HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 378

behind a pledge of nonintervention, and
even the support that the Soviet Union
gave to the Loyalists was limited and ulti-
mately withdrawn. Thousands of volun-
teers from Europe and the Western
Hemisphere joined the so-called Interna-
tional Brigades that fought for the Loyalist
side, but their participation was, in the
end, more notable for its romanticism than
its practical effect.
By April 1938 the Nationalists had bro-
ken through to the Mediterranean, cut-
ting Spain in half from west to east. A
process of attrition gradually reduced the

territory under the Republican banner
until early 1939 saw a collapse of the last
defenses in the north and the retreat of
thousands of fighters and their dependents
across the French frontier. At the begin-
ning of March a grotesque power struggle
between Communists and Socialists broke
out in the streets of M ADRID , as if to justify
the worst criticisms of the Nationalists.
Within a few weeks the Spanish capital
had fallen to Franco's forces; the president
of the republic, M ANUEL A ZAÑA , had aban-
doned his futile effort to preserve his
authority and maintain resistance; and the
war was over.
Estimates of those who died in battle, by
execution (formal or informal), or from the
spread of famine and disease range from
500,000 to 1 million. In the early years of
Franco's victorious dictatorship many more
would die as prisoners or under the depriva-
tions of the postwar period. The psychologi-
cal stress of living under an isolationist,
reactionary police-state regime took its toll
as well, and many did not recover, even after
democracy was restored following Franco's
death in 1975. Beyond the colossal national
trauma endured by the Spanish people the
civil war also served to dramatize for the
nations of Europe the horrors of modern
mass conflict. This “rehearsal” did not, how-
ever, prevent Europeans from plunging into
World War II only a few months after the
Spanish tragedy came to an end.

Spanish Guinea (Equatorial
Guinea)
This West African territory, claimed by Por-
tugal in 1471, was ceded to Spain in 1778.
The colony included a strip of land along
the Gulf of Guinea known as Río Muni and

Propaganda poster issued by Madrid's Defense
Committee (Library of Congress)