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 pace 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. Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Vast treasure flowing in goes largely to the rest of
the continent, other than the cut that like the Merchant
Guild and you know, the Royal family get. So I'll
let you follow up with specific numbers that put that
into perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have some statistics here. In fifteen twenty twenty three,
years before the Merchant Guild was founded. In fifteen forty three,
the total silver export of Spanish America was valued at
around five hundred thousand paesos, 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 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 a very brutal war. But what that did
was it gave all these little factions combat experience, and
so as they assert themselves, it's very easy for them
to go to 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 Azagna
who said in the very early days that you know,
not one of those people is worth the life of
a single Republican.
Speaker 1: The Republic imposes de jeri social revolution, nationalizing church properties,
banning religious instruction and public processions, and instituting land seizures.
In nineteen thirty two, there's some 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 faililled 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 organizations, and that's because the electoral party
like they saw the failure of.
Speaker 2: 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 the.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, yeah, masked, but what ares.
Speaker 2: So Himaeists were the They were just the royalists who
supported the old king, King Alfonso the thirteenth in his line,
which was like King Jaime. So they were called 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: Yeah, July thirteenth. Something else happened on July.
Speaker 2: Yes, interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you know it's funny, is if you go back,
if you look at September eleventh in history, it's remarkable
how many things 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: Falangay units begin assassinating prominent assault guards. A large portion
of army officers coordinating in secret for many years rebel
across the country in the Canaries and Spanish Morocco, working
with Carlist 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 an alliance and the relatively few leftist political
agitators are immediately squashed Pew Pew. One odd case is
that of Oviedo, 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 the they
secured the arsenals there, they immediately begin manufacturing like next
gen iterations of small arms for the for the nationalist
army as soon as they get relieved.
Speaker 1: The rising is successful in the most conservative parts of
Spain and in military strongholds, but is squashed in street
fighting and leftist strongholds such as Barcelona, Sanzather, 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 Pete,
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
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.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, no, it's uh, I mean, really books
in English were only written from the from the Republican
side for exactly 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 cab 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 Rikatze 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 fre 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 the fai anarchists said,
this doesn't work. We have to actually plan. So they
were one of the few, like actually organized groups, and
they were critical to the success of everything that the
loyalist republic Republican troops and police and stuff around Madrid
because again, if you'll remember, they sent Mola like out
into Navarre. They they made sure that only libtards were
around Madrid is whenever they could, so that the right
wing rising just completely failed in a bunch of areas
because the republic had been preparing for this. So when
the leftists, you know, needed to come out into the street,
they were just not ready and they were not trained
or anything like that.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go the march on Madrid July
twenty one, nineteen thirty six to March nineteen thirty seven,
the rebel army 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. Yes, yes, yes, yes, they had their own.
Speaker 2: 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?
Speaker 1: Is it the.
Speaker 2: TP twenty eight light machine guns, the the pan fed ones.
I know I'm getting those. It's DASH twenty eight whatever
it is. So there's actually a fair amount of like sophisticated,
brand new stuff, and they start also bringing anti tank
guns over but that but again, like they took every
bit of their gold and silver reserves that were left,
like three quarters of it, and they were 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 begin to be integrated into the
Republican Army command structure, which is primarily controlled by the communists.
Communists red stars are incorporated into the rank insignia, and
political commissars were installed at the company level and up.
Speaker 2: Which also means that the 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: 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 Bivore 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.
Speaker 2: Madrid, 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. Lusi In,
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.
Speaker 1: Hail Victory. Help until part two. Help. 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
offensives 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.
Speaker 2: Rakeetis yeah, small small point there is that the kind
of uh, the kind of retrospective Basque nationalist position is
that you know, oh, they were so put upon by
Franco and actually, uh, 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 aheya
goicoijeya good job? Who Yeah, well you put the pronunciation there.
Speaker 2: Who have to.
Speaker 1: 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 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. Yeah.
Speaker 2: 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 say 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. Man. 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, because.
Speaker 2: 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 you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: 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. Yep,
that's that. 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 fements 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
habetfo 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
Paxing 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 ah, 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.
Speaker 1: Thanks Pete, all right man, thank you having good evening.
Speaker 2: Thanks you too,