Spanish Civil War

Date

17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Southwestern Europe (Spain)

Era

Modern

Significance

On 17 July 1936 a coalition of conservative, monarchist, and far-right army officers launched a coup against Spain's elected Second Republic, beginning in Spanish Morocco and spreading to mainland garrisons the next day.

The rising only partly succeeded, it failed in Madrid, Barcelona, and other major centres, splitting the country and igniting a three-year civil war between Nationalists, led increasingly by General Francisco Franco, and Republican forces of socialists, communists, anarchists, and regional autonomists. The conflict became an arena for Europe's ideological struggles: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supplied Franco with aircraft, troops, and matériel, while the Soviet Union aided the Republic and volunteers from many countries joined the International Brigades. The German bombing of Guernica in 1937 became a symbol of the new terror of aerial warfare. After roughly half a million deaths, the Nationalists captured Madrid and Franco declared victory on 1 April 1939, installing an authoritarian dictatorship that endured until his death in 1975.

Empires active in 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE to 1991 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE to 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE to 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE to 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE to 1999 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Italy Invades Ethiopia
  1935 to 1936
• Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing Massacre
  7 July 1937 to 2 September 1945
• German invasion of Poland and outbreak of World War II
  1 September 1939
• Attack on Pearl Harbor
  7 December 1941
• Operation Barbarossa: German invasion of the Soviet Union
  22 June 1941
• Battle of Stalingrad
  23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943

Essential reading

• Cárdenas Nationalises Mexico's Oil
  1938
• The Dust Bowl
  1930 to 1940 (peak 1934 to 1936)
• 1931 Central China Floods
  June to August 1931
• Castle Bravo Test and the Nuclearisation of the Pacific
  1 March 1954

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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