Extract
[...] At this date, the fascist troops cover all of the North and East of the Country. In February 1939, the troops reinforce their mastery of the country, with the fall of Catalonia. The fall of the Republican camp accelerates, with the capture by the fascists of the last south-eastern stronghold. The country is then under their control and the War ends. The Spanish Civil War is a civil war par excellence. It clearly meets the definition of this type of conflict, opposing two camps from the same country. [...]
[...] The Nationalist camp also made use of propaganda. The fourth document illustrates this. Undated, this poster is a Nationalist propaganda poster that features a Nationalist man illuminated by the colors of the Spanish flag, sweeping away the miniature representatives of social injustice, separatism, Bolshevism, and Freemasonry - the latter being accused of gangrenating democracy. The Nationalists, despite being rebel forces against legitimate forces, appropriate the Spanish flag. The disproportionate size of the combatant symbolizes the strength of the Nationalist camp. [...]
[...] The failure of this coup leads to a long, unexpected conflict, the Spanish Civil War. 1.2. The Military Characteristics of the Civil War The map 'Spain becomes fascist' (document perfectly summarizes the movements leading to the victory of fascism. In July 1936, in the first month of the conflict, the fascist troops occupy a large part of the northwest of the country, except for the Atlantic coast, and cultivate strongholds in the south of the country, around Cordoba and Cadiz, in Spanish Morocco, as well as in Palma. [...]
[...] Burgos, north of Madrid, was the seat of the Francoist military government (or junta). 'Lisbon' refers to the support of the authoritarian Portuguese leader Antonio de Oliveira Salazar for Franco. Salazar's support was decisive to the success of the nationalist uprising. Perched on the mast is a possible eagle serving as Franco's insignia, and a map of lynched Spain. The Francoist slogan 'Arriba España' (Up with Spain) completes the poster. This poster is interesting for what it says as much as what it doesn't say. [...]
[...] Several paradoxes are to be cited. The Spanish Civil War was indeed a civil war becoming an international war - as it mobilized on the one hand Soviet and democratic forces, and on the other hand, German and Italian dictatorships, on Spanish territory. A war of relative intensity compared to the two world wars, it was yet a modern and total war, killing a large number of civilians in the process.1. Modern war, it was the theater of an ideological confrontation between authoritarian fascist and Nazi propaganda on one side, and democracies and communism on the other. [...]
