The Spanish Civil War: Causes, Consequences, and Key Events
Propaganda
Propaganda is a biased form of communication designed to spread information and influence people’s feelings, beliefs, and attitudes. The propaganda strategy in the Spanish Civil War was very simple, direct, and repetitive.
Censorship
Censorship is the suppression or alteration of information considered wrong, harmful, sensitive, or negative by the government or another authority. This can be for different reasons:
- Military censorship: To suppress information that could weaken the population’s morale or compromise military positions.
- Moral censorship: To suppress information considered inappropriate for the audience, such as pornography.
- Political censorship: To suppress information the government believes could provoke rebellions or negative political circumstances.
Causes of the Spanish Civil War
Trigger Event
- Military coup d’état by some military personnel.
Short Term (During the Second Republic)
- Radicalization of Extreme Political Ideologies
- Communists and anarchists promoting a revolution.
- Falangists promoting a dictatorship.
- Rise of Opposing Political Ideologies
- Controversy about Republican reforms.
- Which reforms? Universal suffrage, state secularism, improvement in social services, land reforms, universal education, Basque and Catalonian autonomies.
- Parties for: Republicans, Socialists.
- Parties against: Anarchists and communists (wanted more radical reforms), right-wing and upper-middle class (wanted a more authoritarian government).
Long Term (Before the Second Republic)
- Political Instability (unstable governments, tensions resulting from demands for more regional autonomy, political power of the Army).
- Social Problems (role of the Church, widespread illiteracy, marginalized groups).
- Economic Inequalities
- Economy based on inefficient agriculture.
- Late and limited industrialization.
- Most lived in poverty.
- Significant gap between the rich and poor.
Consequences of the Spanish Civil War
- Demographic
- Birth rate decline.
- War casualties (people killed in war action and bombings, people disappeared).
- Exile.
- Social
- Hardship (poverty, hunger, sickness, etc.).
- Political
- Dictatorship (reforms abolished, repression with killings, imprisonment, concentration camps, etc.).
- Divided society: winners and losers.
- Economic
- Economic resources destroyed (abandoned fields, factories).
- Lower GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Causes of World War II
- 1917: Russian Revolution (LT)
- 1919: The Treaty of Versailles signed (LT)
- 1920-1936: Rise of Fascism in Italy (LT)
- 1924: Hitler writes “Mein Kampf” (LT)
- Oct 1929: Global depression (LT)
- Wall Street crashes, leading to demands for repayment from Europe.
- Jan 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany democratically (LT)
- 1933: Hitler secretly begins rebuilding the German army (prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles) (ST)
- Oct 1935: The League of Nations fails after Italy conquers Ethiopia (ST)
- Mar 1936: Germany reoccupies the Rhineland (ST)
- July 1936: The Spanish Civil War begins (ST)
- 1939: Rome-Berlin Axis: Hitler-Mussolini Alliance (ST)
- Mar 1938: Anschluss (annexation of Austria into Germany) (ST)
- Sep 1938: The Munich Agreement (Sudetenland given to Hitler) (ST)
- Mar 1939: Nazis invade Czechoslovakia (ST)
- Aug 1939: The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (ST)
- Sep 1939: Invasion of Poland (TRIGGER EVENT)
- Sep 1939: Britain declares war on Germany.
- Sep 1939: World War II begins.
The Spanish Civil War
- July 18, 1936: The Military Coup D’État
- August 1936-March 1937: Battle of Madrid
- October 1936: Franco becomes “Caudillo” and “Generalísimo”
- October 7, 1936: Establishment of the Basque Government (Eusko Jaurlaritza)
- April 1937-October 1937: The Northern Front
- July 1938-November 1938: Battle of the Ebro
- April 1, 1939: The End of the War