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Spanish Civil War: About

Spanish Civil War

Link to Famous Faces of the Spanish Civil War by Steve Hurst in Freading
Link to Picasso's war : the destruction of Guernica and the masterpiece that changed the world by Russell Martin in the catalog
Link to The fifth column, and four stories of the Spanish Civil War by Ernest Hemingway in the catalog
Link to Spain in Arms E.R. Hooton in Freading
Link to Hell and good company : the Spanish Civil War and the world it made by Richard Rhodes in the catalog
Link to The passionate war : a narrative history of the Spanish civil war, 1936-1939 by Peter Wyden in the catalog
Link to Spain in our hearts : Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936/1939 by Adam Hochschild in the catalog
Link to The Spanish Civil War by David Mitchell in the catalog
Link to The People's Army in the Spanish Civil War by Alexander Clifford in Freading
Link to Uncertain glory by Joan Sales ; translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush in the catalog
Link to From Guernica to Human Rights by Peter Carroll in Freading
Link to German Military Vehicles in the Spanish Civil War : A Comprehensive Study of the Deployment of German Military Vehicles on the Eve of WW2 by Jose María Mata in the catalog
Link to By-line: Ernest Hemingway; selected articles and dispatches of four decades edited by William White in the catalog
Link to Exiles+emigres : the flight of European artists from Hitler by Stephanie Barron with Sabine Eckmann in the catalog

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The Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War began on July 17, 1936, when generals Emilio Mola and Francisco Franco launched an uprising aimed at overthrowing the country's democratically elected republic. The Nationalist rebels' initial efforts to instigate military revolts throughout Spain only partially succeeded. In rural areas with a strong right-wing political presence, Franco's confederates generally won out. They quickly seized political power and instituted martial law. In other areas, particularly cities with strong leftist political traditions, the revolts met with stiff opposition and were often quelled. Some Spanish officers remained loyal to the Republic and refused to join the uprising. 

Within days of the uprising, both the Republic and the Nationalists called for foreign military aid. Initially, France pledged to support the Spanish Republic, but soon reneged on its offer to pursue an official policy of non-intervention in the civil war. Great Britain immediately rejected the Republic's call for support.

Faced with potential defeat, Franco called upon Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy for aid. Thanks to their military assistance, he was able to airlift troops from Spanish Morocco across to the mainland to continue his assault on Madrid. Throughout the three years of the conflict, Hitler and Mussolini provided the Spanish Nationalist Army with crucial military support. 

Some 5,000 German air force personnel served in the Condor Legion, which provided air support for coordinated ground attacks against Republican positions and carried out aerial bombings on Republican cities. The most notorious of these attacks came on April 26, 1937, when German and Italian aircraft leveled the Basque town of Gernike (Guernica in Spanish) in a three-hour campaign that killed 200 civilians or more. Fascist Italy supplied some 75,000 troops in addition to its pilots and planes. Spain became a military laboratory to test the latest weaponry under battlefield conditions. Continue reading from US Holocaust Memorial Museum

 

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"We are not makers of history.  We are made by history" - Martin Luther King, Jr.