Compilation of resources

Brunete photogallery:

http://historicalsituationostravamamadrid.blogspot.cz/2014/06/some-days-after-we-had-visited.html



Guadarrama photogallery:

http://historicalsituationostravamamadrid.blogspot.cz/2014/06/sierra-de-guadarrama-madrid.html



Spanish Civil War photogallery (at the end of the page):

http://historicalsituationostravamamadrid.blogspot.cz/2014/06/spain-before-and-during-years-30s_18.html

Brunete, Madrid.

Some days after we had visited Guadarrama, we went to the spanish town of Brunete where really important things occured while the Spanish Civil War was happening.

Here are some others photos of the bunkers we saw there:

Sierra de Guadarrama, Madrid.

Last year we went on a trip to Sierra de Guadarrama where part of the Spanish Civil War took place and we wanted to share some pictures with you in order to make you aware of how it was. 

These are some of the bunkers we visited:

   

Main topic

Spain before and during the years 30s

Spain's neutrality in World War I allowed it to become a supplier of material for both sides to its great advantage, prompting an economic boom in Spain. The outbreak of flu spread in Spain and elsewhere, along with a major economic slowdown in the postwar period, hit Spain particularly hard, and the country went into debt. A major worker's strike was suppressed in 1919.

                                                 

Spanish colonial policies in Spanish Morocco led to an uprising known as the Rif War; rebels took control of most of the area except for the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 1921. King Alfonso XIII decided to support the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1923. As Prime Minister Primo de Rivera promised to reform the country quickly and restore elections soon. He deeply believed that it was the politicians who had ruined Spain and that governing without them he could regenerate the nation. His slogan was "Country, Religion, Monarchy."

                                                

                                                

The late 1920s were prosperous until the worldwide Great Depression hit in 1929. In early 1930 bankruptcy and massive unpopularity forced the king to remove Primo de Rivera. Historians depict an idealistic but inept dictator who did not understand government, lacked clear ideas and showed very little political acumen. He consulted no one, had a weak staff, and made frequent strange pronouncements. He started with very broad support but lost every element until only the army was left. His projects ran large deficits which he kept hidden. His multiple repeated mistakes discredited the king and ruined the monarchy, while heightening social tensions that led in 1936 to a full-scale Spanish Civil War. Urban voters had lost faith in the king, and voted for republican parties in the municipal elections of April 1931. The king fled the country without abdicating and a republic was established.

                                 

1930 a 1936 

Political ideologies were intensely polarized, as both right and left saw vast evil conspiracies on the other side that had to be stopped. The central issue was the role of the Catholic Church, which the left saw as the major enemy of modernity and the Spanish people, and the right saw as the invaluable protector of Spanish values.

Power seesawed back and forth, 1931-36 as the monarchy was overthrown, and complex coalitions formed and fell apart. The end came in a devastating civil war, 1936–39, which was won by the conservative, pro-church, Army-backed “Nationalist” forces supported by Nazi Germany and Italy. The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, defeated the Republican coalition of liberals, socialists, anarchists, and communists, which was backed by the Soviet Union.

Under the Second Spanish Republic, women were allowed to vote in general elections for the first time. The Republic devolved substantial autonomy to the Basque Country and to Catalonia.

                                                   

The first governments of the Republic were center-left, headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora and Manuel Azaña. Economic turmoil, substantial debt, and fractious, rapidly changing governing coalitions led to escalating political violence and attempted coups by right and left.

In 1933, the right-wing Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), based on the Catholic vote, won power. An armed rising of workers in October 1934, which reached its greatest intensity in Asturias and Catalonia, was forcefully put down by the CEDA government. This in turn energized political movements across the spectrum in Spain, including a revived anarchist movement and new reactionary and fascist groups, including the Falange and a revived Carlist movement

                                                

                                              

                            

                               Spanish civil war

The Spanish Civil War ( Guerra Civil Española)] was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the democratically elected Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists, a rebel group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists prevailed, and Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from 1939 until his death in 1975.

The war began after a declaration of opposition by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces, under the leadership of José Sanjurjo, against the elected government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups, including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists such as the religious conservative Carlists, and the Fascist Falange.

It was marked by numerous small battles and sieges, and many atrocities, until the rebels (the "Nationalists"), led by Francisco Franco, won in 1939. There was military intervention as Italy sent land forces, and Germany sent smaller elite air force and armored units to the rebel side (the Nationalists). The Soviet Union sold armaments to the "Loyalists" ("Republicans"), while the Communist parties in numerous countries sent soldiers to the "International Brigades." The civil war did not escalate into a larger conflict, but did become a worldwide ideological battleground that pitted the left and many liberals against Catholics and conservatives. Britain, France and the U.S. remained neutral and refused to sell military supplies. Worldwide there was a decline in pacifism and a growing sense that another world war was imminent, and that it would be worth fighting for.

       
                     

Foreign involvement

The Spanish Civil War had large numbers of non-Spanish citizens participating in combat and advisory positions. The governments of Germany, Italy, --and to a minor extent Portugal—contributed money, munitions, manpower and support to Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco. The government of the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent France and Mexico, likewise aided the "Loyalist" or "Republicans" of the Second Spanish Republic. The aid came even after all the European powers had signed a Non-Intervention Agreement in 1936. While individual sympathy for the plight of the Spanish Republic was widespread in the liberal democracies however, pacifism and the fear of another world war prevented them from selling or giving arms. The Nationalist requests meanwhile were answered within days by Hitler and Mussolini.      

                                                

Those who did not support either one of both sides were the United Kingdom nor the United States-

                                                       

The United Kingdom proclaimed itself neutral; nevertheless, the British establishment tended to prefer a Nationalist victory as they defended anti-communism. The ambassador to Spain, Sir Henry Chilton, believed that a victory for Franco was in the establishment's best interests and worked to support the Nationalists and the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden publicly maintained the official policy of non-intervention but privately expressed a preference for a Nationalist victory. He also testified that his government "preferred a Rebel victory against the Republicans.

                           

The U.S. saw Soviet involvement in the 1931 ouster of the Spanish monarchy, though there is little evidence of significant involvement. In 1931, Herbert Hoover was President of the United States. The U.S. was thus hostile to the new Republican government. Tensions escalated when the Manuel Azaña government expropriated the pro-

fascist International Telephone & Telegraph. When the Civil War erupted after the failed right-wing goverment overthrow, Cordell Hull, current Secretary of State at that time, moved quickly to ban arms sales to the Spanish government, forcing the Popular Front to turn to the Soviet Union for support. From the outset the Nationalists received important support from some elements of American business. On 5 August 1936, the United States had made it known that it would follow a policy of non-intervention, but did not announce it officially. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ruled out US interference with the words: there should be no expectation that the United States would ever again send troops or warships or floods of munitions and money to Europe.

Here is a map of  the area dominated by both sides during the four years of Spanish Civil War 
                           

Here are some of the pictures that best show the historical situation at that time: