Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Peciniana Show.
Carl dall is back here. You don't call.
Speaker 2: Doing great Pete, Hail victory.
Speaker 1: Hail victory. We are doing this, what 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, and
I don't think you've select 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 going to 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 that 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 the 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 as 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 and 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 the Spanish 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 E.
Speaker 1: Howard all right, First, both point social conditions relating to
settlement patterns pre dating the Reconquista broadly tradition in northern
Spain meant pre medieval right place 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 Andalusia, 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 anonymous. 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 flowed 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 terrors tories, 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.
Speaker 1: Okay, exploration and conquest took place well into the eighteenth century.
Speaker 2: Which was expensive, very expensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Incomenda Commission granted colonists to the right to
contribute and force labor from the native population. The consulado
they mer 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
and 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 yeah, got vast
treasure flowing in goes largely to the rest of the continent,
other than the cut that like the Merchant Guild and.
Speaker 2: 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 pasos, with the royal family getting
four hundred thousand pasos of the silver prophet. 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 Contraction 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: Okay, the next point is the huge cost maintaining a
vast empire against incursions by European competitors. The Habsburg rulers
of Spain fifteen oh six two oops, was at seventeen.
Speaker 2: Oh 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 jor
how do you press it.
Speaker 2: Juri Eusaurus, which is like proper like instead of it,
you know, d jur. 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 into 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 impose 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 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 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, called 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, or the first Spanish Republic lasts eleven months,
ends in a military coup, and then the Bourbon Restoration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they 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 swads 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 going to ask you,
was there a specific reason in the nineteenth century you
left out Giuseppe Finelli.
Speaker 2: I just didn't get into the details. But Finelle's super interesting,
especially because of the influence that he had the the anarchists.
C and 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 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 dere 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 jerie social revolution, nationalizing church properties,
banning religious instruction and public processions, and instituting land seizures.
In nineteen thirty two there's some e Michael Jones talks
about how a lot of the Protestant Reformation was about yes,
getting church, stealing church property 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.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty two Carlos Forum, comm Communion, Traditional Lista and
Requete Defense Militias.
Speaker 2: Yeah, 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
Shinfean 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,
US nineteen thirty two, a bloodless military coup intended to
reign in the excesses under the Republic headed by General Sanjuro.
The san Houra san hour 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 at so conservative and reactionary elements. When the
nineteen thirty three elections, which triggers mass left wing violence
and church burnings. 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, Stada's victory at the polls doesn't materialize
into power due to suppression by moderate Republicans under 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 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 to the Carlists and Falong
and phalongest militant.
Speaker 2: Organizations, and that's because the electoral party, like 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 Hymaeists were I was going to say, yeahsked,
but what are so Hymaeists 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 Hymaists. 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 CNTA FAI or is
that fail fai fai. Yeah. Learning from the failure of
their improvised spontaneous uprisings as an estudius and developed 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 to manufacture of the FAI bomb
hand grenade in Barcelona. We covered that in I think
in the last episode we did see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I have an article about it out of
my substack if people are interested in it.
Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty five, Flungay and Riquette leaders are sent to
Italy to train in light infantry tactics. The artificial governing
coalition under PM Leroue 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 Folingay is outlawed
by the Republic. They go underground, though many leaders and
activists are rounded up by spring nineteen thirty six to
carlist Richts 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,
and I've mentioned this before, but of all the different
armed groups that the recittees 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 Stalinists
parliament parliament woman parliament Woman Dolores announces while while he
is at the podium in the courts, this is your
last speech.
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: July thirteenth. Something else happened on July. Yes, interesting, 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 happen 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 fis asassinate 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, I'll ask 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: Falaningay 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 Foalangeay 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. Yeah.
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 Ronda Mata, was considered
by the nationalist conspirators as a freemason and Republican freemason
also can also be a yes yeah for something else.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: With the news of the uprising on July seventeenth, Ronda
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.
Ananda then secured the town and surrounding strategic positions with
his force Valangas and allied Civil Guard and Assault Guard forces,
and held out 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.
Speaker 1: So is this the scenario laid out in the Last
Crusade where he calls in the bombing on his own location.
Speaker 2: No, because they survive, Yeah, and thirty eight Actually, yeah, exactly.
The cool thing about it, though, is because 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 is squashed in street
fighting and leftist strongholds such as Barcelona, San Tather, Soalelo,
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: And 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 on 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
all and then boom.
Speaker 2: And he was an older gentleman and the pilot survived,
but sun Hurro passed.
Speaker 1: Away right Also on July twentieth, Spanish Legion forces landed
at Cadiz to reinforce the local Carlists and Folangaey militias
and secure the port city and much of the province
Navar Brigades and Carlos Fergettes Militia's Rakeette militias under the
command of General Mola in the Norse fan out and
secure the French border to the east, establish a front
with Republican aligned Vasque country to the north and northwest,
and approach Madrid's northern flank in south central Aragon. They
stopped northbound. They stopped northbound cnt 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 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 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 Recutite militias.
That's my position, based on how much territory they were
able to secure and hold.
Speaker 1: Nationalists and Republican factions immediately cracked 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, subduing combat or simply assassinate, execute prominent opposition
and militant leftists. In Republican controlled areas, class enemies are
killed and 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 like 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. What 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 bad guys, and 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 later 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're 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 report public and
were harmless, where 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 Bevoar
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 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, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's uh, I mean, really, books in
English were only written from the from the Republican side
for exactly 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, all right.
Speaker 1: The factions, the nationalists represent themselves as true Spaniards, nationalists,
the defenders of Christian civilization against the Red Hordes. Territory
a large swath of northern Spain, the cities of Cordoba
and Seville, the city and a portion of the province
of Cadiz, the Canary Islands, Spanish Morocco, and the Balearic
Is that right, Baleeric, Yeah, Balearic Islands, accepting Minorca and
Formintera 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 CA Carabineros approximately two thirds of the
Spanish army. These heavy weapons are in the hands of
the Nationalists, along with half of the rifles the Carlss
Riquette Militias has. The Carliss Riquetche Militia has approximately thirty
thousand men under arms at the uprising, going to eighty
five thousand by the end of nineteen thirty six. The
Filungai 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. The Republicans represent themselves to the world
as a legitimately elective government of Spain, championing freedom and
progress against tyranny. Internal divisions are significant. Liberal socialist 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, anarchists 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.
Speaker 1: 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 f like a FBI, but more like 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 CNTFAI 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 their militias. They learned from the failure
of the nineteen thirty four Astorious 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 protest
slash riots the anarchists who caused the police to attack
the protesters, because the anarchists came up from Eugene and
did a 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 Moscow,
Ye promised 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 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 end and that 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 secures German and Italian support to conduct
an airlift of infantry from Spanish Morocco to Seville in
southwestern 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 Nationalist 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 isn't 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 support 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 supplied 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, so
the truth is that they knew that this was they
were siding against the Bolsheviks. Period. 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 non 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, they had their own like Viva
Cristo 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. Yeah,
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 reserves 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 Nagrin, 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 leads. 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. Yeh.
Speaker 1: October fourteen, nineteen thirty six, the first International Brigade trainees
organized by the Communist International arrive in Alba set via France.
The first shipment of arms from the Soviet Union reaches
Kartze 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? Is
it the TP twenty eight light machine guns, 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 absolutely 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 Kabao. The Kabayedo government
implements universal conscription of all Spanish males between twenty and
forty five in the territory they control. Sounds like you Korean.
The various party militias begins 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 UH 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.
Speaker 1: Hard 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 they
were right because you know, from their perspective, not morally right.
They deserved everything that they got. De Ruti 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 did 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, or 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.
Speaker 1: 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 know,
but know this if you're going in Bevre 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. Pepe. 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 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 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 Bevore does. 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 sympathe 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 agree 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
race 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 mand Rudy Column
speed toward Madrid to intercept them. After securing Tale Though,
now maybe we can talk about this before we talk
about the Alcazar.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of people make the argument that by choosing
to go and help them at the Alcazar until 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 the
other thing, too, is that they were 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 so, Ledo is about forty five miles southwest ish
of Madrid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventy two kilometers. It's 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 plain,
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 and people do this. It's
it's a it's an easy thing to say. It's an
easy thing to say if they had bypassed to Laedo,
but I just don't see how you bypassed to Laedo.
I just don't see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, 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 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
they did that there and then they tried for a
knockout blow on Madrid and failed at it.
Speaker 1: Sorry no, yeah, and just want to let people know
if they you can go and google pictures of the
Alcazar and they're some amazing pictures of the destruction that
was done and you just have to wonder how they survived.
So let me read this. After securing so the i
O 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 territory 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 Sesenya, 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, and Soviet and French aircraft flowing
into Madrid slow the rush of the Nationalists and end
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 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 quick, 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 Casa de Campo to the west.
On November sixth, the Republican government flees to their new capital, Valencia.
Nationalist forces delay their attack until November eighth. On 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 enter 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 they're there were tanks on the ground there there
were like half of the tanks that the that the
republic had were in 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 don't 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 gonna 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 in
the interests of Soviet strategic purposes. The estimated size of
the force varies, with Wikipedia stating from forty thousand to
fifty nine thousand. The more authoritative estimates calculated by ib veterans. Yeah,
ib SO International Brigade 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 all 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 Communists 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, are
the sources estimate as low as twenty five percent the
officers were exclusively Communist Party members exclusively Jewish sources Prego
nineteen seventy nine Sugarman 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 missions to Spain.
Speaker 2: Hey, I believe them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I choose to believe. I choose to believe when
they brag about stuff.
Speaker 2: And 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 contribution of Jews
to the International Brigades are so downplayed 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, yeah,
continued continued, Please keep telling us what you are actually doing.
Speaker 1: Not very good strategically when it comes.
Speaker 2: 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 AVIZE Legionetia provided
twelve Savoya Marquetti eighty one transport aircraft supported by Fiat
CR 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 SO applied six hundred and sixty aircraft and
thousands of men Before the end of the war. Musli
and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chiano and General
Roada launched an expeditionary force December twelfth, nineteen thirty six,
with Rada 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
that 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 Lufwaffa furnished twenty Lufthansa nominally commercial junk fifty two
transport aircraft supported by Luftwaffe is that Henkel. It's Heinkel
right Henkel Henkel H fifty one fighters for the July
nineteen thirty six airlift operation, which carried the Army of
Africa and Foreign Legion across the Straight to Gibraltar to Spain.
Germany's initial commitment was only the Operation Magic Fire fyodoresabed
transport mission, which was then followed by an effort to
train the Spanish aircrews, 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 and
gaged 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 Equete 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 eight to twelve thousand
volunteers and navigating their service and post war return home.
Most critically, Portugal supplied key seaports in the early days
of the war, funneling armaments from abroad to the nationalists
across the border, which the nationalists had secured in its
entirety by the end of nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the Portuguese contribution is there're those men, and
I don't want to downplay the contribution of eight thousand
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, they're their fingerprints well were all over the world,
and they had risen and fallen very sharply as well,
Isn't that?
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, joins 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 bordering 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 had to
dial it back. Like I said, it was an internal thing,
but a lot of it was international, and I know
they bitch about the Solisar 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 purpose to stop. This is like the
jump off.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, all right. Remind everybody where they can find
your stuff.
Speaker 2: Uh. 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 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. Hail Victory. Help until part two,
help you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana Show,
Part two of the Spanish Civil War with Carl Dahl.
What's going on?
Speaker 2: Carl, Hey, Pete, Happy Monday.
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, man. Let's uh, let's do this. Is going
to release us tomorrow, so this will be nice and
fresh for people. Awesome, not like we got to sit
on it for a while. So yeah, let's pick up
right where we left off. And the bullet points came to.
We had just talked about Portugal and now let's just
pick right up where we left off. The North Falls
nineteen thirty seven, Madrid and its northeastern flank in Guadalajara
hold against relentless assault Franco strategic focus. The capture of
Madrid leads to a grinding struggle over several months which
sees no improvement in the nationalist situation. After failed nationalist
defensives in Yarama and Guadalajara cause heavy Spanish and Italian casualties,
Successes elsewhere such as It's taking Amalaga and a large
Swatha territory in southern Spain encourage nationalist forces to look
elsewhere for more vulnerable threats. The nationalist strategy shifts mostly
away from fixation upon prestige targets and toward attrition warfare.
Speaker 2: And I'll point out one thing there, Pete. This is
often with a asterix like to the great frustration of
his allies and commentators, because the you'll you'll see the
reference in Guadalajara, there were heavy Spanish and Italian casualties
across those two battles. The Italians and the Germans wanted
to smash this pass at Guadalajara, and Franco, after you know,
initial struggles, didn't think it was going to pan out,
and the Italians kind of went for it anyway, dictating
what the what the strategy would be, I should say,
the Italians and the and the Germans who were supporting
in the air and uh, this really pissed off Franco
and he there's debates on whether he had committed to
provide forces and didn't or if he originally said I
don't think there's an operation there and they expected to
come save them, and it was more of a He
brought enough of a force so that they could have
a controlled retreat and the Italians took heavy casualties. So
not only was it a change in their strategy, but
it was one of the times, it was one of
the first visible instances where his foreign allies tried to
push strategic and operational moves that Franco didn't agree with,
and he rained them in, and he very successfully rained
them in pretty much for the rest of the war.
It's a sore spot with the folks that look at
the Spanish Civil War from a non Spanish focus. If
their orientation is towards these allies and you know, all
out of caveat that we should, you know, and do
respect their sacrifices, it's still a Spanish war being run
by the Spanish. So that was a very interesting thing.
That is a big star point in pretty much all
of the histories that you'll read, and it's pretty clear
that it was Franco asserting himself there. It wasn't the
strategy wasn't working, and so he changed his strategy accordingly,
which was highly successful after long periods of trying to
do what they were kind of telling him to do
and and not really working.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, the war in the north, Republican forces
in Basque Country, cut off by land and with little
resupply and reinforcement coming by sea due to blockade, are
slowly whittled down by Riquette militia's, the Navarre Brigade and
later Nationalist army columns and Italian troops. In the west,
Entire units of Catholic Basque conscripts surrendered to then join
their cousins in the nationalists rakeets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, small, small point there is that the kind of
the kind of retrospective Basque nationalist position is that you know, oh,
they were so put upon by Franco. And actually the
early recutees were largely Basque, and they made quick converts
because you could be in a labor battalion or prison
camp or dead, or you could hang out with your
fellow traditionalist Catholics, and that and the Basque were the
kind of Basque nationalist peace up in Basque Country was
very divided between these kind of traditionalists and the socialists
who were part of the real Republican orientation. That was
a big division between the two, and so it was
an easy move to move over in a way from
the kind of There weren't as many indignities in an
atrocities in the North by the Republic because they were
tempered by this kind of traditionalist Catholic basque uh, you know,
the bulk of the population. But they still weren't big
fans of those people, and especially as you pointed out
the last time we talked Pete, like they would just
tell you what they thought, right, like nobody was mincing words.
And so the the Catholics very quickly saw the light
and came over to the the Recutes and the and
the Navarre brigade, because it was a much better deal
for them than persisting in the delusion that they could
that they could win.
Speaker 1: All right, Combined arms operations coordination between ground troops, armor
and aviation are born enabled by movements in and availability
of mobile radios. One of the Republic's greatest errors in
the North is reliance upon press ganged monarchist engineers in
the development of defensive fortifications. Around Basque country. Captain Pablo
Murga is executed November nineteenth, nineteen thirty six, for providing
plans for the fortifications to an Austrian consul, Wilhelm Wolkanig,
who is himself arrested and executed by the Republic on
February twenty seventh, nineteen thirty seven. Captain Alejandro goico ajeya
goicoijeya good job who Yeah, well you put the pronunciation there,
who have to who only wants to work on trains,
crosses the front with a group of Carlist sympathizers in
a pre arranged surrender of the fourth Brigade of Navarre,
delivers detailed plans on the fortifications around Bilbao, known alternately
as the Iron Belts in Spanish, the Iron Ring in English,
and the Iron French Offence in Basque. Iron Belt hits hardest, sorry, guys,
including the locations of vulnerabilities he deliberately engineered into its construction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's a it's this is a story
that like you'll just get this little brief thing that
he went over in in your kind of English language
summary histories. But the Spanish material that Goikoehea was like
a big wheel in Spain for decades and a major
player in transportation and the like his His his innovations
are everywhere today and a lot of them are becoming
fulfilled as technology and metallurgy and stuff advances. I have
a fun little article about him on my sub stack
for anyone who's interested. But he literally just wanted to
work on trains and they wouldn't let him. He will
he would say this like up to his death, total
autist and all anyone wants to talk about in interview.
The rare interview with him in Spanish television in the
sixties and seventies is about this period in history and
all he wants to talk about his trains. He's so delightful.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. Someone who someone who knows what his
strength then is just like and and just this is
this is my lane. I'm staying in it.
Speaker 2: He called himself an enemy of war, and so the
fact that they tried to make him participate in a
war that he opposed, he's just swore eternal hostility to them.
But he also just set it out of his mind.
Speaker 1: Now, freed from distraction, go ahead, Ehea is set loose
to work on transportation infrastructure projects for the nascent Nationalist government.
He goes on to revolutionize rail transportation with his Talgo trains,
and his innovations still see fruition as technology catches up
to his brilliant mind. Gwiquay was given a great deal
of leeway by Francisco Franco, who saw him and his
inventions as exemplars of Spanish science and industry. While aerial
bombings of urban areas are carried out by both the
Nationalists and Republican forces throughout Spain, atrocity propaganda reaches its
twentieth century pinnacle when military targets in the historic vast
city of Guarnerica is it pronounced Garnica, Wernica Yeah, Guernica yeah,
are bombed by German and Italian aircraft in addition to
Republican soldier As many civilians are killed and much of
the town destroyed. Red journalist George Steer passes on in
his reporting from the scene the inflated figure of sixteen
hundred and fifty four killed in eight hundred and eighty
nine wounded, although current consensus, driven by thorough post Franco investigators,
is a mere one hundred and fifty three deaths. Nationalists
press liaisons reveal their ineptitude by first blowing off the
claims of having bombed the city at all, blaming the
destruction entirely upon retreating Republican forces standard forces a standard
tactic of demolishing corridors as both a delaying tactic and
a temper tantrum, when in fact the Luftwaffa documented their
bombing operation in great detail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this is one of the most complicated elements
of the war overall, and so I and it's really
unfortunate that the nationalists like just completely denied it, or
I should say the nationalist press liaisons completely denied it.
But it did happen. But again, a lot of it
was very clearly Republican. A lot of the damage was
Republican behavior as well. It was their mo.
Speaker 1: All right side note Pablo Picasso's now famous paint Sang
Guernica said to have shook up the world that the
nineteen thirty seven Paris' Worldfare as a protest against the
senseless bombings of the historic Basque city for no reason
by evil mustache men, had actually been a flop, disdained
by the global public. The Spanish and the Basque. A
heavy propaganda campaign persisted with the Peace touring Great Britain
in nineteen thirty eight, to a little fanfare a nineteen
thirty nine tour of the United States with the Spanish
Relief campaign, so critics continue to dismiss it. Only during
a wildly successful touring show of a large Picasso collection
begun in New York in November nineteen thirty nine, as
war raged in Europe, that the propaganda campaign finally succeed
in elevating this piece to its now historically relevant position.
It is alleged in older pieces that Guernica was originally
inspired by inspired by the Peninsular War as a general
commentary on war, and repurposed by Spanish Republican propagandas after
the bombing.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to find exactly where I've seen that.
I've seen it in multiple places. I know Kemp makes
a reference to it. I've seen it in other written records,
but I'm having trouble finding it right now, which is
the joy of having read so many pieces. So that's
something I'm going to correct, and once I find it,
I think I'll have an article on my substack about
all these kind of controversies and arguments about Guernica and
just the fact that the propaganda campaign finally succeeded once
World War two was kicking off. But that was hugely
due to just like media promotion of it, because they
tried and tried and tried, as you've explained, and it
finally took when World War two had already started.
Speaker 1: And a typically courageous and honorable move Riquette forces from
the Tercio Tercio of Bogogna first to capture Guarnica two
days after the bombing, encircle the historic Tree of Guernica
and protect it from phlogists from other parts of Spain
who wished to fell the symbol of Basque nationalism under
which the lords of Biscay swore their odes to the
Fueros for five hundred years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's actually a fun story, in a true
story that came out of written records from veterans of
the Navarre Brigades that this happened and a nice little
fist fight between officers ensued. So yeah, it's one of
these very interesting sore spots where the kind of the
respect for the various expressions of locality as long as
they didn't actually undermine the collective nationalism. Were kind of
settled during the war.
Speaker 1: The Creto April nineteen, nineteen thirty seven, the Flongay and
Carlos Riquettes are formally unified into the Falangay Espanola Tradisson
Tradision No Lista de lost offensive Va national national Syndica Lista.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a brutal, mouthful one, but it's
literally just they take the traditionalist group and then smush
around it like envelop the traditionalist party name with fallong
Gay and then it was the Fallongay de las Jones, right,
and so they just crammed everything together and it's everyone
like laughs about it. But the real point of it
is what follows.
Speaker 1: One party, one army, one state for longest and Carlost
units still fight under the command of their own officers
and are allowed to use their own symbols through the
end of the war, but the militias are fully incorporated
into the Nationalist Armies command and logistics structure.
Speaker 2: And post war they're able to use those symbols as well,
you know, and then from then on, so the veterans
organizations can you know, where those colors. But after the war,
the military is Spanish military is standardized, where it's strictly
the symbols that the leadership selects. So it was a
tip of the hat to you know, how they got there,
and rather than trying to press one or the other,
it was a pretty small, a small, pretty small move
to allow people to keep their symbols. Because keep in mind,
Franco was non ideological. These groups may have been ideological,
although I would guess that most of the actual fighters
weren't particularly ido ideological other than like the outcomes that
they were trying to get. So it's just it's a
very big thing for us all to think about as
we go into this new world.
Speaker 1: The May days in Catalonia fighting between the more libertarian anarchists,
the communists and the bentany CNCI fal is that FAI
right fai yeah, ends in republican consolidation of power over
Catalonia and a renewed focus upon the collective fight against
the nationalists. As is true to this translates into the
communist forces forcing the less radical and libertarian elements to
submit or die. The decree to unify the militias went
out in nineteen thirty six, but the role became de
facto during the course of nineteen thirty seven with the
brigidas mixed to mixed brigades combining militias and the remains
of international brigades with regular army troops. The last of
the wholdouts are liquidated by commissars and for.
Speaker 2: The average, for the average person in one of these militias,
like they're just going to get with the program. But
it was the commissars were going after the particularly the
the anarchists did not have commissars per se, but they
had kind of natural leaders who would you know, you know,
spit games as it were, regarding what their ideology was.
And those people were just eliminated if they didn't just
shut up and get with the program. So you see
the comparison where under the Nationalists, you're allowed to keep
your symbols and you know, your songs and your talking
points as long as you're part of the operation, whereas
with the Republicans, like the ideology is the important thing,
the symbols are the important thing.
Speaker 1: Right June third, nineteen thirty seven, General Mala Commander are
the Armies of the North and champion of the Carlist
Traditionalists parishes. In an airplane accident. June nineteenth, Bilbao, the
capital of Beskaya, falls to the Nationalists after months of
heavy fighting. July sixth, in an attempt to seize Nationalists
territory and divert their forces in the north, the Republican
army launches an offensive west of Madrid, forced upon Brunette.
Republican forces are ultimately routed at a loss of twenty
five thousand men, and.
Speaker 2: This will become a pattern. When the Republicans attempt an offensive.
Speaker 1: August twenty fourth to the eastern Aragon, Republican forces conceive
of an offensive internationalist territory in the direction of Zaragoza,
the province's capital. In a grinding battle against heavy resistance,
the offensive stalls for propaganda purposes the republic and their
tame gay retard. Journalist Ernest Hemingway dubbed the failed offensive
the Battle of bils Sete Belchite, Belchite being the destroyed
town that they finally capture on September sixth, despite the
resistance of both nationalists and civilian defenders. The Republican price
for a bit of strategically useless territory is nearly nine
thousand casualties and a heavy loss in equipment. August twenty sixth,
the city of Santander falls to Nationalist troops supported by
a substantial force of Italians. Sixty thousand Republican soldiers are captured.
October twenty first, Gihon Astoriasts, the last toe hold of
the Republic in the North falls to the Nationalists. The
Nationalists army, fresh from victory in the North, retools and
reorganize us with new equipment and tactical capabilities. The Republican army,
fresh from getting wrecked, retools and reorganizes under its ideological
ideologically pure communist officers trained in Russia.
Speaker 2: So if you look at the timeline just to kind
of summarize where we what brought us here when the
war kicks off at the very beginning, you know, the
Nationalists only hold the territory that they hold. There's that
kind of band in the northern areas not counting you know,
Basque Country, and then little toe holds, and then towards
the end of nineteen thirty six and nineteen thirty seven,
it's consolidation of these holdings kind of in a westward flank,
and slowly, slowly whittling away and making gains all the
kind of militias had to do before the Nationalist you know,
the bulk of Nationalist forces coming from the Army of
Africa is hold these territories, and then what do they do?
They continue to hold them, The Army continues to hold
these territories, and then they just grind out the north.
A lot of that though, again like I made reference
to as a lot of it is large Basque forces
going over and basically you know, continuing to wear the
red beret, just as recutees and nationalists. So it's a
big focus. The rest of the Republican forces are kind
of just trying to hold on to what they have
and consolidate into a single force and just failing anytime
they tried to do any kind of offensive operations.
Speaker 1: Terro December thirty seventh February through February nineteen thirty eight,
the Republican Army, desperate for a successful battle and needing
to secure the nationalist's most obvious gateway to the south,
drove into the remote capital during heavy snowfall. Nationalist forces
prudently withdraw into the most defensible part of town, but
General Franco orders that it be retaken, no provincial capital
can fall to the Republicans. To the coldest winter in
twenty years, the Nationalist response stalls and a relief force
is not able to attack until December twenty ninth. Worsening weather.
The temperature drops to zero degrees fahrenheit minus eighteen celsius
and four feet to one hundred and twenty centimeters of
snowfalls keeps aviation largely grounded and prevents the Nationalists from
retaking the city. The besieged Nationalists defenders surrender on January eighth,
which allows the civilian population to be evacuated through Nationalist lines.
The weather eases up in the Nationalists, now one hundred
thousand strong in the immediate area, begins to capture territory
around the city where Republican forces are weakest. On February seventh,
one of the last mass cavalry charges in the history
of warfare breaks the Republican defenses to the north of
the town and scatters them. The Nationalists take thousands of
prisoners in massive stocks of weapons and equipment. They slowly
encircle Teraweh over the following weeks. When they take the
city on February twenty second, they capture fourteen thousand, five
hundred men some of the best weapons left in the
Republican arsenal. While both sides take similar similarly heavy casualties
from combat illness and the cold, the defeat breaks the
back of the Republican army, while the Nationalists immediately launched
a new offensive.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other thing here too, focusing on the weapons
and equipment that are captured. This is like armor. So
the Nationalists really enjoyed taking captured Soviet tanks and armored
cars and the like guns, anti tank guns, et cetera.
They preferred them in a lot of cases because they
were so simple and easy to train with, whereas like
a lot of the German stuff, they'd have complicated optics
that were more complicated than necessary from you know, when
you're talking about the ranges that are involved in an
effective range for like an anti anti tank gun. Right.
So it's really interesting because the Nationalists immediately put this
these weapons to use. They have fuel and they have
people to operate them, whereas the republic you know, is
you know, they have to get things delivered by sea
or coming over the border from France, and you know,
the Soviets are pretty stingy after their initial deliveries of
armor and a lot of more modern stuff. So it
just becomes this this grind where this this becomes the
repeated pattern that you just continue to see for the
rest of the year.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Back in the middle
of the paragraph, it says the besieged Nationalist defenders surrender
on January eighth, which allows the civilian populations to be
evacuated through the nationalist line. What do you mean by
surrender there?
Speaker 2: Okay, so they gave up the last of their toe
hold in the city. So what they what they did
is they held a position, They held positions and allowed
the population to retre because they had a connection to
their own lines by having because remember they they secured
all this territory around the outskirts of the city. Uh
so they just pulled out of the city. You know,
these just completely annihilated remnants of the town. You can
see images of it online. And then the last of
them that were then in being trapped farther into and encircled,
you know, within within the town, they surrendered, and then
the retaking of the town happened. Because what what would
take place is that the Republicans were so focused on
we have to take the town, whereas the nationalists had
this more long term strategic view of what do we
actually get So they so they did have a lot
of holdouts that were captured or killed. They wanted the
population to be able to get out through channels that
they had established with the contact that the nationalists had
made with them. They didn't have enough forces to Russian
and it wasn't worth it to try to, you know,
hold more of the town or fight when they could
withdraw and then you know, isolate those people. It's interesting.
There's great wiki Wikipedia articles on it with good maps.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, all right, noe. In February nineteen thirty nine,
one of the last official acts of the Republican government
is the execution and the commander of the Nationalist Defenders
of Taroyl Ray dark Court, along with the Bishop of
Taroyl and forty one other heroic prisoners who held out
for so long.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just they fucking loved killing people.
Speaker 2: That's all they are. Yeah, so you hold out, and
so what do they do? They hold them. They hold
them as prisoners for while and then and it was
literally the republic the leadership of the Republican government said
to execute them.
Speaker 1: Our democracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it comes down to it, these are the
These are the people that the spiritual brothers and sisters
of the ones that won World War Two. Yeah, and yeah,
we been so fucking brainwashed into well, you know, Hitler
was worse than them. So you know, it's a good
thing they did. It's a good thing. You know, we
have to choose, We have to choose one, apparently, so
let's take you know, let's take the ones that brought
us trans kids and you know, all the fucking ship
that we put up with. Now, yeah, the spiritual these
are the spiritual forefathers of everything that we're dealing with now.
But hey, hey, you know Germany had a problem with.
Speaker 2: One group, it gets worse.
Speaker 1: The shift of focus into Aragon underscores Franco's intent to
ignore Madrid for the time being and instead smashed a
Spanish Republican army through attrition rather than attempt a knockout blow,
which frustrates his German and Italian allies that would start,
though it better serves Franco's goal of cleansing Spain.
Speaker 2: Because you need a lasting victory, you need a lasting victory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is I was listening to John
Harris on the Conversations at Matter Podcasts Christian podcast. He
was interviewing Paul Gottfried today, and you understand why Paul
Gottfried is ignored, I mean hated by the left, but
also ignored by the right when he starts talking about solutions. Yeah,
and he says, you know, the only way forward is
the left in this country has to be utterly defeated.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There can't be a trace of them left. There can't
be a trace of whatever it is that they're pushing,
and they believe left and there's all on the right,
can't hear that.
Speaker 2: There's an interesting thing that takes place nowadays when you
talk about the Spanish Civil War is there's people that
are upset that Franco didn't just like murder all of them,
which he wasn't going to do anyway because of his
religious convictions. This is as close as you're going to get.
I remember you and I were talking, oh gosh, some
time ago, and you made a reference to a quote
that had been attributed to Franco where he said something
like he was willing to shoot like twenty percent of
the country or have twenty percent of the country shot
something like that, And what it was a reference to
is the percentile of hardcore revolutionaries that were in the country.
And so when you see what happened with the war
when they turned it into oh, well, you know, we
can resolve this through combat operations, it's this great heat
sink where all the zelots are going to be fighting
the people who are you know, just kind of along
because that's the you know, the thing, or because they
get drafted or you know, they're told that it's the norm.
You know, they're not really going to be a problem
in the future and can just be dealt with. They
can they'll get back to work and so on and
so forth. But those real enemies were the ones that
were annihilated, you know, through through combat, and so you
know it. The main thing with Spain is that it's
you know, no man is an island, no country is
completely isolated. You know, the external world moved on. You know,
the United States State Department sure will little away on
the Franco government and the likes. So it's one of
those criticisms where they did pretty much the best that
they could. There was no scenario where you get a
great cleansing that the same people will also accurately state
did not happen in Germany, but somehow will wish that
they had done it, or as a critique right of Spain,
and it's like there was no scenario where that was
going to happen. The outside world wouldn't have allowed it either,
particularly the British.
Speaker 1: On March seventh, the Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive and
steamroll south through Aragon, eastern Valencia Province and western Catalonia,
and no small part due to strong support from German,
Italian and Spanish ground attack aircraft, the beleaguered Republicans are
slowly mopped up in The Nationalists reached the Mediterranean Sea
on April fourteenth. By April nineteenth, they controlled thirty seven
miles sixty kilometers of coastland, and Catalonia has been isolated
from the rest of the Republic.
Speaker 2: And I made that reference to combined arms operations before
and they were born before, but they really become polished
in the Oregon offensives. There's really very interesting write ups
from the German perspective on how they kind of established
the doctrine that we saw a lot of in World
War Two by the Germans. It was just it was
really impressive, and it comes down to having more portable
radios and communications between Florid air controller aircraft. I mean,
the United States uses the same doctrine today I'm not
exactly the same, but.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Francis government reopens the Spanish
frontier March seventeenth and sends eight eighteen thousand tons of
war material into Catalonia, with a new round of conscription
for males aged sixteen and up and retreating forces consolidated.
Catalonia's remaining manpower is organized into the Ebro Army. May.
The Republican government, defended in Valencia behind the impressive xyz
Or Maseyana line fortifications ringing the city and surrounding Iberian
System Mountain Range, sues for peace. General Franco declines and
demands unconditional surrender.
Speaker 2: So they were very impressive defensive fortifications, and they sued
for peace because they knew what a you know, what
a nightmare it would be for the nationalists to try
to grind through it, and they were trying. They were trying,
but that wasn't that wasn't going to happen there was.
It was not going to be a split country.
Speaker 1: The Battle of the Ebro the fall of the Republic.
The Nationalists focused upon Valencia hold the Catalonian front along
the Ebro River with a light complement of units and
little fortification. Condor Legion reconnaissance flights and Spanish Legion scouts
on the ground alert Nationalist forces to a Republican troop
build up along the Ebro River. The standard English language
historians take as the warning went unheeded, but some military
analysts and Spanish sources claim that the resulting assault was
permitted the night of July fourth. The night of July
twenty fourth through twenty fifth, while the moon is down,
the Ebro Army, consisting of the fifth and fifteenth Army Corps,
crosses the Ebro River at low points or via assault boats,
pontoon bridges, and some established crossings along the river's eastern bulge,
where Aragon and Catalonia meet a natural border defined by
the river and surrounding mountains at Amposta to the south
near the near the sea, where the river is wider
and swifter. A secondary assault by the fourteenth International Brigade
fails after eighteen hours of combat. By July twenty sixth,
the Northern assault advances three miles west and at the
Great Eastward Bulge twenty one miles northwest, deep into mountainous territory.
Nationalists reinforcements sweep in with eight divisions and more than
two hundred and forty aircraft to encircle and hold the
oncoming Republican troops, driving them off the navigable roads and
destroying their vehicles. Republican infantry and tanks arrive via the
Northern route on the outskirts of their target, the town
of Gondesa, a great crossroads by which they hope to
break through the narrow national assilient and reach Republican territory
to the west. Their ultimate delusion, you comment, delusional goal.
It's to either secure concessions by forcing the surrender of
trapped nationalist forces along the coastline, or to reinforce Madrid
and hold that fort for international support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely delusional. They were. They were cut off from
the Valencia. Valencia was not quite encircled, but the eastern, eastern,
and northern areas where were very heavily fortified. Not fortified,
but surrounded by nationalist troops who were attacking. The breakout
was very ill conceived, and so what looking at a map,
there's essentially this bulge that I describe where you could
see at the farthest westernmost point they made it about
three miles and then going up, if you count going
up through the bulge, twenty one miles northwest. So again
they're trapped in the mountains in this little tiny point
with hundreds of thousands of men there, and it's just
a horrifically idiotic attempt, last attempt for an assault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people should understand. Books have been written just about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The action in my novel, like one of
the most pivotal points takes place during this operation, just
because it's so incredibly interesting and it's very scenic and beautiful.
Too down there, they.
Speaker 1: Are too late. General Franco orders the Ebro River dams
at Tremp and Camarasa open. The deluge takes the Republican
pontoon boats out of action for four days, and the
bridge's supply lines and truck depots along the river are
bombed and straighted by Nationalist aviation, while trucks make it
across the bridges toewing artillery and transporting troops. They are
not able to establish supply lines back across the river
and are destroyed in great numbers, as are the supporting
gun batteries and supply depots on the eastern side of
the river. Only twenty two tanks and a small number
of artillery pieces had crossed the Ebro, and nearly eighty
thousand Republican troops now trapped west of the river have
only the supplies they can carry to survive in the
heat of the Spanish summer. Republican engineers focus upon restoring
their pontoon bridges every night, only for them to be
destroyed the next day, and within a few days Republican
forces are completely trapped within the pocket and cut off
from their supply lines across the river. Not that they
would have been permitted to retreat, to the communist leadership,
desperate for the propaganda value of a decisive victory, only
attack was permitted. And you put lol, Well, I mean.
Speaker 2: It's insane, but they were basically like, do not come back,
or we'll shoot at you. There were several points where
that was made. They relaxed that later on after they
got spanked so badly, But it's really just insane and
shows who you're talking about. There was no strategic value
or chance of the succeeding. Just completely delusional. And that's
where the that's where the argument about the attack probably
being somewhat allowed to happen, you know, versus it being
such a big surprise, because I mean, it's one of
those things that people will debate forever, you know, but
it it just seems so such an obviously stupid operation.
But they, you know, thanks to you know, aviation surveillance
and the like, you know, plenty knew that it was
going to happen.
Speaker 1: Republican forces never breakthrough, and said Agandessa, and suffer heavy
casualties as it's outskirts and hills immediately overlooking the town.
Thanks to the season, Nationalist militaries combined arms attack. By August,
most of the Republic's aircraft are swept from the sky
and the Nationalists achieved total air superiority. The first Nationalist
counter offensive is launched against a small northernmost pocket near Fayon,
which drives entrenched Republicans across the river at a loss
of nine hundred men and two hundred precious brand new
machine guns. The next day, August eleventh, the Nationalist drive
into the Pandul's mountain range and capture much of the
high ground. The Ebro dams are opened again, destroying the
remaining pontoon bridges, and six Nationalist divisions sweep into the
height heights of Geta over five days of fighting. At
this point, Franco's ally, Mussolini, fingers clenched no doubt in
a rude gesture, states to Franco does not know how
to make war and doesn't want to, unlike Malit Mussolini
and you put too soon. Franco's strategy secures peace in
his country for nearly forty years, as the enemies of
Spain are blasted a machine gun in the mountains over
the next three months. On September twenty first, the International Brigades,
so those who are still alive, throw their hands up
and formally withdraw from Spain, having sustained twenty five percent
fatalities in their two years in Spain. Is that s
for Spit?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, okay, that yeah, yeah, that was the operation.
The International Brigades were always used as shock troops, if
you'll recall in that the very first like two days
of one of their units getting to Madrid, they had
something like twenty five percent fatalities or casualties in two days.
They were always the ones thrown into the assault because
they were under basically under command of Soviet fanatics, Communist
commissars and officers who saw them as completely disposable. It
was international Bolshevism, you know, just taking their lives and
throwing them into this fight. The very end of them
was the Battle of the Ebro, and they just the leadership.
They were completely broken by this. No there was no
way that they could get more people to volunteer. They
couldn't get people to go back. They were if you
read any of the records written in the memoirs written
by those people who I do not speak of in
high esteem, they were just completely shattered by this. It
was stupid and they just got annihilated.
Speaker 1: By November sixteenth, the last Republican forces on the right
bank of the Ebro escape at Flicks. Both sides suffer
massive casualties in the Battle of Ebro. Although the figures
are difficult to estimate, it's likely that Republican casualties number
seventy five thousand, with thirty thousand dead. Additionally, the majority
of the military relevant arms in Catalonia are lost in
the battle. The Nationalists too, take approximately sixty thousand casualties,
though almost certainly fewer than ten thousand dead. But among
them are their very best frontline officers, and their armor
and trucks are severely worn out from the tempo of
mountain maneuver and combat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can't be understated, just because again, these are
hardened veterans that had mastered these combined arms operations rapid response.
They were just worn out. So things get quiet for
a while while everyone kind of retools.
Speaker 1: The Condor Legion withdraws most of its ground forces from
the field and shifts a significant portion of their air
crews to Germany due to tensions in Czechoslovakia. There we go, yep.
German A's German aid is paused in mid September as
Germany and Spain negotiate compensation. They settle upon granting Germany
an interest in the output of Spanish minds. New aircraft,
the BF one O nine ease, H E one eleven
EA's and j's and HS one twenty six a's reinforce
the Legion and enable it to close out the war
in a primary aviation role, and the older equipment is
sold to Spain during the legion before the legion returns
to Germany in May nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so all of the most modern German equipment is
being proven in combat, but is then handed off to
the Spanish. Sold to the Spanish because again like there's
more coming out of German factories and the latest and
greatest is always coming and they're iterating based on their
operational observations in Spain.
Speaker 1: After rest repair and restructuring, fresh troops are brought in
for the invasion of Catalonia in late December nineteen thirty nine.
He was captured against hardly any resistance. By early February,
hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees crowded the camps in
southern France. February twenty seventh, the UK and France formally
recognized the Franco government. March fifth, the Republican Army rises
against the Prime Minister Nagrin and forms the National Defense
Council to negotiate peace with Franco Communist troops in Madrid,
attempts to continue the war or squashed in street fighting
by their former allies. March twenty sixth, the Nationalists advanced
from all sides towards Madrid. March twenty eighth. Madrid surrenders
almost bloodlessly. March thirty first, the Nationalists control all Spanish territory.
April first, Franco proclaims legera s alfinale the war is
at its end after accepting the surrender of the last
Republican forces. The cost combat dead figures vary but range
between one hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand killed
in action on both sides, both sides. Ramon Salas Larnzabal
Laranzabal authoritative nineteen seventy seven study calculates one hundred and
sixty five thousand, three hundred and sixty seven total combat dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lorenzo bal is very interesting. There's several websites online
with his with his records and methodology in them, his
sources for everything. He used every source that he could
find and went through Spanish records, just an exhausting minutia.
And he also compared it to pre war and post
war numbers where he wasn't like one hundred percent sure.
So when you when you talk about the cost of
the war, it's a big topic, and so he's pretty
much the best source that I've seen and what keeps happening,
and I think we talked about this a little bit
last time, is that, you know, the during this truth
and reconciliation regime that's taking place in Spain, they'll say, oh, well,
we think that these are you know, we're going to
lean on what the Republican numbers were, and then as
they actually go through and reconcile it, it just squares
up with the numbers that Lronzepaul put together, you know,
almost fifty years ago.
Speaker 1: So I think most people would be if you look
at that number, one hundred and sixty five thousand in
just a civil war in Spain, yeah, in Europe, in
Europe in the twentieth century, that's I mean world War
two obviously we don't could be forty million, could be
twenty million. Yeah, yeah, it's impossible to tell. But this
warm up, I mean, this is basically you know, what
I like to refer to as World War one and
a half is just absolute insanity.
Speaker 2: And the total population from zero to one hundred right
of Spain at the time was about twenty five million. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Executions and murders sALS. Lorenzobal calculates that from nineteen thirty
six to nineteen thirty nine that were seventy two thousand,
three hundred and forty four non combat executions and murders
in Republican territory. In National Spain from nineteen thirty six
to nineteen fifty the figure was fifty seven thousand, six
hundred and sixty two, with sixteen thousand, seven hundred and
sixty three judicially governed executions in the first two years
of the war and five and eight hundred and seventy
eight more over the next ten years. Non hysterical academics
such as Bevore use these figures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very important because, like you notice, I made
a distinction the Nationalists, there were just like executions and murders,
you know, with no judicial procedure, and then there were
pretty severe judicial procedure numbers that followed. But again, these
are being carried out against the people that largely committed
these atrocities on the other side. So it's like if
you find someone that murdered ten people and you shoot
him after a fair trial, that's a number that's here.
Speaker 1: But like good right, yeah, yeah, additional civilian dead again,
per so Lorenz taking into account demographic comparisons over long
stretches of time to exclude projected deaths due to natural causes, accidents,
typical losses from disease, et cetera, and verified against documented
wartime records, he arrives at an excess loss of three
hundred thousand civilian lives due to disease, hunger, lack of medicine,
et cetera, which would have been avoidable in peacetime. Interestingly,
nineteen thirty five under the Republic had significantly elevated death
due to hunger and disease in southern Spain, likely related
to the disruption caused by land reform and resulting poor harvests. Interestingly,
Ciles Lorenzebal notes that the otherwise expected five hundred and
fifty seven one hundred and eighty five children calculated to
not having been born during the war years hurt Spanish
demographics far worse than the losses from all other causes.
Speaker 2: And so if you think about what that means when
you talk about unjust like, look at our situation demographically
in America right now. You have crime, elevated crime and
murder right you have massive suicide, drug overdoses, deaths related
to that deaths of despair right Think of all the
people that are that are not having children right now
because of the hell that a certain group of people
are pushing on us and what that does to us
and our strength. So when you get revenge, theoretically, lawfully, legally,
keep that in mind as well. We should have double
the numbers that we have.
Speaker 1: Refugees, excluding those who fled Spain of their own accord
before or during the war. About five hundred thousand Spanish
became refugees in the final days of the war, with
four hundred and fifty thousand fleeing Catalonia for France in
February nineteen thirty nine. The French separated military age men
from the civilians and established open air internment camps. Over time,
refugees were redistributed to different facilities. About three hundred thousand
refugees returned to Spain within a few months, where they
were sorted by the Franco regime between innocent civilians and
those destined for internment camps, labor battalions or prisons. These
returnees were handled according to their role in the war,
with those who committed atrocities executed, while mere participants in
the war, draftees and generic leftists saw their sentences quickly commuted.
About thirty thousand of the refugees who remained in France
soon emigrated to Latin America, with most going to Mexico.
One hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty thousand
remained in France and labor battalions. Thousands of communists and
anarchist militants enjoyed the hospitality of the concentration camps of
the Vishi and German governments. The Soviet Union accepted a
few thousand prominent republicans communists, but not the Hoi POLLOI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I remember you were talking about Mexico last time.
Speaker 1: Yep, that's that.
Speaker 2: Mexican government brought in quite a few of these refugees,
and most of the anarchists from Catalonia ended up in Mexico.
I mean, take that with a grain of salt. But
of the ones who wrote memoirs, an awful lot of
them ended up coming back to France, you know, after
World War Two, or just stayed in Mexico. But huge
numbers of those kind of apparatchicks and members of the
government and talking heads who could not go back to
Spain under Fronco ended up in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wonder how many of them went and said hello
to mister Trotsky.
Speaker 2: An awful lot of them.
Speaker 1: April fourteenth, Pious the twelfth addresses the Spanish faithful with
immense joy. With great joy, we address you, most dear
children of Catholic Spain, to address to you our fatherly
congratulations for the gift of peace and a victory with
which God is deemed worthy to crown the Christian heroism
of your faith and charity tried in so many and
so generous sufferings. Our Predecessor, a venerable memory, expected, with
longing and trust, this providential peace, which is undoubtedly the
fruit of that copious blessing which he sent in the
very beginning of the struggle to all those who have
devoted themselves to the difficult and dangerous task of defending
and restoring the rights and honor of God and religion.
And we do not doubt that this space shall be
the one that he himself foretold. Since then the sign
of a future of tranquility and order, and of honor
and prosperity is kinds of providence. Most beloved children have
once again dawned over. Heroic Spain, the nation chosen by
God as the main instrument of the evangelization of the
new world and as an impregnable fortress of the Catholic Faith,
has just shown to the apostles of materialistic atheism of
our century the greatest evidence that the eternal values of
religion and of the Spirit stand above all things. The
tenacious propaganda and the constant efforts of the enemies of
Jesus Christ seem to have desired to try in Spain
a supreme experiment of the dissolving forces which they have
at their disposal throughout the world. And even though it
is true that the Almighty has for now not allowed
them to achieve their goal, he has at least tolerated
some of their terrible effects, so that the world could
see how religious persecution, undermining the very basis of justice
and charity, which are love for God and respect for
His Holy Law, may drag modern society's unthinkable abysses of evil,
destruction and passionate discord feminits of this truth. The same
Spanish people, with the two marks characteristic of their most
noble spirit, which your generosity and frankness rose up determinedly
in defense of the ideals of Christian faith and civilization,
deeply rooted in the Spanish soil, and aided by God
who does not abandon those who hope in Him, could
resist the push as Judah thirteen and seventeen. Sorry, Protestants
could resist a push for those who deceived by what
they believed to be a humanitarian ideal of the exultation
of the meek, truly fought only for atheism. Yes, the
primordial mean, the primordial meaning of your victory makes us
dwell in the most promising hopes that God, in his mercy,
will will deign lead Spain from the safe path through
the safe path of His traditional and Catholic grandeur, which
will be the point that will guide all Spaniards who
love their religion and their fatherland in an effort to
organize the life of the nation in perfect harmony with
its most noble history of Catholic faith, piety, and civilization.
We thus exhort the authorities and shepherds of Catholic Spain
who enlighten the mind of those who were deceived, showing
them lovingly the roots of materialism and secularism from which
their errors and wrongful acts came forth, and from which
they could spring forth again proposed to them the principles
of individual and social justice, without which the peace and
prosperity of nations, as mighty as they may be, cannot subsist,
and which are those contained in the Holy Gospel and
the doctrine of the Church. We do not doubt that
it will happen. Thus, and the basis for our firm
hope are the most noble and Christian sentiments of which
the Chief of State and so many gentlemen his faithful collaborators,
have given unequivocal, unequivocal evidence, with the legal protection which
they have granted to the supreme religious and social interests
according to the teachings of the Apostolic Sis see The
same hope is also founded upon the enlightened zeal and
abnegation of your bishops and priests, tempered by pain, and
also in the faith, piety, and spirit of sacrifice, of
which in terrible hours all classes of Spanish society gave
heroic proof. And now before the remembrance of the mounting
ruins of the bloodiest civil war recorded in the history
of modern times, we with prize regard bow our head
above all to the holy memory of the bishops, priests,
religious of both sexes, and faithful of all ages and conditions, who,
in such an elevated number sealed with blood their faith
in Jesus Christ and their love for the Catholic of
religion major ofm. Hac deliction, I haven't taken a lot
habet habet greater love than this, no man hath John
fifteen thirteen. We also acknowledge our debt of gratitude towards
all those who sacrifice themselves, even under heroism, in defense
of the unalienable rights of God and of religion, either
in the battlefields or devoted to the sublime work of
Christian charity in prisons and hospitals. We cannot hide the
bitter sorrow that the remembrance of so many innocent children, who,
having been ripped from their homes, were taken to far
away lands, often in danger of apostasy and perversion. We
desire nothing more ardently than to see them return to
the bosom of their families, where they will once again
find the warm and Christian tenderness of their own. And
those others who, as prodigal sons, wish to return to
the house of the Father, we doubt not they will
be welcomed with goodwill and love. It falls upon you,
venerable brothers of the Episcopate Episcopate, to advise all, so
that in their policy of pacification, all will follow the
principles taught by the Church, and proclaim with such nobility
by the General Lissimo general Liismo, of justice for crime
and of lenient generosity for the mistas taken our solicitude, also,
as a father cannot forget these deceived ones, whom a
deceitful and perverse propaganda succeeded in enticing with praise and promises.
Your pastoral solicitude should be targeted at them with patience
and meekness, Pray for them, seek them, lead them again
to the regenerative bosom of the Church and to the
warmth of the fatherland, and lead them to the merciful
Father who awaits them with open arms. Therefore, most dear children,
says the rainbow of Peace, as returned to brighten the
heavens of Spain. Let us come together heartily in a
fervent hymn of thanksgiving to the God of Peace, and
in a prayer of forgiveness and mercy for all those
who perished, And in order that this peace be fruitful
and long lasting, we exhort you with all the fervor
of our heart to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. Ephesians four two through three. Thus, united,
in obedient to your venerable Episcopate, Episcopate, devote yourselves joyfully
and with no delay to the urgent work of reconstruction,
which God and the Fatherland expect from you. As a
pledge of the copious graces which the Immaculate Virgin and
Saint James, the apostle patrons of Spain shall obtain for you,
and which the great Spanish Saints have merited for you,
we bestow upon you, our dear children of Catholic Spain,
upon the Chief of State and his illustrious government, upon
the zealous Episcopate and their selfless clergy, upon the heroic combatants,
and upon all the faithful Apostolic blessing pious to twelfth
taxing Christe Victoria eterna Amen.
Speaker 2: And I had to close it with that, because after
you look at all the numbers, after you hear about
just brutal combat all over the whole country. Spain was
a smoking hole in the ground. Spain wasn't in a
position to do anything other than what they did, which
is to buy down and dig their way out, you know,
establish or or continue relationships with countries that they had
good relationships with, and you know, do do what they could.
They weren't in a position to you know, get involved
in another war, nor was there an appetite for it.
There were there were volunteers. There were quite heroic volunteers
for the Blue Division, but they were volunteers. They were
permitted to go, and they came home and lived safely
and in peace. And many other veterans of the often
SS and and other groups were permitted to live peacefully
in Spain by the Spanish government. But they stayed out
of the next war because Franco uh removed his sort
of victory from his belt and placed it on the
altar on the victory celebration day and vowed never to
pick it up again unless Spain was threatened. And people
can say, well, look at look at Spain, now, look
at the West, now, YadA YadA, Okay, Well, Spain was
in peace and governed under his dictates and the church
flourished and still flourishes in Spain, and that was his
primary duty. There's an argument out there that the logical
conclusion of is that Germany lost the war because Spain
wasn't on their side, which is a very strange thing
to say, but that's kind of the logical conclusion of
many of the things that are said about. You know,
what Spain did collectively as a nation after the war,
which was too you know, continue to send steel to
in other minerals to Germany and make some weapons for them,
and other than that, you know, and allow certainly way
with things, but also not go totally under the thumb
of the British or anyone else and just kind of
ride it out and enjoy some peace. So I just
wanted to point out the stakes, and you can't a
fervent Catholic cannot go against the you know, that heavy
that heavy blessing with a with a you know, now
we know how to behave ourselves, don't we, according to
the precepts of the religion that you follow. So hence
hence the way I wanted that to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you remember, there there were more than a
few people who fought the war valant valiantly who would
have faced the rope and Franco brought them in and
protected them and let them live out their lives in Spain.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And it was a sticking point with the Allies,
but he didn't care because they didn't they didn't have,
you know, the leverage to do anything about it, and
it wasn't worth stirring up. So and they're very nice blessings.
It's it makes a someone a silly prot like myself, like,
look at our tradition which is schism and people with
a lot of goo in their hair and jeans with
embroidery on the pockets and guitars apparently, and then you
hear that just heavy like laiden with emotion, uh prayer
slash congratulatory speech. It's it's just something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and calls for reconciliation, all forgiveness and mercy. Yeah yeah,
all right, let's uh let's wrap this up. Please do
your your plugs, tell people where they can find your
stuff and I'll make sure to include them into the
show notes.
Speaker 2: Great, thank you, Uh Carldall dot substack dot com is
where most of my writing is. I have many narrative
essays and I have some of my fiction there. You
can buy buy book Faction with the Crusaders, which is
a story about a American who ends up volunteering for
the Nationalists in this Banish Civil War. You can get
that on Amazon. There's links in my substack to that.
There's a sample first chapter as well, which actually is
in the Drive to the South as part of the
Aragon offensive. That's the first chapter and that story's in there.
Lots of fun combined to arms operations. And yeah, I'm
on Twitter too, although I'm not a Twitter enthusiast. Cowdio doll.
You'll be able to find me. There's some numbers in there.
It sucks, but you'll you'll be able to find me
under Carl Dohl cow doo doll on Twitter or excuse
me X, the platform formerly known as Twitter stupidly renamed X.
Thanks Pete.
Speaker 1: All right, man, thank you, having good evening, Thanks you too,
and we're off, Carl. How are you doing doing well, Pete?
Happy Sunday, Happy Sunday. How are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: Very well?
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, yeah, I already asked you that I'm retarded,
so all right, so let's just there's one question, all right,
that's been thrown in on YouTube, So you want to
run to this that this one be easy for you
to get. Whereas it scroll up says who are the
best historians who write in Spanish on the Spanish Civil War?
Unbiased or with nationalist biases?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that is that's a challenge for me because
I haven't I haven't attacked the body of uh Spanish
language material. What I'll explain everyone kind of how I
got where I'm at as far as what I ended
up studying. Maybe that's a good baseline what I I
attacked the topic of the Spanish Civil War and research
into it based on wanting to be able to write
a fictional story of an American who goes there and
eventually becomes a belligerent official belligerent, which led me down
the pathways of you know, what kind of units could
you be in? You know, foreigners had to go into
the Spanish legion, et cetera. So my my research unless
it was something that I was just interested in, if
I wanted to tell stories about individual people in specific locations,
I read English language material and then I ended up
reviewing Spanish language materials. So when I most of my
Spanish language material that I've delved into is more associated
with the Carlists and the Navarre Brigades than or individual
like time, any topics like specific weaponry or stuff about
specific campaigns. So I'm not really qualified to judge the
Spanish Spanish academia related to that. There's a lot of
really great material out of Navarre that's out there, and
historians who've been doing work if you do local if
you do local work, there's a lot of really great
material that's still being done in Spain by Spanish people
kind of outside of academia or on the periphery of it,
associated with specific localities. But I'm sorry, I can't really
address that unfortunately. I would say though that if you
look at my my sub stack, I do have a
bibliography in there, and there's some Spanish language material in there,
and I one of the big areas, honestly, And I'm
revisiting this peete related to our project for talking about
kind of the the tech tree of liberal ideas and
the different political factions that formed in Spain really nineteenth
century as it relates to the twentieth century. And so
I spent a lot of time reading about the anarchists
memoirs and stuff like that. So I read a lot
of Catalonian anarchist memoirs as well, or Spaniards who ended
up overseas and then came back for the war, because
there were a lot of South American Spanish who came
back because of their anarchism and their various activism because
that's where the action was, and they would also get
executed in South America. So it's it's tough to talk about.
But if you look at that bibliography, you'll see a
number of sources. There's NEvAr Oh gosh, it's it's recutezz
dot e s. The page just went away, but I
have a link to it in my Substackcarl Dahl dot
substack dot com from material related to the Carlists, as
well as in the bibliography that my kind of my
introduction to the novel is in there also where I
link out to an archive of the NEvAr Brigade kind
of unofficial historians. Uh, there's that stuff's out there, but
it's in in an archive, and that's a great place
to start if you want to see some really interesting,
unbiased stuff. And that that again is very Carlist centric.
Navarre in basque centric material.
Speaker 1: Okay, I just want to say I want to thank
Stephen Fox for sending some some love through Venmo and
remind people that Fox and Son's Coffee, as I say
every week, promo code Peter or promo code pek Q
is eighteen percent off over thirty dollars and free shipping
over forty. So all right, I got a question for Yeah,
are you familiar with beatified and canonized martyrs from the war?
Speaker 2: I know of them, but I'm not fluent on the topic.
I know that that did take place, that they were
formally beatified and canonized martyrs by the Catholic Church, but
I don't know a whole bunch about that, specifically being
non non Catholic. Just for transparency's sake, Yeah, And.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess I do want to say this
because I guess it's the topic of the day other
than if we if we weren't talking about the Yeah, yeah,
there's a lot of there's a lot of Christians are
our Christian brothers and sisters and their children in Syria
right now that you really need to be thinking about
and praying about. Because I'm not going to comment on
what happened in Syria, nobody knows. So if you want
my speculation, I wrote, check my comments on Twitter. I
had a couple comments, but that's all I'm doing until
I know more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's too too hard to know what's going on
over there. And having had to watch it in that
whole situation being I feel like it's been fairly pivotal
for me, like in the in the teens, to to
to go from just being kind of a black pilled
like post libertarian who's just like, I don't want to
participate in paying attention to this horrific stuff to actually
turning on that and being like, no, I'm not gonna
be quiet and afraid to talk about these kinds of
topics because of what's going on has been going on
in Syria since America did its thing. There's a lot
of horrible information out there. There's a lot of people
that just want to blackpill you. They want you to
feel defeated. There's I saw people who are supposedly on
our side, and I'm not going to name any names,
but like pushing stuff from authors of from Tablet magazine,
which is a Jew for Jew publication, and the only
non Jews who read it are good boys and anti
Semites like no one else, no one else reads it.
But there are people pushing their stuff as like Netanyahu
is this like great man of his It's it's so retarded,
Obama is and his friends in Iran. You know, it's
it's the dumbest. Almost everything being talked about on that
topic is dumb uh and it sucks.
Speaker 1: I mean, the way I look at it is, I'm
done with the faggots who, Yeah, if you have any
hope whatsoever, if you put your faith in anything and
it they're oh, oh you're just coping. Oh look look
you were wrong, so.
Speaker 2: What so what so?
Speaker 1: I mean, fucking see Canadian healthcare if that's your life, honestly,
really see Canadian.
Speaker 2: Healthcare one things your life.
Speaker 1: If your life is just black pilling, if you're just
you know, this is what I said. This is what
I said on Twitter this morning. I said it is.
One of my comments was because Thomas was talking about it,
and I said, you know, you're coping, Like, quote unquote,
you're coping is the favorite refrain of the dooomer, who
believes it by either not taking sides or by changing
with the wind, they are somehow above it all. And
therefore there's than you. They're too brilliant to be emotionally
invested in outcomes. Therefore everyone is either their op or
everyone's a dupe. Well, go fuck yourself and your mother.
I mean, really, go fuck yourselves. I mean honestly, I
mean take the easy way out.
Speaker 2: Do it. Sorry, no, it's no, absolutely I agree. And
there is one kind of parallel here, like with how
everyone is feeling right now, that comes up related to
the Spanish Civil War, and it's it's that whole question
around why did Spain not formally become a part of
the axis. And what we see with Russia's has been
scaling back what they were doing in Syria because their
focus is on you know, Ukraine and Nova Russia and
you know, taking care of the highest priority for them.
And it sucks, but you there are times when you
have to make choices based on what's best for your
people and what you're able to influence. And losing two
wars is worse than winning one war. Yeah, it sucks.
I don't like it, but sometimes you are in a
situation where you can't win two wars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't. I just don't get the people
who like if you say. If I say I hope
this is what happens, and then it doesn't happen, they
like laugh at you. Yeah, and it's fine to laugh
at me. It's fine, but just understand, seek Canadian healthcare.
That's my response to you, okay, because there are whole
families being slaughtered right now and you're like on line
telling people, oh, you you were wrong about this. The
fuck yourself all right now that I'm done with that.
Do we know what year Russia started having a presence
in Spain as far as spreading their you know, spreading
their version of communism in Bolshevism.
Speaker 2: So there is if you look at the in the
nineteenth century, the international, so what became the Communist International.
There was an original international and there were there were
a couple international kind of communist slash socialists slash liberal
groups where the kind of the market that was the
marketplace of ideas for the left socialists for a very
long time. And ultimately what happened is like but Cunin
and Marks, their personal differences in falling outs led to
splintering into different groups. And there were these iterations of
these international organizations that were pre Soviet. But it was
like that it was the development of what would ultimately
become like an international Bolshevisk movement. It took it took
decades to mature over time, and so these ideas were
going into Spain and they would have their own representatives
that would go to various groups. Sometimes it would be
there was that International Workingman's Organization which was primarily anarchists,
although they were really comfortable inviting other people in who
were more different flavors of socialism to try to have
greater influence in a broader base, although ultimately they wanted
to push for an anarchist angle. And so there's that
interchange of ideas in people right that was going on
for a very long time. But formally Soviet doesn't really
start happening until the very late but it's there were
people who were going in the twenties during the Primo
de Rivera dictatorship, there were some who were going to
the Soviet Union from Spain. It happened more in the
thirties under the Republic where there was more of an interchange.
The lead generals in the Republican Army were all men
who had come out of the various socialist and communist
political parties who went to the Soviet Union and were
trained in their international military academies for it in the
Russian slash Soviet method of war. And magically when they
start getting you know, all the Soviet supplies and equipment
and start putting red stars on the Republican Army uniforms
and in their insignia and have like, and communism takes over.
These guys are in charge. So that was really where
it really really accelerated was in the thirties under the
Republic NKVD people were there. During the thirties. Largo Kabeiro
was a prime minister, I want to say Pete for
a while who had been a part of a His
party was a socialist party, but he personally became a
Bolshevik communist aligned with the Soviet Union, kind of in
secrecy despite what his formal the formal title and formal
ideology of his party during the nineteen thirties, through his
reading when he was in prison, especially for agitation under
Primo de Rivera, and then also a little bleeding over
a little bit into the into the Republic. So it
was it was these layers of the influence accelerating really
formally in the nineteen thirties, to the point where by
by July nineteen thirty six, it was people were learning
that it was an entirely Soviet project. At a certain point,
the formal Republican government was indistinguishable from one being one
hundred percent Soviet control, accepting Catalunya. That I will add
as a caveat, because that was pretty much almost entirely
cnt FAI people running things over there.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just going to say to the chat if
you guys, if you guys have any questions about the
Spanish Civil War, put them in entropy. It doesn't mean
you have to do a super chat. You can just
put them in entropy. If you guys want to discuss
Seria in the chat, then I'm just going to close
the chat and not look at it, Okay, because I
have plenty of questions here to keep this going for
a while.
Speaker 2: So can I throw out one quick answer? Philip Blair
asked the question in the chat about material originally written
in Basque. Similar similar response, Philip to what I had
said before about where my focus was is I was
I spent most of my time digging into Spanish sources
to fill gap and Basque material is tricky because Basque
nationalism has retconned itself into being this like moderate republican nonsense,
which it never which is a very inaccurate way of
describing it. There's a nascent, resurgent recitee carlost recite type
movement going on in the Basque country which is totally
their heritage and is very exciting. If you check out that,
uh my any of my articles, I think, any of
my articles on the recuitees in my sub stack, there's
links out to that Recitese dot e s archive that
has some material in Basque uh, and then also some
material in Spanish castealing Cathelian Spanish that talks about the
Basque perspective. Navarre was largely Basque. Navar is a really
interesting historical case study in the insane, fragmented nature of
the Spanish nation and the and the localism of it.
But the Novar Brigades were hugely Basque, whether or not
they portrayed themselves that way. So M.
Speaker 1: Chris Young has a question. He says, is there any
remnant of Carlism left in today in Spain?
Speaker 2: So I don't know quite how to describe it. I
think it's it's closer to our actual scenario where there
are kind of traditionalist, possibly even reactionary people in our
sphere who are you using the symbolism as a as
a representation of their historical ties to Spain and kind
of a conservative, reactionary, you know, perspective on the direction
the country's going in.
Speaker 1: I have a.
Speaker 2: There's a review of my novel Faction with the Crusaders
that was written by a Spaniard who has a house
of Bourbon. The the Carlist uh their their preferred battle flag,
which is the white banner with the red cross, the
red jagged cross as his avatar, and he said it
was the best novel by a foreigner he'd read on
his country's civil war, which to me was like the
highest compliment a person could pay to it. But anyway,
he I asked him about, you know, you're repping these colors.
Is there a movement? And he basically said it's nascent,
but you will see there has been little bits of
like street fighting against you know, communists and antifoot types
in some areas, and then also against the you know,
the migrant migrants swelling in Spain. And I've seen guys
with Carlist face masks, like it's the white mask with
the red cross on it, which is pretty bad ass.
So I don't know quite how to describe it. I
think it's people using the symbology more than anything else,
but like spiritually being motivated by it, which is the
most important thing. In my opinion, is that the feelings
in the spirit are more important than the ideas in
a lot of ways, especially in this kind of nascent
nascent time. I hope that answers the question.
Speaker 1: This a good question. Were there are Americans who fought
for the national side.
Speaker 2: Yes, very very few that we know about, and it's
kind of it's kind of tricky. So that's one of
the one of the themes in my novel is that
if you look at like most of what we know
in the English language about the Spanish Civil Wars from
a British perspective, right, there's Orwell who wrote about his
experience with the the UGT. He was with the u
GT right, which is a corny, a corney socialist movement,
but he was all on board on the destruction of
the churches and killing of priests and nuns. Like I
despise Orwell with a passion oh, I think nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: I think nineteen eighty four is is way overblown.
Speaker 2: Is a good book, it's exactly. I think it's something
that you read as a kid to understand the basics.
But his problem was was the fact that they were
coming after him and not just going with you know. Yeah,
it it's this like I I want my choose, choose
your own, choose your own communism, right, you know, it's
like he aligned with He didn't know what he was
talking about and what he was getting himself into and
who he was aligning himself with when he went into
that war. And he says it himself in homage to Catalonia.
So anyway, so we have his perspective, we now have
Peter Kemp's excellent perspective from mine Were of Trouble, which
is a great book. But the number one thing that
should jump out to everyone when they read this book,
and it's what jumped out to me, is that he
had the permission of British intelligence to be there, and
he became a British intelligence asset. When when you go
into a foreign war, if you are if people know
about it in your government before you go, you will
be having chats, you don't this isn't this brugged individualist crap.
He was briefed before he went by people with connections
to British intelligence who were operating for British intelligence, and
then he was being debriefed every time he went back
to England and when he was talking to English people
in business and government in England, he was an intelligence asset.
And then he went into the SOE in World War Two.
That's what my character does in this book. He's part
of this Anglo American group that was around uh Donovan,
Bill Donovan, operating in Spain and around the world. But
it's it was kind of a loose, loose, semi unofficial
intelligence organization. But Bill Donovan worked for the president, he
worked for FDR. And the joke is quote unquote despite
the differences in their political parties, because Donovan was a Republican,
it's laughable, you know in the current year when you
when you see that as a caveat so Anyway, the
the the long and the short of it is that
Americans who were over there volunteering. We know about some pilots,
and we know about a handful of people who are
in the in the legion and many of them became
very persecuted when they came back to the United States
unless they played ball and went to work for you know,
whatever the whatever the big game was going to be.
And so that's what my character does is through through
Bill Donovan because they when I was writing the story
I was reading, I knew that Bill Donovan had been
in and out of Spain at the tail end of
the war and was involved in a lot of the
negotiations with Franco's people, and then of course the British.
Here here's something I'll point out for people. The number
one foreign investment and ownership of interests in Spanish mining
and factories and everything was British and they had a
very close relationship for around two hundred years between Britain
and Spain, you know, including their you know, quote unquote
intervention against Napoleon. Like it goes back a very long time.
There's a chapel in London that is a Spanish chapel
that's been there since the mid seventeen hundreds for the
Spanish diet not diaspora, but really ruling class and people
doing business in Britain. They're intertwined. Their upper classes have
been intertwined for a very long time. I have characters
that demonstrate that, and it's very important to understand that
when you talk about the British negotiating with Franco and everything.
Franco was supplied trucks like thousands, ten thousand trucks and
fuel from American and British interests in who stopped supporting
the Republicans because they Everyone knew the Republicans were Bolsheviks,
was the common knowledge, and then it stopped being common knowledge,
you know, after nineteen forty five, Gollie. So the Americans
who were in this in this operation, you know, on
the nationalist side, generally, if they came back to the
United States, you know, our government knew about it, and
they were told this you're gonna play ball or you
got to get out of here. There was an Italian
American pilot who had fought for the Nationalists who the
was so agitated by the way that he was treated
by the American government. He was born in the United States,
but his parents were from Italy that he went back
to Italy and he fought for the Italians during World
War Two because they because he didn't want to play
ball with them, so that's there. Really weren't that many
that we knew about publicly, And my theory from what
I've been able to find is that that's how it
really worked out, as most of them ended. A bunch
of them would have died because they would have been
in the Spanish Legion, which who were shock troops, or
they would have plugged into the American system afterwards and
just not been talked about because you wouldn't have been
talking about that in the nineteen fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1: So just a couple of super chats. Shawan see over
on Entropy says, pray for Syria, absolutely screwed up. Rebellion
over on Rumble says blessed Lord's Day, Pete and Carl,
God bless and thank you for.
Speaker 2: Everything you do. See you two, thank you.
Speaker 1: Fren. Well, let's see what else we got here. Yeah,
someone had mentioned here that in the new Oppenheimer movie,
they they portrayed the Spanish Civil War as the current thing,
and everybody would on the side of the Republicans. All
the college ship, yes, were on the side of the Republican. Yeah,
no ship, Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: My my alma mater has a a monument to the
Spanish Civil War volunteers from from that university, and fortunately
a lot of them were killed.
Speaker 1: The all right, the okay, let's see next one. What's
the first official engagement conflict of the war from the
nationalist side.
Speaker 2: So that's it's hard because the the very the day
of the rising I think really counts. It wasn't because
there were battles all over the whole country, and sometimes
it was are they were able to play it off
where a handful of people were able to go in
and just like take control of a military base and
then they would hold the city Zaragosa, for example. We
never hear anything about that because that was a almost
one hundred percent nationalist city where there was very little fighting.
The libtards were dealt with very quickly. In Navarre, there
were they basically rounded up all the libtards. There was
a little bit of fighting. There's some images that you
can find if you look at Navar July nineteen thirty six,
images of some libtards who ended up getting stuck in
towers and stuff and were it took a little bit
of fighting to get rid of them, but it was
taken care of in about two days, and so it
was everywhere in the everywhere in the country during the
during the uprising, as far as like rolling battles that
happened after that is one of the big ones was
was within just a couple of days, the the NEvAr
Brigades and the Recite militias began marching south from Navarre
and and a lot of them were in Aragon also
to reinforce units in Oregon because of the CNT anarchists
who were were going off and the after securing Barcelona
and Catalonia in general and massacring people on their way,
the CNT militants drove north into Oregon because they were
trying to get to Zaragoza, which is an industrial city
that's way up there in a in a mountain plateau area,
very beautiful area by the way, and there was a
pretty some pretty gnarly battles to get through that where
they the Carlists absolutely crushed the anarchists up there and
then steamrolled south. And then they ended up smacking into
each other and creating lines that were fairly static after
not very long in that area, so and reinforcing along
those lines. One of the big things that you'll notice
is that whenever you look at a map of Spain,
you absolutely have to have topography turned on, and then
all the lines that you see makes sense because of
mountains and rivers and everything like that, especially the mountains.
I'm trying to think of other battles that were rolling battles,
but we talked a little bit the last time about Akoruna,
and that was kind of a rolling battle al so
with the local nationalist garrison against the libtards from the
start of the war. So there were there were lots
of pockets like that all over the country where there
would be a nationalist garrison or like they would hold
a city or a garrison and just hold.
Speaker 1: So screwed up Texas over here mentions that ye know
what happens every couple of years. Happened this week. Redditors
were freaking out because they found out that Tolkien supported
Franco and the nationalists.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, it was. It was a very common perspective,
and they the press didn't even have the moment have
a pro Republican momentum, and outside of you know, the
usual suspect controlled press, that that was entirely it. And
then they always say, where was this pivotal point? No,
Guernica was a propaganda like coup for for the libtards,
but that didn't change people's perspectives. It was just this
they had this data point, but it when in reality
it was just modern warfare, like look at look at
the way America prosecuted World War Two. You can't you
can't say that you're better than the Hrmacht in Spain
when you're when you're British or American, it's get out
of here.
Speaker 1: Mak sev Over on Rumble says I've read Fashion with
through Crusaders and gave a detailed review on Amazon five stars.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, thank you, glad you enjoyed it all right,
Thanks for the review. I want to emphasize that the
review authors live and die like like, visibility and interest
in our work lives and dies by these reviews. Thank
you for the review. If there's anyone else out there
who's bought and read my book and enjoyed it, your
review would be very much appreciated. You're not going to
get dogs because you read a book on a fictional
book and review it on Amazon, So thank you very much.
I appreciate that a lot.
Speaker 1: Who are degenerate society asked who are some of the
other popular any popular figures or famous people at the
time who supported the war or who were really bad
on the war. Oh, I mean I would assume a
lot would.
Speaker 2: Have been bad on the war. A lot would have
been bad. Yeah, if you really want to get as
as the girls say the ick, check out the people
who write glowing reviews about the Spanish Republicans and the
like Paul Robison, who is this black communist singer went
to went to Spain and would shuck and jive for
the for the Abraham Lincoln Brigades and all the and
the other groups, and like he sang a song in
Yiddish because because the the International Brigades were so heavily Jewish,
and he was again, uh, Paul Robison was absolutely a
creation of of Jewish propagandists also, So yeah, it's it's
really it's really yucky. But from what I've been able
to tell, Like, so, so when Stormy and you have
been talking a lot about the America first, like what
was going on behind it, what was leading up to
the you know, the the activities of America. First, some
of the kind of proactive attempts that that that they
were discussing and attempting to make and what I would
say is, and I can speak authoritatively for this, because
that was a very big deal in my family and
like my family history, was very much impacted by the
America First Movement. I have a grandfather, I'll just be
candid about it. I have. I had two grandfathers from
that generation, of course, and one of them his his
story is kind of told in a wink wink way
in my book where German surname, and he was named
after a neighbor kid who was killed in the very
first battle America participated in World War One. And he
was the only child of this Greek couple who lived
next to my great grandparents, and he was killed like
weeks before my grandfather was born. And they, of course,
having lost their only child, are just going insane. And
they begged and begged my great grandmother to name her
child after theirs if it was a boy. And it
was a boy, and so rather than getting the name
that he would have expected to get, they put his
father's name as his middle name, and then gave him
a Greek name that he as his Christian name that
he came to hate because it was very odd in
a like Nordic and German and English area, and it
was a very and at the time, like everyone had
the most Anglo version of what their name would be,
would be how it was pronounced, and the name that
you would go under. And so when he turned eighteen,
he changed his name to buy but he was respectful
enough that he switched it around to where he that
had the Greek middle name. Anyway, so he was a
little older because he was born in nineteen seventeen. And
as the war mania was being pushed in the press,
everyone's talking about it, and as we know from surveys
from the time, you know, eighty some percent up to
ninety percent of the country wanted nothing to do with
another war in Europe.
Speaker 1: And my.
Speaker 2: Great grandmother made her sons promise not to fall for
what she knew was going to happen, is that there
was going to be a war. And she made them promise,
you know, this is the right thing. Promised to me
that you will not join the military. And my grandfather
promised along with his brother. He was the only one
who kept that promise, and you know what, he ate
shit for the rest of his life because of it.
He was already a firefighter. He had been a firefighter
for some time, so he was exempt and from the
draft because it was necessary, you know, critical critical operations.
And he was about twenty five years old when the
war started. But he ate shit for the rest of
his life, like professionally and personally socially because of he
did what was the right thing and kept a promise,
because he knew that his you know, to the people
who wanted who wanted this war, the point was for
him to go kill his cousins, go kill Christians, and
he knew not to do that. So I take that
very seriously. And what I can say is there was
plenty if you look at America first material that was
out there, those newspapers, et cetera. Those were pro nationalists.
They were also pro let's not get involved, you know,
let's stay out of this war, because they also saw
it as a potential precursor and so they were very
much supporting the neutrality arrangement that America was a part of,
to where they were you know, selling trucks and fuel
to the nationalists but not providing weapons and not getting
involved in not sending personnel. And that was a very
popular perspective. In America, it was also seen as it
was It was also seen as just horrific modern war.
And everyone think of all the World War One veterans
in the United States. They talk. I had another grandfather,
My other grandfather joined the army in early nineteen forty
one because as a steel worker, he heard from all
the World War One vets around him, They're like, there's
going to be a war. Don't get drafted, but join early.
You'll have rank and you'll have real training. And so
that's what he did because he felt like it was inevitable.
He was in Appalachia. He's like, it's different, it's a
different mentality. So you know, we're going to we fight
the war. And so he he assumed, you know, well
that's what I do because I'm an American. So, yeah,
pardon my digression and problem.
Speaker 1: Robert Ready here says it right, Father Coughlin. Social Justice
Magazine was definitely pro Franco and pronoun very very.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Zman over here says Carl Dall smells like feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Inside joke from a group chat.
Speaker 1: You get a super chat over on Odyssey from the Geezer.
Thanks man, I don't Yeah. This is from the Geezer
over on odyssey, outside of a outside of official combatants
sent by government channels. Do you know what nations had
the largest contribution of foreign volunteers from to join the
nationalists side. I'm thinking would Romania be one?
Speaker 2: Possibly? Romania is up there. Romania. It had thousands of
members of the Iron Garden associated nationalist groups. In the
Spanish Legion, there were a lot of like we talked
about before, there were a lot of Portuguese because again
it was originally going to be an official detachment, but
because of all the all the nonsense and their own
internal struggles, they ended up just directing them straight to
straight into the the Foreign Legion from from unless they
had already joined like the Novar Brigades or something, which
many of them did because the because of the Carlos militias.
I'm trying to think, there were quite a few white
Russians in the in the Spanish legion also, and then
you have people from all over that. One of the
big big ones is that sometimes they refer to them
as Americans, but it was the the Latin American diaspora. Uh.
Colonials is the terminology is the people from the colonies
who went back when they would they would be generally
they were going into the Spanish Legion, although accepting Spanish
nationality was very easy for them. A lot of a
lot of them were Spanish citizens, but so that they
could end up in regular army units. But most of
the time all the colonials went into the Spanish Legion
if they weren't, if they still had their citizenship from
from Latin American countries. So there and there were absolutely
tens of thousands of those from what I'm able to
able to tell, there were there were I shouldn't say
tens of thousands, I should say there were possibly around
ten thousand volunteers with the Spanish Legion from the colonies.
And that actually predates the war. Even in like the
Riff War in the twenties in North Africa Morocco, there
were a lot of Spanish colonials.
Speaker 1: He came out as a super chat over An entropy
said thanks, he came out. The more I learned about
the history of the last two hundred years, the more
No Brothers Wars make sense despite the differences between European
descended peoples.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Let me get another question here, I think did you
just answer this. What was the Spanish speaking world's reactions
to the Civil War? I did Central America?
Speaker 2: You know it could Yeah, we didn't discuss that. It
came down to your political persuasion. If you look at
and we talked about this a little bit last time,
but Mexico, which was a basically a Bolshevik nation, deeply
linked to the Soviets, they immediately went in with the
Republican began sending arms. And so when you looked at
the rest of the of Latin America, you know, the
the conservatives and the you know, the the upper crusts
and everything would support would support the nationalists, but the
Libtards and all the various the various other groups absolutely
supported the republic.
Speaker 1: What do you have to say about Carl. What do
you have to say Carl about Hemingway during the war.
Speaker 2: I'm not a fan. I love as a writer and
as an American male when I was always happy to
read Hemingway in like high school because he had a
very simple but evocative writing style, and it was portrayed
as masculine, right. But the thing with Hemingway is that
he was he was an egomaniac and most likely a rapist,
just to throw out the R word there, and not
in the based way, but like he was a scumbag
that memes aside, rape is ungentlemanly, but he was also
he had mega cachet everywhere. But if it really came
down to it, here's an example illustrating his behavior. He
loved hanging out with Italian nobles in the nineteen fifties,
but he endorsed the slaughter of those same peoples in
the nineteen thirties in Spain. Why well, because that was
like the cool thing, and so he supported the cool thing,
which was the Republican cause, and he did a tremendous
amount of propaganda for them, total Bolshevik nonsense. But he
enjoyed the finer things in life. So when it came
to uh, like going doing bird hunting and stuff, you know,
he enjoyed the nice, you know, traditional European comforts of
doing the you know, mass mass bird hunts and hand
released bird shooting and everything like that. And he loved
hanging out and doing that, while at the same time
just unknowingly advocating or knowingly advocating for the destruction of
that way of life when it was the cool thing.
To do, so I despise Hemingway ultimately, and he would
you know, he wasn't. He wasn't. He wasn't as cool
as people say he was. And and I it's it's
very amusing because when you hear about a lot of
his tough guy stuff like wanting to box people and stuff,
it's my my understanding is a lot of that was
like him, like basically being like I'm going to beat
up like a little guy and tough guys shit like that,
which I despise.
Speaker 1: So so this week someone points it out that somebody
assassinating a CEO on the street is equivalent to the
Republicans and the anarchists and the communists, uh, murdering, murdering
nuns and priests. And yeah, you were quick to point
out that they weren't the only side that was doing
that in the Spanish Civil War. Can you give some
examples or to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, so, the the Carlists and the phalange, which
is the Spanish word for the phalanx of Someone had
a question about that on on X and so anyway,
they were killing people in the streets as well, and
they had been for a while. Uh, very early innovators
of the drive by shooting carlist youth militias in the
in the teens, they did a drive by on some anarchists,
which is, you know, pretty cool, but yeah, they're this
whole thing that like, like political violence is inherently leftist,
is an insane, insane, retarded gatekeeping perspective that it just
is inexplicably stupid and so so obviously enemy action. To me,
for someone to make that statement, I just I just
have nothing good to say about that.
Speaker 1: Bill Bike's over on Rumble says Franco was based when
I lived in Spain, only the Jays hated him. He
goes it was before I was jpilled.
Speaker 2: I one hundred percent believe that. And I will say
that a long time ago when I I I read
a lot about because I considered myself a libertarian, like
in the in the nineties and into some point in
the oughts, and so because of the word and you
know a lot of people saying, well, it's basically anarchy,
you know, anarcho capitalism type arguments and everything. I read
a lot of anarchist material, and most of the time
it was stuff written in the like sixties and seventies
by Americans talking about it, and and there would be
really strange biases like and this was before I grew
up around a lot of Jews, but I wasn't really
jpilled other than knowing that they were different, right, and
it it was really strange because they would always talk
about how Ba Cunan was an anti Semite and like
and and and a lot of it was this was
that the struggle in scapegoating around the loss of the
Spanish Civil War and the atrocities that were committed because
like you, you and Stormy were talking and I think
you both pointed out that like they just blamed each
other for the losses, the anarchists or the communists would
blame each other for the various atrocities when really they
were both committing them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the communists like digging up just just in turning,
dis entering the the nuns and stuff like that. It
was like, oh no, that was the anarchists. Oh no,
that was a communist. It's like, shut up, you both.
Speaker 2: Did the play. They both did it. Yeah, exactly so.
And the and they actually had internationals, a group of
Eastern European internationals. If you it doesn't take much thinking
to realize that that means Jews were involved in raping
and killing some some nuns in the Northern campaign and
the what what what happened to them? Well, they were
their whole unit was lined up and executed and left
in a left in a ravine, which is pretty merciful
if you think about it. So you know, I'm never
gonna apologize for anyone killing people like that lawfully, legally.
Knock on wood.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, let's see what were the size of the
forces boats We were roughly the size of each side
at the beginning of the war. Uh.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about this last time. I'm
gonna pull that document up real quickly. I should have
had it handy sure. Anyway, so that the best way
to just scribe the forces is that you have official
forces under arms out of the gate, and then you
have the militias that were extant, and then all the
people clamoring to join the side because of their various orientations.
So on the nationalist side they had the whole Spanish
legion and then also the Army of Africa, which was
the Moroccan basically local forces under Spanish Army command. Total
between the Army of Africa and which included the Spanish
legion was about thirty five thousand men. And then they
had about half of the Spanish Territorial Army, which is
about sixty thousand men, so that's you know, Iberian based forces.
And then they had just under half of spain Civil
Guards and Carbonaros which were in the which would put
it in the teens and twenties of thousands. Between those two,
I want to say, like collectively it would be around
twenty thousand ish. And then the Carlist recite militias had
thirty thousand men under arms at the time of the
uprising and then which grew to eighty five thousand by
the end of nineteen thirty six. The Falange had about
twenty thousand men in total at the time of the uprising,
but they weren't nearly as well armed. They had machine
guns and some machine guns and grenades and stuff like that,
but they weren't as like fully rounded out and equipped
and regulated as the as the Carlist Recaitees. The Republicans
so again used some of those same figures. You know,
about sixty thousand in the territorial army, a lot less
of the heavy weapons though from the nationalists, they had
about a third of the machine guns and artillery and
about half of the rifles. They had the assault almost
all of the assault guards, which was that subset of
the civil guards, which there weren't tons of them, there
were only like one or two thousand of them. But
they were like the republics. It's kind of like the FBI,
what would be a good way to describe them, kind
of like the the FBI slash FBI Hostage Rescue Team,
which is their little like urban assault unit. The workers
militias were huge because they came out of the organized
labor unions and so like the CNTFAI, for example, put
ten thousand armed men into Barcelona the day of the
rising that they're CNT had over a million people as members.
So when you read about the workers militias or uh,
the the people debating and the republic to to arm
the workers, they're talking about like literally millions of people
around the whole country in total. But they weren't trained
that they they didn't know what they were doing with
rifles most of the time. There were exceptions, of course.
Speaker 1: All right, let me see if there were something else
here to what extent Jim Bowden asked to what extent
as a Spanish civil war and extension of Trotsky's internationalism.
Speaker 2: So there there were Trotskyist or labeled as Trotskyist like
because because if you think about it, the the Soviet
Union label any of their allies who weren't going along
with the program as Trotskyists at that time, so they
would call anarchists, Strotskists and stuff like that. So it
would it would be like, you're an international you're you're
an international communist, but you're not with our program. Therefore
you're an enemy or a Trotskyist. So he was influential
with a lot of these groups, and he was he
was very influential, but not relevant other than as it
related to kind of the struggle for power because all
of the I think there were leaders among all the
different left factions who it didn't take them very long
to realize what was up. They always knew what they
were getting themselves into and the risk of Soviet domination,
and so that was always a running part of the
arguments and debates over who would have control over the
the Republic during the war. And so the the trotsky
isscs is Ists were definitely influential in terms of them knowing,
because I mean, the Soviet Union was a thing, like
everyone knew what the what the kind of the tale
of the Tape had been for the for the previous
couple of decades, so they they knew what was up
and what wasn't, what was in play.
Speaker 1: Okay, next question here, h you're saying what side did
the actual Spanish army fight for? Meaning if you were
in the actual army, what side were you fighting for?
Once the war started?
Speaker 2: It entirely depended upon the direction of your leadership and
the individual soldiers to to a lesser degree. So if
your unit said we're with the uprising, like, there seems
to have been very little, very little change in that
regard unless you wanted to get shot maybe or at
least arrested. So yeah, absolutely it came down to that.
There were places where there were it took a little
longer to settle settle that out, but in general it
was up to the officers and kind of the mood.
So here's an example of that. The the in the navy,
the naval officers uh and and the Spanish navy at
the time was very weak, It was very small. It
was not much better than a coastguard really, except they
had coastal guns, you know, they they had they had
they had some stuff, but they they were very much
depleted from from where they had been and the and
there weren't there weren't a lot of people who had
a lot of respect for the Spanish Navy at that
time in terms of like the quality of the leadership
and their mission and everything. A lot of it was
people getting sinecures and and just sucking money out of
the system. That's something that's really important to understand at
the time is that there were like the ratio of
officer to enlisted man in the Spanish Territorial military at
the time was one officer to seven enlisted men. If
you can believe that, this is people parasiting off the system.
So the quality of the territorial army was quite poor.
The Army of Africa and the Spanish Legion are totally different. Uh,
the Spanish Legion was absolutely like a real fighting force
and they were there. I would put them on par
with like the Rangers and the special Forces, depending like
with the caveat that Like the United States special Forces
are technically a a training and like, uh, you know,
like force magnification effort, whereas the rangers are just peer
light infantry. They were more like peer light infantry and
shock troops than anything else, and they were serious. But
the Spanish Navy was so corrupt and sodden and sodded.
I should say that the the enlisted men, who were
mostly socialists, because it was you know, where where are
where are navy navy units and navy forces and navy
bases and where does everyone live? They live in port
cities where the port cities in Spain were almost were
extremely socialist and anarchists at the time. That was the
spirit of the age. And so it didn't take very
much from the enlisted men to take over the naval vessels.
They couldn't really crew them and lead them though, because
they weren't competent leaders and officers, and they had no
idea what they were doing. So they had the forces,
but there was they were useless like so they they
performed very, very, very poorly. There were some naval vessels
that were the officers sided with the uprising that stayed
under their command, who were who performed much better because
they were serious people. So I hope that answers the question.
Speaker 1: I got a comment here from just A carp Over
on Rumble. He says, Carl, I like your first book,
looking forward to the second. Don't you have two books out?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah. So my first book is Faction, and it's
where I get this icon that's Doug Shay, which is
Joseph Shea's grandson. Joseph Shea is the fellow who goes
into the Spanish Civil War and gets involved in the
espionage business. Related to that, one of the running jokes
is that, so you know who Matt Bracken is, right, Pete,
have you Okay? So I was actually heavily inspired in
my first book by Matt Bracken's style of writing, where
I have a I have more of like a literary
writing background. But what I like about his of is
that he can write a novel that is kind of
like a guide or a mini manual to certain kinds
of scenarios. So I wrote my first book Faction kind
of in that style where they they have this it's
a it's a faction that of related to the intelligence
organizations and unofficial intelligence organizations associated with with US government
and private private industry basically cut out companies to to
do things, whether it's logistics or training or whatever around
the world based on the mission, and the guys who've
made their bones can kind of pick and choose a
little more which groups they want to side with that
as long as it comports with US foreign policy, and
so they they end up having a clash domestically be
because of these competing interests in the in the nineties
in the US and Canada, and so a lot of
people have made comments about how that relates to the
the the street Pew pew of that CEO, because a
lot of he follows. He followed almost exactly scenarios laid
out in my first book, which I disavow theoretically.
Speaker 1: Got a question over here from Panda Daddy twenty three
Hypet and Carl. Did Portugal play a significant part in
the war?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That the biggest thing for Portugal is they served
in the very early days of the war as that
they they allowed material to flow through their ports. So
the Italians came in largely through Portugal, and and a
lot of German and Italian weapons and ammunition and equipment
flowed through Portugal. Uh, and it made it easy for
the army marching north. You'll notice that they stayed they
basically wanted to. They secured the border with Portugal very quickly,
and then that allowed those the material to flow through
to the Carlists militias and the Novar brigades in the
north and equipment to go wherever they wanted to. And
the Italians had massive, massive operations very early in the war,
ground operations up in the Northern campaign. The the Condor
Legion had a lot of aerial campaigns in the North
and the observers and stuff, but they weren't doing as
much on the ground in the Northern campaign. They did later,
but the Italians almost immediately we're we're operating up there,
and that was hugely made possible by Portugal. So Portugal,
good friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a this is a good question. Oh
there's one more. I think there was a comment over
here Maksiev who said to let you know that he
did his review under the name Clayton Barnett. Uh. He says,
your style of writing present tense is a bit jarring.
Speaker 2: Based. No. I know that I know that it's it's
but it's something that I've done and the reason that
I settled on it a long time ago is that
when you're writing action, it has an urgency to it
that when it's it, when other things are playing out
and you're telling a story in in present tense that
isn't like immediately action oriented it it can it can
be a struggle because you have to be very conscientious
of not commingling tenses, because there's a bunch of there's
numerous present tenses that can you can end up tripping over.
But I always found that when I would write, like
an action scene or something and people read it, if
I did a past tense and a present tense versus version,
people would say that the present tense version was much
more immediate. And so that's what I've and exciting. So
that's what I've stuck with. And if it if it's
just my thing, it will be my thing, and maybe
it'll be something that will stand out.
Speaker 1: Do you know if Commandant Muscardo or any of the
survivors of the Alcazar I've ever written memoirs.
Speaker 2: So there were interviews with Muscardo. I don't know anything
about memoirs, but I know that there were interviews with
him that you can find that were in Spanish and
and are written, and so there's some material related to that,
but I don't believe that he I'm not aware of
him having written anything himself. But there are interviews out there,
and that was you know, for decades under bless You,
under Franco, for decades that they were still held as
the heroes that they were.
Speaker 1: Let's end on this one. Did Franco ever write or
do interview giving an apology for the war and everything
that happened afterwards?
Speaker 2: Apology? No?
Speaker 1: He there are when I say what when I say apology.
Speaker 2: You mean.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: I realized that after after I said that, So there
are there are interviews with him, but he was very private.
He didn't give a lot of interviews. And but there
are people that have written memoirs. If you read is
It Payne's book on Franco, they talk a lot about that,
that kind of stuff. There's a couple of good Franco books,
not Preston, Paul Preston is a scumbag and frankly you
just make ship up. But that there's quite a few,
quite a few books books where they talk a little
bit about Franco. But he was very private. He didn't,
he never, he never. He's not known for being very verbose,
and you know, wanting people to center upon his thoughts
and his ideas on things. He was very straightforward guy
and pretty private and went to church every single day
and basically wanted wanted things to just to run out
the clock and but while also getting people, you know,
getting the country back on its feet. And so mostly
he talked about the nation and the health of the
nation and the state of the nation. He didn't talk
about himself very much.
Speaker 1: Maxif, says Christopher Buckley, equipped that Franco wanted to sit
on the twentieth century until it went away. Based All right, man,
I'll gonna end this right now. Thank everybody for tuning in.
Be back next week with a normal kind of the
normal livestream interaction. But Carl, please tell everybody where they
can find your work and I'll make sure to include
all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Great, thank you, Carldall dot substack dot com. That's Carl
with A K K A R L D A h
L dot substack dot com. I also have two books
under the name author's named Carl Dahl on Amazon, Faction
and Faction with the Crusaders. Faction with the Crusaders is
the Spanish Civil War story and I'm on Twitter, which
I hate or x or whatever we call it. I'm
not the biggest fan of the platform and stuff, but
there's great people to interact with their so so that's
that's why I'm still there. So thank you very much,
appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you