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The Main Cause Of The Spanish Civil War

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Before the most devastating and bloodiest war in history of mankind, World War II, the Spanish Civil War took place which is considered by many historians to have helped lead to World War II. The civil war itself was an rebellion of military officer’s against the elected government of Spain. This conflict eventually led to another fascist dictator in Europe in the 1930’s an already extremely tense time. The Spanish Civil War was an important conflict due to it's unique causes, importance in Europe, and the amount of foreign aid that came. The cause of the destructive civil war mostly came down to the polarization of life and politics in Spain. The two sides that were fighting were the military officers who were called the nationalists or fascists …show more content…

Before the uprising of July 17, 1936, many officers in the military conspired to overthrow the government. The most important of these officers was Francisco Franco. After arriving in Spain from Morocco with a army he quickly overruns much of central and northern Spain then started a siege of the capital Madrid but failed. After the failed siege, he and the nationalists receive massive amounts of aid from Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy. This aid was crucial for the nationalists as it gave them a huge advantage over the republicans army which suffered from infighting between the socialists, communists, and anarchists factions in the army. Soon enough the nationalists took the crucial cities of Barcelona in January 1939, and Madrid two months later in March. The fighting left five hundred thousand to one million dead and five hundred thousand more displaced as refugees. The war included two hundred thousand systematic killings done by both sides that was somewhat similar to the killings conducted by the Nazi’s in World War …show more content…

At the beginning of the war the there was fear around the world of another full fledged European war. These fears were calmed when France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, and the USSR signed a non-intervention agreement though the last three openly violated the agreement. The Nazi’s and Italians supported the nationalists lead by Francisco Franco while the republicans were supported by the USSR. The nationalists received three thousand aircraft and seventy-five thousand men and only certains parts of the republican army that were liked by the USSR received aid, a severe setback for them. While the republicans did not received much aid from other countries they received support from forty thousand men from all over the world who wanted to fight the rise fascism and authoritarianism. These volunteers were called the international brigade and were extremely important in the defense of Madrid. As we can see from the evidence above the Spanish Civil War was important due to its role in the fight between fascism and democracy and because of the amount of foreign aid that came to

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