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That's the Explorers Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War, Episode 40, the Spanish Civil War Part 5, the attack on Madrid.

After the failure of the coup, the nationalists knew that they had to start making progress

if they wanted to ensure that they were capable of carrying the war forward.

They needed to expand the territory under their control for political, military, and economic reasons,

but also for diplomatic and propaganda reasons as well.

There were many paths that they could take if they wanted to at this juncture.

There was a lot of Republican territory that could be targeted.

The Republic was still in control of an enclave that stretched along the northern coast of Spain

and almost the entire eastern and southern areas of the Iberian Peninsula.

The first order of business for the nationalist was to join the large mass of nationalist

territory in the northwestern parts of Spain with those areas of the south, where the army

of Africa would be advancing out of, after they made it across the straits from Africa.

After these two pieces of territory were joined together, the next target was somewhat obvious.

Madrid.

Madrid was the capital of Spain, and with its location in the center of the peninsula,

it was within striking distance of a nationalist advance.

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