"In the general interest of peace" - British international lawyers and the Spanish civil war

The first section of this study examines the establishment of the international non-intervention agreement and of the London Committee and their combined neutralizing effect on the League of Nations in the light of a series of underlying factors, including the European powers´ leaning towards neutrality in the late interwar period. The second section reviews the core issues and different doctrinal positions present in the international legal debates triggered by the Spanish Civil War. It pays particular attention to the contributions of the first two British judges at the International Court of Justice, A. D. McNair (1946-1955) and H. Lauterpacht (1955-1960) to these debates. Their writings can be seen as respectively representative of the two stages through which British international lawyers went in the international legal debates on the Spanish Civil War. Upto early 1938, British International lawyers adopted a characteristically apologetic approach to the policy undertaken by the British Government on the advice of the British Foreign Office. The second stage, from early 1938 to the end of the Spanish Civil War in March 1939, was in turn informed by a “practitioner´s approach” to the analysis of the domestic cases brought before the British courts as a result of the hostilities. The article concludes with a brief analysis of the case for British “benevolent neutrality to the Nationalists”26 in the Spanish Civil War, reviewing the underlying motives which historians have highlighted as lurking behind the British-led non-intervention policy in the Spanish Civil War

War and Economics: Spanish Civil War Finances Revisited

This paper reviews how the Spanish civil war was financed. We present new evidence to show that the two combatant parties, the Republican government and the Franco administration followed similar financial strategies. In both cases money creation, rather than new taxes or the issue of debt, was the main mechanism used to cover the expenses of the war. We argue, contrary to the established knowledge, that both sides consumed a similar amount of domestic and foreign resources. We also argue that the Spanish Republic did not lose the war because of a lack of means. International factors, such as the Non-Intervention agreement promoted by France and Great Britain, and the military setbacks of the Republican army during the first year of the war, were decisive for Franco’s victory in 1939.Spain, civil war, financial resources

One Peninsula, Many Spains: An Inquiry on Memory, Historiography, and the Legacy of The Spanish Civil War from 1930 to the Present

In this essay, I analyze the events of the Spanish Civil War and their ramifications through the lens of cultural memory and historiography. I argue that ideas of memory are crucial to how societies and individuals understand history and that the Spanish Civil War had a tremendous impact on the Spanish people and significantly affected the memory not only of witnesses of the conflict, but to their descendants. This essay utilizes primary and secondary sources to understand the function of memory and varied responses to the Spanish Civil War. The essay begins with a brief historical overview of the conflict and then analyzes various memoirs created by participants and witnesses to the Spanish Civil War. Afterwards, an examination of a variety of cultural productions that reflect on the conflict both during and after the war are scrutinized through the lens of cultural memory and historiography. Finally, a conclusion on how the tensions between memory occur in contemporary Spain and some ideas are presented on how to improve Spanish Civil War historiography and how to address the controversies that arise out of a plurality of understandings of the Spanish Civil War are discussed

The Importance of Morocco in the Spanish Civil War

This paper addresses the pivotal yet forgotten role that Morocco played in the Spanish Civil War. Other histories and analyses of the Civil War limit discussion to the Spanish side of the conflict without recognizing the colonialist holdings that Spain had and the ways that those lands and people impacted the war. This leads to an incomplete history that denies the Civil War its full historical context and the foundational context for the Nationalist side of the conflict. This paper analyzes the war as well as the ideological creations behind Spanish Fascism and the ways in which Morocco was tied to the creation of the Spanish Civil War, how it was important to the fighting of the conflict, and how it was pivotal to the war\u27s eventual outcome. This will be argued by looking at the racist and eurocentric views of the Spanish Republic and how those views lead directly to its failure in the Civil War. This article will analyze first hand accounts of people directly involved in the war and the factors that led to the involvement of Moroccans on the Nationalist side

“To Follow the Bright Star”: American Involvement in the Spanish Civil War and the Shaping of the U.S. Popular Front, 1937-1938

This thesis explores how American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War worked to create a unified Popular Front, a coalition of left-leaning political groups, in the United States in the late 1930s. Between 1937 and 1938, approximately 2800 Americans volunteered in the Spanish Republican Army to defend the Spanish Republic in the civil war that followed General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist coup. At the start of the war, Germany, Portugal, and Italy declared support for the insurgents and turned an isolated civil war into an international conflict centered around fascism. While the United States established a policy of non-intervention, the Soviet Union and International Communist Party officially supported the Spanish Republicans. Because of this, American involvement in the Spanish Civil War was largely coordinated by the International Communist Party and the Soviet Union. This, coupled with the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States following World War II, has created the tendency to equate American volunteers in Spain with an arm of the Soviet Union. Examining their correspondence during the Spanish Civil War, however, reveals a diversity of political motivations for volunteering in Spain. This thesis argues that volunteers minimized political differences within the Popular Front in order to appeal to moderates back in the United States and persuade the U.S. government to end its position of neutrality. United States volunteers intentionally unified the American Left during the Spanish Civil War in response to the threat of fascism, a threat that volunteers believed included domestic concerns regarding race, ethnicity, and class oppression

From the Reich to the Republic: The Spanish Civil War and the German Antifascist Movement, 1936-1939

Archival research for this thesis was made possible by generous grants from the Ohio State University Honors College and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).The Spanish Civil War, though one of the most brutal modern conflicts and the first truly internationalized civil war of its scale, is typically seen as an aside to the Second World War. However, the war had important implications on German domestic politics. This work examines a lesser-told side of German involvement in the Spanish Civil War. While the existing literature tends to focus on the German government’s role in the war, the intersection of the two countries’ antifascist resistance efforts raises interesting questions in its own right. Rather than examining the role that German antifascists played in the Spanish Civil War, this thesis discusses the role that the war played on German antifascism. In doing so, it aims to build upon the literature on the German left in the Spanish Civil War. More broadly, this work provides a nuanced alternative to the literature on German antifascism during the period of National Socialism that includes both the top and bottom of the political hierarchy.No embargoAcademic Major: GermanAcademic Major: Histor

Anarchism, communism and hispanidad: Australian Spanish migrants and the Civil War

Despite thorough analysis of the Civil War, its impact on Spain's emigrant communities remains largely unstudied. The article focuses on the Australian Spanish community to demonstrate that migrants experienced a two-fold response. They were galvanised to oppose Anglo-Australian control of the Solidarity campaign, and attempted to create an alternative public discourse. Secondly, the Civil War prompted the community to reassess their relationship to politics, dividing local Spaniards according to radical ideologies, as they debated how best to achieve socialist goals in both Spain and Australia

Major Hugh Pollard, MI6 and the Spanish Civil War

The recently released Special Operations Executive (SOE) personal file of Major Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard (HS 9/1200/5) sheds new light on the man who helped fly General Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the democratically elected republican government and thirty-six years of brutal dictatorship. Contrary to the previous portrayal of Pollard, a genial, rough-and-ready gung-ho ‘adventurer’ who flew the future Caudillo to Morocco on a whim, the files reveal Pollard to have been an experienced British intelligence officer, talented linguist, and firearms expert with considerable firsthand experience of wars and revolutions in Mexico, Morocco, and Ireland, where he had served as a police adviser in Dublin Castle during the ‘stormy days’ of the Black and Tans in the early 1920s. Pollard, who listed his hobbies in Who's Who as ‘hunting and shooting’, was the sporting editor of Country Life and a member of Lord Leconfield's hunt. He was also a renowned and passionate firearms expert having written numerous books on the subject including the section on ‘small arms’ for the official war office textbook. His friend Douglas Jerrold, who himself later served in British intelligence, recalled that Pollard ‘looked and behaved, like a German Crown Prince and had a habit of letting off revolvers in any office he happened to visit’. Once Jerrold plucked up the courage to ask Pollard if he had ever killed anybody

Book review: memories of the Spanish Civil War: conflict and community in rural Spain by Ruth Sanz Sabido

In Memories of the Spanish Civil War: Conflict and Community in Rural Spain, Ruth Sanz Sabido recovers the testimonies of survivors of the Spanish Civil War and the early years of General Franco’s dictatorship from one village in Huelva province in Andalusia. This is a compelling and powerful ethnographic study that gives voice to hitherto silenced experiences of Spanish fascism, writes Jeff Roquen

Forced Labour in Franco's Spain: Workforce Supply, Profits and Productivity

This article analyses the forced labour system created in Spain during the Civil War and maintained during the Francoist dictatorship, paying special attention to the economic logic that led the state and private enterprises to draw a profit from this kind of punishment. In order to deal with this question in depth my research has been focused on three main aspects: the workforce supply in a war economy and in a context of reconstruction, the margins of profit produced by this kind of labour in comparison with free labour, and the problems related to productivity levels. Through consideration of these questions I present an overview of the main research in the subject and make suggestions for new goals in Spanish economic history concerned with this kind of repressive practice, bringing it into line with international historiography on the forced labour economy.forced labour, war economy, Spanish Civil War, Franco’s Dictatorship, prison economy