Moreover, Germany and Italy did not play the most important role. Britain and the United States also played a major role in the Spanish Civil War just as Germany and Italy. Britain, by creating and signing the Non-Intervention Committee, avoided other country from supporting the Republicans who then lacked of weapons and troops to fight against the Nationalists. Therefore, as Lee argues “Britain’s role was therefore vital” because it prevented the Republicans from getting any artillery or men although they had the money to pay for them; they had all the gold reserves. In addition, the United States role was also vital because oil companies in the country such as the Texas Oil Company, Texaco, Shell, Standard of New Jersey and the Atlantic Refining Company traded oil with Franco and this was vital factor which contributed in the outcome of the Spanish Civil War because according to Whealey “without oil, the Generalissimo’s war machines would have ground to a halt.” Consequently, “Multinational corporations in the sterling dollar countries…helped to crush the Spanish Republicans’ hopes”. On the other hand, the Stalin provided the Republicans with over 1000 aircraft, 200 tanks, 1500 guns and 500 to 5,000 advisers who were ordered by Stalin to “keep out of artillery range”. However, the USSR was never as committed to the conflict as Germany and Italy were and Stalin was only interested in supplying the right amount of armaments to keep the Republicans fighting. Furthermore, International Brigades supported the Republicans because they were against Nazism and Fascism and wanted to sustain democracy against the right wing threat.
However, although foreign intervention had a very important role to play on the outbreak of the Civil War, there were pre-civil war problems within society, which contributed to the outcome of the Civil War. These problems involved Manuel Azaña and Niceto Alcala Zamora. Zamora was elected president on the 1931 election with 34.3% of the votes. The first actions of his government were the release of all left-wing political prisoners, the introduction of agrarian reforms, which penalized the aristocracy with important farming lands and the transfer of right-wing leaders such as Franco to posts outside Spain in order to avoid uprisings against the new government from the right. As a result of these measures, Spain’s economy was severely damaged due that the wealthy people started taking huge amounts of capital outside the country. As a consequence, the value of the Spanish coin declined which led to a decline in trade and tourism. This led to the increase of prices and the decrease of workers payments, which led to various strikes in Spain. On the other hand, Zamora introduced an eight-hour working day with benefits and paid holidays, as well as attempts to reduce the top-heavy officer corps of the army through early retirement and with the 1931 constitution, he abolished the nobility and with Article 26, he was able to take extensive measures against the Church. However, Zamora’s reforms were not accepted and he was expelled and replace by Manuel Azaña.
Azaña’s government also had serious reforms and changes, which upset people in the army, in the church and especially the wealthy landlords. He put in practice the main measures of Article 26, which were that the state was able to dissolve religious orders, religious education would be ended and introduced social reforms such as divorce. Article 26 had various criticisms, to which Azaña responded, “so not tell me this is contrary to freedom. It is a matter of public health”. There were two more important reforms made by Azaña. In 1932, the 1932 statute was made which established an amount of autonomy to Catalonia in several functions such as education, taxation and police. Finally, in 1932, the Law of Agrarian Reform was one of the major reasons of the unhappiness of society with Azaña’s government, which led to the Nationalists revolts. This reform intended to narrow the territorial difference between the peasants and the wealthy landlords by allowing the state to buy over 56 acres of abandoned land in certain parts of Castile. However, these reforms caused opposition from various sides. The Army was resented due to the removal of its ranks, the Church started to defend its traditional values while the landlords resisted the new Agrarian Reform. In other words, all the reforms made during Azaña’s government did not work and were not effective and in any case according to Lee “Azaña therefore failed to benefit Spain’s lower orders and succeeded only in terrifying the privileged.” This means that more people started supporting the Nationalists because the Republican government was very unstable and their reforms were not helping the country in any kind of way.
It was after the Azaña’s government, where the Nationalist and the Republicans started to consolidate. However, though the Spanish Civil War was separated between the Republicans and the Nationalists, these two groups were composed of other parties, which shared a main aim, although they had different ways of achieving it and different ideas of how they wanted Spain to be ruled. This war, as Lee maintains was “the first major struggle between fascism and communism”. On the right there were the Nationalists, which consisted of the Monarchists, Carlists, conservatives, the CEDA and the Falange. The Monarchists aimed in setting up a military-backed monarchy lead by Alfonso XIII, the Carlists aimed in restoring the monarchy under a descendant of Don Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbón, the CEDA were willing to challenge the government by legal means and not with violence while the Falange aimed in having a dictatorship. Unlike the CEDA, the other parties were willing to use violence and they had as their main aim to overthrow the Republic and replace it with an authoritarian government. The Republicans on the other hand, were composed of the Communists, Liberals, Republicans and Anarchists and inside the party; there were a range of political philosophies, ranging from Anarchism to Socialism to Marxism, which made the parties to be constantly disagreeing with each other. The Communists were being backed by Russia and aimed in setting up a centralized communist government like the one in Russia, the Socialists wanted to set up a government with the influence of Russia where there would be no social classes and where no workers were to be exploited while the Anarchists wanted to establish a decentralized workers government. These tensions and differences between them prevented the left from presenting a united front against their enemies on the right, unlike the right, which had coherent aims and especially the “overwhelming influence of Franco” according to Lee.
Moreover, the many crosscurrents in Spain complicated the main issues. Throughout the regions in Spain, there were many differences such as differences between traditions and dialect, which caused tensions between people from the different regions. However, the most important crosscurrents were between the archbishops and priests in the Church and the officers and soldiers in the army. During the Civil War, the Church divided into two parts, where the lower clergy supported the Republicans and the higher clergy supported the Nationalists. The lower clergy supported the Republicans mainly because they wanted to preserve democracy and for social reasons. On the other hand, the higher clergy supported the Nationalists for two main reasons; the first one was that they wanted to stop the secularization with Franco’s religious crusade. The second reason is that Franco seemed the best protection against the atheistic left. According to Pope Pius XI “The first, the greatest and now the general peril is certainly Communism in all its forms and degrees.”
Francisco Franco was a very important political figure during the Spanish Civil War. He had great strengths, which involved leadership, power and his facility to make promises to each of the parties and then break them according to his interest. These qualities helped him to achieve his aims and especially win the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s main was to unite his supporters as Gallo maintains “Like the parties of the Popular Front, the Nationalists were originally a collection of heterogeneous clans, their political diversity reflected in a variety of uniforms”, which means that Franco wanted to unite and balance the different Nationalist groups, unlike the left, were the different aims did not allow good decision to be made. Franco was very able and keen in ensuring an adequate representation between the Nationalist party’s interests in order to avoid any confrontation between them. This means that he was able to keep each of the parties content by consenting them with their political requests. Moreover, he had power over everyone, including the National Council, which he elected very carefully in order to have a good balance of power in it, where decisions would not be blocked by the members of the Council. By the time of the first Council, which was in October 1937, “he had combined twenty Falangists, eight Carlists, five generals and seventeen from other parties” according to Lee. Therefore, as Lee argues, Franco “was able to bind them together while, at the same time, preventing any of them from becoming too dominant and introducing embarrassingly radical policies. He, therefore managed to avoid the sort of problems confronting the Republican leaders.” Furthermore, Franco polarized and galvanized the right wing by convincing them that the left was trying to ruin the Spanish Society. To this, Franco added the support of the Church by carefully associating the role of his army with the Catholic Religion; in other words he associated the Spanish Civil War, with a Holy War.
In addition, Franco organized the Nationalists military structure, which led to their superiority over the Republican military structure. While the Republicans had loyal generals and inexperienced non-commission officers, the Nationalists had a more systematic method which involved twenty-eight military academies from where 30,000 trained officers left in support of the right. In addition, the Republican army was not cohesive due to the fact that it depended on militias and elected officers. This system had a great disadvantage, which was that decisions were slow and ineffective. This encouraged insubordination between officers. The Nationalist militias on the other hand, were brought under centralized control in December 1936 by Franco, who also imposed on all of his forces; rigorous military discipline. Carr maintains that “Its notable achievements notwithstanding, the Popular Army, as a military machine that could be deployed by a unified command, was inferior to the Nationalists Army.” However, Franco’s battle strategy was very slow and according to Lee, “was unimaginative but solid”. The Republicans on the other hand, had commanders with imaginative and brilliant attacks, which were successful at the beginning, although Franco’s great strength as Lee maintains was “his cautious and thorough preparation”. This helped Franco to achieve his aims at a slower rate, thought more efficiently.
Moreover, the role of the Church over the Spanish people also contributed to the outcome of the Spanish Civil War. During that time, the Church had great influences over the people, therefore Franco used the position of the Church in order to spread his ideas and persuade people to support the Nationalists and go against the “atheist” ideas of the Republicans. As a result, Franco got more support from the Spanish people and this helped him to get a victory over the Republicans.
In conclusion foreign intervention influenced the outcome of the Spanish Civil War to the extent that it led to the formation of the Non-Intervention Committee, which prevented the Republicans from receiving any international support apart from the International Brigades and Stalin who was not as committed to the conflict as Hitler and Mussolini were. Therefore, Britain is also included as supporting the Nationalists although indirectly and according to Puzzo “The conclusion is inescapable that the defeat and destruction of the Spanish Republic must be attributed as much to British diplomacy in the years 1936 to 1939 as to German aircraft and Italian infantry”. Furthermore, Germany’s, Italy’s and the United State’s support, enabled the Nationalists to get soldiers, armaments and oil for the aircrafts and tanks to fight the Republicans, which allowed them to fight more effectively, have more victories and finally take over Madrid on March 1939. However, it was not the only factor which led to the outcome of the Spanish Civil War. The leadership of Franco also led to the outcome of the Civil War. In other words, foreign intervention and Franco’s leadership complemented each other and these two factors led to the outcome of the Spanish Civil War. This is because, without foreign intervention, Franco would not have been able to defeat the Republicans because he did not have either the necessary amount of armaments nor money. Moreover, without Franco as a leader, foreign intervention would not have been organized, administrated or motivated as well as Franco did, therefore, the Nationalists would have been defeated. Furthermore, the governments of both Zamora and Azaña contributed to the instability of Spain and the formation of bitter opposition against the Republicans. Azaña’s government finished destabilizing the Spanish political system, which led to the Nationalists taking over the government, which according to Lee “By the time the Assembly was dissolved in January 1936 the Republic had experienced 26 governmental crises, where 72 ministers had served during a period of four and a half years”. Finally, the lack of good leaders, the tensions and differences between the inner parties and the bad of organization of the militias within the Republicans, also influenced the outcome of the Spanish Civil War.
Bibliography
"Spanish Civil War," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004
Lee Stephen, European Dictatorships 1918-1945, 2nd edition, 2001
The Conspiracy and Rising, February to August 1936 by Patricia Knight