Spanish Civil War - Definition


Spanish Civil War - Definition

Alternative meaning: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823

A republican soldier seeks cover on the Plaza de Toros in , east of .

A republican soldier seeks cover on the Plaza de Toros in Teruel, east of Madrid.

The Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) was the result of complex political differences between the Republicans — supporters of the government of the day, the Second Spanish Republic, mostly subscribing to electoral democracy and ranging from centrists to those advocating leftist revolutionary change, with a primarily urban power base — and the Nationalists, who rebelled against that government: these had a primarily rural and more conservative power base.

The war took place between July 1936 and April 1939 (although the political situation had already been violent for several years before) and ended in the defeat of the Republicans, resulting in the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The number of casualties is disputed; estimates generally suggest that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed. Many of these deaths, however, were results not of military fighting, but were the outcome of brutal mass executions perpetrated by both sides. Many Spanish intellectuals and artists (including many of the Spanish Generation of 1927) were either killed or forced into exile; also thousands of priests and religious people (including several Bishops) were killed; the more military-inclined often found fame and fortune. The Spanish economy needed decades to recover (see Spanish miracle).

The political and emotional repercussions of the war reverberated far beyond the boundaries of Spain and sparked passion among international intellectual and political communities. Republican sympathizers proclaimed it as a struggle between 'tyranny and democracy', or 'fascism and liberty', and many idealistic youth of the 1930s who joined the International Brigades considered the saving of the Spanish Republic to be the idealistic cause of the era. Many gave their lives in its defense. Franco's supporters, on the other hand, viewed it as a battle between the 'red hordes' (of communism and anarchism) and 'civilization'. However, these dichotomies were inevitably over-simplifications: both sides had varied, and often conflicting, ideologies within their ranks.

The military tactics of the war foreshadowed many of the actions of World War II.

Introduction

Political background

From 1934 to 1936, the Second Spanish Republic was governed by a center-right coalition that included the conservative Catholic Confederaci�n Espa�ola de Derechas Aut�nomas (CEDA). During this time, there were general strikes in Valencia and Zaragoza, street conflicts in Madrid and Barcelona, and a miners' uprising in Asturias, which was put down forcefully by the troops commanded by General L�pez Ochoa and the Legionnaires commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Juan Yag�e, under the direction of Minister of War Diego Hidalgo. During this time, the government expended great efforts to annul the social gains that had been made in the previous years, especially in agrarian reform.

After a series of governmental crises, the elections of February 16, 1936, brought to power a Popular Front government supported by the parties of the left and centre and opposed by those of the right. The new government was unstable, and on April 7 1936, President Niceto Alcal� Zamora was deposed by the new Parliament, which named Prime Minister Manuel Aza�a as the new President.

During this period of rising tensions, according to official sources, 330 people were assassinated and 1,511 were wounded in politically-related violence; records show 213 failed assassination attempts, 113 general strikes, and the destruction of 160 religious buildings;¹ the actual numbers may be even higher. On 12 July 1936, Jos� Castillo, a lieutenant in the Assault Guards and member of the Socialist Party, was murdered by a 'far right' group in Madrid. The following day a group of Assault Guards officers took revenge by murdering Jos� Calvo Sotelo, a Member of Parliament and one of the leaders of the extreme anti-republican opposition, as well as a former finance minister under the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. This assassination precipitated the following events.

On July 17, 1936, the conservative rebellion long feared by the leftist Popular Front government of Prime-Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga, began. Casares Quiroga, who had succeeded Aza�a in the office, had in the previous weeks exiled the military officers suspected of conspiracy, including General Manuel Goded y Llopis and General Francisco Franco, sent to the Balearic Islands and to the Canary Islands, respectively. The rebellion was not only a military coup, but it had a substantial civilian component. The rebels had hoped to gain immediate control of the capital, Madrid, and all the other important cities of Spain. Seville, Pamplona, A Coru�a, C�diz, Jerez de la Frontera, Córdoba, Zaragoza and Oviedo all fell under control of the rebels, also known as the Nationalists, but failed in Barcelona and Madrid. Because of this, a protracted civil war ensued.

The active participants in the war covered the entire gamut of the political positions and ideologies of the time. The Nationalist side included the fascists of the Falange, Carlist and Legitimist monarchists, and Spanish nationalists and most conservatives. On the Republican side were most liberals, Basque and Catalan nationalists, socialists, Stalinist and Trotskyite communists, and anarchists of varying ideologies.

To look at the breakdown another way, the Nationalists included the majority of the Catholic clergy and of practicing Catholics (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, the majority of landowners and many businessmen. The Republicans included most urban workers, peasants, and much of the educated middle class, especially those who were not entrepreneurs.

The leaders of the rebellion were the generals Francisco Franco, Emilio Mola and Jos� Sanjurjo. Sanjurjo was the unquestioned leader of the uprising, but he was killed in a plane crash on July 20 as he was going to Spain to take control of the rebel side. Franco, the overall commander of the Spanish army since 1933 and already a noted pro-Fascist, flew from the Canary Islands to the Spanish colonies in Morocco and took command there. For the remaining three years of the war, Franco was effective commander of all the Nationalists.

One of the principal motives claimed at the time of the initial Nationalist uprising was to confront the anticlericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Roman Catholic Church, which was censured for its support for the monarchy and which many on the Republican side blamed for the ills of the country. In the opening days of the war, churches, convents and other religious buildings were burnt without action on the part of the Republican authorities to prevent it. Articles 24 and 26 of the Constitution of the Republic banned the Jesuits, which deeply offended many of the Nationalists. Notwithstanding these religious matters, the Basque nationalists, who nearly all sided with the Republic, were, for the most part, practicing Catholics. John Paul II has recently canonized several of these martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, murdered for being priests or nuns.

Foreign involvement

The rebellion was opposed by the government (with the troops that remained loyal to the Republic), as well as by Socialist, Communist and anarchist groups. European powers such as Britain and France were officially neutral but still imposed an arms embargo on Spain, and actively discouraged the anti-fascist participation of their citizens. Both fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany violated the embargo and sent troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie and Legi�n C�ndor) and weapons to support Franco. In addition, there were a few volunteer troops from other nations who fought with the Nationalists, such as Eoin O'Duffy of Ireland.

The Republicans received aid and purchased arms extensively from the Soviet Union. These arms included 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armored cars, hundreds of thousands of small arms and 30,000 tons of ammunition. To pay for these armaments the Republicans used US$500 million dollars in gold reserves; at the start of the war Spain had the world's fourth largest reserves of gold, about US$750 million [1] (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPrussia.htm), [2] (http://libraryautomation.com/nymas/soviet_tank_operations_in_the_sp.htm). While some have contended that the Soviets were motivated mainly by the desire to sell armaments, and that they charged extortionate prices [3] (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/review_arms_gold.html), there is no question that they also sent significant numbers of "advisors" who actively participated in the war, including in combat, on the Republican side. Later, the "Moscow gold" was an issue during the Spanish transition to democracy. The other country that helped Republican side was Mexico which provided rifles and food for the Spanish republic.

Volunteers from many countries, collectively known as the International Brigades were organized and directed by the Comitern through the NKVD to aid the Spanish Republicans. American volunteers formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Canadians formed the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (the "Mac-Paps"). Among the more famous foreigners participating in the efforts against the fascists were Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, who went on to write about his experiences in Homage to Catalonia. Orwell's novel Animal Farm was loosely inspired by his experiences, and those of other Trotskyists, at the hands of Stalinists when the Popular Front began to fight within itself, as were the torture scenes in 1984. Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was inspired by his experiences in Spain. Norman Bethune used the opportunity to develop the special skills of battlefield medicine. As a casual visitor Errol Flynn used a fake report of his death at the battlefront to promote his movies.

However, though the Nationalists were receiving overt aid in the form of arms and troops from Germany and Italy, the Republicans received no aid from any major world powers (e.g. Britain or France or the United States) besides the aforementioned Soviet Union contribution. Many of these powers were still practicing a policy of appeasement towards Fascist regimes, or they viewed social revolutionary elements within the anti-fascist forces with distaste, or they believed that the Republicans were Communists.

Germany used the war as a testing ground for faster tanks and aircraft that were just becoming available at the time. The Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter and Junkers Ju 52 transport/bomber were both used in the Spanish Civil War. In addition, the Soviet I-15 fighter and I-16 fighters were used. The Spanish Civil War was also an example of total war, where the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by the Legi�n C�ndor, as depicted by Pablo Picasso in Guernica, foreshadowed episodes of World War II such as the bombing campaign on Britain by the Nazis and the bombing of Dresden by the Allies.

The war: 1936

In the early days of the war, over 50,000 people who were caught on the "wrong" side of the lines were assassinated or summarily executed. The numbers were probably comparable on both sides of the lines. In these paseos ("promenades"), as the executions were called, the victims were taken from their refuges or jails and taken by armed people to be shot out of town. Probably the most famous of these was the poet and dramatist Federico Garc�a Lorca. The outbreak of the war provided an excuse for settling accounts and resolving long-standing feuds.

Any hope of a quick ending to the war was dashed on July 21, the fifth day of the rebellion, when the Nationalists captured the main Spanish naval base at El Ferrol in northwestern Spain. This encouraged the Fascist nations of Europe to help Franco, who had already contacted the governments of Germany and Italy the day before. On July 26, Germany and Italy cast their lot with the Nationalists.

The Axis Powers helped Franco from the very beginning. His Nationalist forces won another great victory on September 27, when the city of Toledo was captured. (A Nationalist garrison under Colonel Moscardo had held the Alcazar in the center of the city since the beginning of the rebellion). Two days later, Franco proclaimed himself General�simo and Caudillo ("chieftain") while unifying the various Falangist and Royalist elements of the Nationalist cause in one movement. In October, the Nationalists launched a major offensive toward Madrid, but increasing resistance by the government and the arrival of "volunteers" from the Soviet Union halted the advance by November 8. In the meantime, the government shifted from Madrid to Valencia, out of the combat zone, on November 6.

Helping the Nationalist forces from the start of the conflict, the Italian government assembled troops, composed of "volunteers" for legal purposes (the Kingdom of Italy never declared war against the Spanish Republic). A poster of the Republican forces urges Spaniards: "Rise up against the Italian invasion of Spain!".

On November 18, Germany and Italy officially recognized the Franco regime, and on December 23, Italy sent "volunteers" of its own to fight for the Nationalists.

Detailed chronology: 1936

February 16: Popular Front electoral victory.
July 12: Police lieutenant Jos� Castillo is murdered by four fascist gunmen who awaited the recently married lieutenant in the afternoon hours in front of his house. He was a member of the UMRA, an antifascist organization for military members, and also worked with socialist youth.
July 13: In retaliation, around 3am, Calvo Sotelo, leader of the right-wing monarchist party, is murdered by police officers. Only a few hours after the assassination of Castillo, his close friend Police Captain Fernando Condes and other police officers, acting on their own initiative, arrest Calvo Sotelo in his house. Driving with him in a police car of the Assault Guard (Guardia de Asalto) police officer Luis Cuenca shoots him in the back of the neck. His dead body is given to a municipal undertaker.
July 14: Shootout between Police Assault Guard and fascist militias in the streets surrounding the cemetery of Madrid, where the burials of Jos� Castillo and Calvo Sotelo are taking place. Four people killed.
July 17: Army uprising in Morocco. Military uprising of the Foreign Legion in Morocco. General Manuel Romerales, commanding officer of the East Army, murdered by rebels, who also imprisoned commanding General Gomez in the late afternoon. Loyal police troops from the Guardia Civil and Guardia de Asalto hold the cities Tetouan and Larache, but are under heavy attack by the rebels. General Franco orders the killing of his nephew, a major in Tetuan, for standing loyal to the government.
By late evening, all of Morocco is in the hands of the rebels. From the Canary Islands, Franco declares a "state of war" for all of Spain. Prime Minister Casares Quiroga spends the whole day telephoning different regional military administrations to clarify the situation. Pamplona, Saragossa, Oviedo, Salamanca, Avila, Segovia, and Cadiz are already in rebel hands.
July 18: The rebels gain control over about one third of Spain.
July 19: Franco flies from the Canary Islands to Tetu�n and takes command of the army in Africa.
Santiago Casares Quiroga resigns as chief of the Republican government.
Diego Mart�nez Barrio tries to form a new government, but cannot obtain broad enough parliamentary support.
Jos� Giral forms a government, which orders that arms be issued to the general populace.
Seville, one of the most important cities in the south, is unsuccessfully defended by local police troops and a poorly armed workers' militia. While the heaviest weapons police possess are machine guns, the rebel General Queipo de Llano sends in artillery and heavily armed troops. Seville falls to the rebels.
The People's Olympiad opens in Barcelona, a protest against the official 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany. In Barcelona, heavy streetfighting breaks out between police, workers militias and loyal troops on one side and around 12,000 rebel soldiers on the other. After it becomes obvious that Civil Guard, Assault Guard and City Police would not be enough to keep control of the city, the Generalitat (regional government of Catalonia), decide belatedly to arm the people.
July 20: Start of the siege of the Alc�zar de Toledo. Rebels defeated in in Madrid and Barcelona, but they take Mallorca. In Madrid, around 10,000 citizens, among them police officers and soldiers, attack the Montana Barracks, held by rebel General Fanjul and around 2,500 soldiers. Some soldiers in the Barracks want to surrender and wave a white flag. The crowd moves towards the barracks, while the soldiers who wanted to surrender are overwhelmed by the rebels. The rebels then immediately fire heavy machine guns and grenades into the masses, leaving many wounded or dead. The crowd storms the Barracks and massacres the defenders. General Fanjul is among the few captured alive.
Barcelona: The combined forces of local police troops, workers' militias and citizens gain back control over the city in a dramatic two-day barricade fight.
Mallorca: After heavy resistance, especially at the Air Base, the rebels gain control over Mallorca.
The official leader of the uprising, General Sanjurjo, dies in an air accident in a small airplane bringing him back to Spain from his exile in Portugal. He had insisted, against the advice of the pilot, on taking all of his possessions with him. The overloaded airplane crashed taking off.
July 21: The Nationalist insurgents have control of the Spanish zones of Morocco, the Canary Islands, the Balearics (except Minorca), the part of Spain north of the Sierra de Guadarrama and the R�o Ebro (except Asturias, Santander, the north of the Pa�s Vasco (Basque Country), and Catalonia). Among the major cities, the insurgents hold Seville, but the Republicans retain Madrid and Barcelona.
Toledo: After three days of street battles against forces loyal to the government, about 1000 Civil and Assault Guards, Falangists (comparable to the German S.A.), and a handful of infantry cadets, under the leadership of Colonel Moscardo, retreat into the Alc�zar de Toledo, a stone fortress set on high ground overlooking the Tagus River and the city. They take with them their own families, plus a few hundred women and children as hostages, most of them families of well known leftists.
July 22: Vallehermoso in La Gomera, a village of 4,000, is the last place in the Canary Islands to fall to the rebels. Police Officer Francisco Mas García organized the hopeless resistance. The actual battle for the town lasted several hours. The councilor, the police officers and the leader of the local workers' council were condemned to death. In the hour before his execution, police chief Don Antonio wrote to his wife: "I die calm, because I believe in the justice of God".
The navy and air force remain loyal to the government. Thanks to the initiative of noncommissioned officer Benjamin Balboa, most of the Navy stayed loyal to the Republic. He was on duty in the central military radio station. As soon as he got notice of the uprising he informed the Naval Ministry and arrested his commanding officer, Captain Castor Ib��ez, then spent the night informing navy ships about the uprising. The soldiers on the ships formed councils and gained control of the ships, despite heavy resistance from the officers. Spain lost three quarters of its navy officers that night, but the Navy was saved for the Republic. The officers of the Spanish Air Force are traditionally very Republican, but the air force has only a few obsolete planes.
July 23: The Nationalists declare a government in the form of the Junta de Defensa Nacional, which meets for the first time in Burgos.
July 24: Start of French aid to the Republican side. For the moment, the help only involves sending a handful of obsolete airplanes for the Spanish Republican Air Force, but the very fact that France seems willing to help is eminently morally important for the supporters of the Republic.
The Durruti Column, around three thousand men, mostly workers, led by Buenaventura Durruti are the first volunteer militia to leave Barcelona, heading for the Aragon front.
July 28: First arrival of German and Italian planes in aid of the Nationalist side. The German and Italian planes carry troops from Morocco to Iberian Spain.
July-August: The social revolution, collectivizations. (See Spanish Revolution)
August 1: Under British pressure, France reverses its policy of helping Republican Spain, and together both nations found the Committee of Non-Intervention.
At the pleading of the Marqu�s de Viana and the exiled ex-king of Spain, Alfonso XIII, Mussolini sends airplanes in support of the rebels. Mussolini wants money for this help; the Spanish billionaire Juan March pays for the Italian airplanes. Because Franco has no air personnel or pilots, Mussolini sends the airplanes with Italian pilots. After two of the airplanes crash on their way in French Morocco, the world becomes aware of this clear breach of nonintervention.
August 2: Troops of the rebellious Foreign Legion start their advance from Seville towards Madrid .
August 8: France closes its border with Spain.
While Mallorca is still in hands of the fascists, Ibiza and Formentera are back in Republican hands.
August 10: The Nationalists take M�rida on their way to Madrid cutting off the Republicans in Badajoz. The well-known female Republican activist Leiva is executed by the Nationalists.
August 14: Nationalist forces under Colonel Juan Yag�e take Badajoz, uniting the two parts of the Nationalist territory. Around 4,000 people die during and after the attack in Badajoz. In the local bullring, thousands of people are shot down by the Nationalists with machine guns.
There was a systematic mass rape of the female populace. This was the official policy of the Nationalist generals, as proved by many radio speeches of General Queipo de Llano, who was very proud of the sexual behavior of his troops. First in line to rape and kill were the so-called "moros" (Moors), Moroccan volunteers, for whom this was a chance at a sort of revenge for the Spain's colonial occupation of their country. Fighting, ironincally, on the side of the colonialists against the common people of Spain, they were to become elite troops of the fascist army.
August 16: The Republican Army land on the coast of Mallorca, under heavy bombardment by Italian planes. Captain Alberto Bayo establishes a small base on the coast.
August 19: Viznar, Grenada: Federico Garc�a Lorca, among others, is murdered by members of the fascist "Escuadra Negra". Before being killed, they are forced to dig their own graves. Later, the official excuse for the brutal assassination of Garc�a Lorca will be that he was homosexual.
August 24: Italy and Germany join officially the Non-Intervention agreement. This gives them the possibility to participate in the international blockade of Spain: Italian and German warships are now allowed to stay in Spanish territorial waters and prevent other ships from reaching the Spanish shore.
September 3: The Republican forces under Captain Alberto Bayo retreat from Mallorca. After establishing a small base on the shore of Mallorca two weeks earlier, the Republican troops could not make it to the inner area of the island. Under permanent attack by enemy land and air forces, the retreat was more of a flight, leaving behind many men, weapons and valuable material.
September 4: Prime Minister Francicso Largo Caballero presents new government: 6 Socialists, 4 Republicans, 2 Communists, 1 Catalan Republican, and 1 Basque Nationalist.
September 5: After heavy fighting, the Basque city of Ir�n is taken by the Nationalists. Anarchist militias, defending the city, destroy most of the government buildings with dynamite to prevent their use by the Fascists. The Fascists control now a large and contiguous portion of Spain. The Basque Country is separated from the rest of the Republic, the Basque coastline is already blocked by warships of the "Non Intervention" states, and eventually even its supply lines over the French border are cut off.
September 9: 23 countries attend first official meeting of the Non-Intervention committee in London. The psychological effect on the Republican side is horrible. Instead of helping the legally elected democratic government, the democratic nations turn away, in favor of the Insurgents. "One country alone reacted without fear, and with great generosity, towards the plight of the Spanish republic. Mexico supported fully and publicly the claim of the Madrid government. Mexico refused to follow the French-British Non-Intervention proposals, recognizing immediately the great advantage they offered the Insurgents. Contrary to the United States, Mexico did not feel that neutrality between an elected government and a military junta was a proper policy.[...] Mexico's attitude gave immense moral comfort to the Republic, especially since the major South American governments - those of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru - sympathized more or less openly with the Insurgents." But Mexican aid meant relatively little in practical terms if the French border were closed and if the dictators remained free to supply the Insurgents with a quality and quantity of weapons far beyond the power of Mexico.
Nationalists have been under siege in the Alc�zar de Toledo since July 21. Today, Lt. Colonel Vicente Rojo Lluch enters the Alc�zar under a flag of truce to try to obtain its surrender, and failing that, the release of the hostages. Colonel Moscardo refuses both proposals.
September 13: Basque city of San Sebastian taken by the Nationalists, who now advance in the direction of the Basque capital, Bilbao.
The government agree to send part of the national gold reserves to the Soviet Union. The gold is sent as security for future buying of war material from the Soviet Union.
September 14: The Pope condems the Republican Government for their "satanic hate against God".
September 19: The Nationalists take the island of Ibiza.
September 24: Against the recommendation of his German advisors, Franco postpones the advance on Madrid in order to aid the Insurgents in the Alc�zar of Toledo. The siege has taken on immense symbolic importance for both sides.
September 26: The new Catalan government (Generalitat de Catalunya) includes now the groups who gained power resisting the military rebellion. The Socialist P.O.U.M. and the Anarchist C.N.T./F.A.I. send ministers.
September 27: Toledo falls to the Nationalists. Some hundred militia man try to stop the Nationalist advance into the city and were all killed by Foreign Legion and Moroccan mercenaries, the "Moros". Around 40 Anarchists, running out of ammunition, set fire to the building they were defending and are burned alive rather the be taken as prisoners. The Nationalists murder the doctor and the nurses in the hospital of Toledo; unarmed, wounded militiamen are killed in their beds. It develops that the hostages taken by Nationalist Colonel Moscardo were killed in the beginning of the siege, what explains why Moscardo refused to handle them over on September 9.
September 27: The Non-Intervention committee refuses to hear charges against Portugal for his open support of the Insurgents and the clear defiance of the blockade.
September 29: The Fascist junta in Burgos declare Franco General�simo.
September: Comintern approves the creation of the International Brigades.
October 1: Franco declares himself head of state and General�simo.
The Republican government concedes autonomy to the Basque Country (in practice, Biscay and Guip�zcoa) as Euzkadi, with Jos� Antonio Aguirre as its president.
October 3: In order to "legitimate" the fascist rebellion inside and outside Spain, Franco establishes a civil government for the "National Zone". This Civil Junta has practically no say in any matter, because at the beginning of their uprising the insurgent generals declared a State of War covering all of Spain.
October 6: The Soviet Union declares it will be no more bound by Non-Intervention than are Portugal, Italy, and Germany. The Spanish Republic will now, 3 months after the uprising, be able to buy armaments and ammunition. Unlike the "National Zone", who is supplied openly over the Portuguese border, the Republic still suffers under the closed French border and the "Non-Intervention" blockade at sea.
October 7: The first International Brigades founded in Albacete. The Italian Communist chief Togliatti and the French Communist Andre Marty are the effective organizational heads.
October 9: Foundation of the "Popular Army" in the Spanish Republic. The plan is to organize the loyal portion of the former army, along with the militias, under a modern and efficient officers corps with a central command.
October 12: Miguel de Unamuno opposes Nationalist General Mill�n Astray. During a celebration in the University of Salamanca (National Zone), with guests including Franco's wife, world famous philosopher and chairman of the university, Miguel de Unamuno, speaks out against General Mill�n Astray, first commander of the Foreign Legion. Until now a supporter of the Nationalist Rebellion, he says that listening to the official speech of Mill�n Astray he has come to realize the inhuman and ignoble nature of the uprising. Meanwhile, supporters of the General are shouting "Long Live Death". Unamuno says in a loud voice to the general that they have not only to win (vencer), but to convince (convencer), that he doesn't think they were fit for the latter task, and that the general himself, a cripple who lost an eye and an arm in an former war, is also an cripple in his mind, and therefore his hatred wants to cripple all others. The choleric General becomes so furious that he wants to strike Unamuno, shouting "Death to Intelligence". Only the intervention of Franco's wife prevents this. Unamuno is removed as rector of the university. Because of his international fame and the trouble after the assassination of poet Garc�a Lorca, Franco refuses his own and Mill�n Astray's wish to execute Unamuno. Instead, he is confined to his house and is not allowed to express himself in public. He will die of chagrin in December. The day he dies, his two sons enlist themselves voluntarily in the Republican Militias.
October 24: First Shipment of the Spanish Gold Reserves to the Soviet Union, which insists on having a security for selling armament and ammunition. Spain will ultimately send more than half its gold reserve to the USSR; at $35 per ounce the shipment was worth US$578,000,000.
October 27: The first Russian tanks arrive in Madrid. They are heavily armored T-26 tanks, which weigh more than 10 tons apiece, drive from the central train station directly into battle. The defenders of Madrid, who until now had to use Molotov cocktails (glass bottles filled with gasoline and burning cloth) against the German and Italian tanks on the Nationalist side, gain the ability to slow the Nationalist advance.
October 27: 16 people dead and 60 wounded in air raid against Madrid. Six bombs detonate in the Plaza de Col�n, in the middle of the City. One bomb falls into a queue of women waiting for milk for their children. This is the first bombing in modern history without any military meaning, other than to spread terror among the civil population. The air raid was made by German pilots in Junkers Ju-52. Madrid has no air defenses to prevent enemy airplanes from flying over the city.
November 1: The Nationalist army arrive in Madrid. An army of roughly 25,000 men arrive the suburbs of Madrid. Italian planes drop leaflets demanding the citizens to help them to take the city, "otherwise the National aviation will wipe Madrid off the earth".
November 2: The first Russian Airplanes over Madrid surprise the Nationalist bombers. The Republican aviation had till now only a handful of obsolete machines, but today the people of Madrid can see the first Russian "Chatos" defending the city. Citizens stand in the streets and watch the sky, ignoring the alarms and the calls for shelter. Several attacking airplanes are shot down; some Russian airplanes are also shot down by Italian Fiats guarding the bombers. One Russian pilot suffers a horrible death: After his machine is destroyed by a Italian Fiat he saves himself with a jump out of his burning plane, his parachute brings him safely to the city, but he is lynched by a mob of furious citizens, who think he is a German Fascist from the Condor Legion.
November 4: Four Anarchist ministers join the Republican government: Frederica Montseny - portofilio of education, Juan Garcia Oliver - law, Juan Lopez, and Joan Peiro. By this means, Llargo Caballero brings figures from what is by far Spain's largest mass movement into the government.
The Nationalists take the Madrid suburb Getafe. After a heavy attack by Moorish cavalry, tanks, and airplanes, the defenders are completely defeated. The wounded are walking disorientated over the battlefield, the organization of the defense in this area breaks down. Fascist General Varela tells foreign journalists in a press conference: "You can tell the world, Madrid will fall within one week." General Mola plans the attack route: over the Casa de Campo and the practically unpopulated university quarter, to avoid heavy losses in the fierce street fight he would anticipate if he had to enter through the south suburbs, traditionally strong districts of the working class.
November 5: For the first time, the Republican air force forces attacking bombers and their escort to break up the attack on Madrid before they even reach the city.
November 6: Yague occupies the suburb Carabanchel and the strategically important hill Cerro de los Angeles. With that, the Nationalists are standing on the door to Madrid, whose defense is organized under the newly created Junta de Defensa directed by General Jose Miaja.
The Republican government moves to Valencia.
November 7: The attack on Madrid. Nationalists gain important bridges on the way to the inner city. General Varela's troops enter Casa de Campo and the University Quarter in fierce man-to-man and house-to-house combat. Both sides have horrible losses. Franco declares that he will be listening the very next day the holy measures in the cathedral of Madrid.
November 8: All-out assault on Madrid. The International Brigades arrive. The defenders are running out of ammunition; on several points the front is close to breaking; in the university quarter the enemy pushes through the Republican lines. This is the moment when the first "Internationals" arrive in Madrid. The shocked citizens think in the first moment that the Nationalists are in the inner city when they see 3,000 uniformed and disciplined soldiers marching in. The members, mostly German, Polish, and Italian veterans of WWI and of German concentration camps, start to sing revolutionary songs and the "Internationale". The citizens rush out of their houses and sing and shout for joy. The "Brigadistas" march immediately to the front, and throw themselves unflinchingly into battle. 2,000 of them die or are wounded within 48 hours. In the War Ministry of Madrid, telegramms are arriving congratulating General Franco on his victorious entry, but only Republican officers are there to read them. When the Moroccan mercenaries of Franco break through the Republican lines in direction of the Model Prison, General Miaja himself drives to the threatened sector, takes his pistol in one hand and shouts at the retreating soldiers: "Cowards! Die in your trenches. Die with your General." This encourages his men, the gap is closed. All over the city, citizens, women as well as the men, are reinforcing the trenches, taking the rifles from dead or wounded soldiers.
Around 1,000 mostly political prisoners are massacred by their Republican Militia guards today in Paracuellos del Jarama. The prisoners, most of them accused Nationalists, were to be evacuated from Madrid to prevent their liberation by Nationalist troops. Their Guards decide to join the defense of Madrid, kill all of the prisoners and return to Madrid.
November 10: Front line established in Madrid, the university quarter back under Republican control. The famous Anarchist Buenaventura Durruti arrives today with the 3,000-man "Durruti Column". They left the Saragossa Front to help defend Madrid.
November 18: Italy and Germany recognize the Franco government. Everybody expects the fall of Madrid within hours. Franco throws everything he has into the battle, German airplanes are fighting over Madrid, and both countries expect this diplomatic step to strengthen the position of Franco and weaken the stand and the morale of the Republic. The Durruti Column has been fighting in the University City without rest since the 15th, only 400 of the 3,000 survive, and those are completely exhausted. Durruti will launch an attack at the University hospital the next day.
November 19: Anarchist leader Buenaventura Durruti is gravely wounded during the fighting in Madrid. The Durruti Column launches their attack on the University hospital, held by the Nationalists. Around 2 p.m., Durruti is hit by a bullet on the right side of his breast, which passes through his chest and lungs. It is suspected that he may have shot from behind by one of his men, either by accident or possibly in an intentional effort to stop the suicidal attack. What actually happened remains controversial.
November 20: Buenaventura Durruti dies at 6 a.m. Jos� Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and founder of the Falange, is executed in a jail in Alicante, where he has been a prisoner since before the insurgency. The execution is carried out by the new Communist civil governor of Alicante, without awaiting the confirmation of sentence by the government. This breaking of the law and insubordination angered Llargo Caballero, but the Republic is already dependent on Soviet supplies and the Spanish Communist Party. This Party starts to act as a state within the state.
November 23: Battle of Madrid ends; with both sides exhausted, a front stabilizes. After 2 weeks, Franco has to give up his plans of taking the city. He now begins preparing himself and his allies for a long and expensive war.
December 11: Alvarez del Vayo complains today before the League of the Nations in Geneva about the support of Portugal, Italy and Germany for the Rebels and the political and economic isolation of the Spanish Republic by the Democratic Nations and the Non-Intervention Committee.
December 17: New government constituted in Aragon. The new Consejo de Aragon has a clear majority of Anarchists. The front-line in Aragon is basically formed my Anarchist and Socialist militia. Some areas and villages in Aragon start immediately with the "revolution", what means the reorganization of public life under Anarchist ideals, foundation of communes and self-organization of factories and farms. Some of the villages replace money with coupons handed out by the local authorities. In Aragon, the world can see the most radical reformation of public life and a true people's revolution.
December 22: Thousands of Nationalist Italian volunteers land in Cadiz, the Nationalist port.
December 24: Thousands have to spend the Christmas days in the trenches on the front. Many refugees have nowhere to go and have to stay at subway stations and refugee camps.
December 30: George Orwell enlists himself in a Republican P.O.U.M. Militia to fight against fascism.
December 31: Miguel de Unamuno dies in his House in Salamanca. As soon as they got notice of the death of their father, his two sons enlist themselves in the Antifascist Militias.

The war: 1937

With his ranks being swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February of 1937, but failed again. The large city of M�laga was taken on February 8, and on April 28, Franco's men entered Guernica, in the Basque Country, two days after the bombing of that city by the German Condor Legion equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes (the legion arrived in Spain on May 7). After the fall of Guernica, the government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness.

In May, the government made a move to recapture Segovia, forcing Franco to pull troops away from the Madrid front to halt their advance. Mola, Franco's second-in-command, was killed on June 3, and in early July, despite the fall of Bilbao in June, the government actually launched a strong counter-offensive in the Madrid area, which the Nationalists repulsed with some difficulty.

The frequent and violent attacks by Republican forces on clergy, laity, and property of the led the Nationalist side to call the Spanish Civil War a modern-day . This Nationalist poster proclaims: "CRUSADE. Spain, spiritual guide of the world".

The frequent and violent attacks by Republican forces on clergy, laity, and property of the Catholic Church led the Nationalist side to call the Spanish Civil War a modern-day Crusade. This Nationalist poster proclaims: "CRUSADE. Spain, spiritual guide of the world".

After that, Franco regained the initiative, invading Aragon in August and then taking the city of Santander (now in Cantabria). Two months of bitter fighting followed and, despite determined Asturian resistance, Gij�n (in Asturias) fell in late October, which effectively ended the war in the North.

Meanwhile, on August 28, the Vatican recognized Franco under pressure from Mussolini, and at the end of November, with the Nationalists closing in on Valencia, the government moved again, to Barcelona.

Detailed chronology: 1937

January 5: Nationalist General Orgaz with 18,000 men attacks the roads north west of Madrid in an attempt to cut the city's supply lines. Madrid is suffering several air raids daily, and sometimes nighttime raids as well.
January 6: Nationalists take Boadilla. The International Brigades (IBs) defended the city; one of the few survivors of the Internationals is Romilly, 17-year-old nephew of Winston Churchill. Romilly volunteered despite his famous uncle's open sympathy for Franco, like that of most of his friends in the ruling UK Conservative Party.
January 11: The Nationalist offensive northwest of Madrid is stopped. Both sides, temporarily exhausted after heavy casualties, start to build trenches and dig themselves in.
January 17: The Nationalists begin the battle to take M�laga. Three Nationalist columns converge on the city from Seville and Granada.
January 19: General Lister with the IBs gains back the Cerro de los Angeles next to Madrid. This hill overlooks the city; the heavy Nationalist artillery there could had been shelling the city. The IBs become more and more the key units in the Republican Army.
February 5: A Nationalist army approaches M�laga. The situation in M�laga epitomizes the worst conditions existing in the Republican zone: perhaps 600 hostages are held on a prison ship in the harbor, and groups of them are shot in reprisal for the several air raids over the port. The sailors' committees in the fleet and the city administration are divided in mortal rivalry between CNT and the Communist party. Like all Republican cities, there is no antiaircraft defense. Its militiamen, mostly anarchists, and not yet reorganized into the new Popular Army, built no trenches or roadblocks, because they consider this cowardice. The government assigns Colonel Villalba, a professional officer, to organize the defense, but without guns to place on the heights, without ammunition to give his soldiers, and without the slightest possibility of controlling the rivalries within the city, there is virtually nothing he can do. The invading force consists of some 10,000 Moors, 5,000 Requetes (right-wing militiamen), 5,000 Italians and plentiful supplies of trucks and artillery. They have only a few tanks and planes, but they can use these with maximum effectiveness in the virtual absence of opposition.
February 6: Nationalists start a powerful offensive in the Jarama Valley. Nationalist General Orgaz is in command of around 40,000 troops, most of them Foreign Legion and Moorish cavalry, supported by anti-tank artillery, two battalions of German-operated heavy machine guns (German ground troops under the command of the German Condor Legion), German-operated tanks and planes (Condor Legion), and 600 Irish Nationalists under the command of the right-wing fanatic Eoin O'Duffy. The Nationalists want to cut the main Madrid-Valencia highway. General Pozas, commander of the new Central Army of the Republic, is planning his own offensive against the Nationalist line and is therefore massing men and material in the same area. Due to their own planned offensive, the Republicans fail to fortify their high ground, and the Nationalist offensive takes them completely by surprise. The hills are quicklyly lost, as are the two principal bridges. The Republican guards on the bridges are killed in the night by Moorish commando units. The guards on the Pindoque Bridge manage to mine the bridge during the attack, but it remains usable for enemy tanks and trucks. Citizens flee M�laga. About 100,000 people begin a disorganized mass exodus along the coastal road to Almer�a. The road is blocked by slow vehicles and wounded people; for the next two weeks, the Nationalist air force and navy bomb the road at will. German warships of the "Nonintervention"-committee participate in the shelling, sometimes in the presence of English naval vessels which do nothing to intervene. (Until the 1960s, truck drivers continued to find skeletons of those who fled M�laga in February 1937)
February 8: M�laga taken by Franco's troops. The militiamen resisted rifle and grenade fire, but broke at the totally unfamiliar sight of tanks. The Nationalists start immediately to take an enormous amount of prisoners and to execute them. For example, participation in a strike several years ago is grounds for exectution. The Italian military authorities are horrified at the number of executions and the mutilations practiced on the corpses and those who were wounded, as well as the mass rape of women.
Nationalists advance in the Jarama. Russian tanks can slow down the advance for brief periods, but the Nationalists quickly concentrate heavy artillery fire and force their withdrawal. The planes of the Condor Legion control the air.
February 10: The 14th and 15th IBs fortify the Republican army in the Jarama. The troops stop the Nationalist advance, but take horrible losses in doing so. At one point the Nationalists force approximately 30 survivors of a captured British machine gun group to advance in front of their attack; half of these man die under fire of their own comrades.
February 12: Air supremacy for the Republic at the Jarama front, all-out attack on the last Republican positions. 40 new Russian airplanes arrive at the Jarama front, giving the Republic air supremacy in the area. These planes consist of 15 ground strafers and 25 fighters, the fighters are nicknamed "Chatos". The arrival of these planes forces the enemy planes to retreat. On the night of February 12, Nationalist General Orgaz commits all his reserves to gain control over the last key positions that still prevent his forces from cutting the Valencia highway. Several companies of the IBs — including British and Polish — as well as Spanish companies, were "cut to pieces" attempting to hold these positions.
February 15: The force of the offensive in the Jarama had spent itself. As in the Battle of Coruna Road, the Nationalists have gained ground, but strategic victory had escaped them. The Foreign Legion is broken. Around 20,000 men died in the 10 days of the Jarama Battle, two thirds of them Republicans.
February 17: The Anarchist writer Pedro Orobon dies in an air raid at Madrid.
February 20: Republican General Asensio Torrado resigns.
February 27: The newly formed Abraham Lincoln Battalion, part of the IBs, consisting mostly of North Americans had arrived at the Jarama front February 13; they are ordered to carry out a suicidal attack. 127 men die and more than 200 are wounded. Responsibility for poorly planned attack lies on Brigade Commander Copic, who refuses to see the wounded leader of the "Lincolns", Robert Hale Merriman, after the disastrous, failed action.
March 5: First council of the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) in the war. The PCE makes a declaration in favor of democracy and against revolution and Trotskyism. The delegates sharply attack the government and the CNT.
March 8: Strong Nationalist attack in the Guadalajara starts at 7 a.m. Italian troops quickly break the front and, by the end of the day, dominate the heights, from which they can "roll" downhill to Madrid. Their plan is to advance to Madrid via Brihuega and Guadalajara. The attacking force includes 250 tanks, 180 pieces of artillery, 4 motorized machine gun companies, about 70 planes and a large number of trucks.
March 9-11: The Italians are moving too rapidly for their units to preserve communications and supply lines. A sudden turn in the weather catches the Italian trucks in a snow and sleet storm, just as the Republicans begin to hold firm south of Brihuega and Trijueque. While the Italian planes are grounded by the weather, the Republican air force is operating at considerable risk from airfields outside of the bad weather zone. Low-flying fighters are machine-gunning the stalled truck columns while vintage 1918 Breguets, which had survived the summer air battles, run bombing missions. Vittorio Vidal]] and Luigi Longo, the political leaders of the IB Garibaldi battalion (Italian volunteers on Republican side), mount a propaganda campaign intendedto destroy the morale of the CTV, pulling loudspeakers up to the lines and dropping leaflets from the air, exhorting the Italian soldiers not to shoot against their brother workers and to leave the Fascists.
March 12: The IBs start a massive counterattack, with the support of 70 Russian tanks.
March 16: The IBs take back Bruhuega, under the legendary Republican General "El Campesino".
March 19: The Guadalajara battle ends, the rout stops short of the bases from which the Nationalist attack started. During the retreat of the Nationalists, the Republicans capture large stocks of equipment, about 1,500 prisoners and a mass of documentary evidence about the Italian intervention in Spain. The government is hoping to lay this evidence before the Nonintervention committee. The so-called "London Committee" will declare itself incompetent to receive this evidence from any source not represented in the Committee itself. Thereupon the Spanish Foreign Minister, Alvarez del Vayo, will exhibit the documents before the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva.
Ernest Hemingway is reporting for U.S. newspapers from the battle and the war. He collected US$40,000 in the USA to buy ambulances for the Republic. U.S. public opinion tends strongly in favor of the Republic, but right-wing and anti-Communist forces in the government control the U.S. foreign policy.
March 31: Nationalist General Mola starts a new offensive in the north with 50,000 troops. After failing in the capture of Madrid, the Nationalist army is concentrating in a campaign against the Basques. In the morning hours the Condor Legion starts a new tactic: massive terror strikes against nonmilitary targets, the annihilation of complete villages. The small town Durango suffers the first attack; some of the first bombs fall into the church during the well attended morning Mass. Fighters fly low and machine-gun the fleeing population. The Nationalists also attack a nearby cloister killing 15 nuns. Around 300 people die in this air raids, 2,500 are wounded, practically all of them civilians. A second air attack takes place as fire brigades, police and ambulances from Bilbao try to help the victims.
April 3: The CNT declares that the revolution must continue. In opposition to the declaration of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) last month, which was pro-democracy and against revolution, the anarchist CNT declares that "revolution must go on" and that such a policy constitutes the greatest strength against Fascism. The Anarchists control the province of Aragon and are strong throughout all of Spain.
April 5: To tie down Nationalist forces and to help therefore the Basque Army in the north, the Republican Army initiates a big offensive in Brunete.
April 8: The PCE and the PSOE (Socialist Workers Party) sign a pact, commiting them to work together. This creates tensions between the Socialist unions and Spain's strongest union, the anarchist CNT.
General Miaja's troops attack Nationalist positions in Garabitas and Casa de Campo.
April 11: Republican army attack Nationalist positions in Santa Quitera.
April 14: 6th anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic
April 16: The Republican goverment restricts the attributions of war commissars, made under pressure of the Soviet advisors and the PCE.
April 19: Decree of Unification: Franco declares the amalgamation of the hard right Falange and the conservative Catholic Carlists, creating the Falange Espa�ola Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS). With this Franco is not only the military leader of the rebellion, but also its political leader.
April 23: Dissolution of Madrid "Junta de defensa"; the high command of the Republican army, under the ministry of war, resumes command of the frontlines at Madrid.
April 26: Bombing of Guernica. Condor Legion terror bombing of the city most strongly identified with Basque national identity. The town is nearly destroyed by close to three hours of bombing; civilian targets hit and the retreating Basque Army are hit; military factories are specifically not targeted, presumably because the Nationalists intend to capture these intact. Also spared are the Gernikako Arbola, traditional seat of the Biscayne assembly, and the adjoining neoclassical Casa de Juntas, its modern seat. The attack comes on a market day, so the human carnage is vast. Initially proud of the attack, the Nationalists soon realize that they have shocked the world; they soon spread the tale that the retreating Basque Army destroyed the city themselves.
May 1: This years parade for the international labour day is prohibited in Barcelona. In recent weeks in Barcelona, confrontations between city police and worker-organized "control patrols" (a sort of police militia, in duty since the outbreak of the military rebellion in June 1936), have led to such a tense atmosphere that the regional Catalonian Government prohibits the traditional May Day parade.
May 3: Violent incident at the Barcelona central telephone office. Without knowledge of the Catalan government, the Catalan councilor for public order, the Communist Rodriguez Salas, tries to take control over the city's central telephone office, which has beencontrolled since the beginning of the war by the CNT and UGT. Salas got this order directly from the Catalan minister for inner affairs, Ayguade, also a Communist. A company of Assault Guards storms the building around 3 p.m., "hands up", arresting everybody they can. The armed guards on the machine gun post at the stairs on the second floor are not informed in advance, nor is anyone else in the building. When they see armed uniformed men coming up the stairs and hear the yells and shouting from the first floor they shout "stop there and don't come up" at which point a gunfight breaks out. The anarchist guards resist their attackers and keep control of the upper floors of the building. This skirmish leads to fighting throughout the city. Several hundred barricades are built; Communist-controlled police units occupy high buildings and church towers, shooting at everything that moves. The Communists attack not only the CNT, they also arrest POUM members. The actions are obviously well planned. Some police units and the Republican army stay neutral in the fighting, although army officers, if members of CNT/FAI or POUM, are also arrested if caught at Communist-controlled check points. The police director of Barcelona — a member of the CNT — together with the leader of the "control patrols" comes to the telephone central in an attempt to get the occupying police forces to leave the central peacefully. They have no success, instead Catalonian prime minister Lluis Companys declares that he, like everyone else, was not informed in advance by his minister for internal affairs, but that he agrees all in all with the police action. The radio stations of the CNT and FAI call hourly upon their members to maintain public order and keep calm.
May 4: General strike in Barcelona. Gunfights throughout the city.
May 5: Companys obtains a fragile truce between the different fighting groups, on the basis of which Rodriguez Salas, now blamed for the police action against the telephone central, has to resign. Communist commandos are still arresting people and the Communist/Socialist official Antoni Sese is murdered, probably by Anarchist gunmen.
May 6: "Neutral" police troops from Valencia arrive in Barcelona to stop the fighting. The 5,000 Assault Guards (chosen more or less carefully for their political opinions, to ensure a "neutral" force and the trust of both sides) occupy several strategic points throughout the city. The workers abandon the barricades and the telephone central is handed over to the government. When the Assault Guards enter the city and passed by the central building of the Anarchist CNT, several hundreds of them salute the black and red Anarchist flag on the building. Nevertheless, reprisals against the anti-Stalinist left are starting throughout the Republic.
May 7: The fighting in Barcelona concludes, with more than 500 dead and over 1500 wounded. Many are still under illegal arrest in several Communist-controlled police stations, militia barracks and secret prisons.
May 8: In Barcelona, police find the horribly mutilated bodies of 12 murdered young men. 8 of the bodies are so mutilated that they cannot be identified. The 4 identified bodies belong to 4 young anarchists, illegally arrested together with 8 friends on May 4 outside the Communist militia barracks in Barcelona, when they were passing by on a truck with "CNT" written on it. The names of the identified young men are: Cesar Fern�ndez Neri, Jose Villena, Juan Antonio, and Luis Carneras. Police also found the dead bodies of the Italian anarchist professor Berneri and two of his friends, who were arrested during the May incidents by Communist militias.
May 11: The Communist parties (PCE, PSUC) accuse the POUM of responsibility for the May incidents in Barcelona. While Spanish prime minister Caballero opposes accusation and the concurrent demand of the immediate removal of the Spanish minister of the Interior, Angel Galarza for failing to uncover the "Trotskyite plot" in Barcelona, he continues to lose power to the communists.
May 13: The Communist ministers demand the suppression of the POUM, calling them a Fascist organization working for Franco, an accusation the Communist press has made for several months in propaganda campaigns against political opponents such as the Anarchist councils in Aragon.
May 15: Largo Caballero resigns, Juan Negr�n becomes prime minister of the Spanish Republic. After fighting against domination of Spain by any one faction — Communist, Anarchist, or left Socialists — Caballero is left alone with no one on his side. Juan Negr�n is presented as the man of the hour, leader of the "Government of the Victory", as the press presents him and his cabinet. There are no CNT ministers in this new government.
May 27: The new Negr�n government accept the accusations against the POUM and prohibit their newspaper La Batalla.
May 29: Daily air raids on Madrid continue, with the Nationalist air force again superior to the Republican. The Nazi German air planes piloted by members of the Condor Legion are technically more advanced than the Russian air planes used by the Republic. Nevertheless, Republican pilots are fight bravely and without regard for their own lives. Spanish pilots are invited to Russia for training on the Russian air planes.
During an attack by the Republican air force against Nationalist air bases and the port of Ibiza, the Nazi German battle ship Deutschland enters the area of the port to threaten the Republican planes. Two Russian pilots, Captain Anton Progrorin and Lieutenant Wassily Schmidt, drop their bombs on the Deutschland, causing severe damage on the ship and killing 31 seamen.
May 30: German forces bomb Almer�a to repress Republican air attacks on the battleship Deutschland. Because of the Deutschland incident, Germany and Italy leave the meetings of the Nonintervention committee. The German battle ship Admiral Scheer shells the port and the city of Almer�a with 200 grenades, causing 19 deaths, 55 wounded, and destroying 150 houses. German and Italian battle ships are concentrated in the Mediterranean Sea next to Spain. The open outbreak of a world war is at hand.
June 3: Nationalist General Mola dies in an airplane accident. Fidel D�vila takes over as commander of his troops, attacking Bilbao.
June 6: The Basque Army loses the last of its air force: the last Basque air fighters are shot down, the culmination of a suicidal resistance against the Condor Legion. Totally outnumbered, the pilots were flying day by day to relieve the soldiers in the trenches, and being destroyed one after the other by the enemy.
June 7: Falange official Manuel Hedilla, leader of the left wing of the fascist Falange, is condemned to death by a court martial. He had opposed Franco over aspects of his leadership of the war effort and the administration of the Nationalist occupied zone.
June 11: General Paul Lukacs, whose real name was Mate Zalka, dies during an inspection of the Republican lines at Huesca. His car is hit by an artillery shell, the driver dies immediately. General Lukacs himself is mortally wounded on his right temple and dies several hours later.
The "Iron Ring", el cintur�n de hierro, is a vast, labyrinthine fortification around Bilbao, consisting of bunkers, tunnels, and fortified trenches in several rings, protected by artillery. The Basque Army had hoped to position themselves in the Iron Ring to resist constant air raids and prevent the enemy from reaching the Basque capital. However, the layout of the Ring was betrayed to the Nationalist army, and since the first days of June the Legion Condor has been able to target so accurately that the Ring is bombed to pieces. Basque President Aquirre comes to the front; he witnesses a horrible event at Mount Urcullu: A dried-out forest just behind part of the Iron Ring is shelled with fire bombs from enemy airplanes and artillery. Along a length of three kilometers, the defenders on this part of the Ring are overcome by the smoke. The attackers break through and occupy the heights near Bilbao, around 10 kilometers from the city. Basque General Gamir and the Basque government decide to organize a slow retreat to Santander.
June 12: The Nationalist troops breach the "Iron Ring".
June 13: Street fights in Bilbao, uprising of Nationalist supporters. As the army retreats, fifth columnists favoring the Nationalist side start a riot in the city to take over control of strategic buildings and are defeated under heavy losses by anarchist militias (the army is already retreating). Afterwards, Basque police prevent the militias from attacking Bilbao's prisons and killing imprisoned Nationalists.
June 16: The POUM is outlawed and its leaders are arrested.The secret police arrest most of the POUM leaders, though its head, Andreu Nin, cannot yet be found.
June 17: Nin is arrested in Barcelona. His arrest is not announced in public; Communist agents take him secretly to a illegal prison in Alcal� de Henares, near Madrid. Nin is interrogated under torture by NKDV agent Alexander Orlov.
An explosion aboard the Republican battleship Jaime I at Cartagena causes about 300 deaths and the total loss of the ship.
Bilbao shelled by 20,000 shells. President Aquirre gives the secret order to send 900 Nationalist prisoners over to the enemy, fearing for their lives in the city after the total retreat of the Basque Army. Juan Manuel Epalza leads the prisoners to the Nationalists in the night to the 19th of June.
June 18: The Basque government refuses the order to destroy factories in Bilbao that are of value to a war effort. The Republican government want to prevent the Nationalists from gaining control of these plants. The Basque government refuses and is counting on the outbreak very soon of a general European war, in which the Nationalists will be beaten and they can gain back the plants.
June 19: The Nationalists enter Bilbao without opposition and begin immediately to distribute food to thousands of women lining the streets. Around 200,000 people have fled from the city. Thousands tried to reach the French coast by sea, but the Nationalist navy was waiting for them in the Bay of Biscay. The bay was full of fugitive's overcrowded boats, some sinking. The ships from the Nonintervention Committee (in the Bay of Biscay mostly British) are watching the scene. Franco has to concede two thirds of the production from the mines and steel factories of the Basque country to his German ally. Hitler needs these resources for his own war preparations.
June 21: Soviet agents assassinate the POUM leader Nin.
July 6: The International Brigades (IBs) under General Lister launch an offensive at Brunete, 25 km west of Madrid, to lift the siege of Madrid and to draw some pressure off of the Basque army in the north. The Republic launches this attack with their best troops and equipment: around 50,000 men of four IBs (mostly the divisions of generals Lister, Kleber and Campesino), 100 modern Russian tanks and 100 Russian planes (about half the Republican air force). The armament of the soldiers themselves is poor: they are supplied with machine guns, grenades and artillery dating from World War I.
July 8: Franco sends reinforcements to the Brunete front. With this the Brunete offensive achieves one of it main goals, the relief of the Basque army, giving the Republican troops in the north the possibility of reorganizing their resistance. Franco sends 31 battalions, 7 batteries of artillery and the entire Condor Legion (around 70 planes and several motorized units). The Condor Legion uses their new and improved Me 109s and Heinkel He 111s, superior to the Russian planes. In one single day the Legion Condor destroys 21 Republican planes.
July 9: IBs take Quijorna.
July 11: Republican troops take Villaneuva del Pardillo. Nationalist reinforcements reach the Brunete Front, artillery and Condor Legion hammering the Republican troops without pause; both sides are suffering horrible losses.
July 12: France opens the border. Angry at the permanent and obvious breaks of the Nonintervention by the Fascist states, France opens its border for several days, allowing a large amount of armament from several countries to pass into the Spanish Republic.
July 14: The Republic bans criticism of the Soviet Union. This censorship is aimed especially against the anarchist and POUMist press and follows a large number of complaints by the Communist party and their press.
July 19: The Republican army retreats at Brunete, overwhelmed by the Nationalist forces. Until today the Republic, at terrible cost, held the bulge they created in taking Brunete. During this period, the Nationalists concentrated overhelming artillery and air power on the bulge, drawing upon supplies that had been accumulated for the Santander offensive; the Republican had no uncommitted reserves of men or weapons upon which to draw. Hundreds of retreating Republican soldiers, whose lives could have been saved by retreating while the Republican air force was still able to limit the freedom of the Condor Legion, die under the machine-gun fire of Heinkels and Messerschmitts. Gerda Taro, companion of Robert Capa, is heavily injured by an accident during the retreat.
July 26: End of Battle of Brunete: Republican forces are thrown back to a position only 5 km from where they started the offensive. The Republic lost around 20,000 men and half their air force, the Nationalists lost around 17,000 men.
August 2: Nationalist militia leader Hedilla, sentenced to death for opposing General Franco, is imprisoned in Las Palmas. The death sentence against him is suspended by General Franco.
August 7: Private Catholic worship permitted in the Republic.
August 10: Consejo de Arag�n (Council of Aragon) dissolved. Prime Minister Negr�n is working steadily to affirm the authority of his government against all forms of regional and political dissidence. Today the government announces the dissolution of the the anarchist-dominated Consejo de Arag�n administration which had been recognized by Largo Caballero in December 1936. The Anarchist officials are arrested and the troops of General Lister, mostly Communists, behave like invaders. The revolutionary efforts and changes made by the Anarchists will be undone. The arrested officials will be released in a couple of weeks, after the authority of the council has been broken and central government authority established.
August 13: Nationalist under the command of General Davila start their offensive against Santander, the last big city in the Basque country under control of the Basque government. The Basque government and army's last stand is supported by several Republican troops and militias. The lack an airforce and are further weakened a dispute between the Basque prime minister Aguirre and the commanding general of the Basque army, Gamir.
August 15: SIM created; political meetings in Barcelona forbidden. The SIM (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar) gives back the control of secret police activities to the government, rather than it being in the hands of Soviet and Communist intelligence organizations. Also, political meetings are forbidden in Barcelona from now on. The mixture of regionalism, anarchism, and defeatism, constituted a steady drain of the war effort. Also the situation was unstable after the May incidents.
August 17: Socialist Party and Communist Party unity pact. The Communist party had demanded the fusion of the Socialist Party with the Communist Party, as would later happen in all Communist-controlled countries. The government refuses this demand as not appropriate for a democratic country. To put an end to this demand, the government moved the involved parties to declare a unity pact instead, leaving them independent.

Missing image
Quintolibre.jpg

Republican soldiers in a conquered Nationalist position near Quinto

August 24: The Republican Army, including International Brigades, starts a major offensive at Belchite and Quinto. The intent is to lay the ground for a later recapture of Saragossa, a pro-Republican city in the hands of the Nationalists. Belchite and Quinto, the most important towns in their area, are defended by around 7,000 Nationalist militiamen, who turn out to be fanatically brave and resourceful defending the towns, involving the Republican troops in heavy streetfights.
August 26: The fall of Santander. The Basque defense line at Santander breaks down under continual attack from troops, artillery and around 250 airplanes. Ten thousands of soldiers and civilians flee to the port of Santander. Only a few, among them General Gamir and the leader of the Basque government, Aguirre, can escape over the stormy Bay of Biscay, where overcrowded boats are sinking. 60,000 Basque and Republican soldiers fall prisoner, the Nationalists capture an enormous amount of war materiel. Around 25,000 soldiers, 3,000 officers and several hundred officials of the Basque army and administration concentrate in Santona, east of Santander, to surrender themselves to the Italian troops. In secret consultations they agreed with the Italians to hand over their weapons, the Italians allowing the Basque officers and civilians to go aboard two British ships waiting in the port. The free and independent Basque country ceased to exist.
August 27: The refugees at Santona are captivured by Franco's troops. While the refugees are embarking under Italian control to the British ships, Nationalist battle cruisers enter the port and force the Basques to disembark. The Italians have to withdraw from the port and the refugees will be imprisoned.
The International Brigades attack at Fuentes de Ebro to establish a third position, besides Belchite and Quinto, from which to retake Saragossa.
September 1: The Republican Army attacks Penarroya and C�rdoba.
September 4–5: Nationalists cross the river Deva and invade Asturias from the East; Nationalists capture Llanes.
September 6–22: The Battle of El Mazuco; fewer than 5,000 Asturians and Basques hold off more than 33,000 Nationalists and the Condor Legion in and around the Sierra del Cuera.
September 7: Sea battle between the Nationalist heavy cruiser Baleares and the Republican light cruisers Libertad and Mendez Nu�ez. In the early morning hours Baleares unexpectedly meets a Republican convoy consisting of several merchant ships escorted by Republican battleships. The biggest danger for the convoy is not the Baleares itself, but Nationalist airplanes who might approach after their sighting. While the convoy flees, along with most of the escorting ships, Libertad and Menez Nu�ez engage Baleares. After losing contact with each other, they meet again in the afternoon, and Libertad hits Baleares twice. While Baleares then waits for her sister-ship Canarias, the retreating Republican ships are attacked, inefectively, by several Nationalist airplanes, including Italian airplanes from the Non-Intervention-Committee blockade on Spain.
September 22: The VI Brigade of Navarre overruns Pe�as Blancas. The battle of Sella begins.
September 27: Solchaga's forces enter Ribadesella.
October 1: Nationalist forces occupy Covadonga.
The new main board of the UGT expels their member and former prime minister Francisco Largo Caballero. Caballero is traveling the country holding lectures against communist synchronizing and Stalinism. The Cortez, the Spanish parliament, also expels parliamentarians known to be close to Caballero. Prime Minister Negrn is not willing or not able to back Caballero.
October 5: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States condemns the 'Nazi-Fascist aggressors' in Spain.
October 10: The Navarrese Brigades enter Cangas de Onis.
International Brigades and Republican army launch new attacks in the South Ebro region.
October 13: The Madrid council of socialist parties, unions, etc., unhappy with the overwhelming influence of the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) on the Spanish government, confronts the Spanish Cortez over the expulsion of "Caballeristas".
October 17: The Consejo Soberano decides to evacuate Asturias. The Nationalists are gaining absolute control of Asturias and closing in on Gij�n. Asturian officials, their families and members of the Republican army have to be evacuated quickly. Many Asturian fighters organize a guerilla fight from the high and inaccessible mountains. With the memories of the 1934 workers revolt and the its bloody suppression still fresh, Asturian villages empty in terror at the approach of the Nationalists. The Asturian miners practice a scorched earth policy, and from the ruins of their houses often fight to the death with dynamite charges.
Largo Caballero arrested during a speech in the Madrid cinema 'Pardinas', in which he criticized the PCE; placed under house arrest.
October 21: The fall of Gij�n. Nationalists enter Gij�n and plunder the city for days; death sentences over Asturians are so frequently imposed and carried out that the Nationalists themselves call their jurisdiction " the machine gun ". Rapes and murders are tolerated by the Nationalists leadership for several days. There is no reliable count of the thousands of civilians murdered during these days.
October 30: The Republican government abandons Valencia for Barcelona.
December 15: Start of the Battle of Teruel.

The war: 1938

The two sides clashed over possession of the city of Teruel throughout January and February, with the Nationalists finally holding it for good by February 22. On April 14, the Nationalists broke through to the Mediterranean Sea, cutting the government-held portion of Spain in two. The government tried to sue for peace in May, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender, and the war raged on.

The government now launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro, beginning on July 24 and lasting until November 26. Their failure all but determined the final outcome of the war. Eight days before the new year, Franco struck back by throwing massive forces into an invasion of Catalonia.

Detailed chronology: 1938

January 8: Republican troops commanded by Generals Hern�ndez Sarabia and Leopoldo Men�ndez take the city of Teruel, surrendered by Colonel Rey d'Harcourt. The hard winter conditions prevent the timely arrival of troops sent by Franco under the command of Generals Varela and Aranda.
February 20: Republican troops are forced to abandon Teruel and follow the highway to Valencia, under pressure of Moroccan troops commanded by General Yag�e. End of the Battle of Teruel.
March 6: The naval battle at Cape Palos (a Nationalist heavy cruiser Baleares is sunk by Republican destroyers).
March 13: France reopens its borders for the transit of arms to the Republican zone.
April 5: Socialist minister of defense Indalecio Prieto quits in protest of the level of Soviet influence over the army.
April 15: The Nationalists reach the Mediterranean at Vinaroz, dividing the Republican zone in two.
June: France once again closes the border.
July 24: Start of the Battle of the Ebro. Republican forces attempt to divert the Nationalists from attacking Valencia and to diminish the pressure on Catalonia. At first, the Republican troops, commanded by General Modesto, achieve considerable success, but were limited by superior Nationalist air power. Heavy combat continued into November
September 21: Doctor Negr�n, head of the Republican government, in a speech to the League of Nations, announced that the International Brigades will be pulled from the combat zones.
October 30: The Nationalists counterattack, forcing Republican troops back across the Ebro.
November 16: End of the Battle of the Ebro.
December 23: The battle for Barcelona begins. A six-pronged Nationalist attack is launched, with separate defiles from the Pyrenees to the Ebro. They take Borges Blanques, surround Tarragona and reach the outskirts of Barcelona. The Republican government retreats from Barcelona to Gerona, although troops continue to maintain the defense of the city.

The war: 1939

The Nationalists conquered Catalonia in a whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939. Tarragona fell on January 14, Barcelona on January 26 and Girona on February 5. Five days after the fall of Girona, the last resistance in Catalonia was broken.

On February 27, the governments of the United Kingdom and France reluctantly recognized the Franco regime.

Only Madrid and a few other strongholds remained for the government forces. On March 28, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the infamous "fifth column" General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Nationalists. The next day, Valencia, which had held out under the guns of the Nationalists for close to two years, also surrendered. Victory was proclaimed on April 1, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.

Detailed chronology: 1939

January 15: France once again allows arms to flow to the Republic.
January 26: Barcelona falls into Nationalist hands.
February 5: The Nationalists take Gerona, the Republican army in Catalonia has virtually disintegrated.
February 27: France and the UK recognize the Franco regime.
February 28: Manuel Aza�a resigns as President of the Republic
March 4-12: Anti-communist coup by Colonel Segismundo Casado. In the streets of Madrid, there is a Civil War within the Civil War. The Consejo de Defensa Nacional, headed by Colonel Casado, tries without success to negotiate with Franco.
The Republican government goes into exile in France.
March 28: With the virtual disintegration of the Republican army, the Nationalists take Madrid.
March 29: Effective end of hostilities.
April 1: Franco announces the end of the war.

Social Revolution (Spanish Revolution)

In the anarchist-controlled areas, (Aragon and Catalonia), in addition to the military success, there was a vast social revolution in which the workers and the peasants collectivised land and industry, and set up councils parallel to the (non-functioning) government. This revolution was opposed by both the Soviet-supported communists and the democratic republicans. The agrarian collectives had considerable success despite the vast opposition and profound lack of resources (Franco had already captured lands with some of the richest natural resources). This success survives in the minds of libertarian revolutionaries as an example that an anarchist society can flourish, under the right conditions.

As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to leverage their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, both through diplomacy and force. Revolutionary militias (anarchists and the POUM) were integrated with the regular army, albeit with resistance (the POUM wa