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monarchists (both Legitimists, or supporters of Alfonso XIII and Carl-
ists, the majority of whom also acknowledged the rights of Alfonso),
the Catholic party the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right
(CEDA), and the fascist-oriented political organization known as the
Falange. Backing the government were some officers and men of the
regular military, much of the navy, the Assault Guards (created as a
Republican counterbalance to the army-dominated Civil Guard), and
militias drawn from unions that adhered to the Socialist, Anarchist,
Trotskyite, or Communist Parties, as well as Basque and Catalan region-
alists. Although their general designation as Loyalist or Republican
forces gave them a semblance of unity, their resistance to a common
enemy would often be impaired by their antagonism to one another.
On September 29 the so-called Committee of National Defense
(Junta de Defensa Nacional) named General Franco as head of the gov-
ernment and commander of the armed forces. These positions he would
retain, in essence, for nearly 40 years, and very early in the war those
of his co-conspirators who represented a potential rivalry disappeared
from the scene. The Republican government withdrew to Valencia,
which enabled it to exercise control within the eastern part of the coun-
try, with an outlying stronghold in the Basque provinces, where the
Catholicism of the Basques was outweighed by their commitment to
ethnic autonomy. Regional semi-independence was accorded to both
the Basques and the Catalans by the Second Republic, condemning it
still further in the eyes of the Francoists.
The opening weeks of the Spanish civil war were characterized by
horrendous atrocities, most of them inflicted by an inflamed working
class upon conservatives in general and Catholic clergy in particular.
Ultimately 12 bishops and hundreds of priests, nuns, and seminarians
were slaughtered. The reprisals taken by the Nationalists were as brutal,
though usually less picturesque in their cruelty. Europe looked on in
horror as a country once recognized as the center of Western civiliza-
tion descended into bloodshed on a scale not seen since the ghastly
events surrounding World War I. Some countries saw opportunities to
further their own political agenda. Germany and Italy sent troops and
planes to assist Franco, while the Soviet Union supplied tanks and tech-
nicians to the Republicans. Western democracies, including Britain,
France, and the United States, pledged themselves to nonintervention,
though thousands of volunteers made their way to Spain to fight for
the republic in the International Brigades.
During 1937, having consolidated their initial triumphs, the Nation-
alists concentrated on attacks in the north. Guernica, the traditional
seat of Basque political identity, was bombed in April by German Luft-
 
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