A Modern Crusade: the Spanish Tragedy, 1936–9

The Republic proved in the summer of 1936 that it was far from a failure. Unlike many other European countries whose constitutional regimes in the interwar years were overthrown without hardly a struggle, Spain fought back. The Republic did not fail but was ‘failed’ after a vicious conflict which lasted for almost three years.1 In this context, Spain became the last and fiercest battle in a European civil war which had been under way since the Bolshevik triumph of 1917.2 International participation and the ideological zeal which surrounded both sides conferred upon the war the character of a crusade. Whereas for the rebels, theirs was a movement to defend the values of traditional and Christian Spain against godless Bolshevism, for the Republic, it was a battle for democracy and Socialism against political immobilism and Fascism.