Posted on 04/25/2022 2:43:10 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Deep and brutal strife in 1930s Spain was a prelude to the barbarity of World War II. Now with the war in Ukraine, we’re reminded that the veneer of civilization is very thin.
From 1936 to 1939, the civil war in Spain became a European laboratory of new tactics, strategies, logistics, wartime morality, and weapons. Right-wing nationalists under General Francisco Franco finally defeated loyal supporters of an evolutionary socialist republic—but only after much of the Western world had variously weighed in.
The cost to the Spanish people of such brutal and vicious strife was horrific. Over 500,000 Spaniards would die in a little over two-and-a-half years. The country was left in shambles.
Dictatorships in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and autocratic Portugal poured millions of dollars in military aid and money for Franco’s efforts to seize power. In turn, the Soviet Union often matched that aid with shipments to various communists, socialists, and anarchists of the Popular Front forces.
Whether by design or by accident, Spain became a proving ground for many of the strategies, weapons, and tactics that would follow later in World War II. And it would be a preview of just how impotent democracies and international bodies were to stop aggressive powers.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
It certainly helped the Luftwaffe in proving their aircraft and developing pilots and air tactics.
VDH sounds infatuated with the Communism Russia was trying to spread throughout Europe. I suppose most educators and historians are.
It seems somewhat obvious to me that the rise of authoritarian, Fascist states that occurred in Europe, early in the 20th century, was because a whole lot of the “haves” living then did not want to wake up to their throats being slit, as Russia was eagerly promoting.
If you need a statement condemning Israel, the UN is good for that. But nothing else.
Twice “fascism” has saved nations from the communist yoke.
Not telling what would have happened in Europe and South America had Spain and Chile gone full commie.
Very interesting read and the parallels for today are remarkable.
VDH bump for later....
The UN is not going to be effective against any First Tier or Second Tier military power. The only power the UN has is it's ability to involve the US military in an enforcement action, and that ship has sailed -- we are no longer interested.
Spanish Civil War II
Starring
Vladimir Putin as Generalissimo Franco
Xi Jinping as Der Fuehrer
Mariupol as Guernica, Stalingrad, and Berlin 1945
With the hit song "Viva la Quinze Brigada" from Spanish Civil War I
Luchamos contra los Moros
Mercenarios y fascistas
featuring Syrian troops, the Wagner Group, and the Red Army
Your post is correct.
I would suggest one read Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia.” In such he showed the underbelly of then beast of Marxism. Orwell went to Spain as a commented Marxist and came back a libertarian. He fought for what he thought right. He was injured. He came back a changed man. He came home an ex Marxist and now a libertarian.
On Portobello road in London is a small blue plaque which shows were he lived. At his time it was just a cheap place to live. It is very very very high dollar today. I gazed up into that little upstairs apartment and was astounded by the genius that wrote his words there.
He is a sage. Most do not listen.
Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, the left have used it as a guide.
Thanks for the reading recommendation. I was just in a conversation with my son about how most of the books I have previewed about the Spanish Civil War are heavily skewed to a Republican perspective.
One of the lessons of Guernica was that bombing civilians to get them to beg for surrender (Douhet’s theory) doesn’t work—a lesson no one seems to have learned. Didn’t work then, didn’t work in Britain, Germany, or Japan in WWII, didn’t work in North Vietnam, didn’t work in the Balkans, isn’t working in Ukraine.
Concur. I am very familiar with the Spanish Civil War, but I never thought to link it and the Russian attack on Ukraine. HDK made some very important points, that has not occurred to me. As someone much wiser than me said, “History does not repeat, but it does rhyme.”
Franco was Spain’s savior. The Commies slaughtered tens of millions and enslaved as many more. Franco rescued Spain from that. He took over a shattered, backward and impoverished country in the late 30s and left with Spain still being behind Western Europe yes, but significantly wealthier and more modern relative to the rest of Western Europe than it had been when he took over.
The country had also been stabilized by his rule and quickly became a fully fledged democracy. The government he drove out would have been far worse for Spain.
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Yep. Sometimes one dictator is much preferable to another.
So it was with Franco. So it was with Pinochet. Both were far better for their countries than the alternative.
Wrong. Franco saved Spain, period.
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