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waffe pilots acting under Franco's direction. Bilbao, the great Basque
port, was taken in June, while Santander fell in August, followed by
Gijón in October. From the spring through the end of the year, the
Loyalists struck all along the rebel perimeter trying to divert their north-
ern campaign, but to no lasting effect. For all their efforts the defenders
of the republic found themselves pushed back and during early 1938
losing control of Aragon, and seeing their territory cut in half by July.
Digging in along the Ebro, the Loyalists tried to draw in and destroy as
many as possible of Franco's troops during a prolonged struggle between
July and November. Instead, they lost as many as 70,000 men and all
real hope of victory.
With the line along the Ebro broken, defenders began streaming back
toward the French frontier. Catalonia was completely overrun by Feb-
ruary 1939, and Madrid, the last isolated hold-out, fell in March after a
grotesque struggle for power among the Communists and their rivals
within the beleaguered capital. Franco was, at last, truly master of the
nation.
The Spanish civil war had cost that nation somewhere between
600,000 and 800,000 lives, counting deaths in battle and executions, as
well as civilians killed by bombing, starvation, and disease. Under the
new regime thousands more would be condemned to death, impris-
oned, or forced into exile. The world was confronted with the full array
of horrors about to engulf it as commentators warned that it had just
seen the rehearsal for what Edgar Allan Poe had called the tragedy
“Man.” After centuries off the center stage of history Spain had once
again gained universal attention.
PORTUGAL: THE EMERGENCE OF THE
SALAZAR DICTATORSHIP
The Portuguese republic that emerged from the revolution of 1910 had
limited support at home and scanty respect abroad. It soon entered into
a pattern of rapid changes in political leadership that would plague it
for more than a decade. Those in charge during World War I decided
that joining the French-British alliance would enhance Portugal's pres-
tige. The country's participation in the fierce fighting on the western
front achieved little beyond the death of several thousands of its sons.
By 1926 factional rivalries, class conflict, and economic disarray
impelled the president to seek a savior.
António de Oliveira Salazar was born on April 28, 1889, into a mod-
est, ardently religious family in northern Portugal. Originally intended
for the priesthood, he shifted his path to the law and had a distinguished
 
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