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government, were also forming a growing bloc. On the Right, the Falangists (founded in
1923 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the dictator) made uneasy bedfellows with
conservativetraditionalistsanddissidentelementsinthearmyupsetbymodernizingreforms.
In this atmosphere of growing confusion, the left-wing Popular Front alliance, including
the Catalan Republican Left, won the general election of January 1936 by a narrow margin,
andanall-Republicangovernmentwasformed.InCatalunya, LluísCompanys becamepres-
identoftheGeneralitat. Butwiththeeconomy crippled bystrikes, thegovernment singularly
failed to exert its authority over anyone. Finally, on July 17, 1936, the military garrison in
Morocco rebelled under General Francisco Franco 's leadership, to be followed by upris-
ingsatmilitarygarrisonsthroughoutthecountry.Muchofthesouthandwestquicklyfellinto
the hands of the Nationalists, but Madrid and the industrialized northeast remained loyal to
the Republican government. In Barcelona, although the military garrison supported Franco,
itwassoonsubduedbylocalCivilGuardsandtheworkers,whilelocalleaderssetupmilitias
in preparation for the coming fight.
In October 1936, Franco was declared military commander and head of state; fascist Ger-
many and Italy recognized his regime as the legitimate government of Spain in November.
The Civil War was on.
Civil War
The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) was one of the most bitter and bloody the world has
seen.Violentreprisalswerevisitedontheirenemiesbybothsides-theRepublicansshooting
priestsandlocallandownerswholesale,andburningchurchesandcathedrals;theNationalists
carrying out mass slaughter of the population of almost every town they took. It was also to
bethefirstmodernwar-Franco'sGermanalliesdemonstratedtheirabilitytoinflictterroron
civilian populations with their bombing raids on Gernika and Durango, while radio became
an important propaganda weapon, with Nationalists offering starving Republicans the “white
bread of Franco”.
Despite sporadic help from Russia and the 35,000 volunteers of the International Bri-
gades , the Republic could never compete with the professional armies and the massive as-
sistance from fascist Italy and Nazi Germany that the Nationalists enjoyed. Eventually, the
non-intervention of other European governments was effectively to hand victory to the Na-
tionalists. The Republican government fled Madrid first for Valencia, and then moved on to
base itself at Barcelona in 1937. The BattleoftheEbro around Tortosa saw massive casual-
ties on both sides; Nationalist troops advanced on Valencia in 1938, and from the west were
also approaching Catalunya from their bases in Navarre. When Bilbao was taken by the Na-
tionalists, the Republicans' fight on the Aragón front was lost. The final Republican hope -
that war in Europe over Czechoslovakia would draw the Allies into a war against fascism -
evaporated in September 1938 with the British Prime Minister Chamberlain's capitulation to
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