REASONS FOR ANDIMPLICATIONS OF

FRANCO’S VICTORYHISTORY CAMBRIDGE AS (PAPER 2)

PRESENTATION 12 (PLUS HOMEWORK)1933-1939 MODULE

POWERPOINT BASED ONWadsworth, Chapter 3

Anthony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War. (2016). Encyclopædia Britannica.Sinova, J. (2006). The Media Censorship During Franco Regime.

Lázaro, A. (2001). "James Joyce's Encounters with Spanish Censorship, 1939–1966".

Richards, Michael (1998) A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936–1945, Cambridge University Press.

Stanley G. Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975, pp.625-628"Francisco Franco Biography"

Arms of the Franco Bahamonde family. Franco. Ed. Ariel.

FRANCISCO FRANCO• Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde • 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975• Spanish general• Caudillo of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975• Military family background• The youngest general in Spain• One of the youngest generals in Europe in the 1920s

CONVINCED MONARCHIST• As a conservative monarchist, he rejected the removal of

the monarchy and its replacement with a republic in 1931. • With the 1936 elections, the conservative Spanish

Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups lost by a narrow margin and the leftist Popular Front came to power.

• Looking to overthrow the republic, Franco and other generals staged a partially successful coup, which started the Spanish Civil War.

• With the death of the other generals, Franco quickly became his faction's only leader.

MILITARY DICTATORSHIP• Franco's Nationalist faction received military support from

several fascist groups, especially Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, while the Republican side was supported by Spanish communists and anarchists as well as help from the Soviet Union, Mexico, and the International Brigades.

• Leaving half a million dead, the war was eventually won by Franco in 1939.

• He established a military dictatorship, which he defined as a totalitarian state.

EL CAUDILLO• Franco proclaimed himself Head of State and Government

under the title El Caudillo (the Chief), a term similar to Il Duce (Italian) and Der Führer (German).

• During the Francoist regime, only one political party was legal: a merger of the monarchist party and the fascist party that helped him during the war, FET y de las JONS.

Arms of the Franco family until 1940

SPAIN AND WORLD WAR 2• Franco led a series of politically-motivated violent acts,

including but not limited to concentration camps, forced labour and executions, mostly against political and ideological enemies, causing around 300,000 deaths, in more than 190 concentration camps.

• Franco's Spain maintained an official policy of neutrality during World War II, although the German and Italian navies were allowed to use Spanish harbours from 1940 to 1943, Axis agents gathered intelligence in Spain on Allied activity, and the Blue Division fought alongside the European Axis Powers against the Soviet Union.

Front row in order from left to right: Karl Wolff, Heinrich Himmler, Franco and Spain's Foreign Minister Serrano Súñer in Madrid, October 1940

SPAIN AND THE COLD WAR• By the 1950s, the nature of his regime changed from an

extreme form of dictatorship to a semi-pluralist authoritarian system.

• During the Cold War Franco appeared as one of the world's foremost anti communist figures.

• His regime was assisted by the West, and was asked to join the United Nations and come under NATO's protection.

• By the 1960s Spain saw progressive economic development and some democratic improvements.

Franco and US President Eisenhower in Madrid, December 1959

RESTAURATION OF MONARCHY• After a 36-year rule, Franco died in 1975. • He restored the monarchy before his death, which made

King Juan Carlos I his successor, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.

• After a referendum, a new constitution was adopted, which transformed Spain into a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy.

REASONS #1 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• Franco while lacking vision and dynamism was an

excellent field commander whose cautious and gradual tactics greatly helped to secure Nationalist victory.

REASONS #2 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• Franco had the support of most powerful groups in Spain -

army officers, capitalists, landowners, Catholic Church.

REASONS #3 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• Hitler supported him with 16,000 troops and the Condor

Air Legion, while Mussolini supplied 75,000 soldiers - this outweighed foreign support for Republicans.

• The neutrality of Britain and France denied aid to the Republican Government.

REASONS #4 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• Importantly German and Italian aid arrived on request and

was channelled through Franco while Soviet aid came through one of the Republic’s factions, the Communists.

• Soviet aid was principally designed to prolong resistance while German and Italian aid was designed to secure victory.

REASONS #5 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• An embargo on arms stopped international aid from

Republican sympathisers but many countries turned a blind eye to fascist supporters of Franco.

REASONS #6 FOR FRANCO'S VICTORY• Franco skilfully held together the various Nationalist

groups - Republicans were bitterly divided between communists, socialists and anarchists.

IMPLICATIONS OF FRANCO'S VICTORY• After two and a half years of resistance, the Republic

collapsed rapidly during the first three months of 1939. In January, the Nationalists occupied Barcelona and in March they captured Madrid which effectively marked the end of the war.

• On April 1st, Franco declared the war at an end. • About a half a million people were killed in the war with

hundreds of thousands dying in atrocities committed by both sides. Most were killed by the Nationalists who were ruthless in establishing control in the areas they captured.

FRANCO'S VICTORY• Republican violence was more spontaneous usually not

official policy and directed against landowners, businessmen, the police and especially the church. Their victims numbered about 20,000 although the Communists shot many of their ideological enemies, e.g. Anarchists, in Barcelona and Madrid.

• Half a million republican refugees fled to France while about 200,000 republican prisoners were executed or died in prison after the war. Some were handed back to Franco when the Germans captured France in 1940.

HOMEWORK‘The disunity of the republican forces was the main reason why the nationalists were able to win the Spanish Civil War.’ How far do you agree?