The Spanish civil war was fought between 1936 and 1939. Having started on 17 July 1936 with the coup d’état led by generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola, the conflict saw the nationalists on one side, led by some generals and supported by the Church, the middle-upper classes and some foreign countries (such as Nazi Germany and fascist Italy). On the other hand there were the republicans, supported by a large part of the workers, by the trade unions, by anti-fascists from all over Europe, by the Soviet Union. It was considered a “dress rehearsal” of the Second World War because, on an ideological level, it saw the blocs that actually clashed during the Second World War opposed: the German and Italian air forces, among other things, intervened directly in the clashes with the famous bombings on the city of Guernica.
The war, fought with extreme brutality and characterized by numerous crimes, officially ended on 1 April 1939 with the victory of the nationalist faction, thanks to which the bloody dictatorship of Francisco Franco was established, which lasted until 1975 with the death of the “caudillo”.
Spain in the twentieth century: political and social tensions
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Kingdom of Spain found itself in a very difficult situation. In the centuries of the modern age it had been a great power, but it had lost this role and at the end of the nineteenth century it had suffered a military defeat at the hands of the United States of America, definitively losing its last colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam).
The Kingdom of Spain, then, had stayed out of the First World War, but had been affected by very heated political and social tensions. The population mostly belonged to the rural classes and lived in conditions of poverty, while the aristocrats, landowners and industrialists had greater wealth. The trade unions and left-wing parties were in support of the workers, while the owners enjoyed the support of the right, a large part of the military and the clergy.
In 1923, the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera came to power, supported by the king, Alfonso XIII: the regime remained in power until 1930.
In the 1931 elections, the republican parties asserted themselves: with many tensions, the sovereign was forced to abandon power and the Republic was proclaimed in Spain. Tensions were very strong and already in 1932 some army departments, led by General José Sanjurjo, attempted to take power with a coup d’état, which however failed.
In 1933 new elections brought a conservative government to power, but in the next consultation, convened in February 1936, the Popular Front, made up of socialists, communists of various tendencies and republicans, emerged victorious.
The coup d’état that led to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
The right did not resign itself to defeat. Some generals, including José Sanjurjo (exile in Portugal), Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco, began planning to overthrow the government with a coup d’état. They put their purpose into action on July 17, 1936, ordering the army to oust the political class from power.
The coup, however, succeeded only in some areas of Spain: the Spanish territory in Morocco (the enclaves Ceuta and Melilla), where the coup began, and a sector of territory in the center and north of the country, with the cities of Salamanca, Zaragoza and Valladolid. The republican government, however, retained control over Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia, the Basque Country and other regions.
Civil war began between the two areas of the country. Francisco Franco emerged from the nationalist camp and, after the death of Sanjurjo (20 July 1936) and Mola (3 June 1937), both of whom died in a plane crash, became the recognized leader. The Church, the aristocracy and the fascist party of the Spanish Falange were aligned in the majority at his side.
On the republican side, the part of the army loyal to the government, the trade unions, and the autonomist movements of the Basque Country and Catalonia fought.
International involvement in the Spanish war
The conflict involved fighters and volunteers from other countries. It should be remembered, in this regard, that in the years between the First and Second World War in Europe a heated confrontation took place between democratic political systems, in power in countries such as France and the United Kingdom, fascist regimes, which controlled Germany, Italy and other states, and socialist parties, in power in the Soviet Union. Supporters of other regimes were present within many countries, to the point that some historians have defined the period in question as a “European civil war”.
It is not surprising, therefore, that military units from other countries and foreign militiamen also intervened in the Spanish war. The regimes of Italy and Germany lined up alongside Francisco Franco, sending army and air force units to fight against the “subversives”.
Other countries, such as France, were ideologically on the side of the republicans, but they preferred not to send military contingents. The Soviet Union, for its part, supported the Spanish communists, but the distance prevented it from providing substantial aid. However, volunteers from numerous countries sided with the republicans and formed the International Brigades. Among them there were also Italian anti-fascists, who considered the war in Spain the prelude to the liberation of Italy.
Francisco Franco’s advance and the end of the conflict
The balance of power was all in favor of the Francoist camp, which enjoyed the support of the main centers of power within Spain. The contribution of the Germans and Italians also proved to be important, who, among other things, experienced the first carpet bombings of cities during the war. In 1937, a Basque town, Guernica, was hit by German and Italian bombs. The attack profoundly affected public opinion, because until then bombings of that scale had never been carried out, and it was immortalized by Pablo Picasso in a famous painting.
As time passed, the Republicans, although managing to inflict some defeats on the Francoists, had to retreat. In January 1939, Barcelona fell and, in the following March, the Francoists entered Madrid. The war officially ended on April 1, 1939. For Spain, a long dictatorship began, which would only end after Franco’s death in 1975.
War crimes: executions and stolen children
The war was fought with extreme brutality and bloody crimes were committed on both sides. The Republicans were responsible for killing members of the clergy and landowners. The Francoists, for their part, murdered opponents for the entire duration of the conflict and continued the executions even after the conquest of power, eliminating, in total, more than 100,000 people. The overall number of victims of the conflict, including those who died under bombing, is estimated at between 300,000 and 500,000.
Hundreds of thousands more went into exile after Franco’s victory. Among them were some of the most important artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century: painters such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and others; writers like Antonio Machado and Rafael Alberti; directors like Luis Buñuel. Federico García Lorca, one of the most important Spanish writers of the 20th century, was killed by Franco’s supporters, while the British writer Ernest Hemingway took part in the war among the volunteers of the International Brigades.
The Francoists were also guilty of another crime: the taking of children from their mothers and giving them to couples close to the nationalist camp or simply willing to pay. Mothers, belonging to the humblest social classes, were told that their children had died during childbirth. The extent of the phenomenon, which continued beyond the end of the civil war, has never been fully clarified and the number of abducted children is not known which, according to some scholars, amounts to several tens of thousands.
