By 1938, it was clear that the nationalists and their fascist allies had the upper hand in the Spanish Civil War.

The Republican side's last hope was that Western opposition to Nazi Germany would one day translate into aid for their cause.

Then came the Munich Agreement.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century.

... Episode 311 We We shall not forget you.

I want to return to the war in Spain today. When we last looked at Spain in episode 299,

I talked about developments through the end of 1937. I want to pick up from there today,

but before we move forward with the narrative of the war, I want to consider political developments on both sides of the front lines during 1937. When the Civil War began, on the National side they had an army but not a government,

and on the Republican side, they had a government, but not an army.

We saw in episode 299 how, as commander of the units from Morocco, the best in the Spanish army,

Francisco Franco had been a prominent leader from the beginning. Since then, and especially after the deaths of some of the

other high-ranking military leaders on the nationalist side, Francisco Franco remained as the

obvious choice to be overall commander of the nationalists.

But Franco was a soldier, not a politician.

The generals had declared martial law within the area of Spain they controlled,

which meant that civilian political activity was more or less banned. Political parties which

opposed to the military were explicitly banned by military decree, as were labor unions, which left two

main civilian political parties who were supporting the General's War against the Republic,

the Carlists and the Falange.

I've talked about the Carlist movement before. It dates back to a rather obscure 19th century

disagreement over the royal succession. The Carlists represented the more conservative

...