The rising

In the thirties, social tensions grew by three basic axes: right against left, centralist against regionalist and authoritarian against libertarian. The Second Spanish Republic was formed after the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and was initially led by a right-wing government. In 1936 the popular front–a coalition of left-wing movements–was able to take power in general elections in February, in a (relatively) legal way. It was a controversial result nonetheless and rumours of a military rising spread quickly.

The left tried to win as much of the military for its own. These efforts were relatively successful, partly thanks to the communist movement. A series of murders on July 12 however, was responsible for a general feeling of ‘the last straw’. But the cogs had already been in motion before that. Despite many signals the government failed to notice, or chose to ignore, preparations for a coup.

The generals in Morocco had planned a rising that could only be successful with speed and by its psychological impact rather than by numerical superiority. The army of Africa was to revolt on July 18, to be followed by the mainland army 24 hours later. In that time the army of Africa would secure Morocco and move to the Spanish mainland. Time was of the essence.

In effect, the first 48 hours of the civil war were the most important. Politicians dared not abandon the legal constitution of the state, and they refused to arm the workers of the UGT and CNT. The republic failed to protect itself from its own army; it merely proclaimed it was ‘the only legally constituted government.’ Hesitation in a rapidly developing crisis was soon to prove fatal.