisation in Spain just before the coup was so intense that physical confrontations between leftists and rightists were a routine occurrence in most localities; six days before the coup occurred, there was a riot between the two in the province of Teruel. Balcells notes that Spanish society was so divided along Left-Right lines that the monk Hilari Raguer stated that in his parish, instead of playing "cops and robbers", children would sometimes play "leftists and rightists".[71] Within the first month of the Popular Front's government, nearly a quarter of the provincial governors had been removed due to their failure to prevent or control strikes, illegal land occupation, political violence and arson. The Popular Front government was more likely to prosecute rightists for violence than leftists who committed similar acts.[72] Between February and July, approximately 300 to 400 deaths occurred from political violence, while hundreds of churches, religious buildings and monuments were destroyed, damaged, or vandalised.[73][74]
Azaña was hesitant to use the army to shoot or stop rioters or protestors as many of them supported his coalition. On the other hand, he was reluctant to disarm the military as he believed he needed them to stop insurrections from the extreme left. Illegal land occupation became widespread—poor tenant farmers knew the government was disinclined to stop them. By April 1936, nearly 100,000 peasants had appropriated 400,000 hectares of land and perhaps as many as 1 million hectares by the start of the civil war; for comparison, the 1931–33 land reform had granted only 6,000 peasants 45,000 hectares.[75] As many strikes occurred between April and July as had occurred in the entirety of 1931. Workers increasingly demanded less work and more pay. "Social crimes"—refusing to pay for goods and rent—became increasingly common. In some cases, this was done in the company of armed militants. Conservatives, the middle classes, businessmen and landowners became convinced that revolution had already begun.[76]
Prime MinisterSantiago Casares Quiroga ignored warnings of a military conspiracy involving several generals, who decided that the government had to be replaced to prevent the dissolution of Spain.[77] Both sides had become convinced that, if the other side gained power, it would discriminate against their members and attempt to suppress their political organisations.[78]
GeneralEmilio Mola was the chief planner of the coup.
Shortly after the Popular Front's victory in the 1936 election, groups of officers, both active and retired,got together to discuss a coup. By the end of April GeneralEmilio Mola emerged as the leader of a national conspiracy network.[79] The Republican government reacted by reshuffling suspect generals from influential posts, Azana however acutely aware that as he did so, the Army still served as a possible buffer to leftist power brokers threatening his government.[80] Franco was sacked as chief of staff and transferred to command of theCanary Islands.[81]Manuel Goded Llopis was removed asinspector general and made general of theBalearic Islands. Mola was moved from head of theArmy of Africa to commander ofPamplona.[82] This latter reassignment, however, allowed Mola to direct the mainland uprising; GeneralJosé Sanjurjo became the figurehead of the operation and helped reach an agreement with the Carlists,[82] Mola was chief planner and second in command.[69]José Antonio Primo de Rivera was put in prison in mid-March to restrict the Falange.[82] However, government actions were not as thorough as they might have been, and warnings by the Director of Security and other figures were not acted upon.[81]
Mola's plan for the new regime was a "republican dictatorship", modelled afterSalazar's Portugal and along the lines of being semi-pluralist authoritarian, rather than fascist totalitarian. The initial government would be an all-military "Directory", which would create a "strong and disciplined state". Sanjurjo would be the head of this new regime, due to being liked and respected within the military, though his position would be symbolic due to his lack of political talent. The 1931 Constitution would be suspended, replaced by a new "constituent parliament" which would be chosen by a new politically purged electorate, who would vote on the issue of republic versus monarchy. Liberal elements would remain, such as separation of church and state as well as freedom of religion. Agrarian issues would be solved by regional commissioners on the basis of smallholdings, but collective cultivation would be permitted in some circumstances. Legislation prior to February 1936 would be respected. Violence would be required to destroy opposition to the coup, though it seems Mola did not envision the mass atrocities and repression that would manifest during the civil war.[83][84] Of particular importance to Mola was ensuring the revolt was an Army affair, not subject to special interests, ensuring the position of the armed forces as the basis for the new state.[85] However, the separation of church and state was forgotten once the conflict assumed the dimension of a war of religion, and military authorities increasingly deferred to the Church and to the expression of Catholic sentiment.[86] Mola's program was vague and only a rough sketch, and there were disagreements among coupists about their vision.[87][88]
Casares Quiroga was the prime minister in the two months leading up to the coup.
On 12 June,Prime Minister Casares Quiroga met GeneralJuan Yagüe, who falsely convinced Casares of his loyalty to the republic.[89] Mola began planning in the spring. Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and as the man who suppressed theAsturian miners' strike of 1934.[69] He was respected in the Army of Africa, the Army's toughest troops.[90] He wrote a cryptic letter to Casares on 23 June, suggesting the military was disloyal, but could be restrained if he were put in charge. Casares did nothing, failing to arrest or buy off Franco.[90] With the help ofBritish intelligence agents, the rebels chartered aDragon Rapide aircraft[91] to transport Franco from the Canary Islands toSpanish Morocco.[92] Franco arrived in Morocco on 19 July.[93] Franco was offered this position as Mola's planning for the coup had become increasingly complex and it did not look like it would be as swift as he hoped, instead likely turning into a miniature civil war that would last weeks. Mola had concluded troops in Spain were insufficient and it would be necessary to use elite units from North Africa, something Franco had always believed would be necessary.[94]
On 12 July 1936, Falangists in Madrid killed police officerLieutenant José Castillo of theGuardia de Asalto (Assault Guard). Castillo was a Socialist party member who was giving military training to the UGT youth. Castillo had led the Assault Guards that violently suppressed the riots after the funeral ofGuardia Civil lieutenant Anastasio de los Reyes.[93] Assault Guard Captain Fernando Condés was a friend of Castillo. The next day, after getting the approval of the minister of interior to illegally arrest members of parliament, he led his squad to arrestJosé María Gil-Robles y Quiñones, founder of CEDA, as a reprisal for Castillo's murder, but he was not at home, so they went to the house ofJosé Calvo Sotelo, a Spanishmonarchist and prominent parliamentary conservative.[95] Luis Cuenca, a member of the arresting group and a Socialist who was known as the bodyguard ofPSOE leaderIndalecio Prieto,summarily executed Sotelo.[95][96]
Reprisals followed.[95] Thekilling of Calvo Sotelo with police involvement aroused suspicions and reactions among the government's opponents on the right.[96] Although the nationalist generals were planning an uprising, the event was a catalyst and a public justification for a coup.[95]Stanley Payne claims that before these events, the idea of rebellion by army officers against the government had weakened; Mola had estimated only 12% of officers reliably supported the coup and he considered fleeing for fear he was compromised. He had to be convinced to remain by his co-conspirators.[97] However, the kidnapping and murder of Sotelo transformed the "limping conspiracy" into a revolt that could trigger a civil war.[98][99]
The arbitrary use of lethal force by the state and lack of action against the attackers led to public disapproval of the government. No effective punitive, judicial or even investigative action was taken; Payne points to a possible veto by socialists within the government who shielded the killers drawn from their ranks.[100] The murder of a parliamentary leader by state police was unprecedented, and the belief the state had ceased to be neutral and effective encouraged important sectors of the right to join the rebellion.[101]Franco changed his mind on rebellion and dispatched a message toMola to display his firm commitment.[102]
The Socialists and Communists, led byIndalecio Prieto, demanded that arms be distributed to the people before the military took over. The prime minister was hesitant.[95]
The uprising's timing was fixed at 17 July, at 17:01, agreed to by the leader of the Carlists,Manuel Fal Conde.[103] However, the timing was changed—the men in theMorocco protectorate were to rise up at 05:00 on 18 July and those in Spain proper a day later so that control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent back to theIberian Peninsula to coincide with the risings there.[104] The rising was intended to be a swift coup d'état, but the government retained control of most of the country.[105]
Control over Spanish Morocco was all but certain.[106] The plan was discovered in Morocco on 17 July, which prompted the conspirators to enact it immediately. Little resistance was encountered. The rebels shot 189 people.[107] Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands to which they were assigned.[69] On 18 July, Casares Quiroga refused an offer of help from the CNT andUnión General de Trabajadores (UGT), leading the groups to proclaim a general strike—in effect, mobilising. They opened weapons caches, some buried since the 1934 risings, and formed militias.[108] The paramilitary security forces often waited for the outcome of militia action before either joining or suppressing the rebellion. Quick action by either the rebels oranarchist militias was often enough to decide the fate of a town.[109] GeneralGonzalo Queipo de Llano secured Seville for the rebels, arresting a number of other officers.[110]
The rebels failed to take any major cities with the critical exception of theJuly 1936 military uprising in Seville, which provided a landing point for Franco's African troops, and the primarily conservative and Catholic areas ofOld Castile,León andGalicia, which fell quickly.[105] They tookCádiz with help from the first troops from Africa.[111] The "air bridge" betweenTetouan andSeville with German planes allowed theArmy of Africa to advance towardsExtremadura and Madrid.[112]
The government retained control ofMálaga,Jaén, andAlmería. In Madrid, the rebels were hemmed into theCuartel de la Montaña siege, which fell with considerable bloodshed. Republican leader Casares Quiroga was replaced byJosé Giral, who ordered the distribution of weapons among the civilian population.[113] This facilitated the defeat of the army insurrection in the main industrial centres, including Madrid,Barcelona, andValencia, but it allowed anarchists to take control of Barcelona along with large swathes ofAragón and Catalonia.[114] General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death.[115] The Republican government ended up controlling almost all the east coast and central area around Madrid, as well as most ofAsturias,Cantabria and part of theBasque Country in the north.[116]
Hugh Thomas suggested that the civil war could have ended in the favour of either side almost immediately if certain decisions had been taken during the initial coup. Thomas argues that if the government had taken steps to arm the workers, they could probably have crushed the coup very quickly. Conversely, if the coup had risen everywhere in Spain on the 18th rather than be delayed, it could have triumphed by the 22nd.[117] While the militias that rose to meet the rebels were often untrained and poorly armed (possessing only a small number of pistols, shotguns and dynamite), this was offset by the fact that the rebellion was not universal. In addition, the Falangists and Carlists were themselves often not particularly powerful fighters either. However, enough officers and soldiers had joined the coup to prevent it from being crushed swiftly.[98]
The rebels termed themselvesNacionales, normally translated "Nationalists", although the former implies "true Spaniards" rather than anationalistic cause.[118] The result of the coup was a nationalist area of control containing 11 million of Spain's population of 25 million.[119] The Nationalists had secured the support of around half of Spain's territorial army, some 60,000 men, joined by the Army of Africa, made up of 35,000 men,[120] and just under half of Spain's militaristic police forces, the Assault Guards, theCivil Guards, and theCarabineers.[121] Republicans controlled under half of the rifles and about a third of both machine guns and artillery pieces.[122]
The Spanish Republican Army had just 18 tanks of a sufficiently modern design, and the Nationalists took control of 10.[123] Naval capacity was uneven, with the Republicans retaining a numerical advantage, but with the Navy's top commanders and two of the most modern ships, heavy cruisersCanarias—captured at theFerrol shipyard—andBaleares, in Nationalist control.[124] TheSpanish Republican Navy suffered from the same problems as the army—many officers had defected or been killed after trying to do so.[123] Two-thirds of air capability was retained by the government—however, the whole of theRepublican Air Force was very outdated.[125]
Republican and Nationalist conscription age limits
The war was cast by Republican sympathisers as a struggle between tyranny and freedom, and by Nationalist supporters ascommunist andanarchist red hordes versus Christian civilisation.[99] Nationalists also claimed they were bringing security and direction to an ungoverned and lawless country.[99] Spanish politics, especially on the left, was quite fragmented: on the one hand socialists and communists supported the republic but on the other, during the republic, anarchists had mixed opinions, though both major groups opposed the Nationalists during the Civil War; the latter, in contrast, were united by their fervent opposition to the Republican government and presented a more unified front.[126]
The coup divided regular forces fairly evenly. Out of some 66,000 military actually under arms in July 1936 (including the Army of Africa and the navy, excluding soldiers in service but on leave during the coup) some 52% (34,000) were in the Republican zone and 48% (32,000) in the Nationalist one.[127] Out of some 66,000 men in other armed services (Guardia Civil, Guardia de Asalto, Carabineros)[128] some 59% (39,000) joined the loyalists and some 41% (27,000) joined the rebels.[129] In total, out of some 132,000 armed and uniformed men actually in service, some 55% (73,000) seemed available to the loyalists and some 45% (59,000) to the rebels. However, one popular work claims that the loyalists controlled 90,000 men and the rebels controlled some 130,000.[130]
During the first few months, both armies were joined in high numbers by volunteers, Nationalists by some 100,000 men and Republicans by some 120,000.[131] From August, both sides launched their own, similarly scaled conscription schemes, resulting in further massive growth of their armies. Finally, the final months of 1936 saw the arrival of foreign troops, International Brigades joining the Republicans and ItalianCorpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV), GermanLegion Condor and PortugueseViriatos joining the Nationalists. The result was that in April 1937 there were some 360,000 soldiers in the Republican ranks and some 290,000 in the Nationalist ones.[132]
The armies kept growing. The principal source of manpower was conscription; both sides continued and expanded their schemes, the Nationalists drafting more aggressively, and there was little room left for volunteering. Foreigners contributed little to further growth; on the Nationalist side the Italians scaled down their engagement, while on the Republican side the influx of newinterbrigadistas did not cover losses on the front. At the turn of 1937–1938, each army numbered about 700,000.[133]
Throughout 1938, the principal if not exclusive source of new men was a draft; at this stage it was the Republicans who conscripted more aggressively, and only 47% of their combatants were in age corresponding to the Nationalist conscription age limits.[134] Just prior to the Battle of Ebro, Republicans achieved their all-time high, slightly above 800,000; yet Nationalists numbered 880,000.[135] The Battle of Ebro, fall of Catalonia and collapsing discipline caused a great shrinking of Republican troops. In late February 1939, their army was 400,000[136] compared to more than double that number of Nationalists. In the moment of their final victory, Nationalists commanded over 900,000 troops.[137]
During the war, Nationalists also "recycled" former Republican soldiers as an additional source of manpower. As both sides employed conscription, this meant that not all soldiers were willing, committed partisans of either side and could shift their loyalties out of self-interest. Therefore, captured Republicans deemed apolitical or sufficiently sympathetic to the Nationalist cause were released from their concentration camps and then usually conscripted into the Nationalist army. By the end of 1937, out of around 107,000 Republicans taken prisoner, approximately 59,000 were classified as politically reliable enough for release and conscription into the Nationalist army.[138][139] The Republicans were also known to "recycle" Nationalist defectors as well.[140]
The total number of Spaniards serving in the Republican forces was officially stated as 917,000; later scholarly work estimated the number as "well over 1 million men",[141] though other studies claim the Republican total of 1.75 million (including non-Spaniards)[142] and "27 age groups, ranging from 18 to 44 years old".[143] The total number of Spaniards serving in the Nationalist units is estimated between "nearly 1 million men",[141] and 1.26 million (including non-Spaniards),[144] which comprised "15 age groups, ranging from 18 to 32 years old".[145]
Flags of thePopular Front (left) andCNT/FAI (right). The slogan of the CNT/FAI anarchists was "Ni dios, ni estado, ni patrón" ("Neither god, Nor state, Nor boss"), widespread by the Spanish anarchists since 1910.
Only two countries openly and fully supported the Republic: the Mexican government and the USSR. From them, especially the USSR, the Republic received diplomatic support, volunteers, weapons and vehicles. Other countries remained neutral; this neutrality faced serious opposition from sympathizers in the United States and United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent in other European countries and fromMarxists worldwide. This led to formation of theInternational Brigades, thousands of foreigners of all nationalities who voluntarily went to Spain to aid the Republic in the fight; they meant a great deal tomorale but militarily were not very significant.
Manuel Azaña was the intellectual leader of the Second Republic and headman of the Republican side during most of the Civil War.
The Republic's supporters within Spain ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalistliberal democracy torevolutionary anarchists who opposed the Republic but sided with it against the coup forces. Their base was primarily secular and urban but also included landless peasants and was particularly strong in industrial regions likeAsturias, the Basque country, andCatalonia.[146]
This faction was called variouslyleales "Loyalists" by supporters, "Republicans", the "Popular Front", or "the government" by all parties; orlos rojos "the Reds" by their opponents.[147] Republicans were supported by urban workers, agricultural labourers, and parts of the middle class.[148]
Republican volunteers atTeruel, 1936A mobile blood-transfusion service for front-line operations in Catalonia.
The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with CatholicGalicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions,[149] whose forces were gathered under thePeople's Republican Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR), which was reorganised intomixed brigades after October 1936.[150] Historian Stanley Payne argues that the Republicans' diverse combination of movements produced an unusual regime that lacked any exact counterpart elsewhere as it combined libertarian collectivism and regional autonomy with centralisation, state control and economic nationalisation. Payne argues that Republican Spain was not a democracy but also not a strict dictatorship, with the four different major left-wing factions remaining relatively autonomous from one another and operating within a semi-pluralist political framework and limited rule of law.[151]
A few well-known people fought on the Republican side, such as English writerGeorge Orwell (who wroteHomage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences in the war)[152] and Canadian thoracic surgeonNorman Bethune, who developed a mobile blood-transfusion service for front-line operations.[153]Simone Weil briefly fought with the anarchist columns of Buenaventura Durruti.[154]
At the beginning of the war, the Republicans outnumbered the Nationalists ten to one on the front in Aragon, but by January 1937, that advantage had dropped to four to one.[155]
TheNacionales or Nationalists, also called "insurgents", "rebels" or, by opponents,Franquistas or "fascists" —feared national fragmentation and opposed the separatist movements. They were chiefly defined by theiranti-communism, which galvanised diverse or opposed movements likeFalangists and monarchists. Their leaders had a generally wealthier, more conservative, monarchist, landowning background.[156]
The Nationalist side included theCarlists andAlfonsists, Spanish nationalists, the fascist Falange, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. Virtually all Nationalist groups had strong Catholic convictions and supported the native Spanish clergy.[147] The Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and practitioners (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most large landowners, and many businessmen.[99] The Nationalist base largely consisted of the middle classes, conservative peasant smallholders in the North and Catholics in general. Catholic support became particularly pronounced as a consequence of the burning of churches and killing of priests in most leftists zones during the first six months of the war. By mid-1937, the Catholic Church gave its official blessing to the Franco regime; religious fervor was a major source of emotional support for the Nationalists during the civil war.[157] Michael Seidmann reports that devout Catholics, such as seminary students, often volunteered to fight and would die in disproportionate numbers in the war. Catholic confession cleared the soldiers of moral doubt and increased fighting ability; Republican newspapers described Nationalist priests as ferocious in battle andIndalecio Prieto remarked that the enemy he feared most was "therequeté who has just received communion".[158]
One of therightists' principal motives was to confront theanti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend theCatholic Church,[156] which had been targeted by opponents, including Republicans, who blamed the institution for the country's ills. The Church opposed many of the Republicans' reforms, which were fortified by the Spanish Constitution of 1931.[159] Articles 24 and 26 of the 1931 constitution had banned theSociety of Jesus. Thisproscription deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, in which 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people were killed, deepened Catholic support for the Nationalists.[160][161]
Prior to the war, during theAsturian miners' strike of 1934, religious buildings were burnt and at least 100 clergy, religious civilians, and pro-Catholic police were killed by revolutionaries.[157][162] Franco had brought in Spain'scolonial Army of Africa (Spanish:Ejército de África orCuerpo de Ejército Marroquí) and reduced the miners to submission by heavy artillery attacks and bombing raids. TheSpanish Legion committed atrocities and the army carried out summary executions of leftists. The repression in the aftermath was brutal and prisoners were tortured.[163] The MoroccanFuerzas Regulares Indígenas joined the rebellion and played a significant role in the civil war.[164]
While the Nationalists are often assumed to have drawn in the majority of military officers, this is a somewhat simplistic analysis. The Spanish army had its own internal divisions and long-standing rifts. Officers supporting the coup tended to beafricanistas (men who fought in North Africa between 1909 and 1923) while those who stayed loyal tended to bepeninsulares (men who stayed back in Spain during this period). This was because during Spain's North African campaigns, the traditional promotion by seniority was suspended in favour of promotion by merit through battlefield heroism. This tended to benefit younger officers starting their careers as they could, while older officers had familial commitments that made it harder for them to be deployed in North Africa. Officers in front line combat corps (primarily infantry and cavalry) benefited over those in technical corps (those in artillery, engineering etc.) because they had more chances to demonstrate the requisite battlefield heroism and had also traditionally enjoyed promotion by seniority. Thepeninsulares resented seeing theafricanistas rapidly leapfrog through the ranks, while theafricanistas themselves were seen as swaggering and arrogant, further fueling resentment. Thus, when the coup occurred, officers who joined the rebellion, particularly from Franco's rank downwards, were oftenafricanistas, while senior officers and those in non-front line positions tended to oppose it (though a small number of seniorafricanistas opposed the coup as well).[98] It has also been argued that officers who stayed loyal to the Republic were more likely to have been promoted and to have been favoured by the Republican regime (such as those in the Aviation and Assault Guard units).[165] Thus, while often thought of as a "rebellion of the generals", this is not correct. Of the eighteen division generals, only four rebelled (of the four division generals without postings, two rebelled and two remained loyal). Fourteen of the fifty-six brigade generals rebelled. The rebels tended to draw from less senior officers. Of the approximately 15,301 officers, just over half rebelled.[166]
Catalan and Basque nationalists were divided. Left-wingCatalan nationalists sided with the Republicans, while Conservative Catalan nationalists were far less vocal in supporting the government, due to anti-clericalism andconfiscations occurring in areas within its control.Basque nationalists, heralded by the conservativeBasque Nationalist Party, were mildly supportive of the Republican government, although some in Navarre sided with the uprising for the same reasons influencing conservative Catalans. Not withstanding religious matters, Basque nationalists, who were for the most part Catholic, generally sided with the Republicans, although the PNV, Basque nationalist party, was reported passing the plans of Bilbao defences to the Nationalists, in an attempt to reduce the duration and casualties of siege.[167]
The Spanish Civil War exposed political divisions across Europe. The right and the Catholics supported the Nationalists to stop the spread ofBolshevism. On the left, including labour unions, students and intellectuals, the war represented a necessary battle to stop the spread of fascism. Anti-war and pacifist sentiment was strong in many countries, leading to warnings that the Civil War could escalate into a second world war.[168] In this respect, the war was an indicator of the growing instability across Europe.[169]
The Spanish Civil War involved large numbers of non-Spanish citizens who participated in combat and advisory positions.Britain andFrance led apolitical alliance of 27 nations that pledgednon-intervention, including an embargo on all arms exports to Spain. The United States unofficially adopted a position of non-intervention as well, despite abstaining from joining the alliance (due in part to its policy ofpolitical isolation). The group from the United States called themselves the "Abraham Lincoln Brigade". Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union signed on officially, but ignored the embargo. The attempted suppression of imported material was largely ineffective, and France was especially accused of allowing large shipments to Republican troops.[170] The clandestine actions of the various European powers were, at the time, considered to be risking another world war, alarming antiwar elements across the world.[171]
TheLeague of Nations' reaction to the war was influenced by a fear of communism,[172] and was insufficient to contain the massive importation of arms and other war resources by the fighting factions. Although a Non-Intervention Committee was formed, its policies accomplished very little and its directives were ineffective.[173]
Benito Mussolini joined the war to secure Fascist control of theMediterranean, as the conquest of Ethiopia in theSecond Italo-Ethiopian War made the Italian government confident in its military power.[174] Italy became the stronger backer of the Nationalists.[175] Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft,tankettes, theAviazione Legionaria, and theCorpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) to the Nationalist cause, and assisted with the Mediterranean blockade.[176] The Italian CTV would supply the Nationalists with 50,000 men.[176] Italian warships took part in breaking the Republican navy'sblockade of Nationalist-held Spanish Morocco and took part in naval bombardment of Republican-held Málaga, Valencia, and Barcelona.[177] Italian air raids targeted mainly cities and civilians.[178] These Italian commitments were heavily propagandised in Italy and became a point of fascist pride.[178]
German officer from the Condor Legion instructing Nationalist infantry soldiers, Ávila
Despite the German signing of a non-intervention agreement in September 1936,Nazi Germany gave various aid and military support for the Nationalists,[179] including the formation of theCondor Legion as a land and air force.[180] Germany successfully flew theArmy of Africa toMainland Spain in the early stages of the war.[181] Thebombing of Guernica, on 26 April 1937, would be the most controversial event of German involvement, with perhaps 200 to 300 civilians killed.[182] German involvement also included Operation Ursula, aU-boat undertaking and contributions from theKriegsmarine.[183] Strategically, Nazi support for Franco provided a distraction from Hitler'scentral European strategy and created a friendly Spanish state to threaten France.[181]
Germany's Condor Legion spearheaded many Nationalist victories, particularly in the air dominance from 1937 onward.[184] Spain was a proving ground for German tank and aircraft tactics, the latter being only moderately successful.[185] Germany trained 56,000 Nationalist soldiers, who were technically proficient and covered infantry, tanks and anti-tank units; air and anti-aircraft forces; and those trained in naval warfare.[180] About 16,000 German citizens fought in the conflict, mostly as pilots, ground crew, artillery and tank crew and military advisers and instructors. About 10,000 Germans were in Spain at the peak.[186] German aid to the Nationalists amounted to approximately £43,000,000 ($215,000,000) in 1939 prices, mostly for the Condor Legion.[186] No detailed list of German supplies furnished to Spain has been found.[186]
Portugal supplied the Nationalists with critical ammunition and logistical resources.[187] Throughout the war, Portugal ensured that Iberian borders would continue to supply the Nationalists. The Nationalists even referred to Lisbon as "the port of Castile".[188] Portuguese Prime MinisterAntónio de Oliveira Salazar semi-officially endorsed the "Viriatos" volunteer force of 8,000 to 12,000.[189] With Franco's victory increasingly certain, Portugal recognised Franco's regime and soon after the war signed a treaty of friendship and non-aggression pact, theIberian Pact.[190] Portugal played an important diplomatic role in supporting Franco and insisting to the British government that Franco sought to replicate Salazar'sEstado Novo, not Mussolini's Fascist Italy or Hitler's Nazi Germany.[191]
Other national groups fought alongside the Nationalists. Despite the Irish government's prohibition against participating in the war, about 600 followers ofEoin O'Duffy andFine Gael formed the"Irish Brigade" to fight for Franco.[192] Their majority were anti-Communism Catholics.[193][194] Around 150 to 170White Russians fought for Franco.[195] Romanian volunteers and legionaries of theIron Guard allied their movement with the Nationalists.[196]
Volunteers from many countries fought in Spain, most of them for the Republicans. About 32,000[197] fought in theInternational Brigades. Perhaps another 3,000[197] fought as members of theConfederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) militias. Those fighting with POUM most famously includedGeorge Orwell and the smallILP Contingent. Around 2,000 Portuguese leftists fought for the Republicans and were spread throughout different units.[198] Many of the non-Spaniards were affiliated with radical communist or socialist entities and believed that the Spanish Republic was a front line in the war against fascism. The units represented the largest foreign contingent of those fighting for the Republicans. Roughly 40,000 foreign nationals fought with the Brigades, though no more than 18,000 were in the conflict at any given time. They claimed to represent 53 nations.[199] Significant numbers came fromFrance (10,000), Nazi Germany andAustria (5,000), andItaly (3,350). More than 1,000 each came from the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom,Poland,Yugoslavia,Czechoslovakia,Hungary and Canada.[199] TheThälmann Battalion, a group of Germans, and theGaribaldi Battalion, a group of Italians, distinguished their units during thesiege of Madrid. Americans fought in units such as theXV International Brigade ("Abraham Lincoln Brigade"), while Canadians joined theMackenzie–Papineau Battalion.[200]
The International Brigades were supported by Communists worldwide, beginning with a Prague conference to raise a brigade soon after the July revolt, followed by a full-scale propaganda campaign for the Popular Front. Communist parties worldwide launched a full-scale propaganda campaign for the Popular Front. Leaders of theCommunist International and theItalian Communist Party went to Spain.[201]
Soviet UnionGeneral SecretaryJoseph Stalin broke the Non-Intervention Agreement and League of Nations embargo by providing material assistance to the Republican forces, becoming their only source of major weapons. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin tried to do this covertly.[202] Estimates of material provided by the USSR to the Republicans vary between 634 and 806 aircraft, 331 and 362 tanks and 1,034 to 1,895 artillery pieces.[203] Stalin also created Section X of the Soviet Union military to head the weapons shipment operation, calledOperation X. Despite Stalin's interest in aiding the Republicans, the quality of arms was inconsistent.[204][205] Many rifles and field guns provided were old or obsolete, but theT-26 andBT-5 tanks were modern and effective.[204] Their supplied aircraft was current with their own forces but the German aircraft for the Nationalists proved superior by the end of the war.[206] The movement of arms from Russia to Spain was extremely slow. Many shipments were lost or incomplete.[207] The ships hid arms under false decks. At sea, Soviet captains useddeceptive flags and paint schemes to evade Nationalist detection.[208]
The USSR sent 2,000–3,000 military advisers to Spain; while the Soviet commitment of troops was fewer than 500 men at a time, Soviet volunteers often operated Soviet-made tanks and aircraft, particularly at the beginning of the war.[209][210][211][199] The Soviets also ran the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) inside the Republican rearguard. Communist figures led operations that included the murders of leftist figures.[212][213][214]
After theUSSR, Poland was the second largest arms supplier for the Republic and the 4th largest arms supplier when considering Italy and Germany. ThePolish sold arms to Republican Spain throughout the war, motivated exclusively by economic interest, as their government favored the Nationalists. Since Poland was bound by non-intervention obligations, Polish governmental officials and the military disguised sales as commercial transactions. The weapons were obsolete, second-rate, and overpriced. Though sales amounted to $40M and up to 7% of overall Republican military spending, in some categories likemachine-guns, they might have accounted for 50% of all arms delivered.[215]
Unlike the United States and major Latin American governments, such as theABC nations andPeru, the Mexican government supported the Republicans.[216][217] Mexico abstained from following the French-British non-intervention proposals,[216] and provided $2,000,000 in aid and material assistance, which included 20,000 rifles and 20 million cartridges.[216] Mexico provided diplomatic help and arranged sanctuary for some 50,000 Republican refugees including Spanish intellectuals and orphaned children from Republican families.[218]
French Prime MinisterLéon Blum was sympathetic to the republic,[219] fearing that the success of Nationalist forces in Spain would create an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, encircling France.[219] After initially declaring that they would not aid the Republicans[220] and signing the Non-Intervention Agreement,[221] France provided the Republicans with aircraft,[222][223] fighter pilots and engineers to help the Republicans.[224] Covert support ended by December 1936 but the spectre of French intervention against the Nationalists remained a serious possibility throughout the war.[225][226]
A largeair andsealift of Nationalist troops in Spanish Morocco was organised to the southwest of Spain.[227] Coup leader Sanjurjo was killed in a plane crash on 20 July,[228][229] leaving an effective command split between Mola in the North and Franco in the South.[69] This period also saw the worst actions of the so-called "Red" and "White Terrors" in Spain.[230] On 21 July, the fifth day of the rebellion, the Nationalists captured the centralSpanish naval base, located inFerrol, Galicia.[231]
A rebel force under ColonelAlfonso Beorlegui Canet, sent by General Mola and Colonel Esteban García, undertook theCampaign of Gipuzkoa from July to September. The capture ofGipuzkoa isolated the Republican provinces in the north. On 5 September, the Nationalists closed the French border to the Republicans in thebattle of Irún.[232] On 15 SeptemberSan Sebastián, home to a divided Republican force of anarchists and Basque nationalists, was taken by Nationalist soldiers.[233]
The Republic proved ineffective militarily, relying on disorganised revolutionary militias. The Republican government under Giral resigned on 4 September, unable to cope with the situation, and was replaced by a mostly Socialist organisation underFrancisco Largo Caballero.[234] The new leadership began to unify central command in the republican zone.[235] The civilian militias were often simply just civilians armed with whatever was available. Thus, they fared poorly in combat, particularly against the professional Army of Africa armed with modern weapons, ultimately contributing to Franco's rapid advance.[236]
On the Nationalist side, Franco was chosen as chief military commander at a meeting of ranking generals atSalamanca on 21 September, now called by the titleGeneralísimo.[69][239] Franco won another victory on 27 September when his troops relieved thesiege of the Alcázar inToledo,[239] which had been held by a Nationalist garrison underColonel José Moscardó Ituarte since the beginning of the rebellion, resisting thousands of Republican troops, who completely surrounded the isolated building. Moroccans and elements of the Spanish Legion came to the rescue.[240] Two days after relieving the siege, Franco proclaimed himselfCaudillo ("chieftain", the Spanish equivalent of the ItalianDuce and the GermanFührer—meaning: 'director') while forcibly unifying the various and diverse Falangist, Royalist and other elements within the Nationalist cause.[234] The diversion to Toledo gave Madrid time to prepare a defense but was hailed as a major propaganda victory and personal success for Franco.[241] On 1 October 1936, General Franco was confirmed head of state and armies in Burgos. A similar dramatic success for the Nationalists occurred on 17 October, when troops coming from Galicia relieved the besieged town ofOviedo, in Northern Spain.[242][243]
In October, the Francoist troops launched a major offensive toward Madrid,[244] reaching it in early November and launching a major assault on the city on 8 November.[245] The Republican government was forced to shift from Madrid to Valencia, outside the combat zone, on 6 November.[246] However, the Nationalists' attack on the capital was repulsed in fierce fighting between 8 and 23 November. A contributory factor in the successful Republican defense was the effectiveness of theFifth Regiment[247] and later the arrival of the International Brigades, though only an approximate 3,000 foreign volunteers participated in the battle.[248] Having failed to take the capital, Franco bombarded it from the air and, in the following two years, mounted several offensives to try to encircle Madrid, beginning the three-yearsiege of Madrid. TheSecond Battle of the Corunna Road, a Nationalist offensive to the northwest, pushed Republican forces back, but failed to isolate Madrid. The battle lasted into January.[249]
With his ranks swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February 1937, but was again unsuccessful. TheBattle of Málaga started in mid-January, and this Nationalist offensive in Spain's southeast would turn into a disaster for the Republicans, who were poorly organised and armed. The city was taken by Franco on 8 February.[250] The consolidation of various militias into the Republican Army had started in December 1936.[251] The main Nationalist advance to cross theJarama and cut the supply to Madrid by the Valencia road, termed theBattle of Jarama, led to heavy casualties (6,000–20,000) on both sides. The operation's main objective was not met, though Nationalists gained a modest amount of territory.[252]
A similar Nationalist offensive, theBattle of Guadalajara, was a more significant defeat for Franco and his armies. This was the only publicised Republican victory of the war. Franco used Italian troops andblitzkrieg tactics; while many strategists blamed Franco for the rightists' defeat, the Germans believed it was the former at fault for the Nationalists' 5,000 casualties and loss of valuable equipment.[253] The German strategists successfully argued that the Nationalists needed to concentrate on vulnerable areas first.[254]
The "War in the North" began in mid-March, with theBiscay Campaign. The Basques suffered most from the lack of a suitable air force.[255] On 26 April, the Condor Legion bombed the town ofGuernica, killing 200–300 and causing significant damage. Thebombing of Guernica had a significant effect on international opinion. The Basques retreated from the area.[256]
April and May saw theMay Days, infighting among Republican groups in Catalonia. The dispute was between an ultimately victorious government—Communist forces and the anarchist CNT. The disturbance pleased Nationalist command, but little was done to exploit Republican divisions.[257] After the fall of Guernica, the Republican government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness. In July, it made amove to recaptureSegovia, forcing Franco to delay his advance on the Bilbao front, but for only two weeks. TheHuesca Offensive failed similarly.[258]
Republican T-26 tank on the Aragon front, November 1937.
Mola, Franco's second-in-command, was killed on 3 June, in an airplane accident.[259] In early July, despite the earlier loss at theBattle of Bilbao, the government launched a strong counter-offensive to the west of Madrid, focusing onBrunete. TheBattle of Brunete, however, was a significant defeat for the Republic, which lost many of its most accomplished troops. The offensive led to an advance of 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi), and left 25,000 Republican casualties.[260]
A Republican offensive againstZaragoza was also a failure. Despite having land and aerial advantages, theBattle of Belchite, a place lacking any military interest, resulted in an advance of only 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and the loss of much equipment.[261] Franco invadedAragón andtook the city of Santander inCantabria in August.[262] With the surrender of the Republican army in the Basque territory came theSantoña Agreement.[263]Gijón finally fell in late October in theAsturias Offensive.[264] Franco had effectively won in the north. At November's end, with Franco's troops closing in on Valencia, the government had to move again, this time to Barcelona.[157]
TheBattle of Teruel was an important confrontation in 1938, its outcome heralding future progress of the war. The city, which had formerly belonged to the Nationalists, was conquered by Republicans in January. Francoist troops launched a counter-offensive and recovered the city by 22 February, the Nationalists relying heavily on German and Italian air support.[265]
Teruel secured, on 7 March the Nationalists launched theAragon Offensive; by 14 April they had pushed east through to the Mediterranean, cutting the Republican-held portion of Spain in two. The Republican government attempted to sue for peace in May,[266] but Franco demanded unconditional surrender, and the war raged on.
In July, the Nationalist armypressed southward from Teruel, pushing south along the coast toward the capital of the Republic at Valencia, but was halted in heavy fighting along theXYZ Line, a system of fortifications defending Valencia.[267]The Republican government then launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in theBattle of the Ebro, from 24 July until 26 November; the scale of the Republican offensive forced Franco to personally take command.[268]
The Republican Ebro campaign was unsuccessful, undermined by theagreement signed in Munich, Germany, between Hitler and Chamberlain. The Munich Agreement effectively caused a collapse in Republican morale by ending hope of an anti-fascist alliance with Western powers.[269] The subsequent Republican retreat from the Ebro all but determined the outcome of the war.[268] Eight days before the new year, Franco threw massive forces into aninvasion of Catalonia.[270]
Franco's troops conquered Catalonia in a whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939.Tarragona fell on 15 January,[271] followed byBarcelona on 26 January[272] andGirona on 2 February.[273] On 27 February, the United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime.[274]
Only Madrid and a few other strongholds remained for the Republican forces. On 5 March 1939 the Republican army, led by the ColonelSegismundo Casado and the politicianJulián Besteiro, rose against the prime minister Juan Negrín and formed theNational Defence Council(Consejo Nacional de Defensa orCND) to negotiate a peace deal.[275] Negrín fled to France on 6 March,[276] but the Communist troops around Madrid rose against the junta, starting a brief civil war within the civil war.[277] Casado defeated them, and began peace negotiations with the Nationalists, but Franco refused to accept anything less than unconditional surrender.[278]
On 26 March, the Nationalists started a general offensive, on 28 March the Nationalists occupied Madrid and, by 31 March, they controlled all Spanish territory.[279] Francoproclaimed victory in a radio speech aired on 1 April, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.[280]
Franco arriving in San Sebastian in 1939
After the end of the war, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies.[281] Thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and at least 30,000 executed.[282] Other estimates of these deaths range from 50,000[283] to 200,000, depending on which deaths are included. Many others were put toforced labour, building railways, draining swamps, and digging canals.[283]
Franco declares the end of the war, though small pockets of Republicans fought on.
At the end of the war, in what was calledLa Retirada (withdrawal) hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad, with some 500,000 fleeing to France.[284] Refugees were confined ininternment camps of the French Third Republic, such asCamp Gurs orCamp Vernet, where 12,000 Republicans were housed in squalid conditions. In his capacity as consul in Paris, Chilean poet and politicianPablo Neruda organised the immigration toChile of 2,200 Republican exiles.[285]
Of the 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs, farmers and others who could not find relations in France were encouraged by the Third Republic, in agreement with the Francoist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities inIrún.[286] From there, they were transferred to theMiranda de Ebro camp for "purification" according to theLaw of Political Responsibilities. After the proclamation by MarshalPhilippe Pétain of theVichy regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirable" people, the Spaniards were sent to theDrancy internment camp before being deported toNazi Germany. About 5,000 Spaniards died in theMauthausen concentration camp.[286]
After the official end of the war,guerrilla warfare was waged on an irregular basis by theSpanish Maquis well into the 1950s, gradually reduced by military defeats and scant support from the exhausted population. In 1944, a group of republican veterans, who also fought in theFrench resistance against the Nazis, invaded theVal d'Aran in northwest Catalonia, but were defeated after 10 days.[287] According to some scholars, the Spanish Civil War lasted until 1952; until 1939 it was "conventional civil war", but afterwards it turned into an "irregular civil war".[288]
Children preparing for evacuation, some giving the Republican salute. The Republicans showed araised fist whereas the Nationalists gave theRoman salute.[note 3]
The Republicans oversaw the evacuation of 30,000–35,000 children from their zone,[289] starting with Basque areas, from which 20,000 were evacuated. Their destinations included the United Kingdom[290] and the USSR, and many other countries in Europe, along withMexico. The policy of evacuating children to foreign countries was initially opposed to by elements in the government as well as private charities, who saw the policy as unnecessary and harmful to the well-being of the evacuated children.[289] On 21 May 1937, around 4,000 Basque children were evacuated to the UK on the aging steamship SSHabana from the Spanish port ofSanturtzi. Upon their arrival two days later inSouthampton, the children were sent to families all over England, with over 200 children accommodated inWales.[291] The upper age limit was initially set at 12 but raised to 15.[292] By mid-September, all oflos niños vascos, as they became known,[293] had found homes with families.[294] Most were repatriated to Spain after the war, but some 250 were still in Britain by the end of the Second World War in 1945 and some chose to settle there.[295]
During the Civil War the Nationalist and Republican military expenditures combined totalled some $3.89bn, on average $1.44bn annually.[note 4] The overall Nationalist expenditures are calculated at $2.04bn, while the Republican ones reached ca. $1,85bn.[296] In comparison, in 1936–1938 the French military expenditure totalled $0.87bn, the Italian ones reached $2.64bn, and the British ones stood at $4.13bn.[297] As in the mid-1930s the Spanish GDP was much smaller than the Italian, French or British ones,[298] and as in the Second Republic the annual defence and security budget was usually around $0,13bn (total annual governmental spendings were close to $0.65bn),[note 5] wartime military expenditures put huge strain on the Spanish economy. Financing the war posed enormous challenge for both the Nationalists and the Republicans.
The two combatant parties followed similar financial strategies; in both cases money creation, rather than new taxes or issue of debt, was key to financing the war.[296]
Both sides relied mostly on domestic resources; in the case of the Nationalists, they amounted to 63% of the overall spendings ($1.28bn) and in the case of the Republicans they stood at 59% ($1.09bn). In the Nationalist zone money creation was responsible for some 69% of domestic resources, while in the Republican one the corresponding figure stood at 60%; it was accomplished mostly by means of advances, credits, loans and debit balances from respective central banks.[296] However, while in the Nationalist zone the rising stock of money was only marginally above the production growth rate, in the Republican zone it by far exceeded dwindling production figures. The result was that while by the end of the war the Nationalist inflation was 41% compared to 1936, the Republican one was in triple digits. The second component of domestic resource was fiscal revenue. In the Nationalist zone it grew steadily and in the 2nd half of 1938 it was 214% of the figure from the 2nd half of 1936.[299] In the Republican zone fiscal revenues in 1937 dropped to some 25% of revenues recorded in the proportional area in 1935 but recovered slightly in 1938. Neither side re-engineered the pre-war tax system; differences resulted from dramatic problems with tax collection in the Republican zone and from the course of the war, as more and more of the population were governed by the Nationalists. A smaller percentage of domestic resources came from expropriations, donations or internal borrowing.[296]
one-peseta Republican note, 1937
Foreign resources amounted to 37% in case of the Nationalists ($0,76bn) and 41% in case of the Republicans ($0,77bn).[note 6] For the Nationalists it was mostly the Italian and German credit;[note 7] in case of the Republicans, it was sales of gold reserves, mostly to the USSR and in much smaller amount to France. None of the sides resolved to public borrowing and none floated debt on foreign exchange markets.[296]
Authors of recent studies suggest that given Nationalist and Republican spendings were comparable, earlier theory pointing to Republican mismanagement of resources is no longer tenable.[note 8] Instead, they claim that the Republicans failed to translate their resources into military victory largely because of constraints of the international non-intervention agreement; they were forced to spend in excess of market prices and accept goods of lower quality. Initial turmoil in the Republican zone contributed to problems, while at later stages the course of the war meant that population, territory and resources kept shrinking.[296]
Friction between Republican leadership and Catalonia
Given the lack of operativeness of the republican army after theSpanish coup of July 1936, the columns of militiamen temporarily played their role. There was also anexpedition supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya to recover Mallorca. The lack of support from the Spanish government for the underlying cause of theGeneralitat being involved into the operation and the Catalanist propaganda that promoted the enlistment of volunteers forced the withdrawal.[301] Not recapturing Mallorca would be of great importance in the future course of the war.
TheRepublic, prevented from buying weapons abroad by the international agreement of neutrality, which bothGermany andItaly ignored, urgently required war material. In this context, the Generalitat built a network ofwar industries converting civilian industries. When the republican government moved to Barcelona in 1937, it took control of the war industries from the Generalitat. But under his control, production dropped dramatically, with the consequent impact on supplies to the war fronts.[302]
While this was happening, Prime MinisterNegrín treated PresidentCompanys with notable disloyalty, to the final point of abandoning him at the French border, after appropriating the Generalitat's reserve funds for exile.[302]
I am not waging war against Franco so that a stupid and sleazy separatism will return to us in Barcelona. I am waging war for Spain and for Spain! For greatness and for greatness! Those who assume otherwise are mistaken. There is only one nation: Spain! Before consenting to nationalist campaigns that lead us to dismemberment that I in no way admit, I would give way to Franco without any other condition than to get aside the Germans and Italians.
The death toll of the Spanish Civil War is far from clear and remains—especially in part related to war and postwar repression—controversial. Many general historiographic works—notably in Spain—refrain from advancing any figures or at best propose general descriptions.[315][316][317][note 54][note 55] Foreign scholars, especially English-speaking historians, are more willing to offer some general estimates, though some have revised their projections, usually downward,[note 56] and the figures vary from 1 million to 250,000.
Women pleading with Nationalists for the lives of prisoners,Constantina, 1936
The totals advanced usually include or exclude various categories. Scholars who focus on killings or "violent deaths" most typically list (1) combat and combat-related deaths; figures in this rubric range from 100,000[318][319] to 700,000;[320] (2) rearguard terror, both judicial and extrajudicial, recorded until the end of the Civil War: 103,000[321] to 235,000;[322] (3) civilian deaths from military action, typically air raids: 10,000[322] to 15,000.[323] These categories combined point to totals from 235,000[324] to 715,000.[325] Many authors opt for a broader view and calculate "death toll" by adding also (4) above-the-norm deaths caused by malnutrition,[326] hygiene shortcomings, cold, illness, etc. recorded until the end of the Civil War: 30,000[327] to 630,000.[328] It is not unusual to encounter war statistics which include (5) postwar terror related to Civil War, at times up until 1961: 23,000[329] to 200,000.[322] Some authors also add (6) foreign combat and combat-related deaths: 3,000[330] to 25,000,[329] (7) Spaniards killed in World War II: 6,000,[329] (8) deaths related to postwar guerrilla, typically theInvasion of Val d'Aran: 4,000,[329] (9) above-the-norm deaths caused by malnutrition, etc., recorded after the Civil War but related to it: 160,000[329] to 300,000.[331]
Demographers instead try to gauge the difference between the total number of deaths recorded during the war and the total that would result from applying annual death averages from the 1926–1935 period; this difference is considered excess death resulting from the war. The figure they arrive at for the 1936–1939 period is 346,000; the figure for 1936–1942, including the years of postwar deaths resulting from terror and war sufferings, is 540,000.[note 57] Some scholars calculate the war's "population loss" or "demographic impact"; in this case they might include also (10) migration abroad: 160,000[note 58] to 730,000[note 59] and (11) decrease in birth rate: 500,000[note 60] to 570,000.[note 61]
Twenty-six republicans were assassinated byFranco's Nationalists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, between August and September 1936. This mass grave is located at the small town ofEstépar, in Burgos Province. The excavation occurred in July–August 2014. Victims of theParacuellos massacre committed by the Republicans. The Republicans committed many acts of torture, murder, and war crimes throughout the war known as theRed Terror (Spain).
Death totals remain debated. British historianAntony Beevor wrote in his history of the Civil War that Franco's ensuing "white terror" resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people and that the "red terror" killed 38,000.[332] Julius Ruiz contends that, "Although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone, with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) inNationalist Spain".[333] Historian Michael Seidman stated that the Nationalists killed approximately 130,000 people and the Republicans approximately 50,000 people.[334]
Spanish Civil War grave sites. Location of known burial places. Colours refer to the type of intervention that has been carried out.Green: No Interventions Undertaken so far.White: Missing grave.Yellow: Transferred to theValle de los Caídos.Red: Fully or Partially Exhumed.Blue star: Valle de los Caídos. Source:Ministry of Justice of Spain
In 2008 a Spanish judge,Baltasar Garzón, opened an investigation into the executions and disappearances of 114,266 people between 17 July 1936 and December 1951. Among the executions investigated was that of the poet and dramatistFederico García Lorca, whose body has never been found.[335] Mention of García Lorca's death was forbidden during Franco's regime.[336]
Research since 2016 has started to locatemass graves, using a combination of witness testimony, remote sensing andforensic geophysics techniques.[337]
Historians such asHelen Graham,[338]Paul Preston,[339]Antony Beevor,[17]Gabriel Jackson[340] andHugh Thomas[341] argue that the mass executions behind the Nationalist lines were organised and approved by the Nationalist rebel authorities, while the executions behind the Republican lines were the result of the breakdown of the Republican state and chaos:
Though there was much wanton killing in rebel Spain, the idea of thelimpieza, the "cleaning up", of the country from the evils which had overtaken it, was a disciplined policy of the new authorities and a part of their programme of regeneration. In republican Spain, most of the killing was the consequence of anarchy, the outcome of a national breakdown, and not the work of the state, although some political parties in some cities abetted the enormities, and some of those responsible ultimately rose to positions of authority.
Conversely, historians such asStanley Payne, Julius Ruiz[343] and José Sánchez[344] argue that the political violence in the Republican zone was in fact organized by the left:
In general, this was not an irrepressible outpouring of hatred, by the man in the street for his "oppressors", as it has sometimes been painted, but a semi-organized activity carried out by sections of nearly all the leftist groups. In the entire leftist zone the only organized political party that eschewed involvement in such activity were the Basque Nationalists.[345]
NationalistSM.81 aircraft bomb Madrid in late November 1936.Children take refuge during the Francoist bombing overMadrid (1936–1937). Republicans managed to repel thesiege despite the bombing.
Nationalist atrocities, which authorities frequently ordered so as to eradicate any trace of "leftism" in Spain, were common. The notion of alimpieza (cleansing) formed an essential part of the rebel strategy, and the process began immediately after an area had been captured.[346] Estimates of the death toll vary; historian Paul Preston estimates the minimum number of those executed by the rebels as 130,000,[347] while Antony Beevor places the figure much higher at an estimated 200,000 dead.[348] The violence was carried out in the rebel zone by the military, the Civil Guard and the Falange in the name of the regime.[349] Julius Ruiz reports that the Nationalists killed 100,000 people during the war and executed at least 28,000 immediately after. The first three months of the war were the bloodiest, with 50 to 70 percent of all executions carried out by Franco's regime, from 1936 to 1975, occurring during this period.[350] The first few months of killings lacked much in the way of centralisation, being largely in the hands of local commanders. According to Stanely Payne and Jesús Palacios, General Mola was taken aback by them, despite his own planning emphasising the need for violence; early in the conflict he had ordered a group of leftist militiamen to be immediately executed, only to change his mind and rescind the order.[351]
Many such acts were committed by reactionary groups during the first weeks of the war.[349] This included the execution of schoolteachers,[352] because the efforts of the Second Spanish Republic to promotelaicism and displace the Church from schools by closing religious educational institutions were considered by the Nationalists as an attack on theRoman Catholic Church. Extensive killings of civilians were carried out in the cities captured by the Nationalists,[353] along with the execution of unwanted individuals. These includednon-combatants such astrade-unionists, Popular Front politicians, suspectedFreemasons, Basque, Catalan,Andalusian, andGalician Nationalists, Republican intellectuals, relatives of known Republicans, and those suspected of voting for the Popular Front.[349][354][355][356][357] The Nationalists also frequently killed military officers who refused to support them in the early days of the coup.[358] Many killings in the first few months were often done by vigilantes and civilian death squads, with the Nationalist leadership often condoning their actions or even assisting them.[359] Post-war executions were conducted by military tribunal, though the accused had limited ways to defend themselves. A large number of the executed were done so for their political activities or positions they held under the Republic during the war, though those who committed their own killings under the Republic were also amongst executed as well.[360] A 2010 analysis of Catalonia argued that Nationalist executions were more likely to occur when they occupied an area that experienced greater prior violence, likely due to pro-Nationalist civilians seeking revenge for earlier actions by denouncing others to the Nationalist forces.[361] Michael Seidman argues that the Nationalists' greater death toll may be partially attributable to their military success resulting in territorial gains and thus more opportunities to enact violence against their enemies.[362] However, during the war, executions declined as the Francoist state began to establish itself.[363]
Nationalist forces massacred civilians in Seville, where some 8,000 people were shot; 10,000 were killed inCordoba; 6,000–12,000 were killed inBadajoz[364] after more than 1,000 landowners and conservatives were killed by the revolutionaries. In Granada, where working-class neighbourhoods were hit with artillery and right-wing squads were given free rein to kill government sympathizers,[365] at least 2,000 people were murdered.[352] In February 1937, over 7,000 were killed after the capture ofMálaga.[366] When Bilbao was conquered, thousands of people were sent to prison. There were fewer executions than usual, however, because of the effect Guernica left on Nationalists' reputations internationally.[367] The numbers killed as the columns of the Army of Africa devastated and pillaged their way between Seville and Madrid are particularly difficult to calculate.[368] Landowners who owned the large estates of Southern Spain rode alongside the Army of Africa to reclaim via force of arms the land given to the landless peasants by the Republican government. Rural workers were executed, and it was mockingly joked that they had received their "land reform" in the form of a burial plot.[369]
Nationalists also murdered Catholic clerics. In one particular incident, following the capture ofBilbao, they took hundreds of people, including 16 priests who had served as chaplains for the Republican forces, to the countryside or graveyards and murdered them.[370][371]
Franco's forces also persecuted Protestants, including murdering 20 Protestant ministers.[372] Franco's forces were determined to remove the "Protestant heresy" from Spain.[373] The Nationalists also persecuted Basques, as they strove to eradicate Basque culture.[262] According to Basque sources, some 22,000 Basques were murdered by Nationalists immediately after the Civil War.[374]
The Nationalist side conductedaerial bombing of cities in Republican territory, carried out mainly by the Luftwaffe volunteers of the Condor Legion and theItalian air force volunteers of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie: Madrid,Barcelona, Valencia,Guernica,Durango, and other cities were attacked. The Bombing of Guernica was the most controversial.[375] The Italian air force conducted a particularly heavy bombing raid on Barcelona in early 1938. While some Nationalist leaders did oppose the bombing of the city—for example, Generals Yagüe and Moscardó, who were noted for being nonconformists, protested against the indiscriminate destruction—other Nationalist leaders, often those of a fascist persuasion, saw bombings as necessary to "cleanse" Barcelona.[376]
Michael Seidman observes that the Nationalist terror was a key part of the Nationalist victory as it allowed them to secure their rear; the Russian Whites, intheir civil war, had struggled to suppress peasant rebellions, bandits and warlordism behind their lines, while the inability of the Chinese Nationalists to stop banditry during the Chinese Civil War did severe damage to the regime's legitimacy. The Spanish Nationalists, in contrast, imposed a puritanically terrorist order on the populace in their territory. They never suffered from serious partisan activity behind their lines and the fact that banditry did not develop into a serious problem in Spain, despite how easy it would have been in such mountainous terrain, demands explanation. Seidman argues that severe terror, combined with control of the food supply, explains the general lack of guerrilla warfare in the Nationalist rear.[377] A 2009 analysis of Nationalist violence argues that evidence supports the view that killings were used strategically by the Nationalists to pre-emptively counter potential opposition by targeting individuals and groups deemed most likely to cultivate future rebellions, thus helping the Nationalists win the war.[378]
Scholars have estimated that between 38,000[379] and 70,000[380] civilians were killed in Republican-held territories, with the most common estimate being around 50,000.[381][382][383][384]
Whatever the exact number, the death toll was far exaggerated by both sides, for propaganda reasons, giving birth to the legend of themillón de muertos.[note 62] Franco's government would later give names of 61,000 victims of the red terrors, but which are not considered objectively verifiable.[157] The deaths would form the prevailing outside opinion of the republic up until the bombing of Guernica.[379]
The leftistRevolution of 1936 that preceded the war was accompanied since the first months by an escalation of leftist anticlerical terror that, between 18 and 31 July alone, killed 839 religious, continuing during the month of August with 2055 other victims, including 10 bishops killed, that was 42% of the total number of registered victims in that year.[385] Particularly noteworthy repression was conductedin Madrid during the war.
The Republican government was anticlerical, and, when the war began, supporters attacked and murdered Roman Catholic clergy in reaction to the news of military revolt.[371] In his 1961 book, Spanish archbishop Antonio Montero Moreno, who at the time was director of the journalEcclesia, wrote that 6,832 were killed during the war, including 4,184 priests, 2,365 monks and friars, and 283 nuns (many were first raped before they died),[386][387] in addition to 13 bishops, a figure accepted by historians, including Beevor.[388][389][390] Some of the killings were carried out with extreme cruelty, some were burned to death, there are reports of castration and disembowelment.[388] Some sources claim that by the conflict's end, 20 percent of the nation's clergy had been killed.[391][note 63] The "Execution" of theSacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen atCerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, on 7 August 1936, was the most infamous of widespread desecration of religious property.[392] In dioceses where the Republicans had general control, a large proportion—often a majority—ofsecular priests were killed.[393] Michael Seidman argues that the hatred of the Republicans for the clergy was in excess of anything else; while local revolutionaries might spare the lives of the rich and right-wingers, they seldom offered the same to priests.[67]
Like clergy, civilians were executed in Republican territories. Some civilians were executed as suspected Falangists.[394] Others died in acts of revenge after Republicans heard of massacres carried out in the Nationalist zone.[395] Even families who simply attended Catholic Mass were hunted down; including children.[396][397] Air raids committed against Republican cities were another driving factor.[398] Shopkeepers and industrialists were shot if they did not sympathise with the Republicans and were usually spared if they did.[399] Fake justice was sought throughcommissions, namedchecas after theSoviet secret police organization.[394]
ThePuente Nuevo bridge, Ronda. Both Nationalists and Republicans are claimed to have thrown prisoners from the bridge to their deaths in the canyon.[400]
Many killings were done bypaseos, impromptu death squads that emerged as a spontaneous practice amongst revolutionary activists in Republican areas. According to Seidman, the Republican government only made efforts to stop the actions of thepaseos late in the war; during the first few months, the government either tolerated it or made no efforts to stop it.[401] The killings often contained a symbolic element, as those killed were seen as embodying an oppressive source of power and authority. This was also why the Republicans would kill priests or employers who were not considered to personally have done anything wrong but were nonetheless seen as representing the old oppressive order that needed to be destroyed.[402]
There was infighting between the Republican factions, and the Communists followingStalinism declared theWorkers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), ananti-Stalinistcommunist party, to be an illegal organization, along with the Anarchists. The Stalinists betrayed and committed mass atrocities on the other Republican factions, such as torture and mass executions.George Orwell would record this in hisHomage to Catalonia as well as writeNineteen Eighty-Four andAnimal Farm to criticize Stalinism.[403][404]As pressure mounted with the increasing success of the Nationalists, many civilians were executed by councils and tribunals controlled by competing Communist and anarchist groups.[394] Some members of the latter were executed by Soviet-advised communist functionaries in Catalonia,[400] as recounted by George Orwell's description of the purges in Barcelona in 1937 in which followed a period of increasing tension between competing elements of the Catalan political scene. Some individuals fled to friendly embassies, which would house up to 8,500 people during the war.[395]
"Execution" of theSacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen. The photograph in the LondonDaily Mail had the caption "Spanish Reds' war on religion".[405]
In the Andalusian town ofRonda, 512 suspected Nationalists were executed in the first month of the war.[400] CommunistSantiago Carrillo Solares was accused of the killing of Nationalists in theParacuellos massacre nearParacuellos de Jarama.[406] Pro-Soviet Communists committed numerous atrocities against fellow Republicans, including other Marxists:André Marty, known as the Butcher ofAlbacete, was responsible for the deaths of some 500 members of the International Brigades.[407] Andrés Nin, leader of the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), and many other prominent POUM members, were murdered by the Communists, with the help of the USSR's NKVD.[408]
The Republicans also conducted their own bombing attacks on cities, such as thebombing of Cabra. According to Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios, the Republicans conducted more indiscriminate air raids on cities and civilian targets than the Nationalists,[409] although their attacks were often weak and ineffective.[410] Michael Seidman argues that the better trained Nationalist air force was more effective at inflicting casualties, killing an estimated 11,000 civilians compared to approximately 4,000 for the Republican air force.[411]
38,000 people were killed in the Republican zone during the war, 17,000 of whom were killed in Madrid or Catalonia within a month of the coup. While the Communists were forthright in their support of extrajudicial killings, much of the Republican side was appalled by the murders.[412] Azaña came close to resigning.[395] He, alongside other members of Parliament and a great number of other local officials, attempted to prevent Nationalist supporters from being lynched. Some of those in positions of power intervened personally to stop the killings.[412]
Two women and a man posing at the siege of the Alcázar in Toledo, 1936
In the Republican zone, especially in Aragon and Catalonia which were anarchist strongholds, in addition to the temporary military success, there was a vastsocial revolution in which the workers and peasantscollectivisedland andindustry and set up councils parallel to the paralyzed Republican government.[413][414] This revolution was opposed by the Soviet-supported communists who campaigned against the loss of civil property rights.[413]
As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to exploit their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, through diplomacy and force.[408] Anarchists and theWorkers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM) were integrated into the regular army, albeit with resistance. Theanti-Stalinists of POUM were outlawed and denounced by the Soviet-aligned Communists as an instrument of the fascists.[408] In theMay Days of 1937, many thousands of anarchist and communist Republican soldiers fought for control of strategic points in Barcelona.[257]
The pre-war Falange was a small party of some 30,000–40,000 members.[415] It also called for a social revolution that would have seen Spanish society transformed byNational Syndicalism.[416] Following the execution of its leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, by the Republicans, the party swelled in size to several hundred thousand members.[417] The leadership of the Falange suffered 60 percent casualties in the early days of the civil war, and the party was transformed by new members and rising new leaders, calledcamisas nuevas ("new shirts"), who were less interested in the revolutionary aspects of National Syndicalism.[418] Subsequently, Franco united all fighting groups into the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the National Syndicalist Offensive Juntas (Spanish:Falange Española Tradicionalista de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, FET y de las JONS).[419]
In Catalonia, a square near the Barcelona waterfront namedPlaça de George Orwell.
Throughout the course of the Spanish Civil War, people all over the world were exposed to the goings-on and effects of it on its people not only through standard art, but also throughpropaganda. Motion pictures, posters, books, radio programs, and leaflets are a few examples of this media art that was so influential during the war. Produced by both nationalists and republicans, propaganda allowed Spaniards a way to spread awareness about their war all over the world. A film co-produced by famous early-twentieth century authors such asErnest Hemingway andLillian Hellman was used as a way to advertise Spain's need for military and monetary aid. This film,The Spanish Earth, premiered in America in July 1937. In 1938,George Orwell'sHomage to Catalonia, a personal account of his experiences and observations in the war, was published in the United Kingdom. In 1939,Jean-Paul Sartre published in France a short story,The Wall in which he describes the last night of prisoners of war sentenced to death by shooting.
Leading works of sculpture include Alberto Sánchez Pérez'sEl pueblo español tiene un camino que conduce a una estrella ("The Spanish People Have a Path that Leads to a Star"), a 12.5 m monolith constructed out of plaster representing the struggle for a socialist utopia;[420]Julio González'sLa Montserrat, an anti-war work which shares its title with a mountain near Barcelona, is created from a sheet of iron which has been hammered and welded to create a peasant mother carrying a small child in one arm and a sickle in the other. andAlexander Calder'sFuente de mercurio (Mercury Fountain) a protest work by the American against the Nationalist forced control of Almadén and the mercury mines there.[421]
Salvador Dalí responded to the conflict in his homeland with two powerful oil paintings in 1936:Soft Construction with Boiled Beans:A Premonition of Civil War (Philadelphia Museum of Art) andAutumnal Cannibalism (Tate Modern, London). Of the former, the art historianRobert Hughes stated, "Salvador Dalí appropriated the horizontal thigh ofGoya's crouching Saturn for the hybrid monster in the paintingSoft Construction with Boiled Beans, Premonition of Civil War, which rather than Picasso'sGuernica – is the finest single work of visual art inspired by the Spanish Civil War."[422]: 383 p. On the later, Dalí commented "These Iberian beings mutually devouring each other correspond to the pathos of civil war considered as a pure phenomenon of natural history as opposed to Picasso who considered it a political phenomenon."[423]: 223 p.
Pablo Picasso paintedGuernica in 1937, inspired by the bombing of Guernica. The work's size (11 ft by 25.6 ft) grabbed much attention and cast the horrors of the mounting Spanish civil unrest into a global spotlight.[424] The painting has since been heralded as an antiwar work and a symbol of peace in the 20th century.[425]
Joan Miró createdEl Segador (The Reaper) in 1937, formally titledEl campesino catalán en rebeldía (Catalan peasant in revolt).[426] It depicted a peasant brandishing a sickle in the air, to which Miró commented that "The sickle is not a communist symbol. It is the reaper's symbol, the tool of his work, and, when his freedom is threatened, his weapon."[427]
The Army of Africa would feature a place in propaganda on both sides, due to the complex history of the Army and Spanish colonialism in North Africa.[428]
Costs for the war on both sides were very high. Monetary resources on the Republican side were completely drained from weapons acquisition. On the Nationalist side, the biggest losses came after the conflict, when they had to let Germany exploit the country's mining resources, so until the beginning ofWorld War II they barely had the chance to make any profit.[429]
The political and emotional repercussions of the War transcended the national scale, becoming a precursor to theSecond World War.[430] The war has frequently been described by historians as the "prelude to" or the "opening round of" the Second World War, as part of an international battle against fascism[citation needed]. Historian Stanley Payne suggests that this view is an incorrect summary of the geopolitic position of the interwar period, arguing that theinternational alliance that was created in December 1941, once the United States entered the Second World War, was politically much broader than the Spanish Popular Front. The Spanish Civil War, Payne argues, was thus a far more clear-cut revolutionary andcounter-revolutionary struggle between the left and right wings, while the Second World War initially had fascists and communist powers on the same side with the combined Nazi-Sovietinvasion of Poland. Payne suggests that instead the civil war was the last of the revolutionary crises that emerged from theFirst World War.[431][432]
After the War, Spanish policy leaned heavily towards Germany, Portugal and Italy, since they had been the greatest Nationalist supporters and aligned with Spain ideologically. However, the end of the Civil War and later the Second World War saw the isolation of the country from most other nations until the 1950s.[433]
^The POUM fought in the Spanish Civil War from 17 July 1936 until 16 June 1937, when the POUM was illegalized and suppressed by the Popular Front Republican government led by Prime MinisterJuan Negrín, with the government suppression of the POUM supported byJoseph Stalin, theComintern and thePCE.
^The Euzko Gudarostea fought in the Spanish Civil War from 17 July 1936 until it surrendered to the ItalianCorpo Truppe Volontarie in theSantoña Agreement on 24 August 1937.
^Also known asThe Crusade (Spanish:La Cruzada) orThe Revolution (Spanish:La Revolución) among Nationalists, theFourth Carlist War (Spanish:Cuarta Guerra Carlista) amongCarlists, andThe Rebellion (Spanish:La Rebelión) orThe Uprising (Spanish:La Sublevación) among Republicans.
^"The Roman salute characteristic of Italian fascism was first adopted by the PNE and the JONS, later spreading to the Falange and other extreme right groups, before it became the official salute in Franco's Spain. The JAP salute, which consisted of stretching the right arm horizontally to touch the left shoulder enjoyed only relatively little acceptance. The gesture of the raised fist, so widespread among left-wing workers' groups, gave rise to more regimented variations, such as the salute with the fist on one's temple, characteristic of the GermanRotfront, which was adopted by the republican Popular Army". The Splintering of Spain, pp. 36–37
^the war lasted 986 days; dollars are quoted at their nominal value of the late 1930s
^in 1934 the Spanish military spendings as reported by the statistical office were 958m ptas; in 1935 they were 1.065m ptas, Huerta Barajas Justo Alberto (2016),Gobierno u administración militar en la II República Española,ISBN978-8434023031, p. 805. The peseta to dolar exchange rate for 1935 varied from 7.32 in August to 7.38 in January, Martínez Méndez P. (1990),Nuevos datos sobre la evolución de la peseta entre 1900 y 1936,ISBN8477930724, p. 14
^when assessing financial cost of waging the war, some scholars limit their analysis to foreign resources only and set expenditures of both sides at some $0,7bn each, compare e.g. Romero Salvado, Francisco J. (2013),Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0810857841, p. 20. Similarly, another author claims that "the republican authorities obtained 714 million dollars, and this was the financial cost of the civil war for the Republicans", while "the financial cost of the war on the Francoist side was very similar, between 694 and 716 million dollars".[300] The same author claims in the same work that "losing the war cost the Republic almost as much as Franco spent on winning it, some six hundred million dollars on each side" (p. 185)
^exact figures differ; one source claims $0,45bn for Italy and $0,23bn for Germany, Romero Salvado 2013, p. 20; the rest was mostly private credit from British (e.g.Rio Tinto) or US (e.g.Texaco) companies
^earlier studies suggested that the Republican military expenditures were 4 times larger than the Nationalist ones (40bn ptas v. 12bn ptas); the conclusion drawn was that the Republicans have grossly mismanaged their resources. Recent studies claim that the above figures are calculated in nominal terms, and that entirely different picture emerges when inflation and exchange rates are taken into account,[296]
^highest considered estimate; "la guerra civil fue una espantosa calamidad en la que todas las clases y todos los partidos perdieron. Además del millión o dos milliones de muertos, la salud del pueblo se ha visto minada por su secuela de hambre y enfermedades", Brennan, Gerald (1978),El laberinto español. Antecedentes sociales y políticos de la guerra civil,ISBN978-8485361038, p. 20
^some press estimates from the era, see e.g. "one and a half million Spaniards have already been killed in the war",Spain's War Goes On, [in:]Daily Record [Britain] 28 March 1939
^"muertes por causa directa de la Guerra Civil Española"; includes post-war guerilla, Nazi concentration camps, post-war repression, and "sobremortalidad hasta 1943", Jorge L. Tizón,La guerra como campo de batalla, Barcelona 2022, ISBN 9788425449635, p. 44
^"esta cruenta lucha le costó a España 1 200 000 muertos entre combatientes y civiles", Pazos Beceiro, Carlos (2004),La globalización económica neoliberal y la guerra,ISBN978-9597071266, p. 116
^initial estimate of Ramón Salas Larrazábal,El mito del millón de muertos, includes victims ofmalnutrition, cold etc, includes birth deficit assumed to be caused by the war
^Lee, Stephen J. (2000),European Dictatorships, 1918–1945,ISBN978-0415230452, p. 248; "a reasonable estimate, and a rather conservative one", Howard Griffin, John, Simon, Yves René (1974),Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures,ISBN978-0873430463, p. 11; military casualties only, Ash, Russell (2003),The Top 10 of Everything 2004,ISBN978-0789496591, p. 68; lowest considered estimate, Brennan (1978), p. 20. The phrase of "one million dead" became a cliche since the 1960s, and many older Spaniards might repeat that "yo siempre había escuchado lo del millon de muertos", compareburbuja service, availablehere. This is so due to extreme popularity of a 1961 novelUn millón de muertos byJosé María Gironella, even though the author many times declared that he had in mind those "muerto espiritualmente", referred after Diez Nicolas, Juan (1985),La mortalidad en la Guerra Civil Española, [in:]Boletín de la Asociación de Demografía Histórica III/1, p. 42. Scholars claim also that the figure of "one million deaths" was continuously repeated by Francoist authorities "to drive home the point of having saved the country form ruin", Encarnación, Omar G. (2008),Spanish Politics: Democracy After Dictatorship,ISBN978-0745639925, p. 24, and became one of the "mitos principales del franquismo", referred as "myth no. 9" in Reig Tapia, Alberto (2017),La crítica de la crítica: Inconsecuentes, insustanciales, impotentes, prepotentes y equidistantes,ISBN978-8432318658
^145,000 KIA, 134,000 executed, 630,000 due to sickness, cold etc.,Guerre civile d'Espagne, [in:]Encyclopedie Larousse online, availablehere
^maximum considered estimate, Griffin, Julia Ortiz, Griffin, William D. (2007),Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present,ISBN978-0816074761, p. 49, "[war] generated around 800,000 deaths", Laia Balcells (2011),Death is in the Air: Bombings in Catalonia, 1936–1939, [in:]Reis 136, p. 199
^"the war cost about 750,000 Spanish lives",A Dictionary of World History (2006),ISBN978-0192807007, p. 602; also "la poblacion de Espana en 1939 contaba 750,000 personas menos que las esperables si no hubiera habido guerra",¿Cuántas víctimas se cobró la Guerra Civil? ¿Dónde hubo más?, [in:]El Pais 27.02.2019 [accessed 7 December 2019]
^Coatsworth, John, Cole, Juan, Hanagan, Michael P., Perdue, Peter C., Tilly, Charles, Tilly, Louise (2015),Global Connections,ISBN978-0521761062, p. 379; divided into 700,000 died "in battle", 30,000 executed and 15,000 of air raids, Dupuy, R. Ernest, Dupuy, Trevor N. (1977),The Encyclopedia of Military History,ISBN0060111399, p. 1032, the same breakdown inThe Encyclopedia of World History (2001),ISBN978-0395652374, p. 692, and in Teed, Peter (1992),A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century History,ISBN0192852078, p. 439
^600,000 killed during the war + 100,000 executed afterwards, Tucker, Spencer C. (2016),World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection,ISBN978-1851099696, p. 1563; Georges Soria,Guerra y Revolucion en Espana (1936–1939), vol. 5, Barcelona 1978, p. 87
^when referring reported calculations of Hugh Thomas and divided into 320,000 KIA, 100,000 executed and 220,000 of malnutrition etc., Crow, John Armstrong (1985),Spain: The Root and the Flower : an Interpretation of Spain and the Spanish People,ISBN978-0520051331, p. 342
^highest considered estimate, Tusell, Javier (1998),Historia de España en el siglo XX. Tomo III. La Dictadura de Franco,ISBN8430603328, p. 625
^including 285,000 KIA, 125,000 civilians "due to war directed causes", 200,000 malnutrition., Sandler, Stanley (2002),Ground Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, vol. 1,ISBN978-1576073445, p. 160
^285,000 in combat, 125,000 executed, 200,000 of malnutrition, Thomas, Hugh (1961),The Spanish Civil War (and other initial editions), referred after Clodfelter, Micheal (2017),Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015,ISBN978-0786474707, p. 339
^100,000 in combat, 220,000 rearguard terror, 10,000 in air raids, 200,000 after-war terror, 50,000 malnutrition etc.; Jackson, Gabriel (1965),The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939,ISBN978-0691007571, referred after Clodfelter (2017), p. 338
^delta between the total number of deaths recorded in 1936–1942 and the total which would have resulted from extrapolating average annual death total from the 1926–1935 period, Ortega, José Antonio, Silvestre, Javier (2006),Las consecuencias demográficas, [in:] Aceńa, Pablo Martín (ed.),La economía de la guerra civil,ISBN978-8496467330, p. 76
^excluding "50,000 more fatalities in Franco's prison camps during the immediate postwar period", Smele, Jonathan D. (2015),Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916–1926,ISBN978-1442252813, p. 253
^approximate, excluding post-war terror; Hepworth, Andrea (2017),Site of memory and dismemory: the Valley of the Fallen in Spain, [in:] Gigliotti, Simone,The Memorialization of Genocide,ISBN978-1317394167, p. 77; highest considered estimate, Seidman, Michael (2011),The Victorious Counterrevolution: The Nationalist Effort in the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0299249632, p. 172;Britannica Concise Encyclopedia (2008),ISBN978-1593394929, p. 1795; 200,000 in combat, 125,000 executed, 175,000 of malnutrition, Thomas, Hugh (1977),The Spanish Civil War (and later editions), referred after Clodfelter (2017), p. 339;Nowa encyklopedia powszechna PWN (1995), vol. 2,ISBN830111097X, p. 778; "probably over.." and including 300,000 KIA, Palmer, Alan (1990),Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century History,ISBN0140511881, p. 371; KIA + victims of terror only, Lowe, Norman (2013),Mastering modern history, London 2013,ISBN978-1137276940, p. 345; at least, "lost their lives", Palmowski, Jan (2008),The Dictionary of Contemporary World History,ISBN978-0199295678, p. 643
^215,000 in combat, 200,000 killed in rearguard, 70,000 due to wartime hardships, 11,000 civilian victims of military operations; the author later rounds up the total to 0,5m, Alonso Millán, Jesús (2015),La guerra total en España (1936–1939),ISBN978-1512174137, pp. 403–404
^at most 300,000 "violent deaths" + 165,000 above average deaths, Payne, Stanley G. (1987),The Franco Regime,ISBN978-0299110741, pp. 219–220
^highest considered estimate, Du Souich, Felipe (2011),Apuntes de Historia de Espana Para Los Amigos,ISBN978-1447527336, p. 62; "at least", "killed", Quigley, Caroll (2004),Tragedy and Hope. A History of the World in our Time,ISBN094500110X, p. 604.
^200,000 KIA, 200,000 executed, 20,000 executed after the war, excluding "unknown numbers" of civilians killed in military action and "many more" died of malnutrition etc., Preston, Paul (2012),The Spanish holocaust,ISBN978-0393239669, p. xi
^Batchelor, Dawho hn (2011),The Mystery on Highway 599,ISBN978-1456734756, p. 57
^broken down into 120,000 KIA, 15,000 civilians, 107,000 in repression and 165,000 above-the-norm deaths as extracted from calculations of Salas Larrazábal, whose total includes also post-war victims, quoted after Payne 1987, p. 219
^highest considered estimate, Jackson, Gabriel (2005),La Republica Espanola y la Guerra Civil,ISBN8447336336, p. 14
^Chislett, William (2013),Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know?,ISBN978-0199936458, p. 42; "probably", Spielvogel, Jackon J. (2013),Western Civilization: A Brief History,ISBN978-1133606765, p. 603; Mourre, Michel (1978),Dictionaire Encyclopedique d'Histoire, vol. 3,ISBN204006513X, p. 1636; broken down into 200,000 KIA and 200,000 executed, Bradford, James. C (2006),International Encyclopedia of Military History, vol. 2,ISBN0415936616, p. 1209; lowest considered estimate, Tusell, Javier (1998),Historia de España en el siglo XX. Tomo III. La Dictadura de Franco,ISBN8430603328, p. 625
^highest considered estimate, Bowen, Wayne H. (2006),Spain During World War II,ISBN978-0826265159, p. 113; 380,000 emerges also (though is not stated explicitly) from sub-totals of Gabriel Jackson (100,000 KIA, 10,000 air raids, 50,000 malnutrition etc., 220,000 reprisals). Gabriel Jackson,The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939, Princeton 1965, p. 539,
^Julia, Santos, (1999),Victimas de la guerra,ISBN978-8478809837, referred after Richards, Michael (2006),El régimen de Franco y la política de memoria de la guerra civil española, [in:]Aróstegui, Julio, Godicheau, François (eds.),Guerra Civil: mito y memoria,ISBN978-8496467125, p. 173; Richards, Michael (2013),After the Civil War: Making Memory and Re-Making Spain Since 1936,ISBN978-0521899345, p. 6; Renshaw, Layla (2016),Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-1315428680, p. 22
^delta between the total number of deaths recorded in 1936–1939 and the total which would have resulted from extrapolating average annual death total from the 1926–1935 period, Ortega, Silvestre (2006), p. 76
^does not include post-war losses, Payne, Stanley G. (2012),The Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0521174701, p. 245
^"not counting the many thousand who died in the post-war repression or were lost to the ravages of disease and malnutrition, some 340,000 people had been killed: 200,000 on the battlefield, 75,000 in the Nationalist limpieza, 55,000 in the Terror and subsequent acts of judicial murder in the Republican zone, and 10,000 in air raids and the like”, Esdaile, Charles J. (2018),The Spanish Civil War: A Military History, ISBN 9780429859298, p. 310
^lowest considered estimate, includes 150,000 KIA and 185,000 victims of rearguard repression, Bernecker, Walter L. (ed., 2008),Spanien heute: Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur,ISBN978-3865274182, p. 109
^lowest considered estimate, Du Souich (2011), p. 62; lowest considered estimate, Jackson (2005), p. 14; 1943 estimate of the Spanish Direccion General de Estadistica, referred after Puche, Javier (2017),Economia, mercado y bienestar humano durante la Guerra Civil Espanola, [in:]Contenciosa V/7, p. 13
^137,000 KIA, the rest victims of repression, Lauge Hansen, Hans (2013),Auto-Reflection on the Processes of Cultural Re-Memoriation in the Contemporary Spanish Memory Novel, [in:] Nathan R. White (ed.),War,ISBN978-1626181991, p. 90
^"at least", Hart, Stephen M. (1998),"!No Pasarán!": Art, Literature and the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0729302869, p. 16, Preston, Paul (2003),The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in 20th-century Spain,ISBN978-1134811137, p. 40; lowest considered estimate, Seidman, Michael (2011),The Victorious Counterrevolution: The Nationalist Effort in the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0299249632, p. 172;Camps, Pedro Montoliú (2005),Madrid en la Posguerra,ISBN978-8477371595, p. 375, "at most", excluding deaths from malnutrition etc.,The New Encyclopædia Britannica (2017), vol. 11,ISBN978-1593392925, p. 69; of which 140,000 in combat,Большая Российская энциклопедия, (2008), vol. 12,ISBN978-5852703439, p. 76
^highest considered estimate, 150,000 in combat and 140,000 executed, Moa, Pio (2015),Los mitos del franquismo,ISBN978-8490603741, p. 44
^"at least", Hitchcock, William L. (2008),The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945 to the Present,ISBN978-0307491404, p. 271
^100,000 in combat, 135,000 executed, 30,000 other causes.Muñoz, Miguel A. (2009).Reflexiones en torno a nuestro pasado (in Spanish). Cultivalibros. p. 375.ISBN978-8499231464.
^"muertos a causa de la Guerra", includes victims of post-war terror. The figure is based on totals reported as "violent deaths" in the official statistics for 1936–1942 and calculated by Ramón Tamames,Breve historia de la Guerra Civil espanola, Barcelona 2011,ISBN978-8466650359, chapter "Impactos demograficos" (page unavailable). Tamames suggests that the actual number of victims is probably much higher than this given by official statistics
^lowest considered estimate, 145,000 in combat and 110,000 executed, Moa (2015), p. 44
^103,000 executed during the war, 28,000 executed afterwards, around 100,000 KIA, Martínez de Baños Carrillo, Fernando, Szafran, Agnieszka (2011),El general Walter,ISBN978-8492888061, p. 324
^the total reported as "muerte violenta o casual" for 1936–1939 in official statistics released by Instituto Nacional de Estadistica in 1943, might include accidental deaths (car accidents etc.) and covers all months of 1936 and 1939, excludes "homicidio" category (39,028 for 1936–1939), referred after Diez Nicolas (1985), p. 54
^the number which emerges from the official statistics as provided during the early Francoist era and calculated later byRamón Tamames, who analyses the figures released in 1951 by Instituto Nacional de Estadistica. Tamames added figures reported in the "violent deaths" rubric for 1936, 1937 and 1938 and 25% of the same category for 1939; then he deducted annual averages for "violent deaths" reported by INE in the mid-1930s to arrive at 149,213. Tamames suggests that the actual figure is probably "mucho mayor", Tamames (2011)
^"provocó un número de caidós en combate sin precedentes, casi tantos como los muertos y desaparecidos en la retaguardia",Diccionario de historia y política del siglo XX (2001),ISBN843093703X, p. 316, "habia comportado centenares de miles de muertos", Marín, José María, Ysàs, Carme Molinero (2001),Historia política de España, 1939–2000, vol. 2,ISBN978-8470903199, p. 17
^Tusell, Javier, Martín, José Luis, Shaw, Carlos (2001),Historia de España: La edad contemporánea, vol. 2,ISBN978-8430604357, Pérez, Joseph (1999),Historia de España,ISBN978-8474238655, Tusell, Javier (2007),Historia de España en el siglo XX, vol. 2,ISBN978-8430606306
^e.g. Stanley G. Payne reduced his earlier estimate of 465,000 (at most 300,000 "violent deaths" with 165,000 deaths from malnutrition which "must be added", Payne (1987), p. 220) to 344,000 (also "violent deaths" and malnutrition victims, Payne (2012), p. 245); Hugh Thomas inThe Spanish Civil War editions from the 1960s opted for 600,000 (285,000 KIA, 125,000 executed, 200,000 malnutrition), in editions from the 1970s he reduced the figure to 500,000 (200,000 KIA, 125,000 executed, 175,000 malnutrition), referred after Clodfeler (2017), p. 383 and with slight revisions kept reproducing the figure also in last editions published before his death, compare Thomas, Hugh (2003),La Guerra Civil Española, vol. 2,ISBN8497598229, p. 993; Gabriel Jackson went down from 580,000 (including 420,000 victims of war and post-war terror), see Jackson (1965) to a range of 405,000–330,000 (including 220,000 to 170,000 victims of war and post-war terror), Jackson (2005), p. 14
^Ortega, Silvestre (2006), p. 76; slightly different figures, 344,000 and 558,000, in earlier study completed using the same method, see Diez Nicolas (1985), p. 48.
^only those who did not return to Spain, Payne (1987), p. 220.
^Ortega, Silvestre (2006), p. 80; the number of migrants usually quoted is 450,000, which refers only to these who crossed to France in the first months of 1939, López, Fernando Martínez (2010),París, ciudad de acogida: el exilio español durante los siglos XIX y XX,ISBN978-8492820122, p. 252.
^"a deficit of approximately a half million births resulted", Payne (1987), p. 218.
^delta between actual birth totals for 1936–1942 and birth totals which would have resulted from extrapolating average annual birth totals from the 1926–1935 period, Ortega, Silvestre (2006), p. 67.
^Lee, Stephen J. (2000),European Dictatorships, 1918–1945,ISBN978-0415230452, p. 248; "a reasonable estimate, and a rather conservative one", Howard Griffin, John, Simon, Yves René (1974),Jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures,ISBN978-0873430463, p. 11; military casualties only, Ash, Russell (2003),The Top 10 of Everything 2004,ISBN978-0789496591, p. 68; lowest considered estimate, Brennan (1978), p. 20. The phrase of "one million dead" became a cliche since the 1960s, and many older Spaniards might repeat that "yo siempre había escuchado lo del millon de muertos", compareburbuja service, availablehere. This is so due to extreme popularity of a 1961 novelUn millón de muertos byJosé María Gironella, even though the author many times declared that he had in mind those "muerto espiritualmente", referred after Diez Nicolas, Juan (1985),La mortalidad en la Guerra Civil Española, [in:]Boletín de la Asociación de Demografía Histórica III/1, p. 42. Scholars claim also that the figure of "one million deaths" was continuously repeated by Francoist authorities "to drive home the point of having saved the country form ruin", Encarnación, Omar G. (2008),Spanish Politics: Democracy After Dictatorship,ISBN978-0745639925, p. 24, and became one of the "mitos principales del franquismo", referred as "myth no. 9" in Reig Tapia, Alberto (2017),La crítica de la crítica: Inconsecuentes, insustanciales, impotentes, prepotentes y equidistantes,ISBN978-8432318658
^SinceBeevor (2006) p. 82 suggests 7,000 members of some 115,000 clergy were killed, the proportion could well be lower.
^See variously: Bennett, Scott,Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–1963, Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press, 2003; Prasad, Devi,War Is a Crime Against Humanity: The Story of War Resisters' International, London, WRI, 2005. Also see Hunter, Allan,White Corpsucles in Europe, Chicago, Willett, Clark & Co., 1939; and Brown, H. Runham,Spain: A Challenge to Pacifism, London, The Finsbury Press, 1937.
^Maestre, Francisco; Casanova, Julián; Mir, Conxita; Gómez, Francisco (2004).Morir, matar, sobrevivir: La violencia en la dictadura de Franco. Grupo Planeta.ISBN978-8484325062.
^Jackson, Gabriel (1967).The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939. Princeton University Press.ISBN0691007578.
^Graham, Helen; Preston, Paul (1987). "The Spanish Popular Front and the Civil War".The Popular Front in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 106–130.ISBN978-1349106189.
^Juliá, Santos (1999).Un siglo de España. Política y sociedad (in Spanish). Madrid: Marcial Pons.ISBN8495379031.Fue desde luego lucha de clases por las armas, en la que alguien podía morir por cubrirse la cabeza con un sombrero o calzarse con alpargatas los pies, pero no fue en menor medida guerra de religión, de nacionalismos enfrentados, guerra entre dictadura militar y democracia republicana, entre revolución y contrarrevolución, entre fascismo y comunismo.
^Casanova, Julián (2005). "Terror and Violence: The Dark Face of Spanish Anarchism".International Labor and Working-Class History.67 (67):79–99.doi:10.1017/S0147547905000098.JSTOR27672986.
^Orella Martínez, José Luis; Mizerska-Wrotkowska, Malgorzata (2015).Poland and Spain in the interwar and postwar period. Madrid: Schedas, S. L.ISBN978-8494418068.
^Madariaga – Spain (1964) p. 416 as cited inOrella Martínez, José Luis; Mizerska-Wrotkowska, Malgorzata (2015).Poland and Spain in the interwar and postwar period. Madrid: Schedas, S.l.ISBN978-8494418068.
^Payne, Stanley G. (2008).The collapse of the Spanish republic, 1933–1936: Origins of the civil war. Yale University Press, pp. 110–111.
^Salvadó, Francisco J. Romero (1999).Twentieth-century Spain: politics and society, 1898–1998. Macmillan International Higher Education, p. 84.
^Mann, Michael (2004).Fascists. Cambridge University Press, p. 316.
^Alpert, Michael (2013).The Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, Cambridge, ISBN 9781107028739, p. 19.
^32.000 Guardia Civil, 17.000 Guardia de Asalto, 16.000 Carabineros, Molina Franco Lucas, Sagarra Renedo Pedro, González López Óscar (2021),El factor humano. Organización y liderazgo para ganar una guerra. La Jefatura de Movilización, Instrucción y Recuperación en la Guerra Civil española, Madrid, ISBN 9788490916100, p. 50.
^detailed percentage split by formation (loyalist share: 51% of Guardia Civil, 65% of Carabineros and 70% of Guardia de Asalto) is provided in Tusell, Javier (1998),Historia de España en el siglo XX. Tomo III, ISBN 8430603328, p. 300.
^Beevor 2006, p. 126. The author maintains that "They [Nationalists] had also secured 50,000 men from the badly trained and poorly equipped metropolitan army", an unsourced claim which is chiefly responsible for difference versus scientific studies
^Matthews, James. "Our Red Soldiers': The Nationalist Army's Management of its Left-Wing Conscripts in the Spanish Civil War 1936–9". [in:]Journal of Contemporary History 45/2 (2010), p. 342.
^following the Battle of Ebro the Nationalists have established that only 47% of Republican POWs taken were in age corresponding to the Nationalist conscription age; 43% were older and 10% were younger, Payne, Stanley G.,The Spanish civil War, the Soviet Union, and communism, Yale University Press, 2008, p. 269.
^Ruiz, Julius. "A Spanish genocide? Reflections on the Francoist repression after the Spanish Civil War."Contemporary European History 14, no. 2 (2005): 171-191, p. 178.
^Matthews, James.Reluctant warriors: Republican popular army and nationalist army conscripts in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 203-204.
^Matthews, James.Reluctant warriors: Republican popular army and nationalist army conscripts in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 206.
^La Parra-Pérez, Alvaro. "Fighting Against Democracy: Military Factions in the Second Spanish Republic and Civil War (1931–1939)." Job Market Paper, University of Maryland (2014).
^Vidal, César.La guerra que ganó Franco. Madrid, 2008. p. 256.
^Jan Stanisław Ciechanowski,Podwójna gra. Rzeczpospolita wobec hiszpańskiej wojny domowej 1936–1939, Warszawa 2014,ISBN978-8311137615, p. 456; Miguel Ángel Ordoñez,Dos siglos de bribones y algún malandrín: Crónica de la corrupción en España desde el SXIX a la actualidad, Madrid 2014,ISBN978-8441434387, p. 312, Gerald Howson,Arms for Spain, London 1997,ISBN978-0312241773, p. 111
^Maier Charles S. (1987),In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy,ISBN978-0521346986, p. 105
^in the mid-1930s the Spanish GDP was 23% of the British one, 37% of the French one and 48% of the Italian one, see e.g. Maddison Angus,Historical Statistics of the World Economy, availablehereArchived 13 August 2020 at theWayback Machine
^in nominal terms, in terms of purchasing power the growth was smaller; nominal figures were 396m ptas in the 2nd half of 1936 and 847m ptas in the 2nd half of 1938,Martín-Aceña, Martínez Ruiz & Pons 2012, pp. 144–165
^Massot i Muntaner, Josep (1987).El desembarcament de Bayo a Mallorca: agost-setembre de 1936 (in Catalan). Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat.ISBN9788472028357.
^abLlaudó Avila, Eduard (2021).Racisme i supremacisme polítics a l'Espanya contemporània (7a ed.). Manresa: Parcir.ISBN9788418849107.
^Zugazagoitia, Julián (2001).Guerra y vicisitudes de los españoles (in Spanish). Tusquets Editores.ISBN9788483107607.
^Jeanes, Ike (1996),Forecast and Solution: Grappling with the Nuclear, a Trilogy for Everyone,ISBN978-0936015620, p. 131
^Del Amo, Maria (2006),Cuando La Higuera Este Brotando...,ISBN978-1597541657, p. 28
^including war-related executions until 1961, death above average due to illness etc., Salas Larrazabal, Ramón (1977),Pérdidas de la guerra,ISBN8432002852, pp. 428–429
^"at least" and "between 1936 and 1945", includes 300,000 "combatants", Salvadó, Francisco Romero (2013),Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War,ISBN978-0810880092, p. 21,Julian Casanova on Twitter, 09.01.2022
^Gallo, Max (1974),Spain under Franco: a history,ISBN978-0525207504, p. 70; divided into 345,000 during the war and 215,000 in 1939–1942, Diez Nicolas (1985), pp. 52–53
^De Miguel, Amando (1987),Significación demográfica de la guerra civil, [in:] Santos Juliá Díaz (ed.),Socialismo y guerra civil,ISBN8485691350, p. 193.
^Kirsch, Hans-Christian (1967),Der spanische Bürgerkrieg in Augenzeugenberichten, p. 446
^White, Matthew (2011),Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements,ISBN978-0857861252, p. LXIX; broken down into 200,000 KIA, 130,000 executed, 25,000 of malnutrition and 10,000 of air raids, Johnson, Paul (1984),A History of the Modern World,ISBN0297784757, p. 339
^hunger and hunger-triggered health problems are supposed to be responsible for 246,000 deaths (Villar Salinas), 343,500 (Salas Larrazábal), 345,000 (Díez Nicolás) or 346,000 (Ortega y Silvestre), referred after Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco,Famine in Spain During Franco's Dictatorship (1939–52), [in: ]Journal of Contemporary History 56/1 (2021), p. 6
^highest considered estimate, Payne (2012), p. 245
^"Men of La Mancha".The Economist. 22 June 2006.Archived from the original on 12 November 2007. Retrieved3 August 2011.
^Ruiz, Julius (2007). "Defending the Republic: The García Atadell Brigade in Madrid, 1936".Journal of Contemporary History.42 (1): 97.doi:10.1177/0022009407071625.S2CID159559553.
^Herreros, Francisco, and Henar Criado. "Pre-emptive or arbitrary: Two forms of lethal violence in a civil war." Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 3 (2009): 419–445.
^Violencia roja y azul, pp. 77–78. Díaz (ed.), Víctimas de la guerra civil, pp. 411–412.
^Alfonso Alvarez Bolado (1996).Para ganar la guerra, para ganar la paz. Iglesia y Guerra Civil (1936–1939) (Estudios). Univ Pontifica Comillas.ISBN978-8487840791.OCLC636785112.
^Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, El pueblo español tiene un camino que conduce a una estrella (maqueta) (There Is a Way for the Spanish People That Leads to a Star [Maquette]).
^Whealey, Robert H. (1989).Hitler and Spain: The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (1st ed.). University Press of Kentucky. pp. 72–94.ISBN978-0813148632.
^Cooley, Alexander (2008).Base Politics : Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 57–64.ISBN978-0801446054.
Alpert, Michael (1994).A New International History of the Spanish Civil War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1403911711.OCLC155897766.
Alpert, Michael (2013).The Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1107028739.
Balcells, Laia (7 June 2010). "Rivalry and Revenge: Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars1: Rivalry and Revenge".International Studies Quarterly.54 (2):291–313.doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2010.00588.x.
— (2017).Rivalry and revenge: the politics of violence during civil war. Cambridge studies in comparative politics. Cambridge : New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1107118690.OCLC990183614.
Beevor, Antony (2006) [1982].The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.ISBN0297848321.
Buchanan, Tom (1997).Britain and the Spanish Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN0521455693.
Casanova, Julián (2010).The Spanish Republic and Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780511787027.OCLC659843319.
Cleugh, James (1962).Spanish Fury: The Story of a Civil War. London: Harrap.OCLC2613142.
Clodfelter, M. (2017).Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.ISBN978-0786474707.
Martín-Aceña, Pablo; Martínez Ruiz, Elena; Pons, María A. (2012). "War and Economics: Spanish Civil War Finances Revisited".European Review of Economic History.16 (2):144–165.doi:10.1093/ereh/her011.JSTOR41708654.
Mittermaier, Ute Anne (2010). "Charles Donnelly, 'Dark Star' of Irish Poetry and Reluctant Hero of the Irish Left". In Clark, David; Álavez, Rubén Jarazo (eds.).'To Banish Ghost and Goblin': New Essays on Irish Culture. Oleiros (La Coruña): Netbiblo. pp. 191–200.ISBN978-0521737807.
Neulen, Hans Werner (2000).In the skies of Europe – Air Forces allied to the Luftwaffe 1939–1945. Ramsbury, Marlborough, England: The Crowood Press.ISBN1861267991.
Othen, Christopher (2008).Franco's International Brigades: Foreign Volunteers and Fascist Dictators in the Spanish Civil War. London: Reportage Press.
Peers, E. Allison; Hogan, James (December 1936). "The Basques and the Spanish Civil War".Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review.25 (100). Irish Province of the Society of Jesus:540–542.ISSN0039-3495.JSTOR30097608.
Richardson, R. Dan (1982) [first published as an academic thesis in 1969].Comintern Army: The International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War. Lexington, Kentucky:University Press of Kentucky.ISBN978-0813154466.
Santos, Juliá;Casanova, Julián; Solé I Sabaté, Josep Maria; Villarroya, Joan; Moreno, Francisco (1999).Victimas de la guerra civil (in Spanish). Madrid: Temas de Hoy.
Seidman, Michael (2002).Republic of egos : a social history of the Spanish Civil War. University of Wisconsin Press.ISBN978-0299178635.
Bolloten, Burnett (1979).The Spanish Revolution. The Left and the Struggle for Power during the Civil War. University of North Carolina.ISBN1842122037.
Johnson, Ian Ona (2021).Faustian bargain: Soviet-German military cooperation in the interwar period. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 15–50. 80–160, 170ff.ISBN9780190675172.
Kowalsky, Daniel (2008).Stalin and the Spanish Civil War. New York: Columbia University Press.
Puzzo, Dante Anthony (1972).Spain and the great powers, 1936-1941 (Repr ed.). Freeport, N.Y: Books for Libraries Press.ISBN978-0-8369-6868-2.OCLC308726.
Salvadó, Francisco J. Romero (December 1999). "The Road to the Civil War: Social Conflict and Mass Politics in Spain, 1898–1936".The Historical Journal.42 (4):1161–1167.doi:10.1017/S0018246X99008821.S2CID15952641.
Taylor, F. Jay (1971) [1956].The United States and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. New York: Bookman Associates.ISBN978-0374978495.OCLC248799351.
Wheeler, George;Leach, David (2003). Leach, David (ed.).To make the people smile again: a memoir of the Spanish Civil War. Newcastle upon Tyne: Zymurgy Publishing.ISBN978-1-903506-07-3.OCLC231998540. (trade unionist)
"Revistas y guerra" [Magazines & war] (in Spanish). Urbana-Champaign: The University of Illinois.
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