The Deadly Dry Run for WW2 - The Spanish Civil War | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1939 Part 1 of 3 - YouTube (1)
On April 1, 1939, Pope Pius XII telegrams a Spanish general telling him: "With heart
uplifted to the Lord, we sincerely give thanks along with Your Excellency, for this long-desired
Catholic victory.”
He is congratulating Francisco Franco on his victory in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict
that has lasted nearly a thousand days and seen dehumanization of adversaries, terror
bombing, and desperate last stands.
It has been a brutal conflict and will go down in history as a prelude for the coming
global war in 1939.
Welcome to Between-2-Wars a chronological summary of the interwar years, covering all
facets of life, the uncertainty, hedonism, and euphoria, and ultimately humanity's
descent into the darkness of the Second World War.
I'm Indy Neidell.
In our video on the Second Spanish Republic, we saw how Spain is already in a state of
quasi civil war before open hostilities are declared.
Revolutionary workers battle it out in the streets against monarchists, fascists, and
conservatives, and armed insurrections and violent strikes are a fact of life.
In February 1936, a Popular Front coalition of liberal and left-wing parties gains power
in the Cortes, the Spanish Parliament.
But this causes panic among right-wingers who step up their violence in fear of a communist
takeover.
With rumors of a military coup, the government demote suspect officers or send them to the
far reaches of Spain.
Francisco Franco, the much-admired general who viciously suppressed an attempted revolution
in 1934, is sent to the Canary Islands, and Emilio Mola, Director-General of Security
and veteran of Spain's colonial wars, is transferred to Pamplona.
The government aren't wrong in their suspicions.
Even before these generals are sent away, some are planning on military rebellion.
On March 8, 1936, prominent military men, including Franco and Mola, meet in Madrid
to agree on a general rising to reestablish internal order and neutralize the presumed
communist threat.
They agree that General Sanjurjo, well-respected monarchist general, will head the military
Junta.
But with Sanjurjo in exile in Portugal after his failed coup attempt in 1932, and Franco
seeming relatively uncommitted, it falls to Mola to organize things.
By the end of June, plans are looking more and more concrete.
Commanding generals have been assigned for each district, and it is agreed that it will
happen at some point in mid-July.
There is a significant problem, however.
Mola has support from the Falange, the country's primary fascist movement, and the Carlists,
reactionary and devout Catholics committed to restoring a branch of the House of Bourbon,
but little from the Spanish military itself.
Franco is refusing to definitely commit and most senior generals are not involved at all
And the government seem pretty confident nothing will happen, despite consistent reports that
something will.
In June, the prime-minister, Santiago Casares Quiroga, waves off such warnings from a fellow
politician as “fantasies of the male menopause”.
He also publicly states his confidence in General Mola and refuses to arm workers to
protect against a military rising.
But his confidence in Mola is a mistake, as Mola is determined to carry out the rising.
And it will take the murder of just one person to fix the date
On July 12, José del Castillo, a Lieutenant in the armed police and known socialist, is
shot dead in Madrid by Falangist gunmen.
His comrades swear vengeance.
That night a group of them go to the house of Jose Calvo Sotelo, the leading anti-republican
politician in the Cortes, and, on the pretext of arresting him, take him from his home,
murder him, and dump his body in a public morgue.
The Right is outraged, declaring the murder to be government-sanctioned.
The killing of Calvo Sotelo convinces Mola to seize the moment.
It also means Franco finally pledges his support.
Upon hearing the news, he reportedly declares “The fatherland now has another martyr.
We cannot wait any longer!” and agrees to board a plane to Spanish Morocco.
The coup is set to begin before he even arrives.
First in Morocco on July 17, where the rebels are assured of victory, and then the mainland
the next day .
As expected Morocco falls quickly, but the fighting on the mainland is brutal.
Seville faces heavy shelling and once the city falls, the resultant repression leaves
so many bodies in the streets that they have to be stacked against walls so patrol cars
can move through the city.
Similar violence is seen in Madrid and Barcelona where workers fight back insurgent Falangist,
Carlist, and military forces, making the cities symbols of popular resistance.
By the end of July Spain is split in two.
A third of the country is now “Nationalist Spain” and under the command of the insurgents.
This includes almost all the North and north-west, the Canary and Balearic Isles, and large areas
of Extremadura and Andalusia.
The rest, including five of Spain's seven largest cities, is “Republican Spain”,
under the control of the Popular Front government.
But “Republican Spain” is by no means safe from regime change.
Almost as soon as the coup happens, revolutionary leaders call on the government to arm the
workers.
Santiago Casares Quiroga refuses, but he resigns on the night of July 18.
He is replaced by Jose Giral on the 19th, who sanctions what is now happening anyway,
and Spain's workers are now armed.
By this point, government authority has already shrunk enormously and there has been a complete
breakdown in law and order across the country.
It leads to a profound revolution across the Republican zone as leftists are finally able
to take power.
Coming under the control of anarchists, Barcelona sees the most radical changes.
Everything from factories to farms to luxury hotels are collectivized; rent and utilities
come under the control of neighborhood committees, and mansions are converted into schools and
hospitals.
Madrid also sees a surge of union collectivization and a corresponding revolution sweeps through
rural areas.
Some village committees abolish money for local purposes altogether and take full control
of the production and sale of produce.
But with this revolution comes extreme levels of terror.
Revolutionary squads roam the cities, hunting down suspected fascists.
Many are taken to self-appointed purge committees, but others are simply shot there and then.
Presumed political enemies are kidnapped in stolen cars and killed while being raced through
the streets.
Militia raid local jails and execute people involved with the coup en masse.
The Catholic clergy are the most visible class enemies.
Hundreds- even thousands are killed, while religious artefacts are burned and churches
ransacked.
The constant language of cleansing and sanctifying Spain of its enemies is a recurrent theme
on both sides, though.
It means that adversaries can be dehumanized and killed without mercy.
And in Nationalist Spain this is official policy.
But instead of "class-enemies", it is anyone who might organize against them.
Mayors, governors, union leaders, and Popular Front politicians are murdered across Spain.
Torture is systematic for the ones “lucky” enough to escape death, and loads of those
sentenced to imprisonment are taken from their cells each night by Falangist death squads
and shot on the outskirts of town.
The number of people executed by both sides throughout the whole war will be a point of
contention even into the 21st century.
A conservative estimate is between 120,000-150,000, which is 0.5% of the total Spanish population.
The vast majority of these will happen in the summer and autumn of 1936.
By the end of September, around 90% of the clergy killed over the whole war by Republican
forces, and 70% of victims of Nationalist repression, will already have died.
And with the enormous bloodshed, the eyes of the world are increasingly focused on the
Iberian Peninsula.
Franco actually ensures this from the start.
The rebels have just under half of the total 250,000 soldiers and armed police in all of
Spain.
Pretty evenly matched.
But they also have the loyalty of the Army of Africa, garrisoned in Spanish Morocco and
the most professional fighting force Spain has.
That Army boasts the elite troops of the Spanish Legion, made up mostly Spaniards but also
containing foreign volunteers, and Moroccan Regulares, indigenous Moroccans who have volunteered
to fight for Spain.
Both units venerate violence, the Legion's motto is ¡Viva la Muerte!
("Long live death!"), and they are fiercely loyal to their officers.
Landing in Morocco on July 19, Franco has command over these fighters.
The only problem is that most of the Spanish Navy are loyal to the Republic so have blockaded
the Mediterranean.
To get his Army to the mainland, Franco appeals for foreign aid.
General Sanjurjo, supposed to lead the Nationalists, dies in a plane crash on July 20, and this
allows Franco to present himself as the rebels' principle general to the two states most likely
to aid his cause: Benito Mussolini's Italy and Adolf Hitler's Germany.
By July 27, both Mussolini and Hitler have agreed to send planes for the first military
airlift in history.
By the end of September, Franco has moved 16,000 troops.
The Republic does little to counter this and then, in another miscalculation, abandons
its Naval blockade.
The rest of the African Army can be ferried to the mainland.
The Republican side finds international support a lot less forthcoming.
Britain immediately declares strict neutrality and leans heavily on France to do the same.
France does want to support the Republic, but can't afford to be isolated from Britain
now that Germany is becoming an increasing threat.
This, along with French conservatives launching a fierce campaign against any aid to the Republic,
means that direct intervention just isn't politically possible.
But France also cannot afford to have an ally of Germany to the South.
The solution?
Propose a non-intervention agreement between the major powers so that the war can be fought
on Spanish resources alone.
By the end of August, all major powers, including Germany, Italy, and the USSR, have agreed
to non-intervention.
But it is a complete farce.
Hitler and Mussolini barely make an effort to disguise their intervention.
Both are keen to establish a friendly regime in Southern Europe that will weaken both France
and world communism.
Mussolini is the more committed ally here, but Nazi leaders, notably Minister of Aviation,
Herman Goering, are also very keen to use Spain as a testing ground for new methods
of warfare.
From November, Germany's airborne Condor Legion will play a role in every major battle of
the war, rehearsing the strategies of terror bombing and air support.
It is worth mentioning here, though, that contrary to popular perception, the Spanish
Civil War will never be the place where the great powers actually fully develop their
methods of warfare.
The conflict will bare disconcerting similarities with the global one that comes in September
1939, sure, but more on the level of atrocity and violence, rather than development of military
doctrine.
Anyway.
Once the direct involvement of Italy and Germany becomes evident, the USSR also goes back on
its promise.
Josef Stalin too recognizes the opportunity of establishing a friendly ally in Europe
and authorizes a massive shipment of weapons, tanks, and planes with pilots to fly them.
Perhaps the most important, or at least iconic, contribution from the Soviets is the establishment
of the "International Brigades", anti-fascist volunteers from outside Spain.
Recruitment begins in September and around 35,000 will volunteer for the cause, most
of them communists from Europe.
But there is great diversity in who joins up.
Unemployed workers and middle-class intellectuals alike travel to Spain.
The poorly-trained Brigades will face high casualties, often being used as shock troops,
but will become an iconic symbol of the conflict.
So foreign influence in the conflict is assured, and back in Spain, Franco is advancing on
Madrid.
Rather than a quick strike on the capital, he has been approaching slowly, brutally “pacifying”
everywhere he passes.
The final push on Madrid begins in mid-October.
By this point, Franco has become the chief of Nationalist Spain.
