Practices of the Spanish Civil War

outbreak of war

• July 1636

• coup had been planned since February

• supported by Falange, CEDA, monarchist groups

Republican forces

• workers seized arms in big cities like Barcelona and Madrid

• liberals, socialists, communists, popular front, anarchists

• supported by USSR (ish)

• supported by international brigade → 32,000

Nationalist forces

• general Franco (1939 → 1975)

• monarchists, Catholic Church, CEDA (far right parties)

• support by italy and germany

French intervention

• also had a populist front government and dint want to get involved due to domestic politics

• Blum did stop weapon shipments

British intervention

• Stanley Baldwin was PM

• preoccupied with abdication crisis → Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson

• 27 countries signed non-intervention pact

• rearmament program isn’t ready until 1939

• naval base at gibraltar

• left wanted to intervene, right didn’t

US intervention

• 1935 + 37: neutrality acts of congress

• provided oil, trucks, tires, machine tools, and fuel to franco’s forces

USSR intervention

• pulled support in 1938 after international brigade withdrew

• wanted a proxy war with britain and france

• 806 planes, 362 tanks, 1,555 artillery pieces

Canada

• 1,200 -1,600 individuals travelled illegally to Spain to support the nationalists → Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

  • 721 known to have fought and lost their lives

German Intervention

• airlifted franco and his army from Morocco

• condor legion

Italian intervention

• 50,000 troops, naval support in blockade, airforce bombings

FET

• 1937: Franco brought together right wing groups into FET (national movement)

stage 1

• July → September 1936:

• nationalists seized much of northern Spain, but not much of the coastline or Catalonia

• franco advanced rapidly north

• Colonel José Enrique Varela linked up Seville, Cordoba, Granada and Cadiz

• September: Franco captured Talavera

  • nationalis forces entered Toledo and it was restaged a day later for propaganda

Stage 2

• October 1936 → March 1937

• franco renewed advance on Madrid

• republican forces had been strengthened by 50 tank, 100 aircraft from the USSR and the international brigade

• soviet planes and tanks were superior to German and Italian ones at this point

• nationalists were strengthened by Germany’s condor legion in mid-november with the newest technology

Guadalajara

• march 1937

• Italian proposed attack to complete the encirclement of Madrid

• humiliating defeat partly because franco’s support failed to materialise

Stage 3

• March 1937 → January 1938

• march → October: nationalists’ conquest of the north

• April 1937: Guernica, killed 1,800, nationalists tried to claim it was in part retreating republicans as part of their scorched earth policy

• June → January: failed republican offensives

  • July: Brunete, 25,000 republican losses, 17,000 nationalist losses

  • August → September: Belchite

  • December: → Teruel, 10,000 republican killed, 14,000 taken prisoner

Stage 4

• January 1938 → March 1939

• April: republican spain split in two

• July: republican’s last offensive → the Ebro

• German Messerschmitts and heinkels achieved superiority

• republicans failed to capture gandesa and offensive failed

• 15,000-20,000 republican losses and 10,000 nationalist losses

withdraw of soviet aid

• abandoned notion of rapprochement with britain and france

• 1938: reduced and ended support

• September - October: international brigades withdrew

fall of barcelona

• mid November 1938: republicans pushed back over the Ebro

• franco mounted final offensive to crush resistance in Catalonia

• January: city fell to the nationalists

fall of Madrid

• 27th February 1939: GB and France recognised Franco’s government

• March 1939: communists defeated by Colonel Segismondo Casado

• 1 April: Franco declared civil war ended + USA recognised Franco’s government