Spanish Civil War (1936–1939): Republicans Against Franco

The Spanish Civil War was fought from July 1936 to April 1939 between the Republicans, who defended Spain’s elected left-wing government, and the Nationalists, a coalition of army officers and conservative groups led by General Francisco Franco. It began with a military coup that only partly succeeded and grew into a brutal war marked by foreign intervention and mass killing behind the lines. Franco’s victory established a dictatorship that lasted until 1975, and the war is often seen as a prelude to the Second World War.

Background

Spain in the early twentieth century was a poor, largely rural country with deep divisions. Great estates in the south were worked by landless labourers; the Catholic Church held great influence over education and public life; and Catalonia and the Basque Country sought self-government. The army had a long tradition of intervening in politics.

In April 1931 King Alfonso XIII left the country after municipal elections showed strong republican support, and the Second Republic was proclaimed on 14 April. Its first governments introduced land reform, separated church and state, granted autonomy to Catalonia and tried to reform the army. These measures delighted some Spaniards and alarmed others. A right-wing government elected in 1933 reversed many reforms, and a revolutionary uprising by miners in Asturias in October 1934 was crushed by troops, leaving more than a thousand dead.

In the election of 16 February 1936 the Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing and liberal parties, narrowly won. Political violence between left and right escalated during the spring. On 13 July 1936 the monarchist leader José Calvo Sotelo was murdered by police officers and left-wing militants in revenge for the killing of a Republican officer. The murder strengthened the resolve of officers already plotting a coup under the direction of General Emilio Mola.

The coup of July 1936

The rising began in Spanish Morocco on 17 July 1936 and spread to garrisons on the mainland on 18 July. The plotters expected a quick seizure of power, but the coup failed in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and most of the industrial areas, where loyal police and armed workers’ militias defeated the rebels. It succeeded in much of the north-west, Old Castile, Navarre, parts of Andalusia and the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Franco, who had been posted to the Canary Islands, flew to Morocco to take command of the Army of Africa, the best-trained force in the Spanish army. With the Republican navy blocking the Strait of Gibraltar, German and Italian transport aircraft ferried his troops to the mainland from late July. General José Sanjurjo, the intended leader of the coup, died in a plane crash in Portugal on 20 July. On 1 October 1936 Franco was installed as Generalísimo and head of the Nationalist state.

Revolution and terror

In the Republican zone, the collapse of state authority unleashed a social revolution. Anarchist and socialist trade unions collectivised farms and factories, especially in Catalonia and Aragon. Churches were burned, and nearly 7,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed, most in the first months of the war. Historians estimate that around 50,000 people were killed in the Republican zone during the war.

In the Nationalist zone, killing was organised from the start as a deliberate policy of eliminating opponents. Trade unionists, Republican officials, teachers and suspected leftists were shot in their tens of thousands; one of the most notorious episodes was the massacre after the capture of Badajoz in August 1936. The poet Federico García Lorca was murdered near Granada in August 1936. Estimates for Nationalist killings during the war generally range from about 100,000 to 150,000, with many more after it.

Foreign intervention

Britain and France proposed a policy of non-intervention, and a Non-Intervention Committee began meeting in London in September 1936. Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union all joined it, yet all three intervened. Germany sent the Condor Legion, an air and armoured force that tested new aircraft and tactics, and Italy sent the Corps of Volunteer Troops, whose numbers reached tens of thousands. Portugal also aided Franco.

The Soviet Union sold the Republic tanks, aircraft and other weapons, paid for with most of Spain’s gold reserves, and sent military advisers and secret police. Mexico also provided some arms. The Communist International organised the International Brigades, roughly 32,000 to 35,000 volunteers from more than 50 countries. Many thousands of other foreigners, among them the writer George Orwell, joined militias or other units.

Course of the war

The Army of Africa advanced rapidly north from Seville in August and September 1936 and relieved the besieged Alcázar of Toledo on 27 September. In November the Nationalists attacked Madrid, but the city held with the help of the first International Brigades and Soviet equipment; the Republican government moved to Valencia. Attempts to encircle Madrid failed at the Jarama in February 1937 and at Guadalajara in March, where Italian troops were defeated.

Franco then turned to the Republican north. During the Basque campaign, German and Italian aircraft destroyed the town of Guernica on 26 April 1937 in the bombing of Guernica. Bilbao fell on 19 June 1937, and Santander and Asturias followed by October. Meanwhile, in May 1937, fighting broke out in Barcelona between anarchists and the dissident Marxist POUM on one side and communists and government forces on the other. The socialist Juan Negrín became prime minister and worked to rebuild a regular army.

Republican offensives at Brunete (July 1937) and Teruel (December 1937 – February 1938) gained ground at first but ended in defeat. On 15 April 1938 Nationalist troops reached the Mediterranean at Vinaròs, cutting the Republic in two. The Republic’s last great offensive, the Battle of the Ebro, lasted from July to November 1938 and was the longest battle of the war; it ended in exhaustion and retreat.

The Nationalist offensive in Catalonia began in December 1938. Barcelona fell on 26 January 1939, and around 450,000 refugees crossed the border into France, where many were held in camps on the beaches. Britain and France recognised Franco’s government on 27 February 1939. In early March a group of officers and politicians in Madrid led by Colonel Segismundo Casado overthrew Negrín’s government in the hope of negotiating peace, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender. Nationalist troops entered Madrid on 28 March, and on 1 April 1939 Franco announced that the war was over.

Key people

• Francisco Franco (1892–1975): general who led the Nationalists and became dictator of Spain.
• Emilio Mola (1887–1937): organiser of the coup, killed in an air crash in June 1937.
• Manuel Azaña (1880–1940): President of the Republic throughout the war; he resigned in exile in February 1939.
• Francisco Largo Caballero (1869–1946): socialist leader and prime minister from September 1936 to May 1937.
• Juan Negrín (1892–1956): prime minister from May 1937, who argued for resisting until a wider European war might save the Republic.

Consequences and legacy

The human cost was immense. Historians commonly cite around 500,000 deaths from all causes during the war, though estimates vary. After the war Franco’s regime executed at least 20,000 people, and some estimates are considerably higher; hundreds of thousands passed through prisons and labour camps. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards remained in exile.

Franco kept Spain formally neutral in the Second World War, though he sent the volunteer Blue Division to fight alongside Germany against the Soviet Union. His authoritarian, Catholic and nationalist regime lasted until his death on 20 November 1975, after which the Spanish transition to democracy restored parliamentary government, tested by the coup attempt of 1981.

The war attracted worldwide attention. To many on the left it was a fight against fascism; to many conservatives and Catholics it was a defence of religion against revolution. Writers and artists left lasting works, including Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938), Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937).

Spain itself long avoided public reckoning. A 1977 amnesty law protected officials of the dictatorship, and mass graves of victims remain unexcavated. Laws on historical memory passed in 2007 and 2022 have aimed to recognise victims, and in 2019 Franco’s remains were moved out of the Valley of the Fallen monument.

Timeline

• 1931, 14 April: The Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed.
• 1936, 16 February: The Popular Front wins the general election.
• 1936, 17–18 July: Military rising begins in Morocco and spreads to mainland Spain.
• 1936, 1 October: Franco becomes Nationalist head of state.
• 1936, November: Nationalist assault on Madrid fails; the government moves to Valencia.
• 1937, 26 April: Guernica is destroyed by German and Italian aircraft.
• 1938, 15 April: Nationalists reach the Mediterranean and split the Republic in two.
• 1938, 25 July – 16 November: Battle of the Ebro.
• 1939, 26 January: Barcelona falls to the Nationalists.
• 1939, 1 April: Franco declares the war over.

Why it matters

The Spanish Civil War destroyed a democratic republic and imposed nearly four decades of dictatorship on Spain. It showed the failure of non-intervention, gave Germany and Italy a testing ground for weapons and tactics, and foreshadowed the ideological struggle of the Second World War. Its memory still shapes Spanish politics today.