The Spanish Civil War

The story of Franco’s rise to power and the painful, repressive regime he oversaw is fundamentally interlinked with that of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal three-year conflict that laid bare the ideological divisions of interwar Europe, it drew support from fascist governments across the continent. But it also inspired socialists from around the world to fight for the democratic, republican government, and to oppose the rising tide of fascism wherever and however they could. What caused Spain's military to turn against the country's civilian government in 1936? Why did a national civil war attract such international attention? And what ramifications does the conflict still have in modern Spain? This is a Short History Of the Spanish Civil War. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Peter Anderson, Professor of Twentieth-Century Spanish History at the University of Leeds. Written by Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact Check: Sean Coleman Unlock the next two episodes of Short History Of… right now by subscribing to Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network, including Real Survival Stories and Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to get started. ⁠A Short History of Ancient Rome⁠ - the debut book from the Noiser Network is out now! Discover the epic rise and fall of Rome like never before. Pick up your copy now at your local bookstore or visit ⁠⁠noiser.com/books⁠⁠ to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  It is the 24th of October 2019, in the mountains of central Spain.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  Late autumn sunlight shines down weakly on the Valley of the Fallen, a memorial to the Spanish Civil War purged high on a rocky crack. A monumental cross casts an elongated shadow over the white-walled buildings that make up the complex.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  In the cavernous interior of the crypt, hewn into the granite of the mountain itself, a tomb has been opened.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Workmen strain to lift out an ornate coffin, as a group of black-clad mourners look on. Among them is a woman, her soft sobs echoing off the soaring stone walls. A descendant of the 20th-century dictator General Francisco Franco, she is here because the Spanish government has ordered the removal of his body from this memorial, which was built using the forced labor of his victims.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Once the workmen have finished, several male relatives hoist the flag-draped coffin onto their shoulders, and slowly carry it outside. The woman follows close behind, her high heels tapping on the polished marble floor.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  She emerges, blinking into the courtyard outside, where a smart white helicopter waits to receive the coffin.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  With the cargo loaded, the rotors start to turn. Shading her eyes with one gloved hand, the woman watches as it rises into the pale-blue sky, bearing Franco to his new resting place.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, in the northern Spanish province of Catalonia, an archaeologist kneels in a grave of a very different type. A team of volunteers have dug this large rectangular pit in the orange earth. Now he bends over, with a brush clutched tightly in one calloused hand, carefully scraping dirt away from what is slowly revealing itself to be a skull.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  One of his students hunkers down next to him and continues the painstaking work of clearing earth away from the ribcage of the skeleton. Gradually, she brings the individual bones of the spinal column into view.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  A line of white, plastic buttons is uncovered, and further down, the dull shine of what appears to be a belt buckle.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  The archaeologist returns to his own task, finally clearing enough earth away that the entire skull is visible.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  His knees protesting as he gets to his feet, he calls over one of their volunteers, a local woman who believes that her grandfather, a union activist executed by Franco's forces during the Civil War, is buried here. He asks her to bring the camera so that he can document these latest finds.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Crouching down again, he takes detailed pictures of the skeleton they have just unearthed. So far, they have discovered six victims here. This makes seven.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  The archaeologist puts the camera to one side and picks up his brush once again. He will not stop until every one of this grave's dark secrets has been brought into the light.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Nowadays, Spain is a popular tourist destination run by a democratically-elected, left-wing government. Yet the memory of its recent, blood-soaked past lingers.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  The story of Franco's rise to power and the painful, repressive regime he oversaw is fundamentally interlinked with that of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal, three-year conflict that laid bare the ideological divisions of interwar Europe, it drew support from fascist governments across the continent and was a testing ground for many of the weapons and tactics later used to devastating effect during the Second World War. But it also inspired socialists from around the world to fight for the democratic republican government and to oppose the rising tide of fascism wherever and however they could.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  So what caused Spain's military to turn against the country's civilian government in 1936? Why did a national civil war attract such international attention? And what ramifications does the conflict still have in modern Spain? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is A Short History of the Spanish Civil War.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  The opening decades of the 20th century are a turbulent period for Spain. In 1898, following a catastrophic military defeat at the hands of the United States, it loses its last remaining colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. But back at home, rapid industrialization brings some major shifts in the nation's social and political landscape. Peter Anderson is professor of 20th century Spanish history at the University of Leeds.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  The early 20th century is a period of rapid change in Spain. It's moving from being a predominantly agricultural economy to one that has a bigger role for industry and a bigger role for middle-class groups. And that means that politics is changing too. As the middle class expands, a lot of the groups in the middle class became attracted to republicanism. They were attracted to secular ideas around science and democratic reform. They wanted to improve the education system. There are lots of people who are industrial workers who become attracted, some to the anarchist group called the CNT, which becomes one of the largest anarchist groups in the world.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  These changes create rifts in Spanish society. The urban, secular lifestyles of the middle classes and working proletariat differ from the rural ways of life of peasant smallholders. This latter group are still heavily invested in the conservative Catholic Church, which remains extremely influential.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  The landowners of southern Spain oppose any threats to their power. In particular, reforms that jeopardize the control they exert over the landless peasants who work on their estates. And after the loss of the empire, the military becomes increasingly insular, developing their own specific ideology that aligns closely with the right.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Militarism is really important to understanding the origins of the Spanish Civil War. So militarism is the idea that army officers live somewhat separately from society and consider themselves superior to society. And that they have a noble mission to protect the nation against both external and internal enemies.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  This is especially true of those troops who fight in the Foreign Legion.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  In 1912, Spain takes over a strip of land in northern Morocco, meaning that large numbers of troops are now based in North Africa.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  The Army of Africa develops a very particular military culture. It's involved in a counterinsurgency war, where they use very brutal methods, chasing down locals, attacking civilians, and so on. It becomes very brutalized. And they develop a culture that celebrates death. And they saw that in fighting this kind of colonial war in Africa, they were making Spain great again. They were redeeming Spain. This is very much a kind of pre-fascist outlook, thinking that you can save Spain through the blood sacrifice against this external enemy.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  While the army may gaze with nostalgia at Spain's imperial past, for civilians, the country is nominally a democracy. But the system artificially ensures that the conservative and liberal parties take turns forming governments, with votes manipulated by local bosses and power ultimately resting with the king.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  It was known as the Restoration System that had come about in the 1870s. The problem was that despite being formally a democracy, it was based on corruption and exclusion. So a lot of people in Spain really couldn't influence the political situation, particularly people who maybe worked in the countryside as landless labourers or people who worked in cities, in factory jobs and so on.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  In 1923, amid a wave of strike action, a bloodless military coup brings a new government to power.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  But though the new dictator, General Primo de Rivera, shares the conservative religious values of groups like the land-holding peasants, his regime continues to exclude large numbers of Spanish citizens from the political system.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Supported by the king, Alfonso XIII, the coup hardens conservative attempts to stem the tide of change in Spain. But progress cannot be held off forever. In 1930, Primo de Rivera's rule comes to an end after his minor attempts at military reform lose him the support of the army. The king, compromised by his association with the dictator, desperately tries to revive the pre-1923 political system of alternating power. But when municipal elections are held, republican parties secure a convincing win, and King Alfonso goes into exile.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Since there had been a short-lived republic declared in the 1870s, this new one is now declared as the Second Republic.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  It's against the monarchy, but it's also an attempt to overcome some of the problems that Spain had faced through political exclusion. And they were really about the army. So there were lots of people who wanted to reform the Spanish army, reduce the number of officers, curtail its activities in Morocco. Land redistribution was a big issue. Empower workers more to improve their wages. Carry out reforms to the church. It's about creating a proper democracy. It's about tackling the reforms that have been needed in Spain for many years. And it's about challenging the power of really important groups like members of the army, members of the church, and members of capitalist industrial groups, if you like.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  This reformist government does not last long.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  In the elections of 1933, the first in which Spanish women are able to vote, a conservative government is voted in, and the nascent reforms are immediately quashed. Widespread strikes follow, as well as armed rebellion in the northern region of Asturias. The military is sent in, led at this time by a general named Francisco Franco. Born in 1892 in the north-western region of Galicia, Franco comes from a naval family. His Catholic mother's austere piety shapes his character, as does his father's military background.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  He wasn't able to join the naval cadets, but he does go to the Toledo Military Academy at the age of 14, so he's training to join the army. He's not a particularly brilliant student, but he's able to go to Morocco, he's able to join the army of Africa, and he has a kind of meteoric rise, largely because he was very, very brave and determined and didn't flinch on the battlefield. And he gets a... wins a series of promotions. And eventually, at the age of 33 in 1926, he becomes a brigadier general.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  Franco swiftly deals with the armed rebellion in Asturias. Over a thousand people are killed, as many as 30,000 are arrested, and many are tortured.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  As news of the crackdown spreads, it destroys the political centre and forces those on the left to realise that they must unite to survive. And with the victims canonised as martyrs, it's not long before the ideological pendulum swings back the other way with the 1936 election of the progressive Popular Front government.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  But after their taste of power, the right-wing politicians do not accept defeat gracefully.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  An anti-democratic coalition of conservative elites, Catholic groups and right-wing politicians, including the fascist Falange Party, now forms. And the plotting begins.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Everything was thrown at this election and the right loses. So what happens after that is the right decide that parliamentary politics doesn't really work for them. So people are really turning their backs on democratic politics and they're turning their attention to the politics of violence. What they know, these civilians, is that alone, they're not strong enough to overthrow the elected government of the Popular Front. So what they do is they start courting army officers who they know are unhappy with all the reforms and so on, and encouraging them to carry out a military coup.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  The left-wing republican government is not completely unaware of the situation. Several generals with suspected conservative or fascist allegiances are removed from their posts. Franco himself is sent away from mainland Spain to serve as the military commander of the Canary Islands. But behind closed doors, preparations for the coup continue apace. By early July 1936, Franco is firmly on board and the conspirators agree that he is the man they'll need to take command of the Army of Africa, the Spanish military's most effective fighting force.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  But there is the problem of how to unite Franco with his troops. A solution is provided by British intelligence agent and devout Roman Catholic Major Hugh Pollard. On the 11th of July, he charters a de Havilland Dragon Rapid aircraft for what appears to be a pleasure trip from London to the sunny Canary Islands.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  With his British plane attracting little notice from the Spanish authorities, he picks up General Franco and delivers him to Morocco. Whether or not the machinery of the British state supported Pollard's actions remains unclear to this day.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews and in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  The coup begins on the 17th of July 1936, when the colonial army based in Morocco rebels against the republican government. By the next day, garrisons across mainland Spain are in revolt. Soldiers quickly take control of the conservative-leaning areas whose populations largely accept the idea of the military replacing the progressive, left-wing government.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Looking to a pattern set by past coups, the generals masterminding the rebellion hope that the entire country can quickly be taken over.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Spain does have an interesting history of military intervention in politics and in the 19th century, the way that worked was generals would make a declaration saying they no longer supported one prime minister and they were going to replace him either with themselves or with somebody else and that more or less happened unopposed.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  But by 1936, Spanish society has changed and the military can no longer act with this kind of impunity.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Over the early 20th century, Spaniards have been joining political parties, trade unions, organisations. They're becoming mobilised. When the army and its civilian supporters rebelled against the elected government of the Second Republic in July 1936, they were opposed by people in trade unions, by people in political parties, who went to military barracks and took arms and weapons and fought with the troops in the streets across Spain. So what we've got in 1936 is a position of mass mobilisation.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  By the 19th of July, when Franco joins his troops in Morocco, it is clear that there will be no immediate victory for the military. Too many citizens are willing to resist, meaning that traditionally more left-leaning places like Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and Madrid remain in government hands.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  As the coup stalls on the mainland, Franco and his troops are stranded in Morocco. The navy is still loyal to the republican government and blockades the Straits of Gibraltar, the narrow waterway between Africa and the southern Spanish coast. So Franco, in dire need of assistance, looks to the fascist regimes already in power elsewhere.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  If you were to lay a bet at this point, so on the 19th of July, 20th of July in 1936, you might say the republic, the government, the democratically-elected Popular Front government or the Second Republic, is going to win. The crucial reason why that didn't happen, why the republic didn't win, and why a botched coup turned into a civil war is that Germany and Italy decide to intervene. What the Germans, or the Nazis and the Italian fascists do is they send planes to Morocco. Some of them are bombers, but they convert them so they can carry troops from Morocco to southern Spain, to just near Seville. This is a decisive change. It's the first airlift of troops in history,

• 18:53Speaker 01

  and it brings professional, highly-trained troops to the south of Spain.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  With the arrival of the Army of Africa on Spanish shores, an unsuccessful military coup turns decisively into a full-blown civil war.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  While troops in the north of the country failed to win decisive victories, Franco's forces advance rapidly through the south. Quickly-formed anti-fascist militias are no match for these highly-trained and well-equipped soldiers who have no qualms about utilizing staggering levels of brutality.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  As they progress, as the Army of Africa, they kind of show the background and experiences they've had. They stop off at various towns. A very famous one is Badajoz, which is not so far from the border with Portugal in southern Spain. And famously, they're on the move, they're moving quickly, they don't have time to take prisoners. So they capture lots of soldiers, take them to the bullring, and massacre them.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  For the fascists, the mass killings, torture and rape of Republicans are a means by which the nation can be cleansed of the pollution of left-wing ideology. Some villages are entirely wiped from the map. General Franco continues his lightning-fast advance northwards towards Madrid, but in September, he makes a diversion that cements his primacy.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  The military academy in Toledo, based in a fortress overlooking the city, is under siege from Republican militias, and Franco intends to liberate it.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Toledo has a very famous castle called the Alcazar, and basically, this had become a huge publicity issue, people talking about the heroic defenders, the people on the Francoist side, and groups associated with the Republicans, really keen to capture this symbol of power. It became really symbolically important. And what Franco does is, instead of going directly to Madrid before the defences had been properly prepared there, he diverts to Toledo and he manages to lift the siege and he gets incredible publicity.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  When Franco's forces overwhelm the militia's defences and enter the city, Republicans are massacred, including doctors and women in the local maternity hospital.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  It takes just a week, and when it's over, Franco takes the press around the rubble of the Alcazar in order to show off his victory. While cameras were, planes fly low overhead, their pilots performing fascist salutes. The next day, Franco declares himself Generalissimo. He is now the supreme political and military leader of the rebellion.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  By October, the Republicans still control Madrid, which sits squarely in the middle of the country. They're also holding out in much of eastern Spain alongside northern provinces like Catalonia and the Basque region. But the Francoists are beginning to encircle the capital on three sides, and the situation looks bleak for the Republic. But while the fascist side benefit from the assistance of sympathetic neighbouring nations, the Republicans enjoy no such support.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  The British and the French pursued a policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, which curiously turned out to be a massively important form of intervention in the Spanish Civil War. And what the British do with the French as a way of solving a very variety of political and strategic problems is come up with the suggestion of non-intervention. So in August 1936, they work on this and they come up with a treaty of non-intervention that lots of countries sign, including the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy. When the war first starts, Italy in particular is really watching the situation. They don't want to become involved if the British are going to become involved.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  They see the British attitude and they decide, ha, this is another example of the kind of weak-willed British and French activity. We can become involved in Spain without too many consequences. Germany thinks similar things and becomes really involved.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  The British government have a variety of reasons for promoting a policy of non-intervention. One is their ideological distaste for the Second Republic and the belief that the left-wing government is merely a prelude to the kind of communist revolution seen in Russia in 1917. Another is their fear of open war with Nazi Germany and the worry that the conflict will spill outside of the borders of Spain. In 1936, their policy is still to appease the fascist dictators rising across Europe.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  The lack of international aid, along with the loss of their army to the coup, leaves the Republicans in an increasingly precarious position. The militias upon which they're relying to halt the Francoist march on Madrid are made up of a variety of volunteers: trade unions, socialist and communist political groups, and even some foreigners. Women too begin volunteering to serve in these militias, fighting and dying alongside their male compatriots on the front line.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Mica Feldman, un anarquista argentino y marxista viviendo en Europa, es una tanta voluntad, optando por luchar por una organización comunista junto a su esposo.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  La pareja se involucró en el siglo Següenta, una de las ciudades que los francoamericanos necesitan tomar si quieren llegar a Madrid. En agosto de 1936, el esposo de Mica se mató en acción. Pero su guerra solo está comenzando. Llevando su pistola, ella es elegida como líder de su división de lucha, un rol que ella no gasta tiempo abrazando.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Octubre de 1936. En la ciudad histórica de Següenta, en el corazón de España, los últimos rayos de luz perezosos permanecen sobre el horizonte.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Dentro de la monumentosa catedral gothic de la ciudad, Mica Feldman, un luchador republicano de cabeza de la cabeza, se desplaza mientras los sonidos de fuego de canón escuchan por la pared oeste del edificio.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Un par de segundos después, se desplaza mientras la tierra debajo de ella se mueve con el impacto. Cuando regresa a sus pies, su estómago se desplaza dolorosamente. Junto a un grupo de sus soldados, ella ha estado atrapada en la catedral durante los cuatro días pasados. Sus suministros se han desaparecido. De repente, un gran trozo de piedra cae del piso en el extremo más lejos de la escalera, golpeando fuertemente contra el piso encajado. Horrizada, Mica observa mientras un hombre grita y se desplaza por el camino. Ella arroja una mano para proteger su cara mientras una bola de canón se rompe a través de una ventana de vidrio contaminado cercana, llenando el aire con fragmentos de brillo. Ahora, coughando, mientras la polvo de plástico cae del piso, Mica se mira atentamente hacia el daño.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Las paredes seguramente no pueden resistir mucho más.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Taking a deep breath, she continues her walk-around of the cathedral's interior.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  The scene before her is more reminiscent of a morgue than a church, thick with the scent of rotten flesh. Bodies lie in the aisle, gazing sightlessly at the intricate vaulted ceiling above. Among them, her wounded comrades lie in the pews, groaning softly.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Now, Mika heads towards the altar, where the surviving militia members are clustered. After a quick discussion, a decision is reached. They have no food, no water, and no ammunition, and the ceiling could collapse at any moment. Night is falling. They will have to make a break for it undercover of darkness.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  Soon, everyone who is fit enough to attempt escape is ready by a small rear door. It opens onto a courtyard beyond which a series of side streets lead out of town.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  Cautiously creaking, the door open, Mika peers into the foggy darkness, hoping they'll be lucky enough to slip past the Francoist forces unnoticed. She ushers her comrades out of the door ahead of her, watching as their silhouettes are swallowed by the thick mist, one by one.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  When it's her turn to move, the air is suddenly filled with shouting, followed by a hail of gunfire. Cursing, Mika realizes her team must have run into the enemy in the dark. A scream rings out, abruptly terminated. She hesitates, but then the cannon fire begins again, battering the cathedral with renewed ferocity. It's now, or never.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  As bullets fly to her left, she takes off, running in the opposite direction across the damp cobblestones. Her breath comes in short bursts, sweat trickling down her back under a thick wool jacket. But soon, she is ducking into a small alleyway, sprinting away from the gunfire and towards the outskirts of the town.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  She smiles savagely into the darkness. Once again, she lives to fight another day.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Mica is one of just a handful of fighters to escape from Següentha. After her desperate escape, she has made a captain in the Republican Army.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  We do get women who are fighting in particularly militia units, and particularly early on in the Spanish Civil War. And there are some of the really famous examples. There's a woman from Madrid, Rosa Sanchez Mora, who became known as the Dynamiter. She joined in Madrid when it was under siege in the summer of 1936. She became involved in the women's dynamite section. So they were involved in hurling dynamite at the enemy, but also in various defence works. She lost her right hand, I think it was blown off, if I remember rightly. So she's really turned into this great symbol of the bravery of ordinary people fighting against fascism and making the sacrifice, if you like.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  Yet despite the bravery of such women, it is only early on that they fight in any real numbers. Gender norms quickly reassert themselves, and soon women are encouraged away from the frontlines and towards support roles or work in factories. Rosa Sanchez becomes a telephonist and a postal worker. But Mica Feldman not only represents an example of a woman fighting for the Republican side in the Civil War, she is also a foreigner. And she's not the only one. Because once Franco's forces reach Madrid and fighting begins in earnest in November 1936, the city becomes a symbol of the international struggle against right-wing authoritarianism.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  So it's very different to march up through rural areas of Spain in open land and to try and take a city. So Madrid is besieged. There's fighting on the main street that goes into the centre of Madrid there. So Madrid is almost taken, but it's not taken. So Madrid became the symbol for groups on the left and centre of politics, both in Spain and internationally, as the place where fascism was being stopped, at a time when fascism seems to be advancing all across the world. Madrid, famously, the famous slogan from Madrid was: "Madrid will be the tomb of fascism."

• 30:32Speaker 00

  The Capitol acts as a beacon for those with left-wing sympathies. Those coming to its defence include the American writer Ernest Hemingway, who heads to Spain to report on the conflict. Others, like the English novelist George Orwell, volunteer as soldiers.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  These foreign fighters, over 35,000 of whom arrive in Spain over the course of the war, are formed into what are known as the International Brigades.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Over the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War becomes the conflict of the moment. People are following the conflict from around the world. Lots of people are wanting to volunteer. In September 1936, the Soviet Union, under Stalin, decides that the British and the French are not doing anything to defend democracy. It doesn't want to become directly involved in terms of sending larger numbers of soldiers, or it just sends lots of advisers and pilots and tanks. But maybe one of its more decisive decisions was to back International Brigades. So they were going to take volunteers from around the world and channel them towards Spain.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  And while not everyone who fights in these brigades is a communist, what unites them is their anti-fascist ideology.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  I think the International Brigades are really important in terms of telling us the strength of feeling that people had at the time against fascism, that they were prepared to give up their civilian lives and the safety. Nearly 100 African-Americans travelled to Spain, for example, because they saw the struggle against fascism as the same struggle against discrimination and lynching and Jim Crow and so on in the United States. So the brigades really matter for that. They tell us a lot.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Thanks in part to the efforts of the international brigades, as well as the arrival of some fighter planes from the Soviets, Madrid stands firm for now. As Franco's forces dig in for a prolonged siege, the Republicans begin to rebuild their forces. And in early 1937, a couple of important defensive victories in the vicinity of the city, at Jarama and Guadalajara, provide glimmers of hope.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Having been turned back from Madrid, General Franco decides instead to concentrate on other areas of government-held territory. His forces begin to pick them off, one by one.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  So after the siege of Madrid, the war really progressed through different fronts. One of the first places that Franco tried to gain was Malaga. With the help of the Italians, the Malaga area and province is seized in February 1937. After this, the next front is really from March, April 1937. Franco decides that he wants to take the Basque Country.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  He is assisted in this endeavor by an increase in military aid from Germany and Italy. From the spring of 1937, the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion, alongside the Italian Aviazione Legionaria, carry out a shocking series of bombing campaigns against civilian populations in the Republican-held areas of the north.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  It is the 26th of April 1937. In the dining room of the elegant Hotel Torontegi, in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao, a group of young men are enjoying a late dinner. One of the diners tells a joke, and the others roar with laughter.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Originally from South Africa, based now in Britain, this man, George Steer, is a reporter, here in Spain to tell the outside world the truth about the civil war.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  The group's companionable chatter stops abruptly as the door is flung open and another journalist tumbles into the room. "News has just come in," he tells them. "The nearby town of Gurnika has just been hit by Franco's forces, and it's bad, really bad."

• 35:25Speaker 00

  George is on his feet and out of the door within seconds, the other's hot on his heels. The journalists pile into the two cars they have between them, parked on the curb outside the hotel. Within moments, the engines are roaring to life and they are speeding out of Bilbao and into the deep blue of the spring night.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Evidence of Gurnika's destruction reaches when they're still some way away. The midnight sky, so clear at the start of their journey, becomes choked with oily gray smoke, the burning town lighting up the distant horizon.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Through the passenger's side window, George watches an ever-growing stream of people fleeing in the direction of Bilbao. As the reporters close in on their destination, the sheer number of refugees forces them to slow. There are ox carts loaded with towering piles of furniture, desperate mothers holding wailing children in their arms, and couples dragging bags of clothes that look ready to burst at the seams.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Finally, they reach Gurnika's outskirts. The driver parks the car, and George climbs out, clutching his notebook tightly and picking a street at random to lead him towards the center.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Fighting for breath in the thick smoke, he steps carefully through the rubble of what was clearly once a greengrocer's shop. Fruit and vegetables, now trampled to mulch, lie strewn among the broken stonework. With the toe of his shoe, he turns over a bomb fragment, upon which words are printed in German.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  He jumps as an almighty crash sounds from up ahead. A building at the end of the street is collapsed, sending a shower of sparks in all directions. He retraces his steps and tries another road, but is waved back by a team of firemen. "Even they cannot get into the town center," they tell him. "It is an inferno."

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Defeated, George retreats to where the cars are parked, takes out his notebook and begins to record what he has seen. The world must know of the horror that has been inflicted on Gurnika.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  A día de hoy, el número de personas asesinadas durante la bombardeada de Guernica sigue inconnocido. Los estimaciones republicanas de la época sugieren que más de 1500 civiles mueren, aunque los historiadores modernos consideran la verdadera cifra a ser menor. Pero esto es muy lejos de un ataque puramente franco. Los aviones utilizados son exclusivamente alemanes y italianos, con la Luftwaffe mastermindando el ataque. Lanzando explosivos altos para destruir los pisos y edificios antes de desplegar dispositivos de incendiario para crear una tormenta de fuego. Luego, destruyen a los civiles con fuego. La operación entera actúa como una recaudación de vestidos para atrocidades similares en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El informe eyewitness de George Steer sobre el trasfondo

• 38:25Speaker 00

  es llevado a cabo por medios de noticias en todo el mundo. Este ataque aéreo casi sin precedentes contra una población civil provoca indignación y inspira el famoso mural de Pablo Picasso representando la cancha.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  La bombardeada destruye la capacidad de los defensores dentro de la ciudad para resistir el avance franco y sucede a finales de abril. Al final de junio, Franco está en control de toda la región basca.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Como el centro de la industria pesada de España, su pérdida representa un golpe inminente para el esfuerzo republicano. Aunque lograron lograr algunas victorias en el verano de 1937, en octubre Asturias, la región de minería de la nación, también es conquistada por Franco.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  Hasta ahora, los francoes han logrado bloquear o impedir el acceso a todos los portos mediterráneos de España con la ayuda de sus aliados fascistas. La provisión de suministros y armas para los republicanos, la cual se obtiene principalmente a través de intermediarios para llegar a la redacción del Tratado de No Intervención, es ahora un desafío logístico severo. Con territorios controlados por el gobierno que empapan con refugiados, la búsqueda de comida se vuelve crítica.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  The republican side, the government side, suffers enormous shortages. So there are often parts of the country that are cut off from their traditional supply base. So Barcelona famously got milk from other parts of Spain that it's no longer able to get. Shipping, it's hard to get, grain supplies and so on into the republic. So again, there are graphic descriptions of people who are eating just a few lentils and rice each day. They're becoming more and more emaciated. There are terrible queues for food. There's a black market that's emerging.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Franco attempts to use the suffering of his countrymen to his own advantage.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  One thing the Francoists famously do in October 1938 is they bomb Madrid with bread. And their argument is, "On the Franco side, we have supplies and we have food. You're starving. You should give up. And if you give up, you're going to be well fed."

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Though hunger is less of an issue in the Francoist territory, his political opponents face staggering levels of violence. It is estimated that around 100,000 members of political parties and trade unions are murdered, many of whom are buried in mass, unmarked graves. The families they leave behind are often driven into deep poverty as a result.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Violence does occur on the republican side, though it is to a lesser extent. Many members of the clergy, for example, are targeted as representatives of the Catholic Church that has sided with Franco.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  By the winter of 1937, the republicans have suffered huge losses and are having to rely on ever-younger and older recruits. The two warring sides fight over the city of Turwell in Aragon, a province in northeastern Spain. After he finally recaptures it in early 1938, Franco orders his troops to surge across the region. It is an opportunity for his German and Italian allies to hone their blitzkrieg tactics.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Under the cover provided by an intense aerial assault, 10,000 troops cross the river Ibro. By April, they have reached the eastern coast and slashed republican territory in half. Catalonia, on the northeastern tip of the country, is now cut off from the south-central zone around Madrid that the government still holds. The situation has never looked more dire.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  For several months from July 1938, the Republicans and Francoists engage in the longest and largest battle of the war. Government forces make a desperate attempt to retake Aragon and reconnect the two halves of their territory.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  What the Republic's done by this stage is built up a pretty powerful army. It's well supplied. They catch Franco off guard by surprise, if you like. They cross the River Ebro, they make great advances. So this was like the supreme effort of the Republic. The problem for the Republic was they couldn't dominate the air and they didn't have enough forces overall. Franco sends his German air force supporters, if you like, and many of his armed forces to the area. They dominate the air, they use heavy artillery to smash the Republic, and the Republic is defeated. And this opens the way to Barcelona and eventually Madrid.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  Once again, Franco's German and Italian allies tip the scales decisively in his favor. With no equivalent support, the Republican army cannot prevail. This is driven home in September, when elsewhere in Europe the Munich Agreement is signed between France, Britain, Italy, and Germany. The treaty permits the German annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, giving tacit British and French support to Hitler's expansionist agenda.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  Demonstrating their commitment to their policy of appeasement, the move puts to bed any remaining hopes that these nations could help the Spanish Republicans to resist fascism.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  As the Nazis move ever closer to executing plans to expand across northern Europe, back down in Spain, February 1939 sees the fall of Catalonia and with it, Barcelona. Hundreds of thousands of refugees stream across the border into France, bombed by Franco's forces as they go.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Many who make it end up in French internment camps. Once France is occupied by the Germans, a number of survivors are shipped to Nazi concentration camps, while great numbers of those who do return to Spain are killed by the Franco government. By spring 1939, the destruction of the Second Spanish Republic is all but complete.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  After Catalonia is lost, the remaining Republican leadership in Madrid is riven with indecision. Some want to attempt to negotiate with Franco, though he has rebuffed all such efforts so far. Others advocate for a full surrender. Still more want to continue fighting. There is an attempted internal coup, triggering a brief civil war within the civil war, with supporters of different Republican factions fighting in the streets. Ultimately, though, all it achieves is a hastening of the collapse. And in late March 1939, with Franco's forces encircling the city, the commanding officers in Madrid surrender.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  There's a famous report by a newspaper correspondent who's following the Franco forces. And he simply goes to the metro station, buys a ticket, and travels into central Madrid, unopposed, if you like, because everything's kind of melted away at that point. And that's the point that Franco, when he takes Madrid, late March 1939, he says, "The civil war is won. The Republican forces have been disarmed. And this is going to be the start of the Franco dictatorship."

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Though estimates for the death toll vary widely, it is thought that up to half a million people have lost their lives in the three years of the conflict. The regime to which Franco will now subject his country is authoritarian and cruel, especially in its early years. Regional identities and languages, such as those in Catalonia and the Basque region, are repressed, as are trade unions and opposition political parties. The Catholic Church once again becomes the state religion. Divorce, contraception, abortion, and homosexuality are forbidden. Women are expected to serve six months in the women's section of the state party to prepare for motherhood.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Though the nature of the regime changes somewhat in the 1950s, allowing a limited form of pluralism and economic freedom, it is a dark time in Spain's history. The country is only released from Franco's iron grip with his death in 1975, after which it transitions to democratic rule once again. The work now begins of trying to heal this deeply scarred and divided nation. To begin with, there is an official policy of forgetting, an attempt to repair divisions by putting all memories of the Civil War and the Francoist era behind them and moving towards building a democratic future. But the truth of the war refuses to stay buried.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  The year 2000, we kind of get the third generation, so either the grandchildren, if you like, of the Civil War generation. And they're saying, but why did nobody talk about the Spanish Civil War? Why do I know nothing about the Spanish Civil War? And there was a kind of huge, what's called in Spain, a historical memory movement as people tried to find out what had happened. So it remains politically charged today in a way that divides people. And as soon as you mention your outlook or your perspective on the Spanish Civil War, people are probably going to categorize you and pigeonhole you in terms of your entire politics.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  In October 2019, the Spanish government finally wins a legal fight to exhume Franco from the Valley of the Fallen, a war memorial built using forced labor. His tomb had become a site of pilgrimage for those with right-wing and fascist sympathies, and his reburial sparks a number of protests. At the same time, the work to uncover the mass graves of those killed by Franco continues.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  Though it tore apart the communities, towns and cities of a once proudly unified nation, the Spanish Civil War was never merely about the country within which it took place. With its warfare mechanized in a way the world had not yet known was possible, it foreshadowed the horrors of the Second World War, with terrifying bombing campaigns unleashed against innocent populations, and civilians drawn into the conflict as much as frontline soldiers. It prefigured the intense ideological contests between communism and fascism that marked much of the 20th century, and its cultural and symbolic impacts echo even today, almost a century later.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Just to give you an example of its enduring value, in 2003, when there was a debate in the United Nations, Colin Powell went to the United Nations on behalf of the United States to make the case for the invasion of Iraq. In that UN meeting hall, there is a replica of Picasso's Guernica, and they placed a curtain over Guernica when they had that debate. So I think the symbolism of the Spanish Civil War and the symbolism of the horrors of war against civilians remains really important.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of the real James Bond.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  How do you describe somebody like Sidney Riley? He was a one-off. He was an enigma within an enigma. But I think, yes, that's unintentionally Sidney Riley's biggest epitaph, that he more than possibly lit the flames within Ian Fleming's very, very creative mind that led to the creation of James Bond.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  That's next time.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right now, without waiting and without adverts, by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to unlock more episodes today. This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews, and in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.