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The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction ‘This is far and away the best short introduction to the Spanish Civil War that I have read in any language.’ Professor Paul Preston, London School of Economics Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANARCHISM Colin Ward CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw CLASSICS Mary Beard and ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY John Henderson Julia Annas CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard ANCIENT WARFARE THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon Harry Sidebottom CONSCIOUSNESS Sue Blackmore THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE Continental Philosophy John Blair Simon Critchley ANIMAL RIGHTS COSMOLOGY Peter Coles David DeGrazia CRYPTOGRAPHY ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ARCHITECTURE DADA AND SURREALISM Andrew Ballantyne David Hopkins ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes Darwin Jonathan Howard ART HISTORY Dana Arnold Democracy Bernard Crick ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland DESCARTES Tom Sorell THE HISTORY OF DRUGS Leslie Iversen ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin THE EARTH Martin Redfern Atheism Julian Baggini EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch Augustine Henry Chadwick EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BARTHES Jonathan Culler BRITAIN Paul Langford THE BIBLE John Riches EMOTION Dylan Evans BRITISH POLITICS EMPIRE Stephen Howe Anthony Wright ENGELS Terrell Carver Buddha Michael Carrithers Ethics Simon Blackburn BUDDHISM Damien Keown The European Union CAPITALISM James Fulcher John Pinder THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe EVOLUTION CHOICE THEORY Brian and Deborah Charlesworth Michael Allingham FASCISM Kevin Passmore CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson FOUCAULT Gary Gutting THE FRENCH REVOLUTION NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner William Doyle NINETEENTH-CENTURY FREE WILL Thomas Pink BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and Freud Anthony Storr H. C. G. Matthew Galileo Stillman Drake NORTHERN IRELAND Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh Marc Mulholland GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger PARTICLE PHYSICS GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin Frank Close HEGEL Peter Singer paul E. P. Sanders HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood Philosophy Edward Craig HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE HINDUISM Kim Knott Samir Okasha HISTORY John H. Arnold PLATO Julia Annas HOBBES Richard Tuck POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HUME A. J. Ayer POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden David Miller Indian Philosophy POSTCOLONIALISM Sue Hamilton Robert Young Intelligence Ian J. Deary POSTMODERNISM ISLAM Malise Ruthven Christopher Butler JUDAISM Norman Solomon POSTSTRUCTURALISM Jung Anthony Stevens Catherine Belsey KAFKA Ritchie Robertson PREHISTORY Chris Gosden KANT Roger Scruton PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner Catherine Osborne THE KORAN Michael Cook Psychology Gillian Butler and LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews Freda McManus LITERARY THEORY QUANTUM THEORY Jonathan Culler John Polkinghorne LOCKE John Dunn ROMAN BRITAIN LOGIC Graham Priest Peter Salway MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler MARX Peter Singer RUSSELL A. C. Grayling MATHEMATICS RUSSIAN LITERATURE Timothy Gowers Catriona Kelly MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MEDIEVAL BRITAIN S. A. Smith John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths SCHIZOPHRENIA MODERN ART David Cottington Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇeta SCHOPENHAUER MOLECULES Philip Ball Christopher Janaway MUSIC Nicholas Cook SHAKESPEARE Myth Robert A. Segal Germaine Greer SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUART BRITAIN John Morrill ANTHROPOLOGY TERRORISM Charles Townshend John Monaghan and Peter Just THEOLOGY David F. Ford SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce THE TUDORS John Guy Socrates C. C. W. Taylor TWENTIETH-CENTURY THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan Helen Graham Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling SPINOZA Roger Scruton WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS John Parker and Richard Rathbone Paul Wilkinson THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea JAZZ Brian Morton BUDDHIST ETHICS MANDELA Tom Lodge Damien Keown THE MARQUIS DE SADE CHAOS Leonard Smith John Phillips CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy THE MIND Martin Davies CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE NATIONALISM Steven Grosby Robert Tavernor PERCEPTION Richard Gregory CONTEMPORARY ART PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Julian Stallabrass Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot THE CRUSADES PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards Christopher Tyerman THE RAJ Denis Judd Derrida Simon Glendinning RACISM Ali Rattansi DESIGN John Heskett THE RENAISSANCE Dinosaurs David Norman Jerry Brotton DREAMING J. Allan Hobson RENAISSANCE ART ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta Geraldine Johnson THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball ROMAN EMPIRE THE END OF THE WORLD Christopher Kelly Bill McGuire SARTRE Christina Howells EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt FEMINISM Margaret Walters SOCIALISM Michael Newman THE FIRST WORLD WAR TIME Leofranc Holford-Strevens Michael Howard TRAGEDY Adrian Poole FUNDAMENTALISM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Malise Ruthven Martin Conway Habermas Gordon Finlayson THE WORLD TRADE HUMAN EVOLUTION ORGANIZATION Bernard Wood Amrita Narlikar For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi/ Helen Graham THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York AucklandCape TownDar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur MadridMelbourneMexico City NairobiNew DelhiShanghaiTaipeiToronto With offices in ArgentinaAustriaBrazilChileCzech Republic FranceGreece GuatemalaHungary ItalyJapanSouth KoreaPolandPortugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand TurkeyUkraineVietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Helen Graham 2005 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War : a very short introduction / Helen Graham. p. cm. — (Very short introductions) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Spain—History—Civil War, 1936–1939. I. Title. II. Series. DP269.G64622005 946.081—dc22 2004029461 ISBN 0–19–280377–8 (alk. paper) EAN9780192803771 13579108642 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall You must remember this and see that others remember. (Luis Cernuda) The greatest challenge of the new millennium is not to mythologize our fears. Contents Preface and acknowledgements ix List of maps and illustrations xiii 1 The origins of Spain’s civil war 1 2 Rebellion, revolution, and repression 21 3 Mobilize and survive: the Republic at war 37 4 The making of rebel Spain 68 5 The Republic besieged 87 6 Victory and defeat: the wars after the war 115 7 The uses of history 138 References 151 Further reading 154 Chronology 159 Glossary 167 Index 169 Preface and acknowledgements Amid the wrenching catastrophes of 20th-century European history, the Spanish Civil War continues today to exert a particular fascination. Certainly this force of attraction cannot be explained in terms of the geographical or human scale of the conflict or the technological horrors it witnessed. For the Spanish strife is dwarfed by other conflicts – in terms of material destruction and human tragedy. This is true even if we include in our calculations the continuing horror of mass killing and incarceration that was the ‘post-war’ in 1940s Spain. But our enduring engagement with the Spanish Civil War is undeniable. It has generated over fifteen thousand books – a textual epitaph that puts it on a par with the Second World War. The main purpose of this short book is to explain the Civil War – its causes, course, and consequences, in both a domestic and international context. It does not deal in any detail with battles or strategy, so readers seeking conventional military history should look elsewhere (see further reading). But it is concerned throughout with how war affected the physical and psychic lives of soldiers and civilians, and how it shaped the course of politics, society, and culture inside Spain but also beyond. The Spanish Civil War was the first fought in Europe in which civilians became targets en masse, through bombing raids on big cities. The new photo-journalism that made Spain’s the first ‘photogenic’ war in history also transmitted searing images of the vast numbers of political