The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 - The Battle for Spain

This book is an extensive revision of the author's concise 1982 book on the Spanish Civil War. The earlier version was the best short introduction to this difficult topic, notable for its evenhanded judgements and clear writing. This version is considerably improved and significatly longer. It incorporates important scholarship that has emerged in the last 2 decades, for example, the improved accounting of post-war executions carried out by the Franco regime and much better understanding of Soviet policy towards Spain. Beevor accomplishes the difficult job of providing the basic narrative, appropriate coverage of the complex internal politics of both sides, and integration into the wider events of the 1930s. The quality of writing is quite good. The Spanish Civil War continues to be an ideologically and emotionally charged topic and Beevor's judgements are evenhanded and sensible. Minor defects include a paucity of maps, an unannotated bibliography which is, however, much better than that published with the first edition, and the initial chapters covering the background of the war. These initial chapters were retained from the first edition and unlike the rest of the book, don't do justice to the complexity of the topic.

Very readable and with a great deal of detail, it is sorely let down by the author's pro-socialist bias. Pro-Republic & anti-Franco details are poorly (or not at all) referenced while those critical of the Republic or supportive of Franco are endlessly questioned, treated with sneering cynicism or buried under paragraphs of excuses.

If you are able to take into account such a partisan point of view, it is a worth while reference for the information provided on the operational aspects of this war. Remember that his criticisms of the Nationalist and Franco in particular are usually hyperbole.

_ This is the best book about the military facets of Spanish Civil War until for once, in Spain is published recently an essay I think superior in Spanish language: "El Arte de matar" by Jorge Martinez Reverte (Reverte put that title as he says "matar" or "to kill" isn't a science in practice, it would be over a map, but in practice that's a perverted "art").
But the work of Beevor is notable. Well, to understand in a military sense the Spanish Civil War, one must consider the following facts.
Rebel side, at first wasn't only an idea of Franco, a cautious reluctant general, but mostly of Gral. Emilio Mola, surely more academically prepared than Franco, and Gral Queipo de Llano, a disparate man with scarce theoretical preparation. These three generals were the head of the conspiracy against the Republic.
Republican government knew very well they were dangerous military chiefs and so these generals had a destination in peripheral locations. Franco was in Canary Islands, Mola in Pamplona, North Spain, and Queipo in Sevilla.
These three generals had in common all had fought bravely in North Africa, all have passed high risks and dangers during many years. That war against the Moors was perhaps delayed in material and tactics, but was a savage fight with absolutely no rules nor respect for the enemy and perhaps Vietnam was not poor tan these in that sense. Many years of such a war produced these three generals and a corpus of colonial troops also very hard, the Legionarios, the Regulares and the indigenous Moor troops and his intermediate commands. Discipline in such an army was extremely hardened. To these main army can be added the Navy, almost all in the side of the rebels, and in the peninsula, the non disdainable Guardia Civil, an special corps, half police, half military, also with very stiff discipline.
It must also be considered that these three generals had by 1936, his career blocked in the military scale by the policy of the Republic, so, professionally, they were deeply frustrated.
Instead of this, Republican military and army, were at first time, much less in number and troops than the rebels, but furthermore, they generally hadn't fought any war. Republic certainly ruled in the main capitals of Spain, but to the anterior handicaps, must be added the ungovernable lack of union between anarchists, communists, syndicates and monarchic people.
So, in the republican side, only communist, not very numerous had a discipline. The anarchist phenomenon is very own of Spain, and they had good warriors, but poor soldiers without military knowledge. Republican army didn't existed in reality until the middle of 1937, when the war was yet almost in desperate situation for the Republica. Untrained republican troops, with very scarce amount of officers and sergeants capable to move across the ground, were easy targets for the terribly hardened troops of the rebels. And so, each battle was a truly slaughter as brutal as in Africa.
If we add the blockade of Great Britain and France to sell arms to the Republic, only supported by the USSR, we have a complete overview.
Stalin men and material was good and superior at first in tanks and aviation against the German Heinkels and Italian Fiats and Savoias. But later, the Messerschmidt ME 109 and light panzer tanks appeared, and the Soviet arms were surpassed. In both sides, ignorance about the use of the tanks was big. Germans learned in Spain very much about how to use them. Fight in the air was equilibrated in the two sides until the German supremacy in aircraft, and Spanish mechanics and pilots were very good in both sides. In artillery, the German 88 gun was very superior to the Republican guns, virtually without anti aircraft artillery.
Some disparate armament as Winchester carbines, impotent in such a huge war, were also given by the friendly Mexico to the Republic, but war in Spain wasn't Mexican Revolution.
Well, as Gral Queipo was discarded as a serious chief owing his eccentricity, it happened Gral Mola died in aircraft accident in 1937 when travelling to see the front in Madrid. So, Franco, a man with "Baraka" (strange good luck, as said by the Moors) passed to be the indisputable chief of the rebels. Of course, he knew he was surrounded by many generals and officers that were monarchic, but Franco wanted first to win the war and later God should decide.
Unconditional supporting of Catholic Church and the Vatican to Franco, many times in a cruel unexplainable form no doubt to preserve his prerogatives, also was a strong aid to him. Many republicans also were Catholics.
German and Italian military at first, disdained Spanish military as unable, ignorant and slow in strategy and tactics, but soon, they had to recognize the Spanish war had a hardness, merciless and difficulty, ever in the ground and climate, they hadn't expected. Hitler and Mussolini were informed of all this. In particular, Italian troops, theoretically well equipped and motorized, were defeated repeatedly by the Republicans in real combats. Roads of Spain were not capable to sustain any motor vehicle for the "guerra celere" the Italians wanted. German Legion Condor and panzer tanks were much more useful for Franco.
By the end of 1937, Republican generals Miaja and Vicente Rojo, two capable and intelligent military, attained to constitute a real united army, but it was too late.
Nazi military learned very much, over all, in skies of Spain. Sea battles were scarce but still these very hard with frontal confrontations between warships, that mostly were used to blocking the harbours. Many cargo ships mainly from Russia were sank by Italian submarines and German battleships and aircraft.
The war, that began with amounts of about 60000 men in each side with old delayed material, finished with two armies of 300000- 400000 fighting men from all nationalities of the World, the most modern weapons and an enormous battle fury.
This war delayed still more the development and modernization of Spain, the Republica attempted to do. The main intellectuals and the best professionals were in general, republicans and emigrate to Europe, USA and Mexico when not killed. Furthermore, the beginning of WW II and the ulterior blockade by the Allies, was a fatal consequence until 1950- 1960's decade and perhaps still until now.

The Battle for Spain is an updated version of Beevor's original 1982 work, to take into account German and Soviet documents not available during the Cold War. It is also somewhat longer at 480-odd pages of text. It is the definitive work in English on the Spanish Civil War, which can be seen as a prelude to WWII - although in the end result Franco's neutrality in WWII was probably the best outcome possible for the Western Allies, which is somewhat ironic.

The stage is set by following the development of Spain in the twentieth century, and the various coups and revolutions that led to the 1936 outbreak of war. The story is really one of the disappearance of the squishy middle between the warring extremes, and the roles that faith, separatism, and anarchism played in addition to the basic left v right struggle for power.

The role of foreign adventurism - and non-interventionism - is set out in detail. Its fair to say that no one covers themselves in any glory, although to be fair, having to choose between communism and fascism is always matter of the lesser of two evils. The idealistic International Brigades are mentioned, together with the immensely practical weapon system testing done by Nazi Germany.

Beever is always asking questions, taking a generally disinterested view, and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. This is an excellent work of history, puncturing myths and exposing difficult facts.

I had first read Stalingrad by Beevor and was quite impressed, both in his grasp on history as well as his ability to portray his knowledge in words. He had referenced the Spanish Civil War many times in Stalingrad, so I had my eye on it after I finished Stalingrad. At first I was very unimpressed, but eventually he turned the The Battle For Spain around and made it a somewhat enjoyable and interesting read.

My issues with The Battle For Spain in the beginning were more because of the confusing nature in which he told everything. I read a lot of history and am not easily confused, but Beevor had me confused in the first 150 or so pages. The reason for this is that he threw so many organization names and acronyms into the mix that it was hard to keep track of them and who stood for what. Anarchists, Socialists, Anarcho-Socialists, Communists, Nationalists, Basque Nationalists (who were with the Republicans, try and keep that one straight), Republicans and on and on. I just can't help but think that there should have been a better way to describe everything than to list so many political organizations. Perhaps this is just the nature of the beast, but it dragged the story down none the less. It wasn't until the Russians, Germans and Italians joined the mix that I was able to begin to separate the two and create a clear line between the sides and what they stood for. Another aspect that would have helped immensely was the addition of maps, which, sadly, there aren't any. A progression map showing the Nationalists progress of subjugating the Republicans would have been perfect.

As the foreign powers joined their respective sides you quickly begin to grasp the true struggle going on. On the one side you have the communists, and on the other you have fascism. Two opposing political ideologies that couldn't live with each other and I had trouble deciding which side I would have rather won. The battles themselves as the war progressed to its eventual conclusion were detailed and justly important. The mini civil war between the Republicans as the ruthless rule of the communists attempted to stamp out the opposition within its own side was eye opening. What was even more eye opening was the huge role that the Spanish Civil War in playing out the opening scenes of World War II, where the Germans, Russians and Italians were obtaining much needed battle experience in their preparation to invade Europe. Truly amazing to see the foreign powers ruthlessly using Spain as a practice ground.

In the end I wished that neither side had won or, at the least, that the Nationalists had entered World War II as an Axis ally. This would have eliminated the despicable communist party and then when the Axis powers were overthrown the fascist dictator Franco, who was chomping at the bit to enter World War II if Hitler would have granted him land privileges in the Mediterranean and Africa, would have been overthrown by the allies and a democratic government set in its place. But I digress. What it comes down to is that Beevor does an admirable job in sorting out such a complex subject, but was ultimately dragged down by the confusing first 150 pages and the lack of maps.

3 stars.

I've been reading Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (London: Phoenix, 2006), and just got through the intro and Part I, “Old Spain and the Second Republic”. It's a marvelously clear, though overly concise, account of some of the key events and for this reason will be an excellent starting point for anyone new to the subject and a good refresher for those who already know some of it. There is much to praise here -- but still, it left me unsatisfied. It doesn't really explain why things happened they way they did. And I think this has to do with the hidden, unasked questions that a more sociologically-minded author would make explicit.

The first question is, what are the criteria for selecting certain events and ignoring others? This is a big book (479 pages plus intro, notes, maps, index, etc.), but it can't tell us everything and if it did it would be no more useful than the mapamundi that Borges imagined, of exactly the same dimensions as the territory it mapped. For example, why tell us about the anarchist rising and subsequent massacre at Casas Viejas, in Cádiz (1933)? And not about, for example, the traveling puppet theater and variety performances organized by Federico García Lorca and his associates as part of the cultural awakening of the same stratum of angry, ignorant peasants who were massacred at Casas Viejas? The first mention of García Lorca in this book is his murder (1936), but great upheavals are made up of more than violence and political maneuverings. The cultural changes during the first, left-liberal government of the Republic (1931-34), especially the increasing political and civil consciousness of many women, had a lot to do with the repression during the second, right-wing government of the Republic (1934-36) and the intensity of political conflict in the months between the election of a new, further left government (January 1936) and the rising of Franco and other generals (July 1936).

The second question is really another way of putting the first one: How do we think certain kinds of events affect others? What sorts of cultural phenomena could explain, for example, the extremely inflammatory rhetoric of Calvo Sotelo (on the right) or Largo Caballero on the left? For example, what were the imagined audiences for each one? History? A close circle of sycophants?

I don't really fault Beevor for not posing these questions. He has done what he saw as his job, of telling the overtly political events as clearly as possible. This gives us a good basis for working out the next part of the job, forming and testing hypotheses that may better explain the events and so help us understand other phenomena that may or may not be comparable (factional conflict in Iraq today, for example — or Ukraine).

My initial foray into the Spanish civil War was Hugh Thomas' excellent book from the 1960s. Beevor, in my view takes a fresh view on the conflict, moving beyond recent revisionism by Stanley Payne and Robert Radosh, especially, as other reviewers have noted, in his treatment of the Anarchists. This is not to say that Beevor is a partisan of the anarchist narrative, he does not flinch from describing the atrocities committed by the militias. One interesting point, echoing Thomas, was how the Stalinist communist party steadily gained influence over the Republic by being a conservative counterweight to the Anarchists and the POUM, even to the point of reversing collectivisation efforts in Catalonia, cementing the support of the middle class in Republican areas. This is probably the only time in history where the communist party represented conservative business owners.

I was especially interested in how Beevor incorporated the opening of the Soviet Archives on the SCW, and how that compared to Hugh Thomas' book which was written at the height of the cold war. One surprise was Beevor's evidence of how uninterested Stalin appeared to be in Spain, and how he was almost forced into intervention by political concerns -- he was afraid that not intervening would hurt the Soviet's image among the foreign communist parties. He demonstrates that Stalin was committed to the popular front strategy in Spain, and at no time instructed his cadres to start revolutionary activity. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which, in the last twenty years, chiefly due to revisionist historians like Stanley Payne, has the Soviets as the puppet masters from the beginning.

Beevor's description of the military campaign was clear without becoming ponderous. He describes how the the Republic almost defeated itself by engaging in set piece offensives for propaganda purposes, that decimated the Republican army while achieving little of military value. He also contradicts conventional wisdom as to the ineffectiveness of the Anarchist columns, showing that they were just as effective in urban warfare as the more disciplined Republican units like the International Brigades.

Another interesting theme was his detailed description of the actions of other democracies, especially the members of the so-called non-intervention committee, led by Britain and including France, the Soviets, Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. He describes the ludicrous hypocrisy of Britain, who turned a blind eye to massive Italian and German aid to Franco, while using the Royal navy to prevent arms going to the Republic. He demonstrates that British concern about Soviet influence on the Republic was vastly conflated, pointing out that by denying the Republic arms, Britain, and later France created a self fulfilling prophecy -- by forcing the Republic to go to the Soviets to buy arms they greatly enhanced communist influence in the Republican government. But more importantly, Beevor frames British/French policy in the context of appeasement -- placing Spain in the same category as Czechoslovakia, a sacrifice to the fascist maw, hoping to sate it. History obviously shows the result.

Beevor also puts to rest the suggestion that Franco was apolitical and not a "real" fascist. He provides evidence that Franco was eager to enter WW2 on the side of the Axis, holding out only to convince Hitler to cede French North Africa to him. Also, Franco provided 50,000 "volunteers" to the SS to fight on the Russian front -- an enormous contribution considering that the pre civil war Spanish army was only 100,000 soldiers. He also points out that Franco allowing Hitler to use Spanish ports to launch U-Boat raids on American and British shipping in the North Atlantic.

All in all, Beevor's book is an excellent read, scholarly, but aimed at the general reader. I recommend it highly.

The Battle for Spain begins with a brief overview of Spanish history before plunging into the complicated political and military struggle that ravaged Spain for three years. This overview helps set the table, and prepares the reader for Beevor's evanhandedness. Beevor manages to keep clear of most of the mythologizing connected with the war, while lending his calm and occasionally understated style to the debunking of many myths promulgated by both sides.

This book is very useful for the detail with which Beevor treats the political developments in Spain and internationally. Franco's political manuvering, which achieved his primacy among the Nationalists by 1937, are deftly described. The infighting among the Republicans, especially the Catalonia-Madrid squabbling and its corrosive effect on the Republican cause, are also masterfully covered. I appreciated Beevor's allowing the sheer numbers of the civilian casualties, especially those killed in massacres by Nationalist and Republican troops, to speak for themselves.

Who comes off badly in this history? Franco is politically astute, and militarily obtuse. The Nationalist generals range in performance from the stolid to the careless. One of the great assets that the Nationalist cause had was the insistence of the Communist faction among the Republicans on "political offensives" that squandered the men and treasure of the Republican army.

While I think highly of this book, I would recommend Ian Westwell's "Condor Legion: The Wehrmacht's Training Ground" as a companion book for those with more interest in the military aspects of the war. One unfortunate lack in the book is a comparative table of the forces and equipment supplied by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The maps in Westwell's book are easier to follow, but lack some of the unit detail in Beevor's.

Altogether this is a superb introduction to this harrowing conflict.

Antony Beevor provides a very illuminating account of the background and events of the Spanish Civil War.

A surprise was the extent of undercover Communist infiltration of the Republican government (eventually complete) and the clear plan to establish a Bolshevik state on Soviet lines. Communist extremism came first, while the mild Spanish monarchist right, metamorphosed in self defence into a hard religious nationalist group. In other words, the Communists started it and only used the democratic Republican government as a cover.

Chapter 21 "The Propaganda War and the Intellectuals" is excellent - the commentators only saw what they wanted to see.

A great military history of the Spanish Civil War. Beevor had written decades ago a fairly mediocre history of the Spanish Civil War, and as a result I wasn't expecting much when I read this latest work. I was delightfully surprised. Unlike many authors writing about the War who seem to pay attention to everything except the actual fighting, Beevor stays largely focused on the military aspects of the conflict. Although scathing about the generalship on both sides, he condemns the Nationalist generalship as plodding and mediocre, he is devastating in regard to the Republican generals. Beevor rightfully condemns the Republic for wasting huge amounts of manpower and material in ill-thought out offensives that uniformly accomplished little other than weakening the Republican army. His narration of the campaigns of the war is first rate. I take off one star because Beevor does seem to have a bias towards the Anarchists that does color some of his analysis, not a fatal flaw but it should be noted. Overall a very well-written book with new insights into one of the more complicated struggles of the previous century.

This review is based on the Cassell edition of 2002.

Beevor's book is a highly readable and detailed account of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. It not only describes its military aspects but also provides the reader with a good description of the rifts that had been running through Spain in all directions - religious, political, regional - ever since the Carlist wars two generations earlier and which caused the mayhem in the first place.

To understand the situation obtaining at the time, the reader may want to look also into other books on the subject, such as Stephen Koch's "Hemingway, Dos Passos and the Murder of José Robles" or Norman Lewis' "The Tomb in Seville", because it is important to realize that Spain's internal strife did not start with Franco's coup and that, in spite of the elections in the early part of 1936, the country was extremely unstable on many levels.

Once the fighting had started, it quickly became a conflict between the Bolsheviks who essentially dominated the republican government and had been quick to eliminate all possible competitors - Anarchists, Trotskists, Clericals etc. - and Franco. Seen in this light, there is a question which imposes itself but is not treated by the author: how are we to judge the outcome of the conflict when all the hurly-burly was done in the Spring of 1939?

What would Europe have looked like in the 1940s (or later) if the "Republicans", i.e. the Reds, had won? The Soviet intervention did certainly not come at the spur of the moment, but was part and parcel of Bolshevik world-wide strategy; France, at the time, was shuttling back and forth between a communist-led popular front and the Conservatives and there was a good chance for an alliance of communist forces across the Pyrenees, which would have brought the remainder of Europe into a very dangerous situation; the Soviet Union would have gained a strong foothold in the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar to Suez and would have acquired bases on the Atlantic from Dunkirk to Bilbao.

It is difficult to condemn Franco for the punishments he meted out against his enemies after his victory, because the premeditated and politically motivated massacres committed by the Republicans, as early as November, 1936, at Paracuellos and elsewhere - to say nothing of Catalonia - demonstrate what would have happened in Spain if Franco had not carried the day. Clearly, though, aside from such aspects, it seems to me that the material conditions obtaining in Spain, say, in 1950, were a great deal better than those behind the Iron Curtain, even in countries like Czechoslovakia which was essentially untouched by the war.

While the Soviet Bloc fell apart under its own weight, Franco prepared Spain for a better future by opening the way for a return to a modern democratic state and by stepping down when the job was done.

Addendum, 18 June 2014

Ocasionally, the internet presents some surprising items of background information. In this particular case, it is the Wikipedia entry on Major Hugh Pollard which reads:

[...]

Major Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard (born London[1] 6 January, 1888: died Midhurst district[2] March, 1966) was an author, firearms expert, and a British SOE officer. He is chiefly known ... for the events of July 1936, when he and Cecil Bebb flew General Francisco Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco, thereby helping to trigger the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War."

Pollard was a member of the British Embassy staff in Madrid throughout WW2, working under Sir Samuel Hoare, the British ambassador.

Now, we all know that Franco's soldiers were flown from Morocco to Spain by the Germans, but it does come as a surprise that, quietly, in the background, other forces were at work as well. In the 2002 edition available to me, it is stated on p. 80 that the plane that flew Franco from Las Palmas to Casablanca was a (presumably British) plane chartered in London and that the pilot was British, but no mention of is made of any SOE members on board.

I really enjoyed this book for helping me wrap my head around all the different factions (both Spanish and international) that fought or were involved in the Spanish Civil War. After reading this book, I am fairly convinced that World War II started in Spain in 1936/1937 when other nations started to get involved (even though it was through aid or volunteers).
Antony Beevor relates the history in an easy way. The chapters and pages on actual battles would be better served by maps in those pages instead of at the front of the book. It leads to somewhat annoying shuffling back and forth of pages. I would have to say that is the only fault I could find with this book.
But, all in all, this is a thorough military and political history of the war. I will definitely be trying another of Mr. Beevor's books in the future.

This was an interesting read especially given my lack of any real knowledge about the Spanish civil war before hand. Beevor certainly captured the intricacies and dynamics of the political front and I suspect we can all be glad that it was the nationalists that won and that Franco was keen to preserve his Neutrality during the second world war as to have joined the Axis or even to have allowed them to gain entry to acquire Gibraltar (The key to the Mediteranean) could well have altered the outcome of the war. There is certainly no doubt that had the Republicans have won Hitler would have felt it necesary to have carried on his conquest through Iberia and achieved the same. So that certainly can be seen as an outcome we can be happy for. Beevor does well in his books on Berlin and Stalingrad but I think comes down a little stronger on the Nationalist side here which diminishes the relative objectivity which is so much stronger in his later works.

Not to detract from the above the book is none the less a worth while read and an insightful one at that.

This is the type of subject that is so complicated I felt like I needed a simpler guide to the Spanish Civil War to help me understand this book. This is not Beevor's fault. It is just a complicated part of history that I was not very familiar with.

I found the book to be readable and interesting. Beevor does an excellent job of sorting out the events and putting them in a well organized manner.

My one complaint would be the descriptions of the large battles. I found it difficult to get a mental image of the fighting and what was happening. There are quite a few maps but again I did not find them all that helpful.

Overall this is a very good one volume hisory of the Spanish Civil War. The reader will need to spend some time digesting the many people and parties involved.

I read this book largely out of respect for Beevor's good reputation with my history in high school, and was curious to learn more about the Spanish Civil War when I took a course on European history in college. I had previously only the vaguest notions of the war, its origins, its actors and consequences. The book has many strong and sterling qualities, for example his coverage of the military prosecution of the war is excellent. His highly perceptive analysis of Franco's air lift in 1936 as well as the Ebro Campaigns were models of good history writing. Yet I do have my critiques, for example he does have a clear and perceptive bias towards the Republic and mild anti-clericalism with the puzzling comments in the first chapters about the delusions and psychological traumas of a superstitious people without any annotation to back this up as well as sloppy comments like "one observer said" without citing who it was. In the first chapter he characterizes the history of united Spain since 1492 as one of almost continuous decline and fall without mentioning the Golden Age of Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries culturally, politically, and economically. He also repeats many of the old "Black Legends" of Spanish history with regards to the Inquisition. I recommend reading the book, with a bookmark to the endnotes since his commentary there is at times crucial and with key details, which while enlightening made it somewhat more onerous to read. Although he at one point protested his reluctance to engage in arm chair play psychology he does so from time to time. That being said, he does strive to, if not always successfully, to be fair even if not unbiased. For example he recounts well the internal political contradictions of the Republic: was it a social revolution of the workers run by themselves (the FAI position), a liberal bourgeois republic as it presented itself to the world, or merely a Communist front? The answer was that the Republic was never able to answer this question or the related question of what to do about the regional questions of the Basque Country and Catalonia which politically crippled the Republic. He shows the Republic as being (in 1936) as being mostly a liberal republic just as fearful of the workers as the Nationalist rebels and its failure to arm them in the early days of 1936 as being crucial to the course of the war, while the liberals allowed themselves to be marginalized as the Republic increasingly fell under the sway of Communists with no military talent and loyalties primarily to Moscow rather than Madrid. He also well documents with interesting and enlightening anecdotes (which I won't spoil by noting here) and documents with balance the hypocrisy and perfidy of the Non Intervention Committee as well as the crucial differentiation of Fascism (as led by Jose Antonio) which was not the sole or even dominate trend in nationalist thinking (along with Carlists, royalists, corrupt liberals, Christian Democrats, etc.) but unlike the Republic were willing to put off these questions of its political nature until after the war at which point Franco through his personality was able to bridge the gaps on the Right which was much more coherent than the Left throughout anyways. He portrays Franco as being a mediocre and generally cautious and unimaginative General (with the notable exception of the air lift of '36) he was wasteful with his men and resources often deploying them to political ends rather than military, yet was still head and shoulders over any Republican commander. Although he does dwell somewhat on the aftermath in terms of the Second World War, and Franco's at best dubious relationship with the Nazis and Beevor does succeed in showing that Spanish Nationalism was related to and supported by Nazis though this was often unreciprocated. Yet glosses over much of the economic regeneration of Spain under Franco, though he does give adequate testimony to the economic implosion under the Republic. In short, a good read for the most part, informative and at times even exciting, though also sloppy, incomplete, and biased. It shouldn't be regarded as anyone's Bible on the Civil War but rather a starting point with a helpful bibliography of primary and secondary sources from which you can carry on to a more fulfilling journey in this ambiguous and intriguing war.

This is an excellent book, which has received much well deserved praise. Rather than repeating the praise, I would like to take up a few points which I feel a good editor would have corrected:

In a book of this kind there is necessarily much numerical information (men, arms etc for both sides), yet the book does not contain a single table. In this second edition there are maps, but all without scale. There are also battles described in the text which do not have any corresponding map.

The German and Italian support in getting the Army of Africa across from Morocco was extremely important for the nationalists. However, the information about this support is partly too scattered and partly incomplete (relative to much other information in the book). First, tha composition of the Army of Africa is not given in the text, only in the notes (p.459) Second, the German Ju52 planes airlifted the major part of the soldiers. On p. 64 it says that Franco asked for ten planes, on p.137 it says Hitler gave twice the number asked for. I suspect I am not the only one who had forgotten the original request when I reached p. 137. How did the Ju52s reach Africa? The distance from Germany is larger than he normal range of Ju52.

Thirdly, the German naval assistance. On p. 73 the "convoy of victory" was screened by two German pocket battle ships, on p.117 they screened convoys (plural). How come they were there at that time? When did they get their orders? From Hitler (as for the planes)?

Population: Is not given for Spain around 1936. Latest figure for early 1900s. It says that there was a significant rise in the birth rate durin WW1 "which would have its effect twenty yers later". This later effect is not described anywere.

Franco is not much described. There were probably some reasons he was the youngest general in Spain. Around one page background on Franco would have helped.

Spanish regions like Old Castile and Levante are not explained; probably very few readers know what they are. Likewise "belligerent rights", what are they since they were so important?

p.100: Strange to see Dia de Hispanidad translated to Day of the Spanish Race, when it would better be Spanishness. Likewise on translatios, it is again strange to see references to Spanish translations of English book in this English edition

The author is a little too fond of French expressions, showing off his erudition.

The new edition of Beevor's classical account of the Spanish Civil War does not disappoint the author's many fans. His narrations of famous battles are outstanding, particularly in the cases of Teruel and Ebro. His characterizations remain spot-on. Franco is wily as he sacrifices thousands of his men for political gains. Azaña is decent but weak. Largo Caballero is a poor man's Kerensky, whereas Negrín is a would-be Stalin. Communist leaders Líster and El Campesino quarrel as the front collapses. Stalin steals Spain's gold reserves. Hitler gets paid for his help with mineral resources, whereas Mussolini gives his help for free (and wastes over 3 billion dollars in the process!). André Malraux is a louse, who gets rich selling sub-standard weapons to the Republic and then pretends to be a hero.

Everyone is in here: from the International Brigades to their sympathisers (including Hemingway and Capa), to the Carlists and Falangists and their allies abroad, leftish French catholics Mauriac and Bernanos, ebullient but unreliable Italians, cold-blooded and efficient Germans, murderous Communists and well-meaning anarchists, priests and nuns, novelists and poets (including García Lorca). Beevor's diagnosis can't be faulted: Franco won because he led a professional army, because the democracies did nothing to help the Republic, because the fascists and the communists helped their allies (but the fascists did a better job), because the Republic's defenders were divided between a liberal, social-democratic wing and a millenarian anarcho-soviet wing and they couldn't get their act together, and because the Republican leaders wasted their strenght in battles that couldn't be won, but in which they engaged for political purposes.

Beevor's characterization of the two sides is generally even-handed, but sometimes he allows his own sympathies to creep in. He describes the management of the economy by Franco in the post-war years as an Iberian version of Ceaucescu's regime in Romania. But if this was the case, how come Spain was quite prosperous in 1975, whereas Romania was bankrupt in 1989? He says that the economic opening of the 1960s was brought on by the crisis of self-sufficiency in the 1950s, and was not integral to Francoist thought. This may be the case, but then he would have to explain why Spain was able to correct its track in the 1960s, whereas the Soviet Union was unable to do so in the 1980s (If the Francoist economy was able to re-generate itself, it must have been because it was capable of re-generation). He downplays the awfulness of a Communist-led Spain assuming that a native form of communism might have developed, and points to the leadership of Santiago Carrillo (who in the 1960s would develop the tenets of Eurocommunism) as a positive sign. But in the 1930s and 1940s Spanish communists were among the most fervent Stalinists anywhere. There is no reason to assume that they wouldn't have behaved as their fellows did in North Korea or in Eastern Europe.

And if the Communists had been in power in Spain in 1939, it is hard to imagine that Portugal wouldn't have gone communist as well (it nearly did, in the 1970s). In this situation, in 1945 the Red Army probably wouldn't have stopped in Central Germany, but might have moved on to France, the Benelux Countries and Italy. In this situation, all of Europe might have been communist after WWII. Thus, most of Africa and Asia would have been run by communists prior to de-colonization (which might not have occurred). Without the help of Western Europe, it is not certain how the US might have behaved at torrid points of the Cold War. I think a nuclear conflict would have been much likelier.

Spain under Franco was surely not a democratic place. Linguistic minorities were oppressed, and former opponents were mistreated to a horrid degree. But there is no reason to assume that the other side would have behaved better.

An interesting history lesson with so many similarities to modern day USA and the growing tensions between political parties and social classes, the book gets bogged down with so much Spain-centric intricacies that those not thoroughly familiar with Spain's geography, political parties, and famous Spaniards that the book can become confusing in keeping track of all those topics. A very interesting story, though.

Beevor's slanted selection of "facts" make this book too hopelessly biased to be considered a definitive historical treatise on the Spanish Civil War. The historical introduction of the book, which summarizes Spain's history up to the 1930's, is quite good. I also thought the chapters on the initial military uprising were also well written. However, his selection of facts is horribly slanted in favor of the Republicans. He leaves out the fact that the last election in Spain in 1936 was rigged by the Republicans and was hardly democratic. Republicans used violence at the polls to shut out the opposition parties and then "re-interpreted" election results in certain districts in ensure that the Popular Front won. He also does not relate that if the Popular Front parties had not won the election they were prepared to declare revolution and establish a dictatorship like they tried to do before in 1934. When the Nationalists execute people, he describes it as a massacre. When the Republicans execute people, they are merely excesses. He even describes the aftermath of the takeover of the Montana barracks in Madrid by the Republican militias as a regrettable incident, rather than the massacre it really was. The soldiers who surrendered in the Montana barracks were all executed by close-range head shots. You can see it from photos of the victims bodies lying in the Montana barracks courtyard. The descriptions of the various Civil War battles is quite good. And that was my only reason for buying the book in the first place. The rest of this "history" is just too biased and one-sided to be considered a balanced account. It rather just turns the book into apologist, fellow-traveler propaganda for the Republican "cause." If you really want the BEST history and BEST political analysis of the Spanish Civil War, then get Stanley G. Payne's "The Spanish Civil War." It is balanced and fair. I have read that book twice in the first two months after getting it. I plan to read it again after plowing through this volume of pro-Republican drivel.

As usual Antony Beevor, following on his magisterial Stalingrad and Berlin description of these WW2 epics, has produced a more than worthy successor to Hugh Thomas's "The Spanish Civil War" mainly by the incorporation of additional sources of information which have now become available. It is little wonder that it has become a best seller in Soain enabling a new generation to understand the origins of the conflict.

The writing of such histories has been aided by the fact that they were carried out by British historians who could be trusted to deliver an impartial view unaffected by local passions.

In “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” Karl Marx famously said: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.… Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please;” Marx erred. He should have said that rather than farce during the second, third and fourth time events occur as even greater tragedies.

The Spanish Civil War has often been claimed as a prelude to WWII and that may indeed be the case but it seems to me that it is more of a replay of the Counter Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. And it anticipates the conflagrations of the late 20th and early 21rst centuries: Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan north and south, The Congo, Syria, the Central African Republic. Spain scores two points. It illustrates the failure of democracy and reveals religion in reaction to secularism. The Muslims and Christians who live side by side in Bosnia and the CAR one day and kill each other the next may be little different from the Dinka and Nuer letting each others’ blood. In Spain it was Carlists and Falange versus anarchists and socialists, the medieval versus the modern. What this book reminds us of is that parts of Spain have stood against any form of modernism from the time of Kings Carlos and Phillip. This made Spain very different from the rise of fascism in Germany. But what hatred reaction inspired!

The communists, socialists and anarchists engaged in some historical reckoning against priests and owners like what occurred later in China: vengeance inflicted upon landlords for years of oppression. Republicans did their killing at the beginning of the civil war, but it was nothing like the vicious purging that Francists, Carlists and Falangists engaged in. Franco was ready to kill half of Spain if that would purify it of socialist-anarcho-communist, atheistic, Jewish pollution. The ratio the author cites is ten times as many killings by the Nationalists followed by repression, torture and elimination after victory. We are talking about hundreds of thousands and not war casualties, but murders. Welcome to the killing fields of Eastern Europe, and Rwanda. Is it different when it is class based like Cambodia or Soviet collectivization rather than ethnic or religious? I don’t know. The Republicans were no innocents but neither were they systematic butchers. And herein lies the difference with WWII. Hitler was a racial fanatic and his vision was racial and nationalist. Franco was a political and religious purifier. He would have the done the Inquisition proud although personally he may not have been a Catholic true believer. He used the Church as long as he had the last say.

As for democracy. The author points out that although the Republicans claimed to be defending democratic government, had they lost the election of 1936 or earlier they were quite prepared to revolt. So their claim rings hollow. And here we have another moral of the story. Supposedly Fidel and Che’ discussed the form of government that Cuba would adopt after the success of the revolution. They looked around at Guatemala and Iran and concluded that democracy would only create an opportunity for US subversion. The revolution would stand no chance in the face of American manipulation of a “free” society. And in that history proved them correct: vide: the Dominican Republic, Chile, Angola, etc. etc. Besides being vulnerable to subversion democracy fails in two ways. One is when the opposition doesn’t agree to its outcomes. And two, those elected seize too much power. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood ruled without regard for their opposition. George Bush the second and Putin did so too, as is the case in Iraq. Bushlet lied and went behind people’s back while Putin just bullies. Or the opposition doesn’t respect the election of their enemies. Two examples now are the Ukraine and Thailand. The US and Europe support the Ukrainian Green, or is it Orange, Revolution which had its turn in power, bungled it and probably could not get elected again. So it has taken to he streets. And in Thailand the prosperous opposition can not stand the fact the populist government (possibly corrupt) will always win elections and so they, the opposition, shamelessly want to do away with democracy.

Where does that leave the worship of democracy (which of course is mostly cynical on the part of the US---when our side wins then bravo for democracy---but where is the call for democracy in Saudi Arabia, etc.?). This is a genuine problem. Syria and Iraq begin to have looked a lot better for more people under their shameless dictators. Blow them apart and people will practice their repressed hatreds instead of pluralism or even order.

Beevor speculates what a Republican victory might have been like: Stalinist Russia? But had they won early on then the likelihood of pluralism would have been much greater than later when the Communists attacked their fellow fighters and insinuated themselves into positions of powers. And Beevor says over and over again that the Republic lost because of its WWI strategies of major set piece battles sacrificing men against better trained, better armed opponents. The Nationalists didn’t win, the Republicans lost. (Reminiscent of the American Revolution—Georgie boy and his rag-tag army managed to survive until the French saved their butts.) Possibly influenced by my reading of Hugh Thomas’ book so many years ago, I had thought that the Germans and Italians won the war for Franco and that it wasn’t much of a competition. What this book makes clear is, that for all of their failings, the Republicans held the a strong hand for most of the war. They finally got themselves organized despite anarchic beliefs. They held large territories and could field as large armies as their opponents. They did lack for materiel but fired by enthusiasm alone they put up a good fight. They were betrayed the their own inner conflicts and the need for the Communists and others to have propaganda victories. They destroyed themselves in pyrrhic battles. It seems that had Britain and France been more than meagerly helpful if not positively antipathetic, Franco’s uprising would not have succeeded. It might have involved a slaughter of anti-republicans who might have fought to the end. But France opening its borders and England not effectively helping Franco would have led to a defeat of the rebels.

The author concludes that because of their own ill-preparedness even with French and English aid the Republic would have had to rely on the Soviet Union for effective fighting machines. And the Soviet’s purpose was at best cloudy. In Spain the communists wanted to seize power, but it is not clear that was Stalin’s goal particularly after the proclamation of a United Front. Nevertheless Spanish Communists, especially after the initiation of the Great Terror in the USSR, did a good job of infiltrating, murdering, and imprisoning their Republican rivals. Their paranoia seems to have known no bounds: Trotskyites hid in every shadow. I wonder how much their hatred of anarchists stemmed from the Makhnovists of the Ukraine, whose rural and urban industrial roots may have not been too different from what occurred in Spain and who would not be ruled by the Bolsheviks.

And Spain was a testing ground for the weapons and strategies of WWII. Yes the Germans did that rather efficiently. The Soviets somewhat and the Italians as incompetently as they did everything. And although Guernica was an exercise in terror bombing, the bombing of Spanish cities, especially by the Germans, was much greater and to little other strategic purpose. So reasons for the bombing of Warsaw, London, Dresden and Tokyo were well established in Spain.

Those of us who endeavor to learn history are as fated to repeat it as those who don’t. It is a sad commentary on the human race. Thank you Anthony Beevor for rubbing it in.

Charlie Fisher, Prof. emeritus and author of “Dismantling Discontent: Buddha’s Way Through Darwin’s World” and the forthcoming “Meditation in the Wild: Buddhism’s Origin in the Heart of Nature.

Beevor does a good job of showing the personalities of the entire conflict, including political and social forces. Unfortunately, he had an annoying tendency to obviously side with the Leftists elements of the war; positive claims about Franco's forces are always treated skeptically, negative claims about Franco are always accepted while the reverse is true for the Leftists. In one stupefying passage Beevor accepts the claim that Franco's forces executed a large number of innocent civilians on no more evidence than 'a farmer counted shots from the hills'. In another incident where Leftists trapped with Rightists during a siege were treated well and released after the siege was lifted(as documented in other sources) Beevor attempts to imply that the trapped Leftists were killed in cold blood.

If you are looking for insight into the infighting and personalities of the Communists and Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War this is a great resource. If you want a balanced treatment of the War overall you will need other references.

THE BATTLE FOR SPAIN is a heavily rewritten version of Beevor's 1982 book THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR. It's an abridgement of a much longer version which appeared in Spanish late last year. Please note: any reviews posted here that are written before this year are clearly reviews of the very different 1982 book, unless, of course, the reviewer makes some reference to the recent Spanish edition.

This is one of the best and most enlightning books I have red about the Spanish Civil War.

The background informations on the "Why" are in particular eyeopening, they made it once again crystal clear, that it matters what you say, but even more the way you say it.

The detailed battle accounts are perhaps a little too detailed.

This book is factually accurate but is totally dry with virtually no anecdotal information or elaboration. It is just a chronology of the events and a missed opportunity to shed light on one of the great civil wars of the past century.

Antony Beevor again undertakes a highly researched, detailed and thorough examination of the highly complex Spanish Civil War. Worth buying for anyone with an interest or for those students of history.

I thought this very well researched and written book a great source of information about this troubled era in Spain.
It it well balanced in its scope, and provides a wealth of interesting detail within its pages.
A must for history buffs.

Although i would advice the work of the author Pio Moa if you want a less biaised work about the Civil War . Away from the trap where MrBeevor falls which is to consider the spanish republic as a democratic regime ,therefore turning the war into a liberal vs fascism conflict.What took place in Spain BEFORE the civil war was a communist revolution directed by Russia,something thst became apparent after the war started. The tragedy for Spain was to have the foreign forces that where going to fight in WWII have a test run in our soil.
It is kind of tragic as well that historians and public opinion that tend to favour the republic turned a blind eye over the fate of the republicans that crossed the border trying to find sanctuary in France. Most of them were handed either by the french or by the swiss to the germans who sent them to the concentration camps where their heroic stories are yet to be told. Another great story is that of the first soldiers who bravely entered the nazy occupied Paris.Whose nationality where they? You got it.The very first batallion that liberated Paris was "la Nueve" the batallion of republican soldiers.

Compared with "the spanish civil war" (revised edition) by Paul Preston : Antony Beevor offers a less complete analysis of the Spanish Civil War. Beevor attaches more importance to the military aspects while Preston gives us a full overview and syntesis of the historical, ideological, economic and social elements that conducted the civil war and the postwar dictatorship.

Also Beevor's updated edition is less updated than Preston's latest edition.

Frans Smeets, Belgium.

Simply put this is the best written history book I have ever read. Knowing only "For Whom the Bell Tolls" when I started, by the end I felt like I had attended a graduate seminar on the subject. Beevor asks hard questions of all involved, never sympathizing with any side, but always showing sympathy for all who suffered. The explanations of the different parties is clear, the action gripping and the analysis is thought provoking. Buy it.

Fascinating and nearly forgotten story of the battle to the death between the progressive left and extreme right in a western democracy that unfortunately has become very relevant in America today.

Must read.

This book is a shortcut. Most people, scholars and amateur historians, believe that The Spanish Civil War: Revised Edition (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Hugh Thomas is the definitive history of the Spanish Civil War, so reading a shorter book (by more than half, in this case) is a bit of a shortcut.

The book has some strong points, but I'll leave those to the other reviewers.
"One observer in Barcelona commented on the attitude towards buildings. He wrote that the people were inclined to destroy symbols, but that they respected in a naive...." p.108 I won't continue because it simply isn't worth it. First, "one observer" is only marginally ok, but what is not ok, is that no evidence backs it up what so ever. There is no end note, no quotation, no point where someone could trace this information back to its source, (although, I suppose one could read every source in the bibliography). I attend a mediocre liberal arts college, and if I, in my introductory History class, turned in a similar piece of writing my professor would rightly circle it and just put "Who?" next to it. It is a general maxim of mine not to buy serious books that couldn't withstand the lowly standards I have been held to.

There are more historical problems, but I don't think many with an the store account are looking for a methodological critique.

This book is not a joy to read. I like to read with a pen and annotate a text pretty thoroughly. I got so tired of reading this; I couldn't stand writing in the book anymore. I would furiously curse the author in the margins. He writes in a British voice that is rather round-about for me, and slowed my reading. The only other criticism of his style is that he or his editor didn't, whether through another (non-American) convention or as a matter of choice, didn't indent long quotations. I never valued this, but it was sorrowfully missing in this book. It was odd not having slightly more room to highlight the few primary sources in the book.

I ended up finishing the book as a matter of personal pride. I typically read one book at a time, but the pace and my fury allowed me to finish 3 others before finally finishing this one.

If you get a joy out of learning don't read this book. I suppose if you only read one book on Spain on the airplane to Spain you could do worse- however I've never read worse.

Antony Beevor's excellent 1982 "The Spanish Civil War" has been updated and revised for a 2006 edition to mark the 70th anniversary of the conflict. Beevor has taken advantage of improved access to former Soviet archives and recent scholarship to add depth and detail to his original book.

The Spanish Civil War, widely seen as a precursor to the Second World War, was a highly complex struggle with deep roots in Spanish history and politics. Author Beevor rejects a simplistic Republican versus Nationalist characterization of the conflict. In a brisk and generally readable account, Beevor finds and explores three different axes of conflict: Left-Right, centralist-regionalist, and authoritarian-libertarian. The Republican and Nationalist sides were actually coalitions that experienced significant internal turbulence during the 1936-1939 fighting.

Beevor also examines the impact of foreign assistance on the coalitions and on the battlefield. German and Italian manpower, equipment and expertise were highly valuable to the cause of General Franco, who early established his dominance over the Nationalist cause. In contrast, Soviet support was a decidedly mixed blessing for the Republican side. After Britain and France chose non-intervention, the Republicans had few alternatives to aid from Moscow, but that aid came with a price tag. Beevor finds the increasing Communization of the Republican war effort was a significant factor in its ultimate defeat.

"The Spanish Civil War" does a highly creditable job of casting light on a complex, bitter civil war, although in places the density of detail on political discourse can be exhausting. The overall effort is however worthwhile and highly recommended to the general reader and to the student looking for a concise account.