History UsefulNotes / SpanishCivilWar

* ''Literature/NoSpanishCivilWarIn1936'' is an AlternateHistory where, well, it's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. The war is averted by [[ForWantOfANail the answering of a letter from General Franco by Prime Minister Casares]] which didn't get answered in our timeline. This leads to the coup attempt that sparked the civil war in the first place being neutralized before it happens.

The war first got going when the left-wing Republicans put their ideology into practice, with Republican supporters attacking innocent civilians. A previously planned coup d'etat by the Spanish Army Generals Jose Sanjurjo and Emilio Mola was put into play against the Second Spanish Republic (which was only established just 5 years prior). Caught between a military revolt and a revolution of socialists and anarchists at the same time, the Republican government decided to throw its support behind the revolution. The army coup, which became the Nationalists, seized the northwestern, north, and a section of the southwest parts of Spain. The Republicans controlled most of the East coast as well as the capital Madrid in the center. This led to a conflict between the Nationalists and the Republicans fighting over the right to rule Spain. Short story: the Nationalists under UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco won and he ruled Spain as a dictatorship until his death in 1975.

The international community was horrified and disgusted, as well as the Basque community. The fact that the Nationalists had managed to miss two arms factories and the bridge lead many to believe that their goal was to simply bomb Guernica to the ground. The Nationalists quickly denied this, claiming to journalists that the Republicans had deliberately destroyed the town and blamed the surviving Basques for 'assisting' in the destruction. Although the Republicans used a scorched earth policy before, the sheer level of damage and the delay of firemen arriving from Bilbao lead many (coincidentally commie-aligned) journalists to discredit Nationalist claims. To this day, Guernica remains a hotly disputed topic within Spain, with the Basques viewing it as deliberate mass murder.

* ''Art/{{Guernica}}'': Creator/PabloPicasso created a painting made of purposefully awkward and distorted imagery as a representation of the pain brought to Guernica when it was bombed by anti-communist forces. It must be noted that Picasso himself was a communist sympathizer.

* ''Mine Were of Trouble'' by Peter Kemp, a Brit who like Orwell left home to enlist in the war but on the opposite side and provides an account of the war from the Nationalist point-of-view.

* In ''VideoGake/EnemyFront'', the player protagonist Robert Hawkins was a veteran from what's supposedly the Spanish Civil War, before he's selected for another assignment in Germany-occupied Poland.

* ''Land and Freedom'' by Ken Loach follows the [[TearJerker tragic fate]] of a volunteer who serves in the POUM militia, then in the International Brigades as his POUM comrades get violently purged under Stalin's orders. There are many similarities with Creator/GeorgeOrwell's book cited below. The historian Paul Preston criticized it for being incredibly biased and obscure and for implying that Stalin was responsible for Republican defeat.[[note]] As Preston says, ''Ken Loach simplifies massively in the underlying assumption of the second half of his film that it was the Stalinist repression that led to Franco's victory. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Chamberlain were responsible for that victory, not Stalin. It is difficult to imagine how a revolutionary Spain could have succeeded without the support of Russian arms. Indeed; without Russian arms and the International Brigades, Madrid would probably have fallen in November 1936 and Franco been victorious before the anarchists and Trotskyists of Barcelona became an issue.''[[/note]]

* ''Art/{{Guernica}}'': Creator/PabloPicasso created a painting made of purposefully awkward and distorted imagery as a representation of the pain brought to Guernica when it was bombed.

The international community was horrified and disgusted, as well as the Basque community. The fact that the Nationalists had managed to miss two arms factories and the bridge lead many to believe that their goal was to simply bomb Guernica to the ground. The Nationalists quickly denied this, claiming to journalists that the Republicans had deliberately destroyed the town and blamed the surviving Basques for 'assisting' in the destruction. Although the Republicans used a scorched earth policy before, the sheer level of damage and the delay of firemen arriving from Bilbao lead many journalists to discredit Nationalist claims. To this day, Guernica remains a hotly disputed topic within Spain, with the Basques viewing it as deliberate mass murder.

The war first got going when the left-wing Republicans post-victory election celebrations got out of hand, with Republican supporters attacking innocent civilians. A previously planned coup d'etat by the Spanish Army Generals Jose Sanjurjo and Emilio Mola was put into play against the Second Spanish Republic (which was only established just 5 years prior). Caught between a military revolt and a revolution of socialists and anarchists at the same time, the Republican government decided to throw its support behind the revolution. The army coup, which became the Nationalists, seized the northwestern, north, and a section of the southwest parts of Spain. The Republicans controlled most of the East coast as well as the capital Madrid in the center. This led to a conflict between the Nationalists and the Republicans fighting over the right to rule Spain. Short story: the Nationalists under UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco won and he ruled Spain as a dictatorship until his death in 1975.

The war first got going when the left-wing Republicans post-victory election celebrations got out of hand, with Republican supporters attacking members of the bourgeoisie in an escalation of the simmering ideological conflict that had been threatening to destabilise the social order in Spain for decades. A previously planned coup d'etat by the Spanish Army Generals Jose Sanjurjo and Emilio Mola was put into play against the Second Spanish Republic (which was only established just 5 years prior). Caught between a military revolt and a revolution of socialists and anarchists at the same time, the Republican government decided to throw its support behind the revolution. The army coup, which became the Nationalists, seized the northwestern, north, and a section of the southwest parts of Spain. The Republicans controlled most of the East coast as well as the capital Madrid in the center. This led to a conflict between the Nationalists and the Republicans fighting over the right to rule Spain. Short story: the Nationalists under UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco won and he ruled Spain as a dictatorship until his death in 1975.

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936-1939 by Spaniards, against Spaniards, with foreign powers directly assisting both sides. Though it is known as 'The' Spanish Civil War, it was but the last and bloodiest of four Civil Wars that UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} had fought in since UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte's forces were repelled from the country in 1812 (and the [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Peninsular War]] was arguably a civil war itself given that some Spaniards fought for Joseph Bonaparte's regime).

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936-1939 by Spaniards, against Spaniards, with foreign powers directly assisting both sides. Though it is known as 'The' Spanish Civil War, it was but the last and bloodiest of four Civil Wars that Spain had fought in since UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte was ejected from Spain in 1812 (and the [[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars Peninsular War]] was arguably a civil war itself given that some Spaniards fought for Joseph Bonaparte's regime).

* ''Mourir à Madrid'' (''To Die in Madrid''), French documentary film directed by Frédéric Rossif. Rossif later directed ''Film/DeNurembergANuremberg'', which has a small bit about the Spanish Civil War and the Franco-Hitler diplomacy.

!!In fiction
* The war serves as a backdrop for the fanfic ''Fanfic/SisterFloriana'', which is about young novices in a Spanish Monastery. While the story never touches on the war directly, it has a far-reaching impact on the characters' lives, as they have to deal with the threat of Republican attack, food shortages, and the prospect of family members dying in battle.
* In the final two episodes of ''Series/WhenTheBoatComesIn'', Jack Ford takes a yacht to run rifles to the Republican forces. [[spoiler: It doesn't end well. Jack's ultimately mortally wounded in a shootout.]]
* ''Literature/ForWhomTheBellTolls'', by Creator/ErnestHemingway. The main character is an American university professor and DemolitionsExpert who joined the International Brigades when the war started, and the plot deals with his idealism being eroded away by the realities of the war.

* ''Land and Freedom'' by Ken Loach follows the [[TearJerker tragic fate]] of a volunteer who serves in the POUM militia, then in the International Brigades as his POUM comrades get violently purged under Stalin's orders. There are many similarities with Creator/GeorgeOrwell's book cited below. The historian Paul Preston criticized it for being incredibly biased and obscure and for implying that Stalin was responsible for Republican defeat.[[note]] As Preston says, ''Ken Loach simplifies massively in the underlying assumption of the second half of his film that it was the Stalinist repression that led to Franco's victory. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Chamberlain were responsible for that victory, not Stalin. It is difficult to imagine how a revolutionary Spain could have succeeded without the support of Russian arms. Indeed; without Russian arms and the International Brigades, Madrid would probably have fallen in November 1936 and Franco been victorious before the anarchists and Trotskyists of Barcelona became an issue.''[[/note]]

* Near the end of Creator/PeterJackson's {{Mockumentary}} ''Forgotten Silver'', it is revealed that New Zealand filmmaker Colin [=McKenzie=] met his end during the Spanish Civil War, while fighting on the Republicans' side in northern Africa.

* More than one ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' (dark) fan work involve the civil war in one way or another. Whichever side Spain chooses, he's bound to wind up an insane wreck by the end.

* ''Condors'', one of Creator/GarthEnnis' ''War Stories'' is set during the Battle of the Ebro in 1938, in which a Spanish Republican and survivor of Guernica, an apolitical German pilot, a socialist English International Brigades volunteer, and a psychopathic Irish fascist find themselves seeking cover in the same crater. They all declare an uneasy truce until the battle ends and tell each other their stories. The Spanish guy ends it with a ReasonYouSuckSpeech to each of them: to the German because Germany is using Spain to [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII test their equipment for the next one]], the Englishman because he's a NaiveNewcomer believing in bringing socialism to Spain without knowing anything about the country's situation, and the Irishman because he's completely insane. They all split off after the artillery stops without shooting at each other, except for the Irishman who jumps back with the Englishman's Nagant M1895 and waits (in vain) for 'those bastards' to ambush him. The ending finally reveals their names and their fates. [[spoiler: Juan-Miguel Martinez opened up a seafood restaurant in Francoist Spain where he actually masturbated into the German diners' food. Joachim Reinert fought on the Eastern Front, became a leading Luftwaffe commander and was one of the very few Nazis to treat prisoners with decency, but was machine-gunned by Soviet fighters while parachuting to safety in 1945. Thomas Kirkpatrick's car bomb prematurely detonated and killed him in 1952, with the IRA still having no idea on what he was planning to do. Billy Gardner survived the war but lost a hand, and continued working in the Labour party until he was beaten to death for his pension, shortly before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister]]. The comic is also notable for its truly horrific and graphic depiction of the bombing of Guernica, which can be summed up as putting Picasso's mural into realistic art.

* ''Film/TheLastCircus'' plays against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and Franco's Spain with the two main characters being representations of the Nationalists and the Republicans.
* ''Theatre/TheBalladOfJohnnyLongstaff'' is a piece of folk theatre covering the life of an English teenager who fought in the war.

* The Spanish film ''La niña de tus ojos'' (The Girl of your Dreams) revolves around a film's cast and crew leave war torn Spain to film a version of their just completed film for [[ThoseWackyNazis German audiences]].
** The Sequel, ''La reina de España'' (The Spanish Queen), takes place, and was released, almost twenty years later and has the cast and crew reunite for another production, and have to live under the watchful eyes of the fascist government. [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Generalisimo]] UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco, even makes an appearance at the end of the film when he goes to the set to watch the film being produced.
* ''ComicBook/TheBlackOrderBrigade'' follows a group of veterans from the International Brigades as they track down the terrorist remnants of the titular Brigade, who fought for the fascist side. As the story takes place in the late [[UsefulNotes/TheSeventies '70s]], the two groups are constituted exclusively of {{Old Soldier}}s.
* ''Series/ArgentinaTierraDeAmorYVenganza'': A full Republican battalion is killed during a plane attack, except for two survivors, Torcuato Ferreira and Bruno Salvat. Torcuato saw it as a chance to kill Bruno and, pretending to be the sole survivor of the attack, get married to his sister, get all his money and properties, and escape to Argentina, far away from the European wars. But Bruno survived, and after some years prisoner of the Francoists, he sailed to Argentina as well, seeking revenge...
* ''Film/TheDevilsBackbone'' takes place in the tail end of the war, in an orphanage that secretly hides a large cache of Republican gold. The main character, Carlos, is a young boy that arrives there hoping that his father will find him after the war, but soon becomes embroiled in a conspiracy by some of the orphanage workers related to a mysterious apparition.
* ''Series/TheMinistryOfTime'', being a story about time-traveling through the history of Spain, couldn't avoid this.
** The prologue of ''Con el tiempo en los talones'' takes place during the Battle of Teruel, where Julián stops to heal [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Hern%C3%A1ndez Miguel Hernández]] from his injuries.
** In ''La memoria del tiempo'', the patrol has to travel to 1937 with two objectives: find out why Creator/PabloPicasso hasn't delivered the ''Guernica'' for the International Exposition and discover who has been stealing the paintings that were evacuated from the Prado Museum during the war.
* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': In the Season 6 episode "Bad Blood", Constantine and Spooner travel to Spain in 1939 at the end of the war in search of the Fountain of Imperium, an alien artifact that may be able to restore Constantine's [[BroughtDownToNormal lost magic]]. Thanks to Constantine's inside knowledge of the war (due to hearing about it from his grandfather, a foreign volunteer on the Republican side), they're able to get close to a local Republican guerrilla leader with knowledge of the Fountain, and end up fighting with him against some Nationalist soldiers who also come looking for it.

!!Painting
* ''Guernica'', by Pablo Picasso.
* ''Premonition of Civil War'', by Salvador Dalí.

!!Music
* Music/TheClash song ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Bombs Spanish Bombs]]'' celebrates the Republicans who fought in the conflict.
* Music/ManicStreetPreachers' "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next".
* Music/MiseryIndex' "Ghosts of Catalonia".
* Music/AlStewart's "Always the Cause" and "On the Border."
* Osvaldo Golijov's opera {{Theatre/Ainadamar}}, based on the execution of the poet Frederico Garcia Lorca by the Falange

!!VideoGames
* Appears in the ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'' series as a main event for 1936 Spain that [[ButThouMust will nearly always fire up]] no matter what the circumstances. You can choose to side with the Republicans or Nationalists as Spain, then fight the civil war. Germany, Italy and the USSR will also send volunteers over and begin a lend-lease with your faction. Interestingly, the event begins shortly after the Siege of Madrid and the formation of the Popular Army, with Franco's troops already airlifted into Spain. The DLC ''La Résistance'' for ''Hearts of Iron IV'' extensively reworks the war and adds two playable {{Renegade Splinter Faction}}s (Catalonian anarchists for the Republicans and Carlists for the Nationalists), who can appear under some conditions and are hostile toward both the main antagonist and the faction they broke from. Following the historical path by putting Franco into power will prevent the split within the Nationalists, giving a substantial advantage over the Republicans (who cannot avoid the anarchist split).
* ''VideoGame/COD2SpanishCivilWarMod'' is designed entirely around the civil war, with the story switching between both a fascist and communist PlayerCharacter.

Regarding small arms, the Nationalists, who ended up controlling most of Spain's arms factories, stuck to using their Spanish Mauser rifles, namely the M1893 long rifle and the shortened M1916, both chambered in 7x57mm Mauser. However, they also received huge amounts of weapons from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. For the long run, it seems that Franco's army preferred German weapons, adopting the [=MP28=] as their main submachine gun and switched to using 7.92mm Mauser as the standard rifle round after their victory. The Nationalists also adopted large amounts of German artillery despite the large amount of Italian guns-most famous of all, the civil war was where the 8.8cm German anti-aircraft guns were discovered to be wonderful in anti-tank duties, to the bane of every [=WW2=] Allied tank crew that were knocked out by one in a few years' time.

The Republic's suppliers, including Poland, Mexico, France and Czechoslovakia alongside the USSR, also unloaded all their outdated or unwanted small arms on them, such as Colt-Browning M1895 machine guns and Steyr-Mannlicher rifles. More often than not, the Republic received guns that had mismatched parts, were past their prime and chambered in various calibers, or obsolete cannons and howitzers from the previous world war. The result was a logistical nightmare for Republican quartermasters, who had to now supply their men with up to twenty different types of ammo, something made even more difficult by an international arms embargo on Spain. The Republic also purchased insufficient stocks of ammo for these weapons, as well as doing the same with any artillery bought from arms dealers. As well as that, the level of Soviet and Mexican aid for the Republic ''never'' reached the same levels as the German and Italian sales to the Nationalists, meaning that the Republic was typically short of rounds for artillery and armor, having to take on the well-equipped Nationalists with rifles, pistols and whatever automatic weapons they had sufficient ammo for most of the time, with little to no artillery or air support.

The Republicans, conversely, were placed under embargoes by France and the United Kingdom, which most nations followed. The exception came from the Soviet Union (which tried to keep its involvement secret) and Mexico (who also sent in financial aid). The Comintern also recruited volunteers from the US, UK, France, Poland and even Germany and Italy for the International Brigades. The sad/funny part of this is that different factions from the USSR sent different volunteers, often leading to clashes between the Republicans.

In the end, the Nationalists defeated the Republicans and managed to gain control and establish Franco as a dictator, ruling over Spain for a little over 35 years. Franco made the country something of a haven for Jews (especially Sepharadim, Jews originally from Spain, who had been expelled by Fernand and Isabel 500 years before), and stayed neutral in the war: being supported by Hitler against Stalin was one thing, supporting Hitler against the Western Allies was another. He remained entirely neutral until the fall of France, then shifted to non-belligerent support for the Axis, then shifted back to neutrality once France got un-fallen. Hitler thought Franco's debt of gratitude to the Axis cause extended further than that. Franco thought it didn't. The only token of support he gave to the Axis was a single troop unit, the Blue Division, which fought against the USSR on the Eastern Front alongside the Wehrmacht. Hilter was quite unimpressed.

Regarding small arms, the Nationalists, who ended up controlling most of Spain's arms factories, stuck to using their Spanish Mauser rifles, namely the M1893 long rifle and the shortened M1916, both chambered in 7x57mm Mauser. However, they also received huge amounts of weapons from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. For the long run, it seems that Franco's army preferred German weapons, adopting the [[CoolGuns/SubmachineGuns [=MP28=]]] as their main submachine gun and switched to using 7.92mm Mauser as the standard rifle round after their victory. The Nationalists also adopted large amounts of German artillery despite the large amount of Italian guns-most famous of all, the civil war was where the 8.8cm German anti-aircraft guns were discovered to be wonderful in anti-tank duties, to the bane of every [=WW2=] Allied tank crew that were knocked out by one in a few years' time.

* ''Condors'', one of Creator/GarthEnnis' ''War Stories'' is set during the Battle of the Ebro in 1938, in which a Spanish Republican and survivor of Guernica, an apolitical German pilot, a socialist English International Brigades volunteer, and a psychopathic Irish fascist find themselves seeking cover in the same crater. They all declare an uneasy truce until the battle ends and tell each other their stories. The Spanish guy ends it with a ReasonYouSuckSpeech to each of them: to the German because Germany is using Spain to [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII test their equipment for the next one]], the Englishman because he's a NaiveNewcomer believing in bringing socialism to Spain without knowing anything about the country's situation, and the Irishman because he's completely insane. They all split off after the artillery stops without shooting at each other, except for the Irishman who jumps back with the Englishman's [[CoolGuns/{{Revolvers}} Nagant M1895]] and waits (in vain) for 'those bastards' to ambush him. The ending finally reveals their names and their fates. [[spoiler: Juan-Miguel Martinez opened up a seafood restaurant in Francoist Spain where he actually masturbated into the German diners' food. Joachim Reinert fought on the Eastern Front, became a leading Luftwaffe commander and was one of the very few Nazis to treat prisoners with decency, but was machine-gunned by Soviet fighters while parachuting to safety in 1945. Thomas Kirkpatrick's car bomb prematurely detonated and killed him in 1952, with the IRA still having no idea on what he was planning to do. Billy Gardner survived the war but lost a hand, and continued working in the Labour party until he was beaten to death for his pension, shortly before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister]]. The comic is also notable for its truly horrific and graphic depiction of the bombing of Guernica, which can be summed up as putting Picasso's mural into realistic art.

* ''VideoGame/COD2SpanishCivilWarMod''

* ''[[Literature/TheCenturyTrilogy Winter of the World]]'', a Ken Follett's historical novel set during [[TheGreatDepression The Thirties]] and TheForties (although mostly focused on UsefulNotes/WorldWarII), has a chapter in which [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters one of the protagonists]] (Lloyd Williams) fights in the International Brigades.

* ''Mourir à Madrid'' (''To Die in Madrid''), French documentary film directed by Frédéric Rossif.

* Appears in the ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'' series as a main event for 1936 Spain that [[ButThouMust will nearly always fire up]] no matter what the circumstances. You can choose to side with the Republicans or Nationalists as Spain, then fight the civil war. Germany, Italy and the USSR will also send volunteers over and begin a lend-lease with your faction. Interestingly, the event begins shortly after the Siege of Madrid and the formation of the Popular Army, with Franco's troops already airlifted into Spain. The DLC ''La Résistance'' for ''Hearts of Iron IV'' reworks the war by adding two playable {{Renegade Splinter Faction}}s (Catalonian anarchists for the Republicans and Carlists for the Nationalists), who can appear under some conditions and are hostile toward both the main antagonist and the faction they broke from.

* The fifth series of''Series/CableGirls'' is set in Madrid in 1936, with the siege coming to an end.