Romanian Eagle

Chapter 653 The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War

The latest website: In Spain in southern Europe, the smoke over it is getting thicker and thicker.

At the beginning of the century, Spain was an economically poor, politically backward agricultural country. The Spanish political system is still biased towards feudal autocracy, and government officials and military generals are mostly senior Catholic monks or aristocratic landlords and other upper-level figures. The semi-feudal system of haciendas prevailed in the countryside, with big landlords in charge of the vast majority of land and resources in the country, and the people of the lower classes lived in hardship.

With the consent of King Alfonso XIII, Miguel Primo de Rivera launched a coup d'état on September 13, 1923, and established a seven-year dictatorship to vigorously suppress domestic turmoil.

But in 1931, the Spanish revolution broke out, the de Rivera regime was overthrown, Alfonso XIII went into exile, and Niceto Alcalá-Zamoura established the Second Spanish Republic.

But the Second Spanish Republic was also in a turbulent situation, with at least 28 governments established successively.

The earliest government was the left-wing socialist alliance led by Zamora, which implemented a series of democratic and land reforms, and implemented a series of measures such as disarmament and the closure of military schools.

But these reforms were not very effective, and landowners and royal officers still made up the majority of the Spanish parliament and government army. The same is true of land reform. When most of the land was taken into the state or purchased at a high price, the poor peasants were allocated only a small portion of the royal land.

Catholics are also opposed to the republican government, attacking each other, and the constitution stipulates the separation of church and state. However, the government took advantage of the establishment of the Second Republic to organize an anti-Catholic government, forcefully interfering with the Catholic Church, prohibiting the mission of religious groups, restricting property rights and investments, and banning the Society of Jesus.

Even allowing anti-Catholic activists to attack monasteries and believers, the Catholic Church also spread anti-Republican and government ideology to believers.

The welfare system for the working class is also not enforced, most capitalists do not comply with regulations such as the 8-hour workday, and the requirements of the autonomous region are only allowed by Catalonia.

In August 1932, General Jose Sanjuho attempted a coup, but was arrested. Internal fighting and the Great Depression of the 1930s made the domestic society unstable, and communism and communism spread rapidly in Spain. The country is full of political forces of various ideologies, the left and the right are in conflict with each other, and they join forces with other activists to expand their power.

Among them, the ***ist Falangist Party and the Spanish Communist Party have the most violent methods. There have been many violent incidents in their country, and they have also intensified the camp confrontation in the civil war, which has led to the escalation of the scale of the conflict.

In October 1935, the Spanish left-wing bloc was formed by the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), the Marxist Workers' Party (POUM), the Union of Workers (UGT), the Basques, Catalans and Anarchists.

The political propositions of the Popular Front before the election include: pardoning political prisoners arrested and imprisoned by the right-wing government, providing basic salaries for farm workers and restricting working hours, restoring the constitution and the establishment of autonomous regions, democratizing public institutions and the military, banning the Communist Party and the royalist It was widely supported by the workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie, and won the election in 1936 and regained the ruling power.

Jose Sanjuho founded an organization called the Spanish Military Alliance, which planned to overthrow the republican government by force, implement a right-wing dictatorship, and restore domestic order.

Supporters are divided into three factions, the conservative soldiers representing the interests of the kulaks, the liberals representing the interests of the middle class, and the Falangists representing the interests of small farmers and handicraftsmen. There were not many active officers in this organization, but many retired officers. Sanjuho himself was still living in Portugal at the time, and he was commanded by Emilio Mora, an active army brigadier general in the country.

At the same time, the royalists also opposed the reform of the republic. The leader of the royalists was Antonio Gorrecia, who in 1937 had claimed to have brought down the republic through a military coup or civil war, and had travelled to the Kingdom of Italy to gain Mussolini's support. The leader of the orthodox faction was Farr Gent, who also prepared to overthrow the republican government by force and trained militias in the Navar mountains.

In 1933, Spain held elections again, and the right-wing Radical Republicans won and returned to power with Alejandro Le Rouse as president.

Le Rouse undoes various reforms of the previous government, including ending land reform, returning church property, abolishing the constitution and autonomous regions, and releasing many right-wing and royalists. The right-wing government has used armed repression against opponents.

In the February 1936 elections, out of a total of 9.25 million votes, the Left Alliance narrowly won by 4.75 million votes and regained power again. It won 267 seats in Congress and 132 for the right-wing coalition. It is governed by Manuel Azania as President and Casalos Giroca as Prime Minister.

The left-wing government once again changed the various policies of the right-wing, which aroused the dissatisfaction of many nationalist, ***, royalist and other forces, and attempted to overthrow the republican government. Franco's friend, Joaquín Araras, once described Azania as "a repulsive caterpillar of red Spain", and was particularly disliked by Spanish officers, especially when he served as a war fighter in 1931. During the ministerial period, many military expenditures were cut and military schools were closed.

In these stormy days, both the left and the right have adopted eye-popping "struggle" methods such as gunfights, assassinations, and kidnappings. In 4 months, 260 political murders took place in Spain, the headquarters of 70 large and small parties and political groups were destroyed, and 10 newspapers were destroyed.

Important political figures were not spared either. In 1936, Assua, director of the Constitutional Drafting Committee, and former minister, Dr. Martinez, a democratic liberal, were all assassinated.

Among them, Sotero's death became the fuse that detonated both parties.

On July 13, members of the government's assault guards broke into the home of conservative leader, MP and former Rivera government finance minister Jose Calvo Sodro, and kidnapped him. In the police pickup truck, Assault Guard Captain Fernando Cuencas was shot twice into Sodro's head. They then dumped the bloodstained body of the MP in the Madrid public cemetery.

When conservatives staged a massive funeral and demonstrations for him, Republican police opened fire on the crowd, killing two more on the spot.

Sodro's death has shocked Spain and the whole of Europe. At the same time, it also made other members of the right feel angry, so the famous "It's sunny all over Spain today" telegram also caused the Spanish Civil War to break out.

The Spanish "Foreign Legion" and "Moorish Legion" took advantage of military exercises in Spanish Morocco to break out a rebellion. Pro-right officers of the "Spanish Military Union" rallied against the republic and elected San Juljo, exiled in Portugal, as their leader.

At the same time, the alliance issued a declaration to all Spanish provinces and Morocco: all officers participating in the movement will receive promotions and lifetime pensions, and called for the purge of "unreliable" officers and soldiers in the army.

On the afternoon of the 17th, the Foreign Legion in Genta and Melia, Morocco, publicly launched a rebellion in various cities in Spanish Morocco, with a total of about 35,000 rebels. The rebel forces imprisoned General Gomez, the commander-in-chief, and executed General Manuel Mosrales who refused to cooperate.

On this day, General Franco, the military governor of the Canary Islands, also instigated a rebellion with his own troops. He issued this call: "The army has decided to restore order in Spain...General Franco is in place to lead the movement. He appeals to the sentiments of all Spaniards who are willing to work for the restoration of Spain."

Franco then flew to Tetouan, Morocco, to command the rebel forces.

Other troops stationed in Morocco also took part in the rebellion, as Franco was highly regarded among the most elite Spanish Afrikaans. The insurgent forces were at a loss, occupying Melilla and Ceuta successively, and controlling the entire territory of Spanish Morocco.

On the morning of the 19th, escorted by a cruiser, the rebel troop convoy crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and anchored in front of the Alheciras fortress. After a burst of artillery bombardment, the fortress surrendered. Moorish soldiers of the rebel army then landed and occupied the city.

Faced with a move by the army to stand up against the government (80% of the regular army (120,000 soldiers) turned against it), the Madrid government called on workers to fight in the defense of the republic. More than 200,000 workers responded to the call, flocking to Madrid from all over the country.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, the fighting between the army and the workers is also unfolding. Despite the lack of training, the workers' armed forces were extremely heroic in combat. . Unable to distribute regular weapons, many of them took part in the battle to defend the Republic with shotguns, knives, forks, grenades or explosive packs.

In some places the rebellion was suppressed, while in others it was controlled by the National Army. By July 20, when the first round of the contest between the two sides was basically over, the National Army controlled almost all of Morocco, the Canary Islands, the entire Balearic Islands except Minorca, the Guadarrama Mountains and the Ebro. A large area north of the river.

The government of the Republic occupied the east coast, the Basque Country, Catalonia and other places, and cut off the connection between the north and south of the National Army in the province of Badajoz. Meanwhile, Spain's largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, ​​remain in the hands of the Republic. Some areas are in a stalemate: in Asturias, the government-controlled area is intertwined with the national army-controlled area.

When both sides find that the war may continue, looking for foreign aid becomes a common choice for both sides.

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