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Music Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War, episode 43, the Spanish Civil

War part eight, the war in the north. This week, a big thank you goes out to Jacqueline for the donation and to MJ for their

support on Patreon, where they now get access to special ad-free versions of all of the podcast

episodes, plus special patron-only episodes released once a month.

If that sounds interesting to you, head on over to History of the Second World War.com

slash members to find out more information.

After the failure of the attack on Madrid, the decision was made to shift nationalist resources

to another area of the front. One option, and the one chosen, was an attack against the Republican

northern enclave. This area had remained under Republican control on the northern coast of Spain and was

about 300 kilometers across, but was only about 35 kilometers deep. They contained most of the

modern Spanish provinces of Vizcaya, Cantabria, and the eastern half of Asturias. However, within

the reasonably small space, there were 1.5 million people and about eastern half of Asturias. However, within the reasonably small space, there were 1.5 million

people in about a third of Spanish industrial capacity. During 1936, nationalist forces had captured

the coast near the French border, which cut the northern enclave off from receiving supplies

from France, which meant that everything had to be brought in

...