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University of Nevada, Reno The Spanish Civil War: The Effect of the Airlift from Spanish Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs, Spanish, and the Honors Program by Hannah Patricia McMahon Dr. Wifredo de Rafols, Ph.D., Thesis Advisor May, 2015 ii UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA THE HONORS PROGRAM RENO We recommend that the thesis prepared under our supervision by Hannah Patricia McMahon entitled The Spanish Civil War: The Effect of the Airlift from Spanish Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND SPANISH ______________________________________________ Wifredo de Rafols, Ph.D., Thesis Advisor ______________________________________________ Tamara Valentine, Ph. D., Director, Honors Program May, 2015 iii iii Table of Contents Title Page……………………………………………………………….i Signature Page…………………………………………………………ii Table of Contents……………………………………………………...iii List of Figures…………………………………………………………iv Key players and Phrases………………………………………………v Timeline………………………………………………………………vi Acknowledgements…………………………………………………..vii Introduction……………………………………………………………1 History of the Moroccan Conflicts…………………………………….3 The Troops at Home……………………………..................................5 The Beginnings of the Coup……………………………......................6 Foreign Relations with Hitler and Mussolini………………………….8 The Uprising in Morocco ……………………………..........................11 The Transport of the Troops……………………………......................15 The Battles of Southern Spain….……………………………..............17 Seville…………………………………………………………18 Badajoz……………………………………………………….19 The Path to Madrid……………………………...................................23 Outcomes of the War……………………………...............................24 Conclusion……………………………...............................................25 Works Cited…………………………….............................................29 iv List of Figures Map of the Airlift (Fig. 1)……………………………………………..14 Map of the Movements of the Army of Africa (Fig. 2)……………...21 v Key Players and Phrases Nationalists: Members of the party of opposition against the Republic also referred to as Fascists, Francoists, Falangists, and Rebels. Republicans: Members of the party who stayed loyal to the Republic and its liberal counterparts including Socialists, Anarchists, Communists. Bandera: A self-contained battalion of 600 men, including maintenance units and mobile artillery. Junker 52s: Transport planes issued to Franco to relocate the Army of Africa to the mainland. Savoia 81s: Bomber planes issued by Mussolini to aid the Nationalists. Breguet 1: Airplanes given by Mussolini that were used in the initial airlift. General Sanjurjo: General who established initial contacts with Hitler and Mussolini and could have been the next head of State if not for his untimely demise. General Mola: An initial conspirator and influential commander who was unable to establish connections with Hitler and Mussolini due to his unfavorable position on the mainland. General Franco: Eventual leader of the rebellion, decorated war hero, and commander of the Army of Africa. General Queipo de Llano: Known for his controversial conquest of the town of Seville and his actions in the conspiracy against the Republic. vi Timeline • July 17th 1936: Initial uprising in Spanish Morocco in Ceuta and Melilla • July 19th 1936: Franco arrives in Spanish Morocco and is appointed commander of Army of Africa • July 19th-21st: Franco sends emissaries to Italy in bid for support. Mussolini sends three Breguet 1 airplanes to transport troops to Seville • July 19th: Battle of Seville • July 29th-August 5th: Critical period for troops of Army of Africa being transported from Spanish Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula • August 14th: Beginning of the assault on Badajoz and eventual triumph • November 1936: Colonel Yagüe insists that Madrid will fall, but is instead replaced by Gen. Varela who eventually loses in Madrid • November 1936: Italy and Germany recognize Franco as official head of state despite Franco‟s loss in Madrid • March 1939: Madrid surrenders the capital to Franco‟s forces • April 1939: The Republican forces surrender unconditionally to the Francoists. vii Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank my mentor Wifredo de Ràfols for always taking time to meet with me and guide me in this thesis. His knowledge and ability to inspire is second to none and he is the reason I endeavored to complete this thesis. I appreciate the Honors Program at the University of Nevada, Reno for giving me the opportunity to research this subject. In addition, much gratitude goes out to my friends and family for putting up with my craziness throughout this process. viii Abstract The Spanish Civil War has been exhaustively researched. However, historians have failed to attribute the longevity and outcome of the war to a decisive factor: the air and sea transport of the Army of Africa from Spanish Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula. This thesis asserts that that transport would have been impossible without the material assistance Hitler and Mussolini provided Franco, and that without that assistance what became a three-year civil war would have been reduced to a failed coup d‟état lasting perhaps three months. To arrive at that conclusion, this work examines—among other issues—connections between the Spanish conspiring generals and the German and Italian governments before the coup; the Army of Africa as a fighting force, compared with the inexperience of soldiers on the mainland; the nature of the airlift and the sealift of the troops; and the effects of the invasion of the Army of Africa on the mainland. In sum, without German and Italian assistance at the outbreak of the war, the coup would have been contained in Spanish Morocco and in a few cities on the mainland, and would have soon failed. 1 Introduction The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) attracted global attention not merely because of its renowned bloodiness and because of Spain‟s strategic location in the Mediterranean, but also because of the nature of the conflict itself, which pitted two controversial political ideologies, fascism and communism, against each other, at a time when both had begun to exert increasing influence in Europe. The ticking time bomb that was the political culture of Spain would eventually explode into a bloody civil war. While many countries lent support to Fascist and nationalist parties in the conflict, two of them played crucial roles: Germany and Italy. The question is whether Hitler and Mussolini‟s direct assistance in the transport of the Spanish Army of Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Iberian Peninsula made possible what turned out to be the decisive event of the war, insofar as the promise and delivery of that assistance promoted the feasibility and success of the coup d‟état and insofar as the assistance itself led to the prolongation of the conflict and to determining its eventual outcome. The Spanish Civil War was a prelude to World War II. Although territorially limited to Spain, ideologically and politically it encompassed Europe and America, embroiling in it the same powers that would declare war in the European theater only five months after the Spanish war ended. In that sense, the Spanish Civil War was sufficiently similar to WWII that, save for a five-month hiatus, WWII can be thought of as having begun, at least ideologically and politically, in Spain on July 17, 1936, with the initial acts of rebellion planned and executed by the Nationalists. Indeed, it might well have begun territorially there also, had nations like Canada, France, Hungary, Poland, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslavia intervened in the same manner Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union did—rather than limiting their intervention to sending brigades of armed volunteers. This hesitancy to intervene was a direct 2 result of the desire of Britain and France to prevent outside forces, including Germany and Italy, from becoming involved in the conflict (Podmore 9). By introducing the Non-Intervention Pact, both France and Britain hoped to steer the focus to the Soviet Union in an effort to claim that Soviet rather than Fascist aggression was the real danger in Spain (Podmore 10). While the Spanish Civil War lasted nearly three years, it embodied the culmination of many years of brewing discord, essentially, between landowners and workers. The need for land reform was an issue that came up repeatedly and yet was never addressed. The political system was stuck on an ever-turning wheel of promises of reform and then a lack of follow-through by elected officials. There was a general fear among elites that workers would rise up and overthrow the government. The issues of land reform coupled with a broken tax system that allowed