How Spain Slid from Monarchy and Dictatorship into a Bloody Civil War in 1936

The narrator introduces the Spanish Civil War as beginning in the summer of 1936, when large swathes of the Spanish army rebelled against the left-wing government. The rebellion quickly turned into a bloody war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and became one of the great ideological battlegrounds of the twentieth century.

On one side stood the Spanish Republic, defended by a reluctant coalition of republicans, socialists, communists who wanted a centralised socialist state, anarchists who wanted to abolish state authority altogether, and regional nationalists. Opposing the rebel army were conservatives, monarchists and fascists. The narrator says the series will first discuss the broad struggle between liberalism and conservatism that defined pre-war Spain and drove the war, and then describe its first stage.

The narrator describes Spain as once arguably the richest and most powerful empire in the world, which had become a poor and backward European periphery by the twentieth century. For centuries the country had struggled between libertarian and authoritarian ideas, revolutionary ideals and monarchy, regional autonomy and centralization, and a wealthy landowning class and millions of poor peasants. From 1814 to 1874 Spain experienced 37 attempted coups, 12 of which succeeded, and the struggle of ideas never produced a prosperous, democratic, stable, fair or powerful country.

When 16-year-old Alfonso XIII became king in 1902, Spain was far behind industrialized powers such as Britain, France, Germany and the United States. It had lost its empire in a war against the United States, and it had been experiencing a massive population exodus to the New World. Life expectancy was around 35 years, roughly what it had been four centuries earlier, and more than 60% of Spaniards were illiterate, with roughly the same share engaged in agriculture, a sign of low industrial development.

The narrator adds that the Church and the military, Spain's two strongest organized forces, remained pillars of old feudal Spain and the main supporters of conservative order and monarchy, with little tolerance for liberalism or other progressive ideas. Dissatisfaction with the monarchy, Church and army was nonetheless growing. In July 1909 anti-military protests in Barcelona developed into widespread unrest, church burnings and anticlerical violence, which the narrator presents as a foreshadowing of what was to come.

The narrator notes that Spain stayed neutral in the First World War, which proved a blessing in disguise. Repatriation to the metropole after the loss of the empire's remnants, together with European investment linked to the Great War, produced a temporary economic boom, and demand for Spanish agricultural products, manufactured goods and raw materials rose significantly. Toward the end of the war that demand dropped, and Spain returned to its accustomed economic and political troubles.

In 1921 the Spanish army suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Moroccan forces led by Abd el-Krim at the start of the Rif War. Around 10,000 Spanish soldiers were killed in what became known as the Disaster of Annual, and the defeat caused a massive public outcry. That outcry created fertile ground for Captain-General Miguel Primo de Rivera to launch a coup in 1923 and set up a military dictatorship while formally keeping the monarchy. The narrator says he tolerated dissent to some degree, which ultimately led to his downfall.

In 1931 a strike at the Central University of Madrid against the military dictatorship grew into a nationwide movement. It eventually forced Alfonso XIII to call municipal elections, which were dominated by Republicans and Socialists. On April 14, 1931, the monarchy was overthrown and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed.

The narrator stresses that establishing a republic did not make Spain's structural problems disappear overnight. The new Republic had inherited several major issues: economic difficulties, land mostly held by large landowners, an oversized and politically unreliable military, Catalan and Basque aspirations for autonomy, and the major influence of the Church.

The new government found itself in conflict with the army over cuts to the size of the officer corps, and with the Catholic Church over its proclamation of the separation of Church and state and over instances of churches being burned.

In August 1932 the government suppressed a coup attempt by General Sanjurjo. The government also found itself at odds with many politically active landless peasants, socialists, communists and anarchists, whom the narrator calls a truly powerful new force in Spanish politics. These groups demanded progressive reforms, and many of them saw the Republic as a temporary measure before they could remake Spain according to their own vision. They pursued revolutionary politics and regularly staged protests and strikes.

The high point of this process was the Asturias revolution of 1934, when socialist and anarchist trade unions and their militias took over Asturias by force and proclaimed a proletarian revolution. The government ordered the military to suppress the rebellion, and the army did so in its usual heavy-handed manner, killing around 1,700 people.

The narrator says the situation was politically disastrous for the moderate republican government. The left's revolutionary politics and the government's violent suppression alienated the left, while the right's distrust of the Republic and its progressive tendencies, along with its inability to establish law and order, alienated the right. As a result Spain was deeply fragmented among many powerful groups across the political spectrum, which the narrator calls a recipe for disaster.

The narrator says the 1936 elections would be pivotal. Centre-left and left-wing parties united in an electoral alliance called the Popular Front, similar to the one in France, to signal their intention to fight the rising fascist threat. The Popular Front won those elections by promising to continue agrarian reform and to release prisoners from the Asturias rebellion.

A new government of liberal and left-wing republican politicians, headed by Manuel Azaña, also known as the Father of the Republic, was established. Some monarchists and army generals, including the future leader of the nationalist coup, General Francisco Franco, considered taking over the government but decided to stand down for the time being.

The Popular Front government struggled to control the situation. As soon as it won the elections, crowds began releasing political prisoners without waiting for the government's formal proclamation of amnesty. Political militias on the left and right proliferated, and strikes, factory occupations, political violence and assassinations spread. By spring 1936, the narrator says, Spain had become ungovernable.

The narrator says a military conspiracy was brewing in the shadows. In March 1936 General Emilio Mola, the principal organizer, began meeting potential co-conspirators, including Generals Franco, Goded, Varela and others. Two right-wing militias were to supply extra manpower alongside the army: the Carlists, traditionalist monarchists loyal to a rival royal line, and the Falangists, Spain's fascist movement.

The plan was to start military rebellions across Spain, including Spanish Morocco, combine them with Carlist and Falangist militias, civil guards and other security forces sympathetic to them, and crush the Republic. Spain had around 100,000 men in its army at the time, and its best-equipped and trained force was the Army of Africa, with almost 40,000 men, which was to be the driving force of the rebellion.

Resistance to the plot existed even within the army. The conspirators, however, failed to keep their plans secret. A group of left-wing officers known as the Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista (UMRA) warned the government about the planned coup and offered to kidnap coup leaders in Morocco. The narrator says Prime Minister Casares Quiroga refused to believe that an anti-Republican coup was being plotted, claiming that Mola in particular was loyal to the Republic. By July 1936 the main preparations were complete.

On July 12 a Falangist gunman murdered a socialist officer of the Assault Guard, Lieutenant José Castillo. In retaliation, other socialist officers murdered a prominent monarchist political leader, José Calvo Sotelo. The narrator says the plotters had already planned everything, and Calvo Sotelo's assassination gave them the pretext they needed to push the button.

According to Mola's plan, the Army of Africa was to start the rebellion at 5 am on July 18, with mainland forces to follow later. The Army of Africa was to secure Morocco before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar to crush the Republic on the mainland. However, by midday on July 17 the commander of forces in Melilla, General Romerales, discovered the plot. The narrator calls it a 'now or never' moment, and the plotters did not hesitate. Local rebel officers arrested Romerales, mobilized troops and began capturing government buildings and key military installations.

The rebellion quickly spread through the rest of Spanish Morocco, and by the next day resistance by the Republicans there had been defeated. The same happened in the Canary Islands, where General Franco had declared for the rebels and quickly moved to Morocco. The rebellion also began spreading across mainland Spain. Many army garrisons declared for it, but success was not guaranteed and depended on the reaction of the government, left-wing militias and other security forces. In Seville, the rebel General Queipo de Llano arrested his superior and anyone else in the military loyal to the Republic, armed the Falangists, and forced the Assault Guard and Civil Guard either to join the rebellion or surrender. By the time the government and loyal citizens acted, it was too late. The capture of Seville gave the rebels a strategically important bridgehead for the Army of Africa to come ashore in southern Spain, and Cádiz, Algeciras, Jerez and much of the coastline soon followed.

The narrator says that after Diego Martínez Barrio's brief government, which lasted only a few hours, José Giral became prime minister on July 19 and the decision was made to distribute weapons to people who wanted to fight for the Republic. By that point, members of trade unions, anarchists, communists, the left-wing militias and ordinary people had already armed themselves by raiding armories and obtaining weapons from pro-Republican members of the military.

The narrator says the nationalists also lost a crucial moment by failing to take Madrid and Barcelona, the two largest cities, at the start of the rebellion. In Madrid, General Fanjul entered the Montaña barracks with some 2,500 rebel officers and Falangist volunteers only on July 19, two days after the rebellion began. By then a hostile crowd, encouraged by the 'No Pasarán!' speech of the communist leader Dolores Ibárruri and organized and partly armed by the UGT and CNT, had surrounded the barracks and forced the rebels back inside.

On the following day the Assault Guard, which remained loyal to the government in Madrid, brought artillery and, together with armed pro-Republican citizens, stormed the Montaña barracks. The initial rebellion in Madrid had been defeated, and the Republicans still held the capital.

The narrator says the battle in Barcelona was even bloodier. The rebels had around 12,000 men, who waited for General Goded to arrive from Mallorca and take command. Although Catalan president Lluís Companys initially refused to distribute arms to the anarchist CNT, the CNT found a way to arm itself through sympathetic military members by the time Goded left the barracks to take over Barcelona on the morning of July 19.

Goded sent his men to capture major positions around Barcelona, including central squares, major government buildings and hotels. But the Assault Guard and armed workers held the rebel soldiers at bay by erecting barricades and resisting with whatever weapons they had. When the 800 members of the Civil Guard led by Colonel Escobar joined the battle on the Republican side, the tide turned against the rebels, and Goded was forced to surrender.

The narrator says neither side had a definitive advantage by the time the dust settled. The Republic controlled Madrid, Barcelona and virtually all of Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and most of the Mediterranean coast, along with a zone in the north containing Bilbao, San Sebastián and Santander, which was separated from the rest of its territory. The Republicans therefore held the largest cities, the most industrialized territories, most of the Mediterranean coast and the border with France.

The Nationalists controlled Galicia, León, much of old Castile, Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, Zaragoza, Pamplona, a separate bridgehead in Andalusia, Mallorca, Ibiza and Spanish Morocco. While the Republic held the most important and richest areas, the Nationalists controlled both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, which the narrator says would soon be a huge help.

The narrator explains that the fate of the rebellion depended on how soon Franco could transport the strongest Spanish military force, the Army of Africa, onto the mainland. In the first days almost 700 men were brought to the Andalusian shore aboard Spanish Navy vessels, since most naval officers sympathized with the rebellion. But very soon sailors and petty officers mutinied against pro-Nationalist officers and took control of most of the fleet, and the Republican fleet began blockading the Strait of Gibraltar, making transport even harder. A few hundred men were carried by aircraft, which was not nearly enough.

Mola and Franco petitioned Hitler and Mussolini, their natural allies, for support. Hitler agreed almost immediately and launched Operation Magic Fire, allocating 20 Junkers Ju 52/3m transport aircraft and six Henkel fighters to carry Spanish troops. Mussolini then provided 12 Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 bombers to serve as transports. The operation let Franco move thousands of troops and their equipment onto the mainland and deterred the Republican fleet in the Strait, which allowed Nationalist-loyal vessels to transport troops too.

On August 5, about 1,600 troops, six artillery guns, hundreds of tons of ammunition and other equipment were moved from Ceuta to Algeciras, which Nationalist propaganda called the Convoy of Victory (Convoy de la Victoria). By mid-October about 13,500 soldiers of the Army of Africa had been transported to the Iberian Peninsula. The narrator concludes that, thanks to help from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the Nationalist side now had a superior army on the mainland, while the only official help the Republic received at the start was a handful of obsolete aircraft from France.

The narrator closes by summarizing the initial stage. The Republic had Madrid, Barcelona, the industrialized part of the Basque Country, and the gold and monetary reserves of the Spanish national bank. The Nationalists controlled roughly half of Spain, most of its agricultural output, the strongest and best-prepared part of the Spanish army, and two powerful foreign allies. Once those allies ensured the Army of Africa had come ashore in Andalusia, the Nationalist leadership decided to capture Madrid and break Republican resistance once and for all. The narrator says the next episode will cover the Nationalist drive to Madrid, the battle for the capital, and the war's external and internal dynamics.