The Spanish Civil War

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0:34Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? Visit progressive.com and give the Name Your Price tool a try. Take the stress out of shopping and find coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. It is the 24th of October 2019, in the mountains of central Spain. Late autumn sunlight shines down weekly on the Valley of the Fallen, a memorial to the Spanish Civil War purged high on a rocky crag. A monumental cross casts an elongated shadow over the white-walled buildings that make up the complex.

1:18In the cavernous interior of the crypt, hewn into the granite of the mountain itself, A tomb has been opened.

1:29Workmen strain to lift out an ornate coffin, as a group of black-clad mourners look on. Among them is a woman, her soft sobs echoing off the soaring stone walls. A descendant of the 20th century dictator General Francisco Franco, she is here because the Spanish government has ordered the removal of his body from this memorial, which was built using the forced labor of his victims.

1:57Once the workmen have finished, several male relatives hoist the flag-draped coffin onto their shoulders and slowly carry it outside. The woman follows close behind, her high heels tapping on the polished marble floor. She emerges blinking into the courtyard outside where a smart white helicopter waits to receive the coffin. With the cargo loaded, the rotors start to turn. Shading her eyes with one gloved hand, the woman watches as it rises into the pale blue sky, bearing Franco to his new resting place.

2:37Meanwhile, in the northern Spanish province of Catalonia, an archaeologist kneels in a grave of a very different type. A team of volunteers have dug this large rectangular pit in the orange earth. Now he bends over with a brush clutched tightly in one calloused hand, carefully scraping dirt away from what is slowly revealing itself to be a skull.

3:00One of his students hunkers down next to him and continues the painstaking work of clearing earth away from the ribcage of the skeleton. Gradually, she brings the individual bones of the spinal column into view. A line of white plastic buttons is uncovered, and further down, the dull shine of what appears to be a belt buckle. The archaeologist returns to his own task, finally clearing enough earthway that the entire skull is visible. His knees protesting as he gets to his feet, he calls over one of their volunteers, a local woman who believes that her grandfather, a Union activist executed by Franco's forces during the Civil War, is buried here.

3:42He asks her to bring the camera so that he can document these latest finds. Crouching down again, he takes detailed pictures of the skeleton they have just unearthed So far they have discovered six victims here This makes seven The archaeologist puts the camera to one side and picks up his brush once again He will not stop until every one of this grave's dark secrets has been brought into the light

4:19Nowadays, Spain is a popular tourist destination run by democratically elected left-wing government. Yet the memory of its recent blood-soaked past lingers. The story of Franco's rise to power and the painful, repressive regime he oversaw is fundamentally interlinked with that of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal three-year conflict that laid bare the ideological divisions of interwar Europe. It drew support from fascist governments across the continent and was a testing ground for many of the weapons and tactics later used to devastating effect during the Second World War. But it also inspired socialists from around the world to fight for the democratic republican government and to oppose the rising tide of fascism wherever and however they could.

5:10So what caused Spain's military to turn against the country's civilian government in 1936? Why did a national civil war attract such international attention? And what ramifications do the conflict still have in modern Spain? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of the Spanish Civil War.

5:41The opening decades of the 20th century are a turbulent period for Spain. In 1898, following a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of the United States, it loses its last remaining colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. But back at home, rapid industrialization brings some major shifts in the nation's social and political landscape. Peter Anderson is professor of 20th century Spanish history at the University of Leeds. The early 20th century is a period of rapid change in Spain. It's moving from being a predominantly agricultural economy to one that has a bigger role for industry and a bigger role for middle class groups.

6:27And that means that politics is changing too as the middle class expands. A lot of the groups in the middle class became attracted to republicanism. They were attracted to secular ideas around science and democratic reform. They wanted to improve the education system. There are lots of people who are industrial workers who become attracted, some to the anarchist group called the CNT, which becomes one of the largest anarchist groups in the world. These changes create rifts in Spanish society. The urban, secular lifestyles of the middle classes and working proletariat differ from the rural ways of life of peasant smallholders.

7:09This latter group are still heavily invested in the conservative Catholic Church, which remains extremely influential. The landowners of southern Spain oppose any threats to their power. In particular, reforms that jeopardize the control they exert over the landless peasants who work on their estates. And after the loss of the empire, the military becomes increasingly insular, developing their own specific ideology that aligns closely with the right. Militarism is really important to understanding the origins of the Spanish Civil War. So militarism is the idea that army officers live somewhat separately from society and consider themselves superior to society.

7:56and that they have a noble mission to protect the nation against both external and internal enemies. This is especially true of those troops who fight in the Foreign Legion. In 1912, Spain takes over a strip of land in northern Morocco, meaning that large numbers of troops are now based in North Africa. The Army of Africa develops a very particular military culture. It's involved in a counterinsurgency war where they use very brutal methods, chasing down locals, attacking civilians and so on. It becomes very brutalized. And they develop a culture that celebrates death. And they saw that in fighting this kind of colonial war in Africa, they were making Spain great again.

8:48They were redeeming Spain. This is very much a kind of pre-fascist outlook, thinking that you can save Spain through the blood sacrifice against this external enemy.

9:03While the army may gaze with nostalgia at Spain's imperial past, for civilians the country is nominally a democracy. But the system artificially ensures that the conservative and liberal parties take turns forming governments, with votes manipulated by local bosses and power ultimately resting with the king. It was known as the restoration system that had come about in the 1870s. The problem was that despite being formally a democracy, it was based on corruption and exclusion. So a lot of people in Spain really couldn't influence the political situation, particularly people who maybe worked in the countryside as landless laborers or people who worked in cities and factory jobs and so on.

9:49In 1923, amid a wave of strike action, a bloodless military coup brings a new government to power. But though the new dictator, General Primo de Rivera, shares the conservative religious values of groups like the land-holding peasants, his regime continues to exclude large numbers of Spanish citizens from the political system.

10:15Supported by the king, Alfonso XIII, the coup hardens conservative attempts to stem the tide of change in Spain. But progress cannot be held off forever. In 1930, Primo de Rivera's rule comes to an end after his minor attempts at military reform lose him the support of the army. The king, compromised by his association with the dictator, desperately tries to revive the pre-1923 political system of alternating power. But when municipal elections are held, Republican parties secure a convincing win, and King Alfonso goes into exile. Since there had been a short-lived republic declared in the 1870s, this new one is now declared as the Second Republic.

11:03It's against the monarchy, but it's also an attempt to overcome some of the problems that Spain had faced through political exclusion. and they were really about the army. So there were lots of people who wanted to reform the Spanish army, reduce the number of officers, curtail its activities in Morocco. Land redistribution was a big issue. Empower workers more to improve their wages. Carry out reforms to the church. It's about creating a proper democracy. It's about tackling the reforms that have been needed in Spain for many years. and it's about challenging the power of really important groups like members of the army, members of the church and members of capitalist industrial groups, if you like.

11:52This reformist government does not last long. In the elections of 1933, the first in which Spanish women are able to vote, a conservative government is voted in and the nascent reforms are immediately quashed. Widespread strikes follow, as well as armed rebellion in the northern region of Asturias. The military is sent in, led at this time, by a general named Francisco Franco. Born in 1892 in the northwestern region of Galicia, Franco comes from a naval family. His Catholic mother's austere piety shapes his character, as does his father's military background. He wasn't able to join the Navy cadets But he does go to the Toledo Military Academy At the age of 14 So he's training to join the army He's not a particularly brilliant student But he's able to go to Morocco He's able to join the Army of Africa And he has a kind of meteoric rise Largely because he was very, very brave and determined And didn't flinch on the battlefield And he wins a series of promotions And eventually, at the age of 33 in 1926, he becomes a brigadier general.

13:10Franco swiftly deals with the armed rebellion in Asturias. Over a thousand people are killed, as many as 30 ,000 are arrested and many are tortured. As news of the crackdown spreads, it destroys the political center and forces those on the left to realize that they must unite to survive. And with the victims canonized as martyrs, it's not long before the ideological pendulum swings back the other way with the 1936 election of the progressive Popular Front government. But after their taste of power, the right-wing politicians do not accept defeat gracefully. An anti-democratic coalition of conservative elites, Catholic groups and right-wing politicians, including the fascist Falange Party, now forms.

14:02And the plotting begins. Everything was thrown at this election and the right lose. So what happens after that is the right decide that parliamentary politics doesn't really work for them. So people are really turning their backs on democratic politics and they're turning their attention to the politics of violence. What they know, these civilians, is that alone, they're not strong enough to overthrow the elected government of the Popular Front. So what they do is they start courting army officers who they know are unhappy with all the reforms and so on, and encouraging them to carry out a military coup.

14:39The left-wing Republican government is not completely unaware of the situation. Several generals with suspected conservative or fascist allegiances are removed from their posts. Franco himself is sent away from mainland Spain to serve as the military commander of the Canary Islands. But behind closed doors, preparations for the coup continue apace. By early July 1936, Franco is firmly on board, and the conspirators agree that he is the man they'll need to take command of the Army of Africa, the Spanish military's most effective fighting force.

15:15But there is the problem of how to unite Franco with his troops A solution is provided by British intelligence agent and devout Roman Catholic Major Hugh Pollard On the 11th of July, he charters a de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft for what appears to be a pleasure trip from London to the sunny Canary Islands With his British plane attracting little notice from the Spanish authorities he picks up General Franco and delivers him to Morocco. Whether or not the machinery of the British state supported Pollard's actions remains unclear to this day.

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16:37Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite RAC store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you RAC. The coup begins on the 17th of July, 1936, when the colonial army based in Morocco rebels against the Republican government. By the next day, garrisons across mainland Spain are in revolt. Soldiers quickly take control of the conservative-leaning areas, whose populations largely accept the idea of the military replacing the progressive left-wing government. Looking to a pattern set by past coups, the generals masterminding the rebellion hope that the entire country can quickly be taken over.

17:23Bing does have an interesting history of military intervention in politics, and in the 19th century, the way that worked was generals would make a declaration saying they no longer supported one prime minister, and they were going to replace them either with themselves or with somebody else. And that more or less happened unopposed. But by 1936, Spanish society has changed, and the military can no longer act with this kind of impunity. Over the early 20th century, Spaniards have been joining political parties, trade unions, organizations. They're becoming mobilized. When the army and its civilian supporters rebelled against the elected government of the Second Republic in July 1936, they were opposed by people in trade unions, by people in political parties, who went to military barracks and took arms and weapons and fought with the troops in the streets across Spain.

18:19So what we've got in 1936 is a position of mass mobilization. civilization. By the 19th of July, when Franco joins his troops in Morocco, it is clear that there will be no immediate victory for the military. Too many citizens are willing to resist, meaning that traditionally more left-leaning places like Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and Madrid remain in government hands. As the coup stalls on the mainland, Franco and his troops are stranded in Morocco. The navy is still loyal to the republican government and blockades the Straits of Gibraltar, the narrow waterway between Africa and the southern Spanish coast.

19:00So Franco, in dire need of assistance, looks to the fascist regimes already in power elsewhere. If you were to lay a bet at this point, so on the 19th of July, 20th of July 1936, you might say the republic, the government, the democratically elected popular front government of the second republic, is going to win. The crucial reason why that didn't happen, why the republic didn't win, and why a botched coup turned into a civil war, is that Germany and Italy decide to intervene. What the Germans, or the Nazis, and the Italian fascists do is they send planes to Morocco. Some of them are bombers, but they convert them so they can carry troops from Morocco to southern Spain, to just near Seville.

19:45This is a decisive change. It's the first airlift of troops in history, and it brings professional, highly trained troops to the south of Spain. With the arrival of the Army of Africa on Spanish shores, an unsuccessful military coup turns decisively into a full-blown civil war. While troops in the north of the country fail to win decisive victories, Franco's forces advance rapidly through the south. Quickly formed anti-fascist militias are no match for these highly trained and well-equipped soldiers who have no qualms about utilizing staggering levels of brutality. As they progress, as the Army of Africa, they kind of show the background and experiences they've had.

20:32They stop off at various towns. A very famous one is Badajoz, which is not so far from the border with Portugal in southern Spain. And famously, they're on the move. They're moving quickly. They don't have time to take prisoners. So they capture lots of soldiers, take them to the bull ring, and massacre them. For the fascists, the mass killings, torture, and rape of Republicans are a means by which the nation can be cleansed of the pollution of left-wing ideology. Some villages are entirely wiped from the map. General Franco continues his lightning-fast advance northwards towards Madrid, but in September, he makes a diversion that cements his primacy.

21:18The military academy in Toledo, based in a fortress overlooking the city, is under siege from Republican militias, and Franco intends to liberate it. Toledo has a very famous castle called the Alcatraz, and basically this had become a huge publicity issue, people talking about the heroic defenders, the people on the Francoist side. and groups associated with the Republicans, really keen to capture this symbol of power, but became really symbolically important. And what Franco does is, instead of going directly to Madrid before the defences had been properly prepared there, he diverts to Toledo and he manages to lift the siege and he gets incredible publicity.

22:04When Franco's forces overwhelm the militia's defences and enter the city, Republicans are massacred, including doctors and women in the local maternity hospital. It takes just a week, and when it's over, Franco takes the press around the rubble of the Alcazar in order to show off his victory. While cameras whirr, planes fly low overhead, their pilots performing fascist salutes. The next day, Franco declares himself Generalissimo. He is now the supreme political and military leader of the rebellion.

22:40By October, the Republicans still control Madrid, which sits squarely in the middle of the country. They're also holding out in much of eastern Spain, alongside northern provinces like Catalonia and the Basque region. But the Francoists are beginning to encircle the capital on three sides, and the situation looks bleak for the Republic. But while the fascist side benefit from the assistance of sympathetic neighboring nations, The Republicans enjoy no such support. The British and the French pursued a policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, which curiously turned out to be a massively important form of intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

23:19And what the British do with the French as a way of solving a variety of political and strategic problems is come up with a suggestion of non-intervention. So in August 1936, they work on this and they come up with a treaty of non-intervention that lots of countries sign, including the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. When the war first starts, Italy in particular is really watching the situation. They don't want to become involved if the British are going to become involved. They see the British attitude and they decide, ha, this is another example of a kind of weak-willed British and French activity.

23:57we can become involved in Spain without too many consequences. Germany thinks similar things and becomes really involved.

24:07The British government have a variety of reasons for promoting a policy of non-intervention. One is their ideological distaste for the Second Republic and the belief that the left-wing government is merely a prelude to the kind of communist revolution seen in Russia in 1917. Another is their fear of open war with Nazi Germany. and the worry that the conflict will spill outside of the borders of Spain. In 1936, their policy is still to appease the fascist dictators rising across Europe.

24:39The lack of international aid, along with the loss of their army to the coup, leaves the Republicans in an increasingly precarious position. The militias, upon which they're relying to halt the Francoist march on Madrid, are made up of a variety of volunteers. trade unions, socialist and communist political groups, and even some foreigners. Women too begin volunteering to serve in these militias, fighting and dying alongside their male compatriots on the front line.

25:11Mika Feldman, an Argentinian anarchist and Marxist living in Europe, is one such volunteer, opting to fight for a communist organization alongside her husband. The couple become involved in the Siege of Siguenza, one of the towns the Francoists need to take if they are to reach Madrid. In August 1936, Mika's husband is killed in action, but her war is only just beginning. Taking up his pistol, she is elected head of her fighting division, a role she wastes no time in embracing.

25:50October 1936. In the historic town of Siguenza, in the heart of Spain, the last feeble rays of light linger on the horizon. Inside the town's monumental Gothic cathedral, Mika Feldman, a dark-haired Republican fighter, flinches as the boom of cannon fire sounds outside the building's west wall. A few seconds later, she stumbles as the floor beneath her shakes with the impact. As she regains her feet, her stomach clenches painfully. Along with a group of her fellow soldiers, she's been trapped in the cathedral for the past four days. Their supplies have been exhausted. Suddenly, a huge chunk of stonework falls from the ceiling at the far end of the aisle, smashing heavily onto the tiled floor.