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Introduction
Spurred to action by the assassination of extreme-right leader José Calvo Sotelo by government security forces. An army mutiny begins in Spanish Morocco, and, at dawn the following day, Gen. Francisco Franco broadcasts a manifesto from his base in the Canary Islands, declaring that the rebellion has begun. Although Franco’s Nationalist forces quickly occupy a number of provincial capitals, they are unable to secure Madrid, and the coup attempt devolves into civil war. -
The international context of the Civil War
The first International Brigades trainees arrive in Albacete, Spain. For the next two years, some 60,000 of these foreign volunteers who were recruited, organized, and directed by the Comintern would fight on the Republican side. Franco’s Nationalists would draw support from the governments in Italy and Nazi Germany, despite both of those countries having signed a nonintervention pledge. The contest ultimately becomes a proxy war between Europe’s fascist and Bolshevik powers. -
Primo de Riveras execution
Primo de Rivera, who has been in police custody since July, is executed by firing squad. He becomes a martyr for the Nationalist cause. -
Guernica Bombing
The Republican-held city of Guernica is bombed by planes of the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion. Hundreds of civilians are killed in an attack that would demonstrate the effectiveness of terror bombing to Hermann Göring and other Nazi commanders. The almost complete destruction of the Basque city inspires Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937). -
Nationalists conquests
Bilbao falls to the Nationalists after a two-month siege. Although Nationalists complete their conquest of the Basque Country in October, the major population centers of Barcelona and Madrid remain outside their control. -
Nationalists advance
The war has been characterized by long periods of bloody stalemate punctuated by rapid breakthroughs by the Nationalists. An exhausted Republican army, saddled with the weight of some three million refugees, sees its last hope of victory on the battlefield extinguished at the Battle of the Ebro. By February 1939, Barcelona has fallen, and a tide of refugees pours into France. -
Nationalists win and Francos dictatorship
Nationalist troops enter Madrid unopposed. The Republican government fled to exile in France weeks earlier, and the city is in no condition to resist. By the following day, what remains of Republican Spain has surrendered. As many as one million lives have been lost, either directly through combat or as a result of privation. Franco establishes a dictatorship that would endure until his death on November 20, 1975.
