1.1 Long-term Causes Failings in the Political System Divisions over the Position of the Catholic Church Social Divisions 3

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1 Preface PREFACE I have taught History for the past 30 years in independent schools in the UK, including teaching the IB for 23 years at Malvern College, as well as teaching on OSC Easter and Summer Revision Courses for the past 20 years. I am never happier than when discussing approaches to key historical questions with students, exchanging ideas about different perspectives that can be taken on the past. So, working on this study guide has been a real pleasure and I have tried to take approaches in writing it that my experience over the past 30 years has shown work best in preparing students to tackle essay questions. I have always enjoyed writing history essays and helping students prepare for essaybased examination papers. For a history student, generally essay writing is the biggest challenge they will face. Writing a very good or excellent essay requires both a very secure understanding of a lot of historical information but also mastery of a range of essay-writing skills: interpreting the question, planning an effective approach to the question and creating a clear structure, writing an introduction that identifies the themes or factors the essay will explore and the thesis of the essay, developing a clear line of argument and keeping focused on the title, selecting and deploying precisely an appropriate range of supporting evidence, and restating the main argument of the essay in order to provide a strong conclusion. Joe Gauci i

2 Contents CONTENTS List of Features How to Use This Guide Paper 2 Exam Information Essay-writing Advice List of Abbreviations Chronology of Key Events in the Spanish Civil War Who s Who in Spain Map of Spain 1. The Causes of the Spanish Civil War Long-term Causes Failings in the Political System Divisions over the Position of the Catholic Church Social Divisions Political Divisions Regional Divisions The Role of the Army and Its Involvement in Politics The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera ( ) The Establishment of the Second Republic (April 1931) Medium-term Causes of the Civil War: The Oscillation of the Republic from Left to Right to Left ( ) The Left Republic (April 1931 November 1933): Bienio de Reformas ( The Two Reforming Years ) The 1931 Elections The Main Spanish Political Parties in The Constitution The Government Moves Further to the Left The November 1933 Elections The Right Republic (November 1933 February 1936): The Bienio Negro ( The Two Black Years ) February 1936 Elections: The Left Return to Power Short-term Causes of the Spanish Civil War The Weakness of the Popular Front Government Increasing Political Polarisation The Radicalisation of the Left The Radicalisation of the Right The Growth in Disorder and Political Violence The Outbreak of the Civil War (July 1936) 17 v vi vii viii ix x xiii xvi iii

3 Contents 2. The Course of the Spanish Civil War The Division of Spain The Balance of Forces at the Start of the War The International Response to the Outbreak of the War Republican Divisions and Political Developments The Civil War within the Civil War (May 1937) Caballero s Fall Nationalist Unity: The Establishment of the National Movement (FET) (April 1937) Franco and Nationalist Spain The Impact of the Civil War on Women The Course of the War July September October 1936 March March 1937 January January 1938 March 1939: Nationalist Victory Foreign Involvement in the Spanish Civil War Foreign Aid to the Nationalists Foreign Aid to the Republic The Non-Intervention Committee The USA The Effects of the Spanish Civil War The Impact on Spain The Human Cost The Political Impact The Social Impact The Economic Impact The Diplomatic Impact The Impact of the War on International Relations 47 Essay-writing Activities 49 Glossary 55 Bibliography 59 iv

4 How To Use This Guide HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE This guide contains detailed notes on the causes, practices, and effects of the Spanish Civil War. It starts with a section of advice on how to approach essay questions. At the end, you will find two essay questions, which cover most of the issues that I deal with in the revision guide. By examining these questions, you will be able to test your understanding and recall of that material and, in addition, practise your essaywriting skills. For the first question, I have given you some ideas about how it could be approached and then provided you with space to add examples and further points. In the second example, I have provided you with a range of possible points and left you space to write additional points and an introduction and conclusion. What parts of the IB History syllabus is this guide useful for? 1. Primarily, this guide is intended to help SL and HL candidates who are studying the Spanish Civil War as a case study for World History Topic 11: Causes and Effects of 20th-century Wars for Paper In addition, it will be of help to SL and HL candidates who are studying Franco s Spain as a case study for World History Topic 10: Authoritarian States for Paper Furthermore, it will be of help to HL candidates who are studying Spain ( ) as part of HL Option 4: The History of Europe, Section 14: European States in the Inter-war Years ( ) and Section: 17: Post-war Western and Northern Europe ( ). Feature boxes This guide includes a range of feature boxes that highlight essential information and help you navigate through the book. You will find the following types of colour-coded box in the main text and in the margins: CROSS-REFERENCE Where else to look in the guide for more information on a topic. KEY INFORMATION Key facts, issues, viewpoints, and terminology. Key terms appear in bold when they are first mentioned in the main text and a definition is provided at the bottom of the page. All key term definitions are collated in the glossary at the end of the book. TIMELINE Helps you to visualise and contextualise important events. KEY PERSPECTIVES An overview of the differing historical perspectives on important events in the Spanish Civil War. To access the higher marks on Paper 2 and Paper 3, examiners expect candidates to show an awareness of and evaluate differing historical perspectives. vi

5 1. The Causes of the Spanish Civil War 1. THE CAUSES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR TOPICS Failings in the political system; The Catholic Church Social, political, and regional divisions The Army; Primo de Rivera s dictatorship The establishment of the Second Republic The Republic s oscillations from left to right to left Political polarisation, radicalisation, disorder, and violence The outbreak of civil war Overview This chapter will examine the factors that led to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in It starts by considering some of the long-term causes, dating from the late nineteenth century onwards. These include the huge disparities in the distribution of wealth, both in key industrial centres such as Barcelona and Madrid and in the rural south of Spain; Spain s political polarisation, with a range of left- and right-wing political parties reflecting the socio-economic divisions; the divisive issue of the Catholic Church s influence; the issues of Catalan and Basque regionalism; and the political role of the Spanish Army. The chapter goes on to look at the rise and fall of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera ( ) and the establishment of the Second Republic in The chapter then examines the medium-term causes of the Civil War, exploring the Second Republic s oscillations from left to right to left between 1931 and February The short-term causes of the Civil War in the period February 1936 to July 1936 are analysed in order to establish why political polarisation spiralled out of control and why elements of the Army staged a rising in July. The chapter concludes by looking at differing historical perspectives concerning the causes of the Spanish Civil War. 1

6 HISTORY PAPER 2 20TH-CENTURY WARS: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Although the Spanish Civil War became an international conflict, its causes were domestic. I have rarely seen the war s causes put as succinctly as by Frances Lannon in her book, The Spanish Civil War: The Spanish Civil War of was a class war, and a culture war. Competing visions of Spanish identity were superimposed on a bitter struggle over material resources, as the defenders of property, religion and tradition took up arms against a Republican government committed to social reform, devolution and secularisation. Lannon, 2002, p Long-term Causes Spain at the start of the twentieth century was a country struggling to modernise, with social and political structures rooted in tradition. In many ways, Spain was very similar to Italy and John Roberts, in his masterly book, The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century, sketches a vivid picture of the problems confronting both countries: It could not have been said that the prospect for continuing constitutional government looked promising in either country in Both countries were much poorer than France. Both had major regional problems exploited or ignored but always exacerbated by unrepresentative and oligarchic politicians...spain and Italy were countries in the course of modernization, somewhat limping, financially weak...and repeatedly troubled by popular outbursts of violence Roberts, 2000, p. 157 Spain had been the greatest power in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its wealth founded on the gold and silver of the Americas, and it had possessed a vast overseas empire. Spain subsequently underwent a long, slow decline, so that by the nineteenth century it no longer ranked as one of the great powers of Europe. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Spain relinquished its grip on most of its imperial territories in the Americas, culminating in 1898 when Spain was humiliatingly defeated by the USA. This led to the loss of the last of Spain s colonies: Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. Spaniards now saw themselves as a second-class power and many called for national regeneration Failings in the Political System In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Spain s political system concentrated power within a narrow elite, and consequently the mass of ordinary Spaniards, denied a political voice, felt alienated. In the period Spain was a constitutional monarchy under Alfonso XII ( ) and Alfonso XIII ( ), the Bourbon dynasty having come to the Spanish throne in Political power was largely monopolised by rich landowners KEY TERMS Devolution: The transfer of some political power from central government to a region within the country. Secularisation: The reduction or elimination of the influence of religious institutions in society. Oligarchic: Relating to an oligarchy, a small group of people who exercise political power. 2

7 HISTORY PAPER 2 20TH-CENTURY WARS: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR KEY ISSUES Why did Primo de Rivera s dictatorship fail? As Christopher Ross (2000) has noted: He had alienated many of Spain s intellectuals by, among other measures, his censorship of the press and his attempts to extend the influence of the Church into higher education: for example, by awarding state accreditation for degrees from private Catholic universities. Whereas Primo was keen to improve conditions for Spain s industrial workers and was prepared to introduce social reform to that end (as discussed above), he was highly conservative in other areas. He was above all else committed to upholding the idea of Spain as a unitary and indivisible state, and so he was hostile to Catalan and Basque demands for greater autonomy. He angered Catalans by reducing Catalonia s existing autonomy and by banning the use of the Catalan language in religious services, with the effect of radicalising Catalan regionalism. Primo was opposed to fundamental land reform but did introduce some very modest changes; even these very limited reforms were enough to antagonise the bigger landowners. Spanish nationalists were antagonised by Primo s failure to extend Spanish Morocco by acquiring Tangiers and by his inability to gain Spain a permanent seat on the League of Nations Council. Primo also contrived to offend opinion within the Army by his heavy-handed treatment of the Artillery Corps when he disbanded it altogether following complaints by artillery officers about the loss of their special privileges. Primo had gambled by borrowing heavily to fund his infrastructure projects, having failed to reform the taxation system. This strategy came totally unstuck in 1929 when Spain was hit hard by the Wall Street Crash, particularly because of the Great Depression s impact on Latin America which was a vital area for Spanish trade. A downturn in world trade compounded rising inflation: the result of high levels of government expenditure. Primo then disastrously insisted on overvaluation of the peseta (Spain s currency at that time), before eventually being obliged to accept a severe devaluation of the currency. The grave impact of the Depression on Spanish workers led the PSOE to end their cooperation with Primo. In January 1930, having canvassed support among his fellow generals and having received limited backing, Primo resigned. King Alfonso then made a terrible mistake in appointing another general to replace Primo in the person of the elderly and ill General Berenguer, who proved very indecisive. Berenguer provoked huge anger by initially promising a general election but then postponed elections for over a year. The appointment of Berenguer further undermined confidence in the monarchy and stimulated a growth in republican opposition The Establishment of the Second Republic (April 1931) In August 1930 representatives of republican organisations met in the northern city of San Sebastian and signed an agreement known as the Pact of San Sebastian with the KEY TERMS Autonomy: Self-government for a region but not outright independence. League of Nations: International peace-keeping organisation created by the Paris Peace settlement of

8 HISTORY PAPER 2 20TH-CENTURY WARS: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR KEY ISSUES What advantages did capture of the north bring the Nationalists? The Nationalists now controlled two thirds of Spain. The Republic had lost 25% of its armed forces. The Nationalists gained valuable coal, iron and armaments industries. The Nationalist navy could now concentrate on disrupting Republican supply routes in the Mediterranean. Figure 2.2: Map showing Spain in October 1937 Source: NordNordWest/Sting, Grandiose, via Wikimedia Commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/file%3amap_ of_the_spanish_civil_war_in_ October_1937.png (accessed 5 March 2018) (CC BY-SA 3.0) Area under Nationalist control Area under Republican control Part 2: The Failure of Republican offensives (June 1937 January 1938) Several Republican offensives were launched: TIMELINE JUL 1937 The Brunete Offensive This was a massive Republican offensive launched by General Miaja 35 miles west of Madrid and involved 85,000 Republican troops, 300 planes, and 130 tanks (Lannon, p. 56). The objective was to take pressure off Madrid by disrupting supplies reaching Nationalist forces besieging the capital. After initial success and an advance of about eight miles, the Republicans were eventually driven back, with Brunete recaptured by the Nationalists. German Messerschmitt fighters, Heinkel bombers, and Italian Savoia bombers gave the Nationalists air superiority and the Nationalists had heavier and more accurate artillery. The Republican forces outnumbered the Nationalists but deficiencies in training and organisation meant that they could not sustain their early success. Republican casualties were an estimated 25,000, with the International Brigades sustaining heavy losses; the Nationalists suffered the loss of 17,000 men (Kitchen, 2006, p. 359). 32