Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the
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do it there. Thank you. Want to welcome everyone back
to the Pekingana Show.
Speaker 2: Carl Doll is back here. You don't Carl doing great?
Pete Hail Victory.
Speaker 1: Hel Victory were doing this, how about twelve hours after
we found out that Donald Trump is going to be
the forty seventh president of the United States. And yeah,
I literally just woke up a little while ago. I
don't think you've selept it all.
Speaker 2: I'm exhausted, but it's good. A caffeine and a nice
cocktail will keep me moving great.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, the episodes we've done on the Spanish
Civil War before are gonna be a little different than
this one because in this and this is going to
take more than one episode, we are going to go
through the causes, the lead up, the war itself, and
the aftermath, and we're going to do it all, you know,
following you know, following an outline. So I think this
is something we can put together and will be a
nice resource for people so that they can, you know,
get a history on it and be able to tell
people about an event that happened last century that is
basically ninety eight percent of the people who talk about
it are lying about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what just popped into my mind, Pete. Hyperlinks.
We can make it a hyperlink document and we can
just link to all kinds of sources that are all online,
because one of the key points is it's a very
high level treatment. It's a bullet it's bullet points, any
bullet point. There are scholars who've devoted their lives to
individual bullet points to explain them. So we're going to
go super high level. I really recommend the shows that
Pete has done with Paul Fahrenheit talking about you know,
Spanish Empire and all that. That's the level of deep
dive you need to really understand. But we hope that
this at least gets people started in comprehending kind of
the scale of this scenario that we're talking about here,
which is the history of Spain, how it led, you know,
how that led to the Spanish Civil War, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So all right, so I'm going to start going through
the document. I'll just start. You have a nice preface here,
and then i'll start reading and you stop me when
I mean, I'm sure i'll know the natural place to
stop because I've read through this. Yeah, and yeah, we'll
let you comment on it. All right, awesome, This is
the preface. What follows is the highest level disolation of
detail possible for such a presentation. Almost every bullet point
below could easily drive a lifetime of study. English language
material in Spanish Civil War proper is very much lacking. Estimate.
There are less than one hundred books in the subject,
most of them obscure or focused upon a narrow subject.
Almost all are long out of print quote unquote. Republicans
rule the roost of this Banish academy, and the vast
literature of the nationalist cries out to be translated. Starting
Causes and Conditions of the Spanish Civil War, the causes
and conditions which led to the Spanish Civil War. To
understand them, we must know that between the years when
the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the
rise of the Sons of Arius, there was an age
undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world
like blue mantles beneath the sea. Did a poet write this?
Speaker 2: Robert Y Howard all right?
Speaker 1: First, both point social conditions relating to settlement patterns pre
dating the Reconquista. Broadly, tradition in northern Spain meant pre
medieval rights and privileges codified for all social classes per
the Old Fueros. In southern Spain, the landless peasants saw
little change in their circumstances under the Carthaginians, Romans, Moors,
and Spanish. Many parts of Spain, particularly Andalucia, maintain large
persistent bandit outlaw cultures developed during the Reconquista, which never
went away. This tendency fused with the radical ideologies of
the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually a really important point because and think
of this when you think about the kind of outlaw
cultures that have developed in America, when you're thinking about
our own situation, all of those little outlaw cultures, whether
it's drug culture, hippie culture, you know, sub ethnic groups, etc.
When things come in that are like ideological and lend
a like intellectual bent to this like already radical and
violent subculture, it gives it like legitimacy. And also in
that culture then has a lot of influence and cachet
with like the middle class who and you know, upper
class and scholarly types and et cetera, for whom those
ideologies resonate, so that drives like real radicalization and then
you mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then when you have that kind of and
I think we've talked about this before, how one of
Spain's main problems is is that it was always sort
of decentralized with all the different provinces and they could
be austonymous. And then you introduce a radical ideology in
the nineteenth century, and that's when I mean you're basically
throwing a match into a you know, throwing a match
to a powder kick. Absolutely right. Next bullet point the
lack of investment in and development of Spain during the Empire. Comparison.
English colonial model as seen in the America's Ignores India.
Surplus population flows to the colonies to conquer and settle,
raw materials, load from the colonies to the homeland, finished
products from the homeland floats to the colonies, and trading partners.
Spanish colonial model exploration, conquest and settlement of territory with
small populations of chartered foreigners i either genuine columbus or
elite primarily Castilian Spanish nobles, following the same pattern as
the Spanish reconquista.
Speaker 2: And that's really important because when and this is kind
of closer to you know, I mentioned that India model
with the English Empire, the British Empire, that's basically parallel
with the Spanish model is you actually have elites and
you know, you have some other folks go out and
conquer these territories, but they create a new like cultural
hierarchy there and then they exist there and it's about
that place. So it's about developing that place with a
tiny sliver of Spanish who remained Spanish. Okay, exploration and
conquest took place well into the eighteenth century, which was expensive,
very expensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Incomienda Commission granted colonists to the right to
contribute and force labor from the native population. The Consulado
de Mercaderas Mercaderas or Merchant Guild, monopolized trade goods in
the Indies via the port of Seville later Cadiz until
about seventeen sixty three. Silver flowed via the Spanish treasure
fleet to the port, which paid for trade goods in Spain. However,
most of the goods came from the rest of Europe,
although eventually Catalonia came to dominate domestic production for the
colonial trade, so that we got.
Speaker 2: Vast treasure blowing in goes largely to the rest of
the continent other than the cut that like the merchant
Guild and you know, the royal family. Get so, I'll
let you follow up with specific numbers that put that
into perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have some statistics here. In fifteen twenty twenty
three years before the Merchant Guild was founded. In fifteen
forty three, the total silver export of Spanish America was
valued at around five hundred thousand pesos, with the royal
family getting four hundred thousand pesos of the silver profit.
In fifteen ninety six, the peak year of silver production
in Spanish America, the total silver export was valued at
around seven million pesos, of which the royal family gained
only one point five five hundred and fifty thousand, and
the rest going to Casa de Contraxion and the Consola Consolado.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so almost all the money, if you look at it,
is flowing out of the country. And why you know,
it's not only that merchant trade. But we'll start talking
about the rest of it. So it wasn't that money.
I mean that it was going to some development. There's
a lot of you know, beautiful cathedrals and stuff that
date from that time, but it wasn't not huge amounts
of it were going to improve you know, the infrastructure
and you know developing, you know, the country of Spain itself.
It was this system that was kind of layered on
top and staying and kind of flowing through in that
direction rather than trickling down.
Speaker 1: The next point is the huge cost of maintaining a
vast empire against incursions by European competitors. The Habsburg rulers
of Spain fifteen oh six two oops was seventeen oh.
Speaker 2: I think it's like seventeen oh three or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, left domestic policy up to the established order in Spain.
Isabella the First and fernand the Second's daughter Joanna, married Philip,
the handsome son of Maximilian, the first Holy Roman Emperor.
In fourteen ninety six, Philip became King of Castile. Jur
had you predunce.
Speaker 2: That, jurie eusaurus, which is like proper like instead of it,
you know, d jour, it's like de facto. But he
was formally made king of Castile in fifteen oh six, yep.
Speaker 1: And there's no problem I needed to pronounce. And their
focus was war to drive the Ottoman Sarks out of Europe,
War to maintain Habsburg control over the Roman Holy Roman Empire.
War to defend the Roman Catholic Church against a Protestant Reformation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so most of their the Habsburg tenure, there was
massive upheaval taking place in Europe all through that period.
You know, there was essentially a reconquista taking place against
the Turks, and then just you know.
Speaker 3: The the the the religious wars, you know, war constantly,
and so that was also very expensive and required a
big focus for the Habsburg rulers.
Speaker 2: It wasn't worth the trouble to meddle too much in
the affairs of Spain. There were lots of little uprisings,
you know, when they came in because here these outsiders
that are running things, they developed a kind of a
buffer and let the nobles kind of keep things the
way they were and doing things the way that they
wanted to.
Speaker 1: And then there was a broad split near universally atheist
liberalism and traditional Catholicism, which festered to revolutionary atheistic anarchism
and Marxism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really accelerated during the nineteenth century. If you Pete,
you just put out a series of readings on the
kind of a lot of the Marxist literature and Stalinist literature.
I think people don't understand very well like the degree
to which Marx was commenting on what was taking place
during the middle of the nineteenth century. And you know,
in America we had our revolution kind of before this
and established our country before this. But Europe was in
massive upheaval. And if you look at the example of
France and the Bloody Revolution, when you see the Republic
of France, it's not a good thing. The Republic is
horrific when it comes to how they handled the religious
and traditionalists, not just the upper classes.
Speaker 1: Just took us. We just got delayed by about two
hundred years. Yeah, exactly, all right. Nineteenth century Spain hemorrhages
its overseas colonies. Between eighteen ten and eighteen ninety eight,
eighteen oh seven and eighteen fourteen, the Republic of France
invade Spain to imposed the revolution. Britain intercedes, resulting in
a bloody war of all against all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll see that in British. You know, the British
will acknowledge that they were basically engaging in atrocities because
their supply lines were disrupted, so they would go into
villages and take all the food and shoot anyone who resisted.
You know, it was it was not a pleasant time.
It was a very brutal war. But what that did
was it gave all these little factions combat experience, and
so as they assert themselves, it's very easy for them
to go to go to guns.
Speaker 1: Eighteen thirty three, the Old Secession switcheroo places Queen Isabella
on the throne rather than Infante Carlos. Traditionalists support Carlos
and his descendants call hence the Carlosts. In three armed
risings this century, the First Carlos War eighteen thirty three
to eighteen forty, the Second Carlist War eighteen forty six
to eighteen forty nine, and the Third Carlist War eighteen
seventy two to eighteen seventy six. Eighteen seventy three to
eighteen seventy four, the First Spanish Republic lasts eleven months,
ends in a military coups, and then the Bourbon Restoration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they went through this whole process kind of
from a top down perspective, where the liberalizing influence was
put into kind of a constitutional monarchy situation just to
transition into liberalism. All the different uprisings and fights and
everything meant that you had extreme push pull from the
left and the right on the kind of you know monarchists,
you know, constitutional liberal monarchists. It's stuck in the middle,
all these different groups kind of trying to pull away
and establish what they wanted. And then the Bourbon Restoration
reappointed a non liberal royal and to kind of bring
things back to normal, because that's literally what the people
who are willing to fight wanted.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move up to the twentieth century. Spain
maintains a large rural population while select industrial cities rapidly urbanize.
Neutral Spain's economy both agricultural and industrial boom. During World
War One, the left fractures into disparate radical factions, with
large swaths of the urban working classes joining Marxists and
anarchist labor unions.
Speaker 2: And I'll point out, like p you're knowledgeable because you've
read enough about it of the kind of nineteenth century
anarchist movements, you know, BA Cunan influenced people and all that.
I feel like that's something we should do a dive
into someday, because I've been I did a thread on
x about this fairly recently, and it's it's actually really
interesting because you see that a lot of the times
that the the opinions on anarchism versus Marxism came down
to people's impressions of like Bakunin and Marx themselves like
the man, and I think there's something really interesting there
that that would be worth worth talking about. But when
it really comes down to it, you see how they
allie with one another during the lead up to the
Spanish Civil War, but then it fractures because of the
you know, a couple of distinct ideological differences, the main
one being like the like international Bolshevik tendencies of the
hardcore communists and the support that they get from the
Soviet Union, whereas the kind of ideological purists who kind
of want to do you know, socialism in one country
or anarchism in one country. They want to get to
the revolution, which to them is not war, right, So
just just a thought for future reference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna ask you was
there a specific reason in the nineteenth century you left
out Giuseppe Finelli.
Speaker 2: I I just didn't get into the details. But Finelle's
super interesting, especially because of the influence that he had
uh the the anarchists. C and T. F Ai is
completely in the inheritors of Finelle and his and his
uh you know, force of personality and his influence internally,
again because of just the way it was so driven
by individual personalities. But yeah, I think I think it
would be great to dive into talking about some of
those personalities sometime because of how telling it really is
to to look at that.
Speaker 1: And one thing about Spain is no one ever hid
what their beliefs were.
Speaker 2: No, you know, that's actually a really interesting point. Yeah,
they were very open about it, right.
Speaker 1: Political instability, driven by street violence results in a Coudeta
led by Miguel Primo de ra Vera in nineteen twenty three,
with the approval of King Alfonso the thirteenth. The dictatorship collapses,
the king abdicates, and the Second Spanish Republic is born
in nineteen thirty one. From May tenth through May thirteenth,
anarchists and communists burn down over one hundred religious buildings,
including the primary Jesuit monastery in Madrid. Countless and valuable
historical works have destroyed, and many clergymen are killed. The Republic,
headed by fervent anti Christians, refuses to intervene.
Speaker 2: And that develops the pattern that we see that leads
to the radicalization of the right, which is that the
left goes nuts and then the supposedly like legitimate authority
just sits back. And there's even there's even a quote
I forget who said it. It may have been Asagna
who said in the very early days that you know,
not one of those people is worth the life of
a single Republican.
Speaker 1: The republic imposes de jeri social revolution, nationalizing church properties,
banning religious instruction and public processions, and instituting land seizures.
In nineteen thirty two there's some Michael Jones talks about
how a lot of the Protestant Reformation was about yes,
getting church, stealing church properties and stealing land, and.
Speaker 2: The history in Britain is very interesting on that subject
as well. Yeah, it's all all over the Protestant countries.
That was done absolutely seen thirty two Carlos Forum, com Communion,
a traditional Lista, and Requete defense militias.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they have a party which is the face, the
political face of the organization for electoral purposes and to
mobilize people like legally above board, and then they have
the the youth organizations and the radical militias who are
preparing for war just like the Ira, like the Shinfein
as the political front, and then you have the actual
Ira behind them.
Speaker 1: There was something else happening very similar to that in
another country in Europe at the same time, very much so. Yeah.
August nineteen thirty two, a bloodless military coup intended to
reign in the excesses under the Republic, headed by General
san Juro. The san Houra sanjur Haba fails. The conspirators
are sentenced to death, though for most this is downgraded
to imprisonment than exile.
Speaker 2: And that was done because they didn't want to provoke
the republic, did not want to provoke the right wing
to violence or further political mobilization, I should add, which
they failed.
Speaker 1: At so conservative and reactionary elements. When the nineteen thirty
three elections, which triggers mass left wing violence and church burnings.
Speaker 2: Yeah so they it's basically Antifa gets called out because
they weren't able to do fraud in twenty sixteen. They
were totally taken aback by the actual turnout. Their fraud failed,
and so they chimped out.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty four, Sada's victory at the polls doesn't materialize
into power due to suppression by modern Republicans, Azagna, general
strikes and an Asturian anarchist uprising. And at the wards
to come, when thirty four priests, six seminarians and several
businessmen and civil guardsmen are executed by the Revolutionary Committee,
fifty eight religious buildings are destroyed, the rising of thirty
thousand revolutionaries is snuffed out by General Franco on order
of the Republic, at a total cost of up to
two thousand lives.
Speaker 2: And mass incarceration of prisoners. So in nineteen thirty six,
when they talk about the Left opening up the prisons,
it was supposedly because of you know, all the revolutionaries
between now and nineteen thirty six that end up in there.
A lot of them are just like psycho criminals. But
they put something like ten thousand CNT people into prison alone.
Speaker 1: The Stata youth movement, flocks of the Carlists and falong
and forlongest militant organizations.
Speaker 2: And that's because the electoral party, like they they saw
the failure of electoral politics to do anything. They already
understood what was going on, so they said, we're going
to organize with the established militant organizations that are in
our milieu.
Speaker 1: Carlos commit most of their financial resources to arming and
training the Rikitis. Jose Enrique Varella alias Don Pepe, transitions
Rakitis from ten men decurias, a local defensive structure, into
a variation on the traditional Spanish infantry structure.
Speaker 2: So the idea here is that you would have, you know,
small groups of people that would organize, and so they
would put them into this ten man it was a
it was a Roman Roman kind of structure, and then
they would have like individual officers that can contact them,
meaning there aren't that many of them, but at this
point there's so many people and they're getting so organized.
They just start preparing them to be a separate basically
a separate army that they can plug into army units
that they control when the time is right, which comes
very soon.
Speaker 1: General Franco is exiled to the Canary Islands, while Jamiist
General Mola is sent to Carlost heartland of backwater Nevada
because the Republican government couldn't imagine right wing factional alliances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Himaeists were the I.
Speaker 1: Was gonna say, yeahsked, but what ares.
Speaker 2: So Himaeists were the They were just the royalists who
supported the old king, King Alfonso the thirteenth in his line,
which was like King Jaime, So they were called Hymenists.
So if you go all the way back when there's
that split with the Carlis and the others, they're still
they're still following Borbone line people. It's just the libtards
couldn't imagine that these people could reconcile with one another
because they were like, oh, well, they're these silly, like
unsophisticated primitives who worry about the succession nonsense. So there's
no way that they would come together because they hate
each other.
Speaker 1: Wrong. The militant anarchists of the CNTFA FAI or is
that fail FAI Faiah learn from the failure of their
improvised spontaneous uprisings as an estudius and develop the cellular
Defense cadre structure. They begin organizing and preparing for revolution.
By nineteen thirty six, one third of the cnt Union's
budget will be devoted. It's a manufacture of the FAI
bomb hand grenade in Barcelona. We covered that in I
think in the last episode we did.
Speaker 2: Set yeah, and I have an article about it out
of my substack if people are interested in it.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty five, Filungay and Riquete leaders are sent to
Italy to train in light infantry tactics. The artificial governing
coalition under PM Lereue collapses in December nineteen thirty five.
New elections are called for nineteen thirty six. Mass ballot
fraud and voter suppression results in a Popular Front victory
in the nineteen thirty six election. The following gay is
outlawed by the Republic. They go underground, though many leaders
and activists are rounded up by spring nineteen thirty six
to carlist. Rachitis are a ten thousand strong, armed and
trained citizen militia with twenty thousand auxiliaries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the thing to keep in mind there is
that I've mentioned this before, but of all the different
armed groups, the Recutees were the only ones that Spanish
military professionals said were capable of actual infantry combat operations.
So they became they create became incredibly important for what
you're going to talk about next.
Speaker 1: The uprising. July seventeenth, nineteen thirty six. Prominent Conservative parliamentarian
Jose Calvo Sotelo is arrested by Republican political police, assault
guards and executed July thirteenth, nineteen thirty six, after Stalinist's
parliament Parliament's woman parliament Woman Dolores Iberuri Iberuria announces while
while he is at the podium in the Cortes, this
is your last.
Speaker 2: So he's he's let's say he's in congress, he's a congressman,
he's giving a speech. Someone in the other party says,
this is your last speech, and then they kill him
that night. Like, just think of how brazen that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, July thirteenth. Something else happened on July.
Speaker 2: Yes, interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you know it's funny is if you go back,
if you look at September eleventh in history, it's remarkable
how many things happened on.
Speaker 2: History is so interesting that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the Pinochet in Chile they tried to assassinate,
they tried to assassinate Mussolini on September eleventh. There's I mean,
there's a bunch of you if you like google September eleventh,
like historical events, there's just a list and you're like
going back centuries.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, that's my son. He probably knows all
of them. Kid nine to eleven is like a joke
to Zoomers. At this point, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Falangay units begin assassinating prominent assault guards. A large portion
of army officers coordinating in secret for many years rebel
across the country in the Canaries and Spanish Morocco, working
with carlost and Folangay militias with a goal of conducting
a bloodless coup. How do you have a bloodless coup
against monsters?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you can't. Obviously.
Speaker 1: The rising is carried out by officers taking command of
military forces, arresting those who opposed them, securing their bases,
and immediately consolidating control over territory. In many areas, such
as Navarre, Castile and Leone and northern Aragon, the civilian
government is in alliance and the relatively few leftist political
agitators are immediately squashed Pew Pew. One odd case is
that of Ovieedo, capital of Asturias, the location of key
government arsenals, as well as the center of the nineteen
thirty four are anarchist uprising and a bastion of revolutionary activity.
The town's garrison commander, Colonel Antonio Arnda Mata was considered
by the nationalist conspirators as a freemason and Republican freemason
also can also be a yes yeah for something else. Yes.
With the news of the uprising on July seventeenth, Aronda
declared to the civil government and leftist union leader leaders
that he would remain loyal to the Republic and that
the city was secure. Satisfied, four thousand militants departed to
spread the revolution, taking advantage of access to relatively vast munitions.
Ronda then secured the town and surrounding strategic positions with
his force Falangas and allied Civil Guard and Assault Guard forces,
and held that against a brutal siege until being relieved
by a relief column from Galicia. Republican forces cut off
power and water while shelling and bombing the city relentlessly, relentlessly,
causing civilian casualties far beyond those seen a Guernica. Yet
there has never been a global propaganda campaign about Oviedo.
Speaker 2: And there's never been a global propaganda campaign because it
was a heroic stand by right wing forces against brutal
communists and anarchists, and global propaganda is only done on
behalf of brutal communists and anarchists. They did aerial bombing,
They just shelled the city indiscriminately. What ultimately happened is
a lot of people who were libtards ended up defending
the city and siding with the defenders of the city
because they were just being killed indiscriminately and their families
were So.
Speaker 1: Is this the scenario laid out in the Last Crusade
where he calls in the bombing on on his own location.
Speaker 2: Uh no, because they survive, Yeah, and thirty eight Actually, yeah, exactly.
The cool thing about it, though, is because the they
secured the arsenals there, they immediately begin manufacturing like next
gen iterations of small arms for the for the nationalist
army as soon as they get relieved.
Speaker 1: The rising is successful in the most conservative parts of
Spain and in military strongholds, but it's squashed in street
fighting and left as strongholds such as Barcelona, Santa the Soale,
though and Madrid. The Spanish Civil War has begun. Coup
leader General san Juro, returning from exile in Portugal, parishes
in a plane crash July twentieth Nationalists command to split
between Franco in the south and Mola in the north.
Speaker 2: An important thing to point out is that their conspiracy
theories about this that like Franco had this happen because
he was like Hitler to electric Bugaloo. But it's nonsense.
San Huro wanted to bring I might be confusing him
with the other guy who will be coming up, who
will pass away soon. But oh no, no, no, he
had tons of luggage and he was he was the
older coup leader who had envisioned the original coup. You know,
there had been the sun Hurjada that had failed, and
so he overloaded a very small plane that crashed upon takeoff.
So this is in an era when aviation was very dangerous,
So it was you know, any people talking about, you know,
conspiracies related to Franco there, it's nonsense. It's just fortuitous
for Franco.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think DeVore describes it as he was trying
to the plane was two weighted. They tried to off,
and they tried to clear a wall and it clipped
and then boom.
Speaker 2: And he was an older gentleman and the pilot survived,
but San Jurro passed away right.
Speaker 1: Also on July twentieth, Spanish Legion forces landed at Cadiz
to reinforce local Carlists and Folangai militias and secure the
port city and much of the province. Navar Brigades and
Carlos Fergettes militias, Rakette militias under the command of General
Mola and the North fan out and secure the French
border to the east, establish a front with Republican aligned
Basque country to the north and northwest, and approach Madrid's
northern flank in south central Aragon. They stopped northbound. They
stopped northbound cnc FAI anarchist.
Speaker 2: Militias, and it's incredibly impressive how professional and squared away
they were for being amateurs, for being an amateur militia.
But the important thing to keep in mind is that
they plugged into an existing military structure and military logistics,
so it was so it was a militia. They started
out with a lot of weapons that were secured internationally
that weren't necessarily like military standard. You recall when we
looked at the small arms, they had some very advanced
stuff like light machine guns from Switzerland and stuff. But
they moved very very quickly and fought very very well.
Even though they weren't. They weren't exactly using a lot
of the you know, as the newer volunteers were coming on.
They weren't using the most sophisticated, sophisticated tactics and stuff,
but it didn't matter. They were. They were incredibly brave.
And my position is that the upright like the war
would have been lost very likely if it wasn't for
the Carlist Recutitatee militias. That's that's my position, based on
how much territory they were able to secure and hold.
Speaker 1: Nationalists and Republican factions immediately crack down upon internal enemies
in the areas they control. Thousands are killed due to
violence from all sides. In Navarre, for example, Carlos and
Phalangas arrests, subdue, subduing combat, or simply assassinate, execute prominent
opposition and militant leftists. In Republican controlled areas, class enemies
are killed in huge numbers, whether extradicially or in combat.
The church is a primary target, with between one third
and one half of all church buildings in Spain destroyed.
Many dioceses see all or nearly or nearly all of
their buildings wipe from the face of the Earth. By
the end of nineteen thirty six, nearly seven thousand priests, nuns, monks,
and seminarians are murdered, along with along with several more
thousand attendant lay people, along with many thousands more by
revolutionary Republicans. Most of the non combat extra judicial killings
are eventually reigned in by both sides by nineteen thirty six,
but the Republicans in particular continue the practice of executing
non combatant enemies with the illusions, with the illusion of trials.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the when you look at the bevor style numbers,
and when I was working on this, peete, I was
thinking about the numbers. You'll remember I told you I'm
going to do a revision where I'm going to talk
more about the numbers instead of just like the events.
You'll see is that the mainstream, the mainstream position is
that like the Republican you know, mass killings were anomalous
and it was out of the control of the central government,
whereas the nationalists did it because they were they were
bad guys, and it's it's just absurd. And the narrative
about the Republican factions has changed multiple times, you know,
in since the war there was a period, especially during
and immediately after the war, like late nineteen thirty seven
and on, where the nation, excuse me, the Republicans were
blaming like the anarchists and and the like for excesses,
and that was because of the kind of the communist
directed propaganda campaign and then laid or they shifted it
to say, well, the Soviet led communists were the bad guys,
and like the moderate Republicans and the anarchists were just
kind of like this stuff was just happening, and like
they never they never would have wanted anything like this
to happen. When you look at the memoirs of the
anarchists and such, they they are so they act like,
you know, they're innocent angels and and you know this
was all done by just like people who were just criminals,
so it was incidental. But when the nationalists execute people
who com med atrocities for example, I'm not saying that
there weren't excesses on the nationalist side, like there was
some There were executions of people, for example, that supported
the republic and were harmless, were non combatants essentially that
they just murdered or you know, individual people murdered. It
wasn't like the leadership of the military was saying they
should do this. But it's always it's mischaracterized. But when
you actually look at what the numbers are like, and
when you look at the they have essentially a truth
and Reconciliation committee that's underway now, and whenever they investigate
these individual excesses, they always find that the nationalists supposed
atrocities of like a thousand end up being like thirteen
people were killed and possibly it was a combat situation
or something like that. So those numbers get revised downward.
But still like bev War fifteen years ago, I think
he published his book, maybe maybe a little more, Yeah, yeah,
fifteen eighteen years ago, the numbers are really high on
the national side and low on the Republican side. But
now that they're investigating them, they're kind of flip flopping.
So it's just something to keep in mind, and it's
just classic. It's it's what you would expect from what
you know, anytime you examine anything that the media talks
about nowadays.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, no, it's uh, I mean really books
in English were only written from the from the Republican
side for exactly all that those numbers got embedded into
people's brains, and then when you now they have excavations
and all sorts of things, and it's like, we're gonna
we're gonna find a thousand people in this pit. Oh
there's nine people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And and so this is where when you
go back and you look at a lot of the
books that were written in the sixties with the cooperation
of the Spanish Academy, the numbers are lining up. The
new numbers are going back to those old numbers that
were like Franco approved, because they're real, They're accurate.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: The factions, the nationalists represent themselves as true span nationalists,
the defenders of Christian civilization against the Red Hordes. Territory
a large swath of northern Spain, the cities of Cordova
and Seville, the city and a portion of the province
of Cadiz, the Canary Islands, Spanish Morocco, and the Balearic
is that right bale Eric Yeah, Balearic Islands, accepting Minorca
and Formenttera, formerly government forces. Roughly half sixty thousand of
the Spanish Territorial Army, the Army of Africa, including the
Spanish legion thirty five thousand and just under half of
spain Civil Guards and CABA Carabineros. Approximately two thirds of
the Spanish army's heavy weapons are in the hands of
the Nationalists, along with half of the rifles the Carlis
Riquette Militias has. The Carlss Riquette Militia has approximately thirty
thousand men under arms at the uprising, going to eighty
five thousand by the end of nineteen thirty six. The
Filanai Militia has approximately twenty thousand men at the time
of the uprising.
Speaker 2: And the thing to keep in mind there is remember
when a civil war breaks out and people have to fight,
you attach yourself to the organizations that are existing. You
can't join the army and go straight into combat, but
you can join the militias, especially if time is of
the essence exactly.
Speaker 1: The Republicans represent themselves to the world as a legitimately
elective government of Spain, championing freedom and progress against tyranny.
Internal divisions are significant. Liberals, socialists, and communists generally supported
the Republican government, though immediate divisions appeared, such as the
debate regarding arming the workers militias in the very early
days of the uprising, broadly sought to form their own
institutions separate from the Republican government, and were most successful
at this in Catalonia and initially focused upon the social revolution.
The Basque country, strongly Catholic and conservative, mostly sided with
the Republic and the Republic due to the promise of autonomy,
although this coalition saw a rapid schism government forces. Roughly
half sixty thousand of the Spanish Territorial Army possessed one
third of the machine guns and artillery, plus half of
the rifles from military armories. A bit over half of
Spain's Carabineros and civil guards, along with most of the
Assault Guards, stay with the Republic.
Speaker 2: The Assault Guards were kind of like the equivalent of
the like a FBI, but more light infantry oriented that
were a rapid reaction force formed only at the time
of the actual republic, So the carbon Narrows and civil
Guards were existing law enforcement organizations across the country. It's
very different than America because they have these national forces
that have very specific responsibilities. The assault Guards were like
the rapid response units, and when you think FBI, think
like FBI at Mount Carmel. You know Waco because they
had like heavy weaponry.
Speaker 1: So the workers militias do not arise spontaneously, but rather
out of established party militias and are difficult to fully quantify,
say for certain well documented cases. For example, we know
from extensive material later published by members of the Highly
Prepared and Organized Anarchist cnt FAI that they put they
put ten thousand armed men into Barcelona within hours of
the uprising, though most of their weapons were handguns and
surprisingly sophisticated craft made grenades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they had been preparing in a very robust fashion,
whereas the other militias they were relying on this spontaneous uprising.
The CNTFAI, I have an article about them on my
sub stack, and they're militias. They learned from the failure
of the nineteen thirty four a storious uprising and the
losses that they took, that there's no spontaneous uprising. I'll
just tell a story that's true, and this is more
than I've talked about in the past. But I was
in Seattle during the Wto riots in nineteen ninety nine
protests slash riots. The anarchists who caused the police to
attack the protesters because the anarchists came up from Eugene
and did I did a during the parade of like
one hundred thousand like just regular people protesting the wto
whether they were environmentalists, whether they were leftists, whether they
were like American labor oriented people. They did a big
U around where the conference actually took took place and
where there were protesters with permits peacefully sitting there protesting
and smashed windows in a big U. And one of
them told me when I was hollering at him with
my hand on a pistol in my pocket, because I
was like, oh, there's only about forty of them. I
was young anyway, the police didn't have rapid reaction squads.
And I saw police like looking and like radioing, and
and one of these older guys and they were all
just like junkies and shit said, well, well that our
strategy is that by doing this, we will uh get
the police to attack the innocent people, and then the
people of the country will rise up and then we
will have an anarchist revolution.
Speaker 1: That that's the same thing. Yes, Don Reid went freak
in Moscow, Ye promise Lenin what happened in the United
States and the United States is just not fucking made.
Speaker 2: For that, No, not at all. And it and that
was what the that was what the communists and the
anarchists thought they could do. And every time they just
got their teeth kicked in after they murdered a bunch
of innocent people. And so they gave this a whirl,
and you know, and the and the fai anarchists said
this doesn't work. We have to actually plan. So they
were one of the few, like actually organized groups and
they were critical to the success of everything that the
loyalist republic Republican troops and police and stuff around Madrid
because again, if you'll remember, they sent Mola like out
into Navarre. They they made sure that only libtards were
around Madrid is whenever they could, so that the right
wing rising just completely failed in a bunch of areas
because the republic had been preparing for this, so when
the leftists, you know, needed to come out into the street,
they were just not ready and they were not trained
or anything like that.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go the march on Madrid July
twenty one, nineteen thirty six to March nineteen thirty seven.
The rebel army secure as German and Italian support to
conduct an airlift of infantry from Spanish Morocco to Seville
in south western Spain, avoiding a naval blockade by the
mostly Republican controlled navy representing the Nationalist faction. General Franco
immediately engages the international community for support, though most of
the world opts to remain neutral. July twenty sixth, nationalists
secured German commitment to provide their forces with transport aircraft,
fighter bombers, anti aircraft guns, and other equipment. The first
shipment arrives August first, and there's a note here the
Condor Legion, the famed German volunteer quote unquote volunteer force
is formally organized until November. The Italians go all in
on supporting the Nationalists and provide forty eight aircraft in
the first month, along with an increasing flow of small arms,
company level weapons, vehicles, advisors, observers, technical experts, and combat personnel.
US and British companies provide technically non military supports to
the Nationalists, which passes the muster under the Future Neutrality Agreement. Texico,
formerly the provider of oil to the Spanish government, shifts
its supports of Franco furnished entirely on credit upon hearing
news of the uprising, Ford Studebaker and General Motors supply
twelve thousand trucks, parts and tires on credit to the Nationalists.
Speaker 2: And this is a very old entry, a very old
bullet point in that really dumb you know, Alex Jones
attached himself to all the government's run by secret Nazis.
This is one of the first entries in that ledger
per the Libtards, which is that like, oh, America sided
with the fascisms, man, and it's like, you know, the
truth is that they knew that this was they were
siding against the Bolsheviks.
Speaker 1: Period.
Speaker 2: It was as simple as that.
Speaker 1: And then what did they do a few years later?
All right, let's keep going. The republic secure as military
support and international volunteers from the Soviet Union and the
intermittent support of France. France transfers forty eight aircraft along
with trainers in some weaponry in July and August, despite
having agreed to the UN intervention. Packed this pattern, always
downplayed by Republican apologists, will continue throughout the war.
Speaker 2: And I have to interject there it's impossible to overstate
how much people lie about the support that they got
from Bloom's socialist government in France. And yes, when you
say Bloom Blum, yes, yeah, yes, there was essentially a
There was street fighting in France at the time between
traditionalists and a bunch of those folks ended up going
to Spain to fight with the nationalists as volunteers. They
ended up getting plugged into the Spanish legion in great numbers.
Spanish Catholic excuse me, French Catholics who were you know.
Later when Germany invaded France, they were more than happy
to basically hand this one third of the French population
essentially control of the government, the Vishy government. It was
not this like tiny sliver of French culture. It was
the French traditionalists who wanted that support that was handed
to them.
Speaker 1: So Mexico provides a substantial amount of small arms and ammunition.
And I cannot talk enough and express enough to people
that at that time Mexico was an arm of the
Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, there's they had their own like
Viva Crista Rey was a huge thing in Mexico as well,
because they the Mexican government, the forefathers of the existing
sole political party in Mexico were essentially Bolsheviks who were
trying to eliminate Christianity from Mexico, and they.
Speaker 1: Put up with Trotsky living there for only so long. Yes,
Spanish gold reserve transfers, this is so remarkable. I mean,
the first time I write about this, I was.
Speaker 2: It's appalling.
Speaker 1: I mean I was mad. First transfer to Eurobank Paris
authorized by the Republic July twenty fourth, a total of
one hundred and seventy four tons twenty seven point four
percent of Spanish reserve sent through March nineteen thirty seven.
These funds are used for purchases of fuel and arms
from a variety of arms dealers from the Netherlands, Belgium,
Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Republic's Council of Ministers authorized a
transfer of remaining gold and silver reserves five hundred tons
to Moscow September thirteenth, nineteen thirty six. The original excuse
was that per Minister of Finance Juan naked and it
would be secure there, although the Soviets claimed it in
payment for arms. I think anyone who knows and has
read deep enough knows that Stalin was laughing at them.
Speaker 2: You know, the the anarchist memoirs on this topic are
incredibly interesting because they were furious. Because this is the point.
I mean, look October, we're talking September, October nineteen thirty six.
The anarchist you know, collective government whatever you want to
call it, you know in Catalonia is like, what the
fuck is happening? Because they realize what is taking place
in their country. They realize that it's a Bolshevik takeover,
because there's even stories about the CNT guys planning to
capture the gold reserves and then holding them in Catalonia
so that they can actually pay for things that the
country needs.
Speaker 1: October fourteen, nineteen thirty six, the first International Brigade trainees
organized by the Communist International arrive in Albacete via France.
The first shipment of arms from the Soviet Union reaches
Carzegena October fourth. It includes both modern and obsolete small
arms and ammunition, mostly most meaningfully, the latest T twenty
six tanks, BT three armored cars and quote unquote volunteers.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of like, if you'll remember from
our small arms of the Spanish Civil War episode, there's
a lot of obsolete like World War One in pre
World War one small arms and like odd stuff, but
there's tons of maximum machine guns. And then in the
T twenty six is and the BT three's they had
their fully outfitted with what are what are they?
Speaker 1: Is it the.
Speaker 2: TP twenty eight light machine guns, the the pan fed ones.
I know I'm getting those, it's DASH twenty eight whatever
it is. So there's actually a fair amount of like sophisticated,
brand new stuff, and they start also bringing anti tank
guns over. But that but again, like they took every
bit of their gold and silver reserves that were left,
like three quarters of it, and they were at slutly
not delivering that level of material to them. You know,
they certainly overpaid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's clear when you study it that
what Germany and Italy were providing to the nationalists was
far superior, as far as far superior, yes, and then
well what would you expect the Republican pesetas value collapses
almost immediately September twenty eighth, Alfonso Carlos, eighty seven year
old Carlist leader and claimant to the throne of Spain,
dies in Austria with no air October, the republic somewhat
moderate government under Asagna quits and hands the reins to
a communist socialist coalition under Lago Cabaerro. The Cabayedo government
implements universal conscription of all Spanish males between twenty and
forty five in the territory they control, sounds like Ukorean.
The various party militias begin to be integrated into the
Republican Army command structure, which is primarily controlled by the communists.
Communists red stars are incorporated into the rank insignia, and
political commissars were installed at the company level and up.
Speaker 2: Which also means that the other parties, the other political
parties are essentially suppressed in the formal government, including assassination
of upity people like it's completely counter to the supposed goal,
which is to have as many people as possible fighting
against their enemies. But it's communists, that's what they do.
Speaker 1: The previously autonomous anarchist CNFAI chooses to put the revolution
on hold and submit to Republican Army in the field.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually the crazy thing is that the the
Druti column, which are the hard core well we'll talk
about it in a second hard.
Speaker 1: Whenever anybody wants to talk about how oh like Kamala
Harris or like Antifa or communists, I'm sorry, yeah, go back,
go back and try to compare them to some of
these people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the most hardcore anarchist killers, which was the Druti
column that had been heading into Oregon and got stopped
by the Carlists, were the very first to submit to
the National Army because they said, this is what we
have to do. And to be honest, they were right because,
you know, from their perspective, not morally right. They deserved
everything that they got. Deruti was killed very soon after,
but they they were correct in that, like they needed
to focus on fighting the war, but the war was
not prosecuted sensibly by the communists. So haha, that's what
they get.
Speaker 1: M nationalist forces race toward Yeah, it's so funny, you know,
the communists and the anarchists, these you know, they've this
stupid religion people with their friggin mythology and everything. These
dumb people, really fucking how smart do they ever prove
themselves to be?
Speaker 2: I'm going to say something, Pete. The word libertarian is
a Spanish word. Uh. It represents the non Bolshevik oriented
anarchists in Spain. Do not call yourself that. If you
read this history, you will not want to call yourself
that when you read what these people actually were. If
you do, and you and you study it, and you
continue to call yourself that, you deserve what's coming to you,
which is to be thrown into a very large hole
with a big pile of people just like you in it.
The oh, I just wanted to warn people. Bevore's Battle
Battle for Spain is a great book for facts. Yeah,
the death tolls. We've already talked about Earl, you.
Speaker 1: Know, but I know this if you're going in bevar
is his sympathies lie with the Libertarians?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, Pete, I've seen a bunch of interviews
with him. I did some. I did a thread on it.
My my interpretation is that his capability in Spanish is
about what mine is, which is not very good. You
can read it, you can prepare a statement and pronounce
things almost entirely correctly if you're reading it and reciting it,
and you can interact like in a day to day basis.
But he was very dependent upon the Spanish Academy and
his editors to hand him all the material and in
nineteen nineties and two thousands Spain like that's who ruled
the roost. I mean, I'm sure like looking at him,
he's English, he like he cares a lot about Ukraine.
So he's a fucking libtard. I'm not having any more
to drink peep. I will try to rein in the profanity,
but it enrages me because you're I'm trying to counter
your point, but I can't. That's where his because because
what is it. Oh well, we know communism is bad,
and so now what do we do. Oh well, let's
align with this group. But it's imaginary. It's it's a
completely imaginary. It's like, you know, there's choose your own Holocaust,
where people create their own Holocaust, like you know, hypotheticals
and stuff, and it's like, no, you don't get to
do that. You get to go based on on the
you know, the formal official Holocaust definition, and you either
agree with it or you disagree with it. You either
say that's factual or not. That's the same thing with
this situation, and it's choose it's choose your own Spanish
civil war, and that's what Bivar does it, and he doesn't.
I wouldn't say he does it explicitly. He's not making
anything up, but he does it like in like a
sympathize sympathizing fashion where he's like choosing a theoretical where
he's like, if only this had happened, these would be
the good guys. But that's not how it happened. So
I I that was me looping back around to and
ultimately agreeing with you. You're you're correct, he's but it's
choose your own Spanish civil war.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I he could never choose the nationalist side,
so he tries to pick the least the least worst
of the of the libtards. Yeah, all right. Nationalist forces
raced toward Madrid with a goal of toppling the Republican
government and ending the war quickly. Soviet forces, the International Brigades,
and the cnt fai's six thousand Manjarrudi Column speed toward
Madrid to intercept them after securing Tala Though now maybe
we can talk about this before we talk about the Alcazar. Yeah,
a lot of people make the argument that by choosing
to go and help them at the Alcazar and till
they though that if they would have went directly to Madrid,
they could have saved the battle for the Battle for Madrid.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't have happened. I don't buy it. The other thing, too,
is that they were moving so rapidly that they had
to periodically stop and consolidate and get reinforcements. They they
hook up farther north with the Carlists and everything. I
I it's a it's a it's kind of a valid
argument that I suspect, you know, that just doesn't play
out because what would have happened is they would have
been stuck in urban combat when the Soviet forces, the
International Brigades, and the Drudi column arrived, which would have
been I mean, it would have been a meat grinder
and they could have lost all of their forces that
were there. I just I just don't buy it when
you when you look at it in terms of like
the manpower involved, the equipment, the different units that that
are maneuvering around it, it's like a criticism that comes
from people who are like, well, you would have gotten
there before all these other people, and it's like, yeah,
but then they just would have had a bloodier, bloodier
combat there and very easily have been cut off, which
is worse than not getting there. Right, I just don't
I just don't see it. You know. At very best,
maybe they could have taken Madrid, but they wouldn't have
captured the enemy leadership because it's urban combat. Urban combat
is not fast. It's it's it's the opposite of fast.
And they found that out when they got there. They
couldn't even get through a college fucking campus in a
couple of weeks, like it just grounds to a halt.
So I just I just don't buy it. It's it's
something that people say, but when you actually step back,
you're like, this is just an accusation that's being repeated.
Speaker 1: So to Laedo is about forty five miles southwest ish
of Madrid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventy two kilometers. It's when when you look at
the actual terrain, there's a huge Madrid is in a
huge at the north end of a huge valley bordered
to the you know, almost like in an archway around
it of mountain ranges, and and Toledo is due south
in a little southwest and it's kind of hilly around
it too, so that it's not fully in that in
that plane, but it's real close to it, and so
it's really easy to say that, But there was still
grinding combat before they could even get to that plane.
And then they got to that plane and those other
units had arrived, so they had to fight their way
through that and it was not easy. So when people
do this, it's a it's an easy thing to say.
It's an easy thing to say if they had bypassed
to Ledo, but I just don't see how you bypass Toledo.
I just don't see it.
Speaker 1: Then you have enemy at your back and.
Speaker 2: Oh, exactly like a lot. So it would be really
easy for them to cut their lines. And this became
the successful strategy, which is you go in these less
guarded directions and then you grind up these smaller units.
That's that was the successful nationalist strategy and that they
did that there and then they tried for a knockout
blow on Madrid and failed at it.
Speaker 1: Sorry Stu, No, Yeah, And just want to let people
know if they you can go and google pictures of
the Alcazar and there are some amazing pictures of the
destruction that was done, and you you just have to
wonder how they survived. So let me. Read this after
securing so they know, forty five miles seventy two kilometers
from Madrid and rescuing the besieged heroes of the Alcazar.
On September twenty eighth, the advancing Nationalist forces split into
three prongs to encircle Madrid and established ties with territories
secured by Allied forces. For more on the battle of
the Siege of the Alcazar, listen to my reading of
the Last Crusade. If you can make it through that
without crying, you're a better man than me.
Speaker 2: That's the episode we did together. And it's well, that
was only one of them, that was the successful end
of it, but yeah, the whole Listen to the whole thing.
That's like the soul, the soul of the Spanish Civil War.
In my opinion, the Last Crusade explains the soul and
the spirit of the Spanish Civil War.
Speaker 1: They advanced around October. The first aerial bombardment of Madrid
takes place October twenty third. On October twenty eighth, fifteen
t twenty six tanks engaged in the first Soviet combat
operation of the war, spearheading a mixed brigade commanded by
Russian train general Lister sometimes look up all of the
Russian officers that were sent to help in the Spanish
Civil War and do an early life check on them. Yes,
the unit attacks. The unit attacks Nationalists held Sesena, twenty
five miles forty kilometers due south of central Madrid. The
tankers equit themselves well but outrun their infantry, and three
tanks are knocked out with petrol bottle bombs prepared by
nationalist defenders, the first documented use of what is later
dubbed by the Finns as the Malotov cocktail for Stalin's
Minister of Foreign Affairs. The engagement establishes that armor is
vulnerable in urban fighting as well as to traditional artillery.
The tanks, armored cars in Soviet and French aircraft flowing
into Madrid slow the Russia, the nat Lists and their
ownership of the skies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I really want to emphasize French aircraft again.
Bevar also everyone, Oh, you know, the pro pro republic
position is, oh, the French could have done more, and
they were just like they were, you know, they were
siding with this ridiculous like capitalist bourgeois you know, neutrality thing.
It's like no, the French gave them tons of weapons,
but a lot of it was that they were obsolete.
And if you don't the thing to keep in mind
is that an aircraft made in nineteen twenty seven was
obsolete by nineteen thirty six compared to the latest stuff
because technology was advancing so quickly, so it could be useful,
but it was not. It was, you know, not very good.
It was you know, they didn't last very long. Maintenance
was a nightmare. Their capabilities were really poor. But the
French poured tons of equipment into there, and the Soviet
and French aircraft were dog fighting over Madrid, you know,
in October November nineteen thirty six, and so they did
slow them down there. But my position, you know, per
our earlier conversation, is that I don't think they would
have been able to if they ignored Toledo. It would
have only gained them like a day or two, and
it wouldn't have it wouldn't have given them, you know,
any further impetus to do anything, to accomplish anything. Once
they hit.
Speaker 1: Madrid, nationalist forces began their assaults on the city of
Madrid proper November fifth, with probing attacks through the old
royal hunting ground of Casta de Campo to the west.
On November sixth, the Republican government flees to their new capital, Valencia.
Nationalist forces delay their attack and so number eighth and
November seven, militia forces find the battle plan for the
following day in the pocket of a captain killed in
Casa de Campo. Forces are redistributed accordingly, just in time
for the arrival of the eleventh International Brigade, who rushed
to the front and help hold the city while taking
fifty percent casualties. Is that less than or or is
that roughly about?
Speaker 2: Roughly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, more International Brigade units arrive in the next few
days and enable Republican forces to turn the battle from
Madrid into a twenty eight month siege.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so yeah, these units just arrived at this point,
but there's no indication that the militias and military and
because there were there were tanks on the ground, there
were like half of the tanks that the that the
republic had were in bart were around Madrid, and that
there were only like one or two in Barcelona, one
or two in Valencia, like most of them were around Madrid.
By the time, you know, a week's before the nationalists
would have gotten there. So, yeah, the the International Brigade
is celebrated for keeping them out of the city. But
I just I just don't buy it when you look
at what urban warfare is actually like, it's not a
fast process.
Speaker 1: All Right, we got a little more here and then
we're going to we're gonna break for part perfect break
part one. All right. A note on the makeup of
the International Brigades. The International Brigades were organized by the
Communist International, also known as Commontern. While membership was international,
the Commontern was an organ of the Soviet Union under
Soviet command and the interests of Soviet strategic purposes. The
estimated size of the force varies, with Wikipedia stating from
forty to fifty nine thousand. The more authoritative estimates calculated
by IB veterans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I be so International Brigade.
Speaker 1: International Brigade veteran organizations are in the thirty to forty
five thousand range. Purportedly, there were never more than fourteen
thousand International Brigade volunteers in Spain at any given time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's where that the number calculation comes from,
in where the complicating factor is. But I think that,
you know, the veteran organizations were very organized and there
were good records, and there were also Soviet archival records
and stuff, so I think their numbers are better. It's
not as many as like the Wikipedia figure states. It's
theoretically possible that a lot of the volunteer for international
volunteer forces are being inflated by numbers of people who
came through like the uh what was the oh gosh
that the People's Olympiad that was in Barcelona at the
same time as the as the uprising, where there were
quite a few people who were volunteering and just like
joining these groups on their own that weren't going through
the ib that are inflating some of those numbers. But
also Communist eleve inflating numbers, don't they.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Communist International claim that fully fifty percent of
International Brigade volunteers were members of the Communist Party. Other
sources estimate as low as twenty five percent, though officers
were exclusively Communist Party.
Speaker 2: Members exclusively.
Speaker 1: Jewish. Sources Prego nineteen seventy nine. Sugarman in nineteen ninety
eight state that approximately twenty five percent of the International
Brigade members were provably Jewish, with Jews making up thirty
eight percent of American volunteers, forty five percent of polls,
and virtually all of the Romanians. The vast majority of
officers and commissars in the International Brigade were indoubtedly Jewish,
as were the leaders of the Soviet Mission su Spain.
Speaker 2: Hey, I believe them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I choose to believe. I choose to believe when
they brag about.
Speaker 2: Stuff, and uh, I think it's the Oh gosh, is
it the Jewish Encyclopedia. There's a whole bunch of sources
online where they document where they literally look at the
names of all the people that are put together by
these ib veterans organizations and they list them and they
tell the you know where all this comes from, and
they talk about it and they say, oh, you know,
it's so bad and so anti Semitic that the the
contribution of Jews to the International Brigades are so down
played because people are afraid and it's like you're you're
you may have a high verbal IQ, but I don't
think you're you know continued continued, Please keep telling us
what you are actually doing.
Speaker 1: Not very good strategically.
Speaker 2: When it comes to horrible, it's like it's a total
lack of understanding of humanity.
Speaker 1: A note on the volunteer foreign volunteer forces supporting the
Nationalists Italy. The Italian Royal Air Force Aviazione Legionaria provided
twelve Savoya Marquetti eighty one transport aircraft supported by Fiat
Ciar thirty two fighters for the July nineteen thirty six
airlift operation, which carried the Army of Africa and Foreign
Legion across the Straight at Gibraltar to Spain. All told,
the av supplied six hundred and sixty aircraft and thousands
of men before the end of the war. Musli and
the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ciano and General Roata
launched an export diditionary force December twelfth, nineteen thirty six,
with Rata as commander in chief of what was later
named the Corporo Trupe Volentari. They furnished fifty thousand men
at the peak of operations in a total of one
hundred and fifty tanks and eight hundred artillery pieces, in
addition to small arms and ammunition.
Speaker 2: Their contribution cannot be understated or overstated. I should say
the in terms of numbers and dead, the Italian contribution
to the war was massive.
Speaker 1: The Italian Royal Navy engaged in blockade breaking, submarine operations,
troop transportation and naval bombardments of Republican held coastal cities.
The Luftwaffa furnished twenty luft Hansea nominally commercial Junkers fifty
two transport aircraft supported by Luftwaffa is that Henkel. It's
Henkel right, Henkel Henkel H fifty one fighters for the
July nineteen thirty six airlift operation, which carry the Army
of Africa and Foreign Legion across the Straight at Gibraltar
to Spain. Germany's initial commitment was only the Operation Magic
Fire fyodores abed transport mission, which was then followed by
an effort to train the Spanish air crews. Then was
expanded September thirtieth, nineteen thirty six, into a full military expedition,
soon to be dubbed the Condor Legion. In addition to
an expanded air wing, German ground forces were soon added
to the mission, including machine gun batteries, a tank division,
and anti aircraft guns and anti aircraft guns. Over time,
older aircraft would be transitioned to the Spanish Nationalist Air Force,
while German pilots brought the latest aircraft into the fight.
The Kriegsmarine engaged in convoy ex court escort, blockade breaking,
naval bombardment, and u boat operations Portugal. In the first
weeks of the war, the Portuguese military attempted to form
a Viriatos Legion with their own army named for the
historic Lusitanian leader Vidiathus, to aid the nationalist cause. Due
to internal political and revolutionary struggles with their own left,
the Salazar government dialved back the effort into an assistance
program for volunteers for Falanguay and an Aceete Militias, or
the Spanish Foreign Legion. Under pressure from the International Non
Intervention Committee, in February nineteen thirty seven, the Salazar government
published a decree prohibiting the enlistment of volunteers on either
side of the conflict. A Portuguese military observation mission was
established in March nineteen thirty seven to both study the
conflict militarily as well as to covertly assist the eight
to twelve thousand volunteers in navigating their service and post
war return home. Most critically, Portugal supplied key Si ports
in the early days of the war, funneling armaments from
abroad to the nationalists across the border, which the nationalists
had secured its entirety by the end of nineteen thirty six. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the Portuguese contribution is they're those men. And I
don't want to downplay the contribution of eighty to twelve
thousand men just for political reasons the Portuguese government. And
we see how far left the Portuguese government becomes. Like
in the sixties and seventies, right, they were dealing with
a very similar situation. Very small country, poor country, you know,
collapsed in many ways like Spain. Never had the huge
empire that Spain had, but it was still you know,
their fingerprints. Well, we're all over the world, and they
had risen and fallen very sharply as well.
Speaker 1: Isn't that Mostly because a lot a lot of the
great port the great men of Portugal would just hop
over the border and go and yeah, joined join the
Spanish so that they could go overseas, and then many
of them were moted to leadership.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and the and the span the Spanish
system had an allowance for that, like you know, okay,
you have a charter. And but the big thing was
that they're seaports because as you'll recall when when you like,
when you look at the map of the seaports that
the nationalists controlled, there weren't that many. You know, there
was there was the landing at Cadiz and then Sevilla
that they had, but they when it came to like
getting supplies up to the Carlists in the north, that
stuff was going through Portugal because and then as the
you know, my theory is part of the reason that
it was so easy for the nationalists to move up
the western side of Spain border Portugal is because the
Portuguese government were facilitating the movement of international armaments and
fuel and everything through their borders. So it was very
critical for them to secure all those points. And when
you read the individual stories about the battles for the
cities along there, there's a lot of bitching about the
Portuguese because by the Libtards, because the Portuguese they don't
want a communist country right on their border and Portugal
in Spain, you know, that is a struggle that goes
back for their whole history, right, So it's a really
important contribution that the government did, but they.
Speaker 1: Had to dial it back.
Speaker 2: Like I said, it was an internal thing, but a
lot of it was international, and you know, they bitch
about the Slisar government as much as they bitch about
the Fronco government and the liptarted press. So it's very
it was a very critical contribution that the Portuguese made.
We're going to stop right there because really, yeah, because
really nineteen thirty six to nineteen thirty seven is when
there's a huge shift in the war. So this is
almost a perfectse to stop. This is like the jump off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right. Remind everybody where they can find
your stuff. Uh.
Speaker 2: I am on Twitter codeal Doll. If you just look
for Carl Doll, you'll be able to find me. And
also I have a substack Carldoll dot substack dot com.
By book, I have a fictional novel about the Spanish
Civil War that required like five years of research and
I had to relearn Spanish to read like good source material.
So I have a ton of articles about the stuff
that I found out that when you google it a
lot of times, my substack is the number one result
in the English language for a lot of these times topics,
because like I said, you know, this stuff cries out
to be translated into English. So thanks Pete, appreciate it,
Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 1: Hail Victory, help until part to you help
Speaker 2: H