The Spanish Civil War

On July 17, 1936, Spain suddenly burst onto the world stage when a group of generals rebelled against the legitimate Republican government.

The youngest of the generals, Francisco Franco, stood out as a charismatic leader.

The rebellion received the immediate support of Hitler and Mussolini.

The world took sides: Stalin and the Communist International lined up alongside the Popular Front government, which received only lukewarm support from France, England, and the United States.

The coup led to a long war, in which thousands of volunteers fought and died.

The world interpreted the war as a struggle between fascism and democracy but it was primarily a civil war, in which the two sides of Spain confronted each other: on the one hand, rural, nationalist, and Catholic, and on the other, metropolitan, secular, and Republican.

The terrible fighting - as in every civil war - lowered the level of civilization on both sides.

For three years, before the country finally sank into a long dictatorship, Spain offered a scene that prefigured the horrors of the Second World War.