The Pete Quiñones Show - An Overview of the Spanish Civil War w/ Karl Dahl - Complete

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

2 Hours and 38 MinutesPG-13Karl Dahl is an author specializing in the Spanish Civil War and historical "fiction."Karl and Pete did a brief series that provides a summary of the events leading up to, during, and following the Spanish Civil War.Faction: With the CrusadersKarl's SubstackKarl's MerchPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pete Cagnonez show. Carl Dahl is back. How you done, Carl. Doing great Pete. Hail victory. Hail victory.

We're doing this. about 12 hours after we found out that Donald Trump is going to be the 47th president of the United States. And yeah, I literally just woke up a little while ago. And I don't think you've slept at all. I'm exhausted, but it's good. Caffeine and a nice cocktail will keep me moving. Great. All right.

Well, the episodes we've done on the Spanish Civil War before are going to be a little different than this one, because in this, and this is going to take more than one episode, we are going to go through the causes, the lead-up, the war itself, and the aftermath, and we're going to do it all following an outline. So I think this is something we can put together and will be a nice resource for people so that they can get a history on it,

be able to tell people about an event that happened last century that is basically 98% of the people who talk about it or lying about it. Yeah. And you know what just popped into my mind, Pete? Hyperlink. So we can make it a hyperlink document and we can just link to all kinds of sources that are all online because one of the key points is it's a very high-level treatment. It's bullet points. Any bullet point, there are scholars who've devoted their lives to individual bullet points to explain them. So we're going to go super high level.

I really recommend the shows that Pete has done with Paul Fahrenheit talking about, you know, Spanish Empire and all that. That's the level of deep dive you need to really understand. But we hope that this at least gets people started in comprehending kind of the, the scale of the scenario that we're talking about here, which is the history of Spain, how it led, you know, how that led to the Spanish Civil War, um, et cetera. So, all right. So I'm going to start going through the document. Um, I'll just start, you have a nice preface here. And then, um, I'll start reading and you stop me when, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm sure I'll know the natural place to stop because I've read through this. Yeah.

And, yeah, we'll let you comment on it. All right. Awesome. This is the preface. What follows is the highest level of distillation of detail possible for such a presentation. Almost every bullet point below could easily drive a lifetime of study. English language material in the Spanish Civil War proper is very much lacking estimate. There are less than 100 books in the subject.

Most of them obscure or focused upon a narrow subject. Almost all are long out of print. quote-unquote Republicans rule the roost of the Spanish Academy and the vast literature of the nationalist cries out to be translated. Starting. Causes and conditions of the Spanish Civil War. The causes and conditions which led to the Spanish Civil War, to understand them, we must know that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities and the rise of the sons of Arias, there was an age undreamed of when shining kingdoms lay spread

across the world like blue mantles beneath the sea. Did a poet write this? Robert E. Howard. All right. First bullet point. Social conditions relating to settlement patterns predating the reconquista. Broadly tradition in northern Spain meant pre-medieval rights and privileges codified for all social classes per the old foetus in southern Spain.

The landless peasants saw little change in their circumstances. stances under the Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, and Spanish. Many parts of Spain, particularly Andalusia, maintain large, persistent bandit outlaw cultures developed during the reconquista, which never went away. This tendency fused with the radical ideologies of the 19th century. Yeah, that's actually a really important point because, and think of this when you think about the kind of outlaw cultures that have developed in America when you're thinking about our own situation, all of those little outlaw cultures, whether it's drug culture,

hippie culture, you know, sub-ethnic groups, etc. When things come in that are like ideological and lend a like intellectual bent to this like already radical and violent subculture, it gives it like legitimacy and also in that culture then has a lot of influence and cachet with like the middle class who and you know upper class and scholarly types and etc for whom those ideologies resonate so that drives like real radicalization and then you mix yeah and then when you have that kind of and i think we've talked about this before how what are spain's main problems is that it was always sort of decentralized with all the different provinces and they could be autonomous. And then you introduce a radical ideology in the 19th century. And that's when you're

basically throwing a match into a, you know, throwing a match into a powder kick. Absolutely. All right. Next bullet point. The lack of investment in and development of Spain during the empire. comparison English colonial model as seen in the Americas ignores India surplus population flows to the colonies to conquer and settle raw materials flowed from the colonies to the homeland finished products from the homeland flowed to the colonies and trading partners Spanish colonial model exploration conquest and settlement of territory with small populations of chartered foreigners i.e. the Genuine Columbus or elite, primarily Castilian Spanish nobles following the same pattern as the Spanish reconquista.

And that's really important because when, and this is kind of closer to, you know, I mentioned that India model with the English Empire, the British Empire, that's basically parallel with the Spanish model, is you actually have elites and, you know, you have some other folks go out and conquer these territories, but they create a new like cultural hierarchy there. And then they exist there and it's about that place. So it's about developing that place with a tiny sliver of Spanish who remains Spanish. Okay. Exploration and conquest took place well into the 18th century.

Which was expensive. Very expensive, yeah. The Encomienda Commission granted colonists the right to contribute and forced labor from the native population. The Consolado de Mercaderas or Merchant Guild monopolized trade goods in the Indies via the Port of Seville, later Cadiz, until about 1763. Silver flowed via the Spanish treasure fleet to the, port which paid for trade goods in spain however most of the goods came from the rest of europe although eventually catalonia came to dominate domestic production for the colonial trade so that vast treasure flowing in um goes largely to the rest of the continent um other than the cut that

like the merchant guild and um you know the the royal family get so i'll let you follow up with specific numbers that put that into perspective. Yeah, we have some statistics here. In 1520, 23 years before the Merchant Guild was founded in 1543, the total silver export of Spanish America was valued at around 500,000 pesos, with the royal family getting 400,000 pesos of the silver profit. In 1596, the peak year of silver production in Spanish America, the total silver export was valued at around 7,000,

million pesos of which the royal family gained only 1.5 550,000 and the rest going to Casa de Contraxion and Consolado. Yeah, so almost all the money, if you look at it, is flowing out of the country and why, you know, is not only that merchant trade, but we'll start talking about the rest of it. So it wasn't that money, I mean, it was going to some development. There's a lot of, you know, beautiful cathedrals and stuff that date from that time, but it wasn't, not huge amounts of it were going to improve, you know, the infrastructure and, you know, developing, you know, the country of Spain itself. It was this system that was kind of layered on top and staying and kind of flowing through

in that direction rather than trickling down. The next point is the huge cost of maintaining a vast empire against incursions by European competitors. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28th to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items

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Was that 17.0... I think it's like 1703 or something like that. Yeah. Left domestic population. policy up to the established order in Spain. Isabella the first and Ferdinand the second's daughter, Joanna, married Philip the handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1496. Philip became king of Castile. Jure. How do you pronounce that? Jureusaurus, which is like proper, like instead of it, you know, de jure. It's like de facto, but he was

formally made king of Castile in 1506. Yeah. And there's no problem. I needed to. I don't pronounce that. And their focus was war to drive the Ottoman Turks out of Europe, war to maintain Habsburg control over the Roman, Holy Roman Empire, war to defend the Roman Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation. Yeah. So most of their, the Habsburg tenure, there was massive upheaval taking place in Europe all through that period. You know, there was essentially a reconquist. taking place against the Turks, and then just, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, war constantly. And so that was also very expensive and required a big focus for the Habsburg rulers. It wasn't worth the trouble to meddle too much in the affairs of Spain. There were lots of little uprisings. You know, when they came in, because here are these outsiders that are running things, they developed a kind of a buffer and let the nobles kind of keep things the way they were

and doing things the way that they wanted to. And then there was a broad split near universally atheist, liberalism and traditional Catholicism, which festered into revolutionary atheistic anarchism and Marxism. Yeah, it really accelerated during the 19th century. If you, Pete, you just put out a series of readings on the kind of a lot of the Marxist literature and Stalinist literature. I think people don't understand very well, like, the degree to it. Marx was commenting on what was taking place during the middle of the 19th century.

And, you know, in America, we had our revolution kind of before this and established our country before this. But Europe was in massive upheaval. And if you look at the example of France and the bloody revolution, when you see the Republic of France, it's not a good thing. the republic is horrific when it comes to how they handled the religious and traditionalists, not just the upper classes. Just took us, we just got delayed by about 200 years. Yeah, exactly. All right.

19th century, Spain hemorrhages its overseas colonies between 1810 and 1898. Between 1807 and 1814. the Republic of France invades Spain to impose the revolution. Britain intercedes resulting in a bloody war of all against all. Yeah, you'll see that in British, you know, the British will acknowledge that they were basically engaging in atrocities because their supply lines were disrupted. So they would go into villages and take all the food and shoot anyone who resisted. You know, it was it was not a pleasant time. It was a very brutal war, but what that did was it gave all these little factions combat experience.

And so as they assert themselves, it's very easy for them to go to guns. 1833, the old secession switcheroo places Queen Isabella on the throne rather than Infante Carlos. traditionalists support Carlos and his descendants call hence the Carlists in three armed risings this century. The first Carlos War, 1833 to 1840, the second Carlist War, 1846 to 1849, and the third Carlist War 1872 to 1876. 1873 to 1874, the First Spanish Republic lasts 11 months, ends a military coup and then the bourbon restoration. Yeah, so they went through this whole process kind of from a top-down perspective where the liberalizing influence was put into kind of a constitutional monarchy situation,

just to transition into liberalism. All the different uprisings and fights and everything meant that you had extreme push pull from the left and the right on the kind of, you know, monarchist, you know, constitutional liberal monarchists. It's stuck in the middle. All these different groups kind of trying to pull away and establish what they wanted. And then the bourbon restoration reappointed a non-liberal royal to kind of bring things back to, normal because that's literally what the people who were willing to fight wanted. All right.

Let's move up to the 20th century. Spain maintains a large rural population while select industrial cities rapidly urbanize. Neutral Spain's economy, both agricultural and industrial, boom during World War I. The left fractures into disparate radical factions with the war. large swaths of the urban working classes joining Marxist and anarchist labor unions. And I'll point out, like Pete, you're knowledgeable because you've read it enough about it, of the kind of 19th century anarchist movements, you know, Bukhounen influenced people and all that. I feel like that's something we should do a dive into

someday because I've been, I did a thread on X about this fairly recently. And it's actually really interesting because you see that a lot of the times that the opinions on anarchism versus Marxism came down to people's impressions of like Bakunin and Marx themselves, like the man. And I think there is something really interesting there that would be worth talking about. But when it really comes down to it, you see how they ally with one another during the lead up to the Spanish Civil War, but then it fractures because of the, you know, a couple of distinct ideological differences. The main one being like the like international Bolshevik tendencies of the the hardcore communists and the support that they get from. the Soviet Union, whereas the kind of ideological purists who kind of want to do, you know, socialism in one country or anarchism in one country, they want to get to the revolution, which to them is not war, right? So just just a thought for future reference.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, was there a specific reason in the 19th century you left out Giuseppe Finnelli? I just didn't get into the details, but Finnelli's super interesting, especially because of the influence that he had. The anarchist CNT FAI is completely the inheritors of Finnelli and his force of personality and his influence internally, again, because of just the way it was so driven by individual personalities. But yeah, I think it would be great to dive into talking about some of those personalities sometime because of how telling it really is to look at that.

And one thing about Spain is no one ever hid what their beliefs were. No, you know, that's actually a really interesting point. Yeah, they were very open about it. Right. Political instability driven by street violence results in a coup d'etat led by Miguel Primo de Rivera. in 1923 with the approval of King Alfonso the 13th. The dictatorship collapses, the king abdicates, and the Second Spanish Republic is born in 1931. From May 10th through May 13th, anarchists burned down over 100 religious buildings,

including the primary Jesuit monastery in Madrid. Countless and valuable historical works have destroyed and many clergymen are killed. The Republic, headed. by fervent anti-Christians refuses to intervene. And that develops the pattern that we see that leads to the radicalization of the right, which is that the left goes nuts, and then the supposedly legitimate authority just sits back. And there's even a quote, I forget who said it.

It may have been Azanya, who said in the very early days. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 20, Because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Lidl items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Lidl Newbridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November.

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That, you know, not one of those people is worth the life of a single Republican. The Republic imposes de juree, social revolution, nationalizing church properties, banning religious instruction and public processions, and instituting land seizures in 1932. Michael Jones talks about how a lot of the Protestant Reformation was about stealing church properties and stealing land. and the history in in Britain is very interesting on that subject as well yeah it's all all over the Protestant countries that was done absolutely 1932 carlos form communion traditionalista and rackete defense militias yeah so they have a party which is the the face the political face of the organization for electoral purposes and to mobilize people, like legally above board. And then they have the, um, the youth organizations and the,

the radical militias who are preparing for war, just like the IRA, like the Sinn Féin as the political front. And then you have the actual IRA behind them. There was something else happening very similar to that in another country in Europe at the same time. Very much so. Yeah. August 1932, a bloodless military coup intended to reign in the excesses under the Republic, headed by General Sanjuro, the Sanjura, Sanjurhada, fails. The conspirators are sentenced to death, though for most this is downgraded to imprisonment, then exile. And that was done because they didn't want to provoke, the Republic did not want to provoke the right wing to violence. or further political mobilization, I should add, which they failed at.

So conservative and reactionary elements win the 1933 elections, which triggers mass, left-wing violence, and church burnings. Yeah, so they, it's basically Antifa gets called out because they weren't able to do fraud in, in 2016. They were totally taken aback by the actual turnout. their fraud failed, and so they chimped out. 1934. Ceda's victory at the polls doesn't materialize into power due to suppression by moderate Republicans under Rezaania. General strikes and an Asturian anarchist uprising hint at the war succumb when 34 priests, six seminarians, and several businessmen and civil guardsmen are executed by the Revolutionary Committee. 58 religious buildings are destroyed.

The rising of 30,000 revolutionaries is snuffed out by General Franco on Order of the Republic at a total cost of up to 2,000 lives. And mass incarceration of prisoners. So in 1936, when they talk about the left opening up the prisons, it was supposedly because of all the revolutionaries between now, in 1936 that end up in there. A lot of them are just like psycho-criminals, but they put something like 10,000 CNT people into prison alone. The SADA youth movement flocks to the Carlest and Fulongist militant organizations. And that's because the electoral party, like they saw the failure of electoral politics to do anything. They already understood what was going on. So they said, we're going to organize with the established militant organizations that are in our milieu.

Carlos commit most of their financial resources to arming and training the Ricketts. Jose Enrique Varela, alias Don Pepe, transitions Ricketts from 10 men to Curius, a local defensive structure into a variation on the traditional Spanish infantry structure. So the idea here is that you would have, you know, small groups of people that would organize. And so they would put them into this 10 man. It was a Roman, Roman kind of structure. And then they would have like individual officers that can contact them, meaning there aren't that many of them. But at this point, there's so many people and they're getting.

getting so organized, they just start preparing them to be a separate, basically a separate army that they can plug into army units that they control when the time is right, which comes very soon. General Franco is exiled to the Canary Islands, while Jamies' General Mola is sent to Carlos Hartland of backwater, Nevada, because the Republican government couldn't imagine right-wing factional alliances. Yeah, so the hymaists were the, I was going to say I knew I said amassed, but what are hymaists? So hymaists were the, they were just the royalists who supported the old king, King Alfonso, the 13th, and his line, which was like King Jaime. So they were called hymaists. So if you go all the way back when there's that split with the Carlyss and the others. They're still, they're still

following Bourbon line people. It's just, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, about the succession nonsense. So there's no way that they would come together because they hate each other wrong. The militant anarchist of the C&T FAA, is FAI or is that FAL? FAI.

FIA, yeah. Learn from the failure of their improvised spontaneous uprisings as in Asturias and develop the cellular defense cadre structure. They begin organizing and preparing for revolution. By 1936, one-third of the CNT, Union's budget will be devoted to manufacture of the FAA bomb hand grenade in Barcelona.

And we covered that in, I think, in the last episode we did. Yeah, and I have an article about it out of my substack if people are interested in it. 1935. Falunge and Raquete leaders are sent to Italy to train in light infantry tactics. The artificial governing coalition under PM Leroux collapses in December 1935. New elections are called for. 1936, mass ballot fraud and voter suppression results in a popular front victory in the 1936 election. The Falun Gay is outlawed by the Republic. They go underground, though many leaders and activists are rounded up.

By spring 1936, the Carlos Drakhetis are a 10,000 strong, armed and trained citizen militia with 20,000 auxiliaries. Yeah, and the thing to keep in mind there is that, and I've mentioned this before, but of all the different armed groups, the recetes were the only ones that Spanish military professionals said were capable of actual infantry combat operations. So they became incredibly important for what you're going to talk about next. The uprising, July 17th, 1936. Prominent conservative parliamentarian, Jose Calvo Sotelo, is arrested by Republican political police assault guards and executed July 13th, 1936, after Stalinist parliament woman. Parliament woman, Dolores Ibaruri. He Baruri, yeah, announces while he is at the podium in the Cortez, this is your last speech. So he's, let's say, he's in Congress. He's a congressman.

He's giving a speech. Someone in the other party says, this is your last speech. And then they kill him that night. Like, just think of how brazen that is. Yeah, July 13th. Something else happened on July. Yes. this year huh interesting well you know it's funny is if you go back if you look at september 11th

in history it's remarkable how many things happened on septuary is so interesting that way yeah i think um the pinotche in chile they tried to assassinate um they tried to assassinate musilini on uh on september 11th there's i mean there's a bunch of you if you like google september 11th like historical events there's just a list and you're like the going back centuries it's like i'll ask my son he probably knows all of them kid 9-11 is like a joke to to zoomers at this point it's crazy falung gay units begin assassinating prominent assault guards a large portion of army officers coordinating in secret for many years rebel across the country in the canaries and Spanish Morocco,

working with Carlos and Falunge militias, with the goal of conducting a bloodless coup. How do you have a bloodless coup against monsters? Yeah, well, you can't, obviously. The rising is carried out by officers taking command of military forces, arresting those who oppose them, securing their bases and immediately consolidating control over territory. In many areas such as Navarre, Castile and Leon, and northern Aragon, the civilian government is in alliance, and the relatively few leftist political agitators are immediately squashed.

Pew, pew! One odd case is that of Oviedo, capital of Asturias, the location of key government arsenals, as well as the center of the 1934, are anarchist uprising, and a bastion of revolutionary activity. the town's garrison commander Colonel Antonio Aranda Mata was considered by the nationalist conspirators as a Freemason and Republican. Freemason can also be

Yes. Yeah, for something else. Yes. With the news of the uprising on July 17th, Aranda declared to the civil government and leftist union leaders that he would remain loyal to the Republic and that the city

was secure. satisfied 4,000 militants departed to spread the revolution. Taking advantage of access to relatively vast munitions, Aranda then secured the town in surrounding strategic positions with his force, Falungas and Allied Civil Guard and assault guard forces, and held out against a brutal siege, until being relieved by a relief column from Galicia. Republican forces cut off power and water while shelling and bombing the city, relentlessly causing civilian casualties far beyond those seen at Guernica, yet there has never been a global propaganda campaign about Oviedo.

And there's never been a global propaganda campaign because it was a heroic stand by right-wing forces against brutal communists and anarchists, and global propaganda is only done on behalf of brutal communists and anarchists. They did aerial bombing. They just shelled the city indiscriminately. What ultimately happened is a lot of people who were libtards ended up defending the city and siding with the defenders of the city because they were just being killed indiscriminately and their families were. Is this a scenario laid out in the last crusade where he calls in the bombing on his own location? No, because they survive. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, and 37 or 38, 38 actually.

Yeah, exactly. So the cool thing about it, though, is because the, they secured the arsenals there, they immediately begin manufacturing like next gen iterations of small arms for the, for the nationalist army as soon as they get relieved. The rising is successful in the most consistent. conservative parts of Spain and in military strongholds, but it squashed in street fighting in leftist strongholds, such as Barcelona, Sant'ath, Toledo, and Madrid. The Spanish Civil War has begun. Coo leader, General Sanjuro, returning from exile in Portugal, perishes in a plane crash July 20th. Nationalist command is split between Franco in the south and Mola in the north. And an important thing to point out is that there are conspiracy theories about this that, like, Franco had this happen because he was like Hitler to electric bugaloo. But it's nonsense. Sanjuro wanted to bring, I might be confusing him with the other guy who will be coming up, who will pass away soon. But, oh, no, no, no.

He had tons of luggage. And he was the older. coup leader who had envisioned the original coup. There had been the San Hurada that had failed. And so he overloaded a very small plane that crashed upon takeoff. So this is in an era when aviation was very dangerous. So it was, you know, any people talking about, you know, conspiracies related to Franco there, it's nonsense.

It's just fortuitous for Franco. Yeah, I think Bivore describes it as he was trying to, the plane was too weighted. They tried to set off and it tried to clear a wall and it clipped the wall and then boom. And he was an older gentleman and the pilot survived. Yeah. But San Hurho passed away. Right. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee a visit filled with festivity.

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For more, visit Understandinginsurance.i. forward slash under-insurance, brought to you by Insurance Ireland. Also on July 20th, Spanish Legion forces landed at Cadiz to reinforce local carlist and Falunge militias and secure the port, city, and much of the province. Navarre brigades and Carlos Riccete militias under the command of General Mola in the north, fan out and secure the French border to the east, establish a front with Republican-aligned Basque country to the north and northwest, and approach Madrid's northern flank. In south-central Aragon, they stop northbound, they stop northbound C-N-T-F-A-I anarchist militias.

And it's incredibly impressive how professional and squared away they were for being amateurs, for being an amateur militia. But the important thing to keep in mind is that they plugged into an existing military structure and military logistics. So it was a, so it was a militia. They started out with a lot of weapons that were secured internationally that weren't necessarily like military standard. You recall when we looked at the small arms. They had some very advanced stuff like light machine guns from, uh, from Switzerland and stuff. But, um, they, they moved very, very quickly and fought very, very well, even though they weren't, they weren't exactly using a lot of the, you know, as the newer volunteers were coming on. They weren't using the most sophisticated, um, sophisticated tactics and stuff, but it didn't matter. They were, they were incredibly brave. And my position is that the upright, like the war would have been lost very likely if it wasn't for the Carlos Recutte militias. That's my position based on how much territory they were able to secure and hold.

Nationalist and Republican factions immediately cracked down upon internal enemies in the areas they control. Thousands are killed due to violence from all sides. In Navarra, for example, Carlos and Falunus arrests subdue, subduing combat, or simply assassinate, execute prominent opposition, and militant leftists in Republican-controlled areas. Class enemies are killed in huge numbers, whether extraditionally or in combat. The church is a primary target with between one-third and one-half of all church buildings in Spain destroyed. Many diocese see all or nearly all of their buildings wiped from the face of the earth. By the end of 1936, nearly 7,000 priests, nuns, monks, and seminarians

are murdered along with several more thousand attendant lay people, along with many thousands more by revolutionary Republicans. Most of the non-combat extrajudicial killings are eventually reined in by both sides by 1936. But the Republicans in particular continue the practice of executing non-combatant enemies with the illusions, with the illusion of trials. Yeah. So the, when you, when you look at the like BVOR style numbers, and when I was working on this, Pete, I was thinking about the numbers. You'll remember I told you, I'm going to do a revision where I'm going to talk more about the numbers instead of just like the events. What you'll see is that

the mainstream, um, the mainstream position is that like the Republican, you know, mass killings were anomalous and it was out of the control of the central government, whereas the nationalist did it because they were, they were bad guys. And it's just absurd. Um, and the narrative about the Republican factions has changed multiple times. Um, you know, in since the war, there was a period, especially during and immediately after the war, like late 1937 and on, where the national, excuse me, the Republicans were blaming like the anarchists and the like for excesses. And that was because of the kind of the communist directed propaganda campaign. And then later, they shifted it to say, well, the Soviet-led communists were the bad guys and like the moderate Republicans and the anarchists were just kind of like, this stuff was just happening. And like, they never, they never would have wanted anything like this to happen.

When you look at the memoirs of the anarchists and such, they're so they act like, you know, they're innocent angels. and and you know this was all done by just like people who were just criminals so it was incidental but when the nationalists execute people who commit atrocities for example i'm not saying that there weren't excesses on the nationalist side like there was some there were executions of people for example that supported the the republic and were harmless were non-combatants essentially that they just murdered or you know individual people murdered. It wasn't like the leadership of the military was saying they should do this. But it's always, it's mischaracterized. But when you actually look at what the numbers are like,

and when you look at the, they have essentially a truth and reconciliation committee that's underway now. And whenever they investigate these individual accesses, they always find that the nationalist supposed atrocities of like a thousand end up being like 13 people were killed and possibly it was a combat situation or something like that. So those numbers get revised downward, but still like Bivar, 15 years ago, I think he published his book. Maybe a little more. Yeah, yeah, 15, 18 years ago. The numbers are really high on the nationalist side and low on the Republican side. but now that they're investigating them, they're kind of flip-flopping. So it's just something to keep in mind, and it's just classic.

It's what you would expect from what you know anytime you examine anything that the media talks about nowadays, right? Yeah. No, it's really books in English were only written from the Republican side for so long that those numbers got embedded in people's brains. and then when you now they have excavations and all sorts of things and it's like we're going to we're going to find a thousand people in this pit oh there's nine people yeah exactly and and so this is where when you go back and you look at um a lot of the books that were written in the 60s with the cooperation of the Spanish academy the numbers are lining up the new numbers are going back to those old numbers that were like Franco approved because

because they're real, they're accurate. The factions, the nationalists, represent themselves as true Spaniards, nationalis, the defenders of Christian civilization against the red hordes. Territory, a large swath of northern Spain, the cities of Cordova and Seville,

the city and a portion of the province of Cadiz, the Canary Island, Spanish Morocco, and the Balearic. Is that right? Beli-Eeric. Yeah, Balearic Islands, accepting Menorca and Formantera. Formerly, government forces, roughly half-60,000 of the Spanish Territorial Army, the Army of Africa, including the Spanish Legion, 35,000,

and just under half of Spain's civil guards and carabineros, approximately two-thirds of the Spanish Army's heavy weapons are in the hands of the nationalists, along with half of the rifles. The Carlos Riccate militia has, the Carlos Rickete militia has approximately 30,000 men under arms at the uprising, growing to 85,000 by the end of 1936. The Falunge militia has approximately 20,000 men at the time of the uprising. And the thing to keep in mind there is remember, when a civil war breaks out and people have to fight, you attach yourself to the organizations that are existing. You can't join the army and go straight into combat, but you can join the militias. Especially if time is of the essence.

Exactly. The Republicans represent themselves to the world as a legitimately elected government of Spain championing freedom and progress against tyranny. Internal divisions are significant. liberal, socialist, and communists generally supported the Republican government, though immediate divisions appeared, such as the debate regarding arming the workers' militias in the very early days of the uprising. Anarchists broadly sought to form their own institutions separate from the Republican government and were most successful at this in Catalonia and initially focused upon the social revolution. The Basque country, strongly Catholic and conservative,

mostly sided with the Republic due to the promise of autonomy, although this coalition saw a rapid schism. Government forces, roughly half-60,000 of the Spanish Territorial Army, possess one-third of the machine guns and artillery plus half of the rifles from military armories. A bit over half of Spain's Carabineros and civil guards, along with most of the assault guards, stay with the Republic. The assault guards were kind of like the equivalent of the FBI, like a FBI, but more. Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the northwest.

We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together, we can create a more reliable. sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.a e.4 slash Northwest. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit

with breathtaking views of Dublin City from the home of Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories and the gravity bar. Like good news. It's Christmas is Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts. Be drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.com. Like light infantry oriented, that were a rapid reaction force formed only at the time of the actual republic. So the Carbon arrows and civil guards were existing law enforcement organizations across the country. It's very different than America because they have. these national forces that have very specific responsibilities. The assault guards were like

the rapid response units. And when you think FBI, think like FBI at Mount Carmel, you know, Waco, because they had like heavy weaponry. So the workers' militias do not arise spontaneously, but rather out of established party militias and are difficult to fully quantify, say, for certain well-documented cases. For example, we know from extensive material later published by members of the highly prepared and organized anarchist CNT FAAI that they put 10,000 armed men into Barcelona within hours of the uprising, though most of their weapons were handguns and surprisingly sophisticated craft-made grenades. Yeah, so they had been preparing in a very robust fashion, whereas the other militias, they were relying on this spontaneous uprising. The CNTFAI, I have an article about them on

my substack and their militias. They learned from the failure of the 1934 Asturius uprising and the losses that they took, that there's no spontaneous uprising. I'll just tell a story that's true and this is more than I've talked about in the past but I was in Seattle during the WTO riots in 1999 protests slash riots that the anarchists who caused the police to attack the protesters because the anarchists came up from Eugene and did a did a during the parade of like 100,000 like just regular people protesting the WTO, whether they were environmentalists, whether they were leftists, whether they were like American labor-oriented people. They did a big U around where the conference actually took place and where there were protesters with permits peacefully sitting there protesting

and smashed windows in a big U. And one of them told me when I was hollering at him with a my hand on a pistol in my pocket because I was like, oh, there's only about 40 of them. I was young. Anyway, the police didn't have rapid reaction squads, and I saw police like looking and like radioing. And one of these older guys, and they were all just like junkies and shit, said, well, well, our strategy is that by doing this, We will get the police to attack the innocent people, and then the people of the country will rise up, and then we will have an anarchist revolution.

That's the same thing that John Reed went to free in Moscow, I promised Lenin would happen in the United States. And the United States is just not fucking made for that. No, not at all. And that was what the communists and the anarchists thought they could do. every time they just got their teeth kicked in after they murdered a bunch of innocent people. And so they gave this a whirl and, you know, and the, and the FAI anarchist said, this doesn't work. We have to actually plan. So they were one of the few, like actually organized groups. And they were critical to the success of everything that the loyalist

Republican troops and police and stuff around Madrid. Because again, if you'll remember, they sent Mola like out to Navarre. They made sure that only Lib tarts were around Madrid as whenever they could. So that the right wing rising just completely failed in a bunch of areas because the republic had been preparing for this. So when the leftists, you know, needed to come out into the street, they were just not ready and they were not trained or anything like that. All right. Here we go. The March on Madrid, July 21, 1936 to March 1937.

The rebel army secures German and Italian support to conduct an airlift of infantry from Spanish, Morocco to Seville in southwestern Spain, avoiding a naval blockade by the mostly Republican-controlled Navy, representing the nationalist faction, General Franco, immediately engages the international community for support, though most of the world opts to remain neutral. July 26th, Nationalist secured German commitment to provide their forces with transport aircraft, fighter bombers, anti-aircraft guns, and other equipment. The first shipment arrives August 1st. And there's a note here.

The Condor Legion, the famed German volunteer force, isn't formally organized until November. The Italians go all in on supporting the nationalist and provide 48 aircraft in the first month, along with an increasing flow of small arms, company-level weapons, vehicles, advisors, observers, technical experts, and combat personnel. U.S. and British companies provide technically non-military support to the nationalists, which passes the muster under the future neutrality agreement. Texaco, formerly the provider of oil to the Spanish government, shifts its support to Franco, furnished entirely on credit upon hearing news of the uprising.

Ford, Studebaker, and General Motors supplied 12,000 trucks, parts, and tires on credit to the nationalists. And this is a very old entry, a very old bullet point in that really dumb, you know, Alex Jones attached himself to, oh, the government's run by secret Nazis. This is one of the first entries in that ledger per the Lib Tarts, which is that like, oh, America sided with the fascisms, man. And it's like, you know, the truth is that they knew that this was, they were siding against the Bolsheviks, period. It was as simple as that. And then what did they do a few years later? All right. Let's keep on.

The Republic secures military support and international volunteers from the Soviet Union and the intermittent support of France. France transfers 48 aircraft along with trainers and some weaponry in July and August, despite having agreed to the non-intervention pact. This pattern, always downplayed by Republican apologists, will continue throughout the war. And I have to interject there. it's impossible to overstate how much people lie about the support that they got from Bloom's socialist government in France. And yes, when you say Bloom, BLUM, yes. Yeah. Yes.

There was essentially a, there was street fighting in France at the time between traditionalists and a bunch of those folks ended up going to Spain. to fight with the nationalists as volunteers. They ended up getting plugged into the Spanish Legion in great numbers. Spanish Catholic, excuse me, French Catholics who were, you know, later when Germany invaded France, they were more than happy to basically hand this one third of the French population, essentially, control of the government, the Vichy government. It was not this tiny sliver of French culture. It was the French traditionalists who wanted that support that was handed to them.

Mexico provides a substantial amount of small arms and ammunition. And I cannot talk enough and express enough to people that at that time, Mexico was an arm of the the Union. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. They had their own, like Viva Christo Reh was a huge thing in Mexico as well, because the Mexican government, the forefathers of the existing sole political party in Mexico were essentially Bolsheviks who were trying to eliminate Christianity from Mexico. and they put up with Trotsky living there for only so long. Yes. Spanish gold reserve transfers. This is so remarkable. I mean, the first time I write about this, I was...

It's appalling. I mean, I was mad. First transfer to Eurobank Paris authorized by the Republic, July 24th, a total of 174 tons, 27.4% of Spanish reserve sent 3% of... through March 1937. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest.

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The Republic's Council of Ministers authorized a transfer of remaining gold and silver reserves 500 tons to Moscow, September 13, 1936. The original excuse was that per minister of finance, Juan Negren, it would be secure there, although the Soviets claimed it in payment for arms. I think anyone who knows and has read deep enough knows that Stalin was laughing at them. You know, the anarchist memoirs on this topic are incredibly interesting because they were furious because this is the point. I mean, look, October, we're talking September, October, 1936. The anarchist, you know, collective government, whatever you want to call it, you know, in Catalonia is like, what the fuck is happening? Because they realize what is taking place in their country. They realize that

it's a Bolshevik takeover. Because there's even stories about the CNT guys planning to, capture the gold reserves and then holding them in Catalonia so that they can actually pay for things that the country needs. October 14, 1936, the first international brigade trainees organized by the Communist International arrive in Albesente via France. The first shipment of arms from the Soviet Union reaches Cartagena, October 4th. It includes both modern and and obsolete small arms and ammunition, most meaningfully, the latest T-26 tanks, BT3 armored cars, and quote-unquote, volunteers.

So there's a lot of, like, if you'll remember from our small arms of the Spanish Civil War episode, there's a lot of obsolete, like, World War I and pre-World War I, small arms and, like, odd stuff. But there's tons of Maxim machine guns. And then in the T-26s and the BT-3s, they're fully outfitted with, what are they? Is it the TP28 light machine guns, the pan-fed ones? I know I'm getting those.

It's dash 28, whatever it is. So there's actually a fair amount of like sophisticated brand new stuff. And they start also bringing anti-tank. guns over. But that, but again, like, they took every bit of their gold and silver reserves that were left, like three quarters of it. And they were absolutely not delivering that level of material to them. You know, they certainly overpaid. Yeah. I mean, it's clear when you study it that what Germany and Italy were providing to the nationalist was far superior, as far as superior, yes. And then, well, what would you expect? The Republican Pesetas value collapses almost

immediately. September 28th, Alfonso Carlos, a year old Carlos leader and claimant to the throne of Spain, dies in Austria with no air. October, the Republic's somewhat moderate government under Rizania, quits and hands the reins to a communist socialist coalition under Largo Caballero. The Kabayetto government implements universal conscription of all Spanish males between 20 and 45 in the territory they control. Sounds like Ukraine. Yeah. The various party militias begin to be integrated into the Republican Army command structure, which is primarily controlled by the communists. Communist red stars were incorporated into the rank insignia, and political commissars were installed at the company level and up.

Which also means that the... the other parties, the other political parties are essentially suppressed in the formal government, including assassination of uppity people. Like, it's completely counter to the supposed goal, which is to have as many people as possible fighting against their enemies. But it's communist. That's what they do. The previously autonomous anarchist, CNTFAI, chooses to put the revolution on whole, and submit to Republican Army in the field.

Yeah, and actually the crazy thing is that the the Derruti column, which are the hardcore, well, we'll talk about it in a second. The hardcore. Whenever anybody wants to talk about how, oh, like Kamala Harris or like Antifa or Communists, like, I'm sorry. Yeah.

go back go back and try to compare them to some of these people yeah the most hardcore anarchist killers which was the derutie column that had been heading into aragon and got stopped by the the carlists um were the very first to submit to the national army because they said this is what we have to do and to be honest they were they were right because you know from their perspective, not morally right. They deserved everything that they got. Derruti was killed very soon after. But they were correct in that, like, they needed to focus on fighting the war,

but the war was not prosecuted sensibly by the communists. So, ha, ha, that's what they get. Nationalist forces race toward, yeah, it's so funny, you know, the communists and the anarchists, these, you know, they've, this stupid reliance. and people with their friggin mythology and everything, these dumb people. Really, how smart do they ever prove themselves to be?

I'm going to say something, Pete. The word libertarian is a Spanish word. It represents the non-Bulshevik-oriented anarchists in Spain. Do not call yourself that. if you read this history, you will not want to call yourself that when you read what these people actually were. If you do and you study it and you continue to call yourself that, you deserve what's coming to you, which is to be thrown into a very large hole with a big pile of people just like you in it. Oh, I just wanted to warn people.

Bivore's Battle for Spain is a great book for facts. The death tolls we've already talked about. But know this if you're going in. Bivor is his sympathies lie with the libertarians. You know, Pete, I've seen a bunch of interviews with him. I did a thread on it. My interpretation is that his capability in Spanish is about what mine is, which is not very good. You can read it. You can prepare a statement and pronounce

things almost entirely correctly if you're reading it and reciting it and you can interact like in a day-to-day basis. But he was very dependent upon the Spanish Academy and his editors to hand him all the material. And in 1990s and 2000s, Spain, like, that's who ruled the roost. I mean, I'm sure, like, looking at him, he's English. He, like, he cares a lot about Ukraine. So he's a fucking libtard. I'm not having any more to drink, Pete. I will try to rein in the profanity.

But it enrages me because you're, I'm trying to counter your point, but I can't. That's where his, because, because what is it? Oh, well, we know communism is bad. And so now what do we do? Oh, well, let's align with this group. But it's imagine. It's a completely imaginary. It's like, you know, there's choose your own Holocaust where people create their own Holocaust, like, you know, hypotheticals and stuff. And it's like, no, you don't get to do that. You get to go based on the, you know, the formal official Holocaust definition and you either agree with it or you disagree with it. You either say that's factual or not. That's the same thing with this situation.

and it's choose it's choose your own spanish civil war and that's what bivore does it and he doesn't i wouldn't say he does it explicitly he's not making anything up but he does it like in in like a sympathizing fashion where he's like choosing a theoretical where he's like if only this had happened these would be the good guys but that's not how it happened so i i that was me looping back around and ultimately agreeing with you, you're correct. He's, but it's choose your own Spanish civil war. Yeah, it's like I, he could never choose the nationalist side. So he tries to pick the least, the least worst of the, of the Liptards.

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Book now at Guinness Storehouse.com. Get the facts. Be drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.org.com. All right. Nationalist forces race toward Madrid with a goal of toppling the Republican government and ending the war quickly. Soviet forces, the international brigades, and the CNT FAA's 6,000 Mandurudi column, speed toward Madrid to intercept them.

After securing Toulé, though, now maybe we can talk about this before we talk about the Al-Qa-Zar. A lot of people make the argument that by choosing to go and help them at the Al-Qa-Zar and Toledo, that if they would have went directly to Madrid, they could have saved the battle for, the battle for Madrid. It wouldn't have happened. I don't buy it. Um, the, the other thing, too, is that they were, they were moving so rapidly that they had to periodically stop and consolidate and get reinforcements. Um, they, they hook up, um, farther north with the car lists and everything. I, I, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of a valid argument that I suspect, you know, just doesn't play out because what would have happened is they would have been stuck in urban

combat when the Soviet forces, the international brigades, and the Derutie column arrived, which would have been, I mean, it would have been a meat grinder and they could have lost all of their forces that were there. I just don't buy it. When you look at it in terms of like the manpower involved, the equipment, the different units that are maneuvering around it, It's like a criticism that comes from people who are like, well, you would have gotten there before all these other people. And it's like, yeah, but then they just would have had a bloodier, bloodier combat there and very easily have been cut off, which is worse than not getting there. Right. I just don't, I just don't see it.

You know, at very best, maybe they could have taken Madrid, but they wouldn't have capital. the enemy leadership because it's urban combat. Urban combat is not fast. It's it's the opposite of fast. And they found that out when they got there. They couldn't even get through a college fucking campus in a couple of weeks. Like it just grounds to a halt. So I just,

I just don't buy it. It's, it's something that people say, but when you actually step back, you're like, this is just an accusation that's being. repeated so um soledo is about 45 miles southwestish of major yeah yeah okay yeah 72 kilometers it's when you look at the actual terrain there's a huge Madrid is in a huge the north end of a

huge valley bordered to the you know almost like in an archway around it of mountain ranges and and is due south and a little southwest, and it's kind of hilly around it too, so that it's not fully in that plane, but it's real close to it. And so it's really easy to say that, but there was still grinding combat

before they could even get to that plane. And then they got to that plane, and those other units had arrived. So they had to fight, their way through that and it was not easy so when people do this it's it's a it's an easy thing to say it's an easy thing to say if they had bypass Toledo but i just don't see how you bypass Toledo i just don't see it yeah then you have enemy at your back oh exactly like a lot so it would be really easy for them to cut their lines and this became the successful strategy

which is you go in these less guarded directions and then you grind up these smaller units. That was the successful nationalist strategy. And they did that there. And then they tried for a knockout blow on Madrid and failed at it. Sorry, I'll stop. No. Yeah, and just want to let people know if they, you can go. and Google pictures of the Alcazar, and there are some amazing pictures of the destruction that was done,

and you just have to wonder how they survived. So let me read this. After securing until they had 45 miles, 72 kilometers from Madrid, and rescuing the besieged heroes of the Alcazar on September 28th, the advancing nationalist forces split into three prongs to encircle Madrid and establish ties with territory secured by Allied forces. For more on the battle of the siege of the Alcazar, listen to my reading of the Last Crusade. If you can make it through that without crying, you're a better man than me. That's the episode we did together. And it's, well, that was only one of them.

That was the successful end of it. But yeah, the whole, listen to the whole thing. That's the soul of the Spanish Civil War, in my opinion. The Last Crusade explains the soul and the spirit of the Spanish Civil War. They advanced to write October, the first aerial bombardment of Madrid, takes place October 23rd. On October 28th, 15 T-26 tanks engaged in the first Soviet combat operation of the war, spearheading a mixed brigade commanded by Russian-trained General Lister. Sometimes look up all of the Russian...

officers that were sent to help in the Spanish Civil War and do an early life check on them. Yes. The unit attacks nationalists held Sassania, 25 miles, 40 kilometers due south of Central Madrid. The tankers acquit themselves well, but outrun their infantry, and three tanks are knocked out with petrol bottle bombs prepared by nationalist defenders. the first documented use of what is later dubbed by the Finns as the Molotov cocktail for Stalin's Minister of Foreign Affairs. The engagement establishes that armor is vulnerable in urban fighting, as well as to traditional artillery. The tanks armored cars in Soviet and French aircraft

flowing into Madrid, slow the rush of the nationalists and end their ownership of the skies. Yeah, and I really want to emphasize French aircraft. Again, being, V-Vor also, everyone, oh, you know, the pro-Republic position is, oh, the French could have done more. And they were just like, they were, you know, they were siding with this ridiculous, like, capitalist, bourgeois, you know, neutrality thing. It's like, no, the French gave them tons of weapons. But a lot of it was that they were obsolete. And if you don't, the thing to keep in mind is that an aircraft made in 1927 was obsolete by 1936 compared to the latest stuff because technology was advancing so quickly. So it could be useful, but it was not, it was, you know, not very good.

It was, you know, they didn't last very long. Maintenance was a nightmare. Their capabilities were really poor. But the French poured tons of equipment into there. and the Soviet and French aircraft were dogfighting over Madrid, you know, in October, November 1936. And so they did slow them down there. But my position, you know, per our earlier conversation, is that I don't think they would have been able to, if they ignored Toledo, it would have only gained them like a day or two. and it wouldn't have

given them any further impetus to do anything, to accomplish anything once they hit Madrid. Nationalist forces begin their assault on the city of Madrid proper November 5th with probing attacks through the old royal hunting ground

of Casa de Campo to the west. On November 6th, the Republican government flees to their new capital, Valencia. Nationalist forces delay their attack until November 8th. On November 7, militia forces find the battle plan for the following day in the pocket of a captain killed in Casa de Campo. Forces are redistributed accordingly, just in time for the arrival of the 11th International Brigade, who rushed to the front and help hold the city while taking 50% casualties. Is that less than, or is that roughly?

About roughly, yeah. More international brigade units arrive in the next few days and enable Republican, forces to turn the battle for Madrid into a 28-month siege. Yeah. And so yeah, these units just arrived at this point, but there's no indication that the militias and military and, because there were there were tanks on the ground. There were like half of the tanks that the, that the Republic had were in bar, were around Madrid. And there were only, there were only, like one or two in Barcelona, one or two in Valencia. Like most of them were around Madrid by the time, you know, a week's before the

nationalist would have gotten there. So, yeah, the air grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of 9th. November. Have your say online or in person so together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. Inflation pushes up building costs so it's important to review your home insurance cover

to make sure you have the right cover for your needs. Under insurance happens where there's a difference between the value of your cover and the cost of repairing damage or replacing contents. It's a risk you can avoid. Review your home insurance policy regularly. For more, visit understandinginsurance.I.E. forward slash under insurance. brought to you by Insurance Ireland. The International Brigade is celebrated for keeping them out of the city, but I just don't, I just don't buy it when you look at what urban warfare is actually like. It's not a fast process. All right, we got a little more here, and then we're going to break for part one. Perfect.

Break part one. All right. A note on the makeup of the international brigades. The international brigades were organized by the communist international, also known as Comintern. While membership was international, the common turn was an organ of the Soviet Union under Soviet command in the interest of Soviet strategic purposes. The estimated size of the force varies, with Wikipedia stating from 40,000 to 59,000. The more authoritative estimates calculated by IB veterans? Yeah, IB.

So, International Brigade. International Brigade veteran organizations are in the 30 to 45,000 range. Purportedly, there were never more than 14,000 International Brigade volunteers in Spain at any given time. Yeah, that's where the number calculation comes from and where the complicating factor is. But I think the veteran organizations were very organized and there were good records and there were also Soviet archival records and stuff. So I think their numbers are better. It's not as many as like the Wikipedia figure states. It's theoretically possible that a lot of the volunteer for international volunteer forces are being inflated by numbers of people who came.

through like the what was the oh gosh that the people's Olympiad that was in Barcelona at the same time as the as the uprising where there were quite a few people who were volunteering and just like joining these groups on their own that weren't

going through the IB that are inflating some of those numbers but also communists love inflating numbers don't they? Yeah. The Communist International claim that fully 50% of International Brigade volunteers were members of the Communist Party. Other sources estimate as low as 25%, though officers were exclusively Communist Party members. Exclusively.

Jewish sources, Prego, 1979, Sugarman in 1998, state that approximately 25% of the International Brigade members were provably Jewish, with Jews making up 38% of American volunteers, 45% of Poles and virtually all of the Romanians. The vast majority of officers and commissars and the International Brigade were undoubtedly Jewish, as were the leaders of the Soviet missions of Spain. Hey, I believe them. Yeah, I choose to believe. I choose to believe when they brag about stuff.

And I think it's the, oh gosh, is it the Jewish encyclopedia? There's a whole bunch of sources online where they document, where they literally look at the names of all the people that are put together by these IB veterans organizations, and they list them, and they tell where all this comes from, and they talk about it. And they say, oh, you know, it's so bad and so anti-Semitic that the contribution of Jews to the international brigades are so downplayed, because people are afraid. And it's like, you're, you're, you may have a high verbal IQ, but I don't think you're, you know, continue, continue, please keep telling us what you are actually doing.

Not very good strategically when it comes to proper. Horrible. It's like, it's a total lack of understanding of, of humanity. A note on the volunteer, foreign volunteer forces, supporting the nationalists. Italy. The Italian Royal Air Force Aviationale Legionaria provided 12 Savoya Marquetti 81 transport aircraft supported by Fiat CR 32 fighters for the July 1936 airlift operation, which carried the Army

of Africa and Foreign Legion across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. All told, the AV supplied 660 aircraft and thousands of men before the Army. the end of the war. Mussolini, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shiano, and General Roada, launched an expeditionary force December 12, 1936, with Raada as commander-in-chief of what was later named the Corporo Trope Voluntari. They furnished 50,000 men at the peak of operations in a total of 150 tanks and 800 artillery pieces in addition to small arms and ammunition.

Their contribution cannot be understated, or overstated, I should say, that in terms of numbers and dead, the Italian contribution to the war was massive. The Italian Royal Navy engaged in blockade-breaking submarine operations, troop transportation, and naval bombardments of Republican-held coastal cities. The Luftwaffe furnished 20 Luftansa, nominally commercial, junkers, 52 transport. aircraft supported by Luftwaffe, is a Henkel? It's Henkel, right? Henkel H-51 fighters for the July 1936 airlift operation, which carried the Army of Africa and Foreign Legion across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. Germany's initial commitment was only the Operation Magic Fire, Fjorda Zabar,

transport mission, which was then followed by an effort to train Spanish air crews, then was expanded September 30, 1936, into a full military expedition, soon to be dubbed the Condor Legion. In addition to an expanded air wing, German ground forces were soon added to the mission, including machine gun batteries, a tank division, and anti-aircraft guns. Over time, older aircraft would be transitions to the Spanish Nationalist Air Force, while German pilots brought the latest aircraft into the fight. the Kriegs Marine engaged in convoy escort, escort, blockade breaking, naval bombardment, and U-boat operations. Portugal. In the first weeks of the war, the Portuguese military attempted to form a Veriatos Legion with their own army,

named for the historic Lusitanian leader, Vidiatus, to aid the nationalist cause. Due to internal political and revolutionary struggles with their own left, the Salazar government dialed back the effort into an assistance program for volunteers for Falunge and Adakete militias or the Spanish Foreign Legion. Under pressure from the International Non-Invention Committee in February 1937, the Salazar government published a decree prohibiting the enlistment of volunteers on either side of the conflict. A Portuguese military observation mission was established in March 1937 to both study the conflict militarily as well as to covertly assist the 8 to 12,000 volunteers in navigating their service and post-war return home. Most critically, Portugal supplied Kesee ports in the early days of the war funneling armaments from abroad to the nationalists across the border, which the nationalists had secured in its entirety by the end of 1933. Yeah, so the Portuguese contribution is there are those men, and I don't want to downplay the contribution of 8,000 to 12,000 men. It's just for political reasons the Portuguese government, and we see how far left the Portuguese government becomes like in the 60s and 70s, right?

They were dealing with a very similar situation. very small country poor country you know collapsed in many ways like Spain never had the huge empire that Spain had but it was still you know they their their fingerprints were all over the world and they had risen and fallen very sharply as well isn't that isn't that mostly because a lot a lot of the great port the great men of portugal would just hop over the border and go and yeah joins join the spanish so that they could go overseas and then many of them were promoted to leadership yeah yeah and the and the spanish the spanish system had an allowance for that like you know okay you have a charter um and but the big thing was that they're seaports because as you'll

recall when when you like when you look at the map of the seaports that the next Nationalists controlled. There weren't that many. You know, there was there was the landing at Cadeve and then Sevilla that they had, but they when it came to like getting supplies up to the car lists in the north, that stuff was going through Portugal because and then as the, you know, my theory is part of the reason that it was so easy for the nationalists to move up the Western side of Spain bordering Portugal is because the Portuguese government were facilitating the movement of international armaments and fuel and everything through their borders. So it was very critical for them to secure all those points. And when you read the individual stories about the

battles for the cities along there, there's a lot of bitching about the Portuguese, because by the libtards, because the Portuguese, they don't want a communist country right their border and Portugal and Spain, you know, that is a struggle that goes back for their whole history, right? So it's it's a really important contribution that the government did, but they had to dial it back. Like I said, it was an internal thing, but a lot of it was international. And, you know, they bitched about the Salazar government as much as they bitch about the Franco government and the lip-tarded press. So it's very, it was a very critical contribution. that the Portuguese made.

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we're going to stop right there because really yeah because really 1936 to 1937 is when there's a huge shift in the war so this is almost a perfect place to stop this is like the the jump off yeah yeah all right remind everybody where they can find your stuff uh I am on Twitter Caudillo doll if you just look for Carl Dahl you'll be able to find me.

And also I have a substack, Carldall.com. By book, I have a fictional novel about the Spanish Civil War that required like five years of research, and I had to relearn Spanish

to read good source material. So I have a ton of articles about the stuff that I found out that when you Google it, a lot of times my substack is the number one result in the English language for a lot of these topics because, like I said, you know, this stuff cries out to be translated into English. So thanks, Pete, appreciate it.

Thanks for having me here. Hail victory. Until part two. Yes. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingiano show, part two of the Spanish Civil War with Carl. What's going on, Carl? Hey, Pete, happy Monday. Happy Monday, man.

Let's do this. Going to release us tomorrow, so this will be nice and fresh for people. Awesome. Not like we're going to sit on it for a while. So, yeah, let's pick up right where we left off. And the bullet points came to, we just talked about Portugal. And now, let's just pick right up where we left off. The North Falls, 1937.

Madrid and its northeastern flank in Guadalajara hold against relentless assault. Franco's strategic focus, the capture of Madrid, leads to a grinding struggle over several months which sees no improvement in the nationalist situation. After failed nationalist offenses in Yaramah and Guadalajara cause heavy Spanish and Italian casualties, successes elsewhere, such as to taking them a month. Malaga and a large swath of territory in southern Spain encourage nationalist forces to look elsewhere for more vulnerable threats. The nationalist strategy shifts mostly away from fixation upon prestige targets and toward attrition warfare. And I'll point out one thing there, Pete.

This is often with a asterisk, like, to the great frustration of his allies and commentators. because you'll see the reference. In Guadalajara, there were heavy Spanish and Italian casualties across those two battles. The Italians and the Germans wanted to smash this pass at Guadalajara. And Franco, after initial struggles, didn't think it was going to pan out. And the Italians kind of went for it anyway, dictating what the strategy. would be. I should say the Italians and the Germans

who were supporting in the air. And this really pissed off Franco and he, there's debates on whether he had committed to provide forces and didn't or if he originally said, I don't think there's an operation there.

And they expected to come save them and it was more of a, he brought enough of a force so that they could have a controlled retreat and the Italians took heavy casualties. So not only was it a change in their strategy, but it was one of the times,

it was one of the first visible instances where his foreign allies tried to push strategic and operational moves that Franco didn't agree with. And he reined them in. And he very successfully reigned them in pretty much for the rest of the war. It's a sore spot with the,

the folks that look at the Spanish Civil War from a non-Spanish focus, if their orientation is towards these allies and, you know, all out of caveat that we should, you know, and do respect their sacrifices, it's still a Spanish war being run by the Spanish. So that was a very interesting thing that is a big sticking point in pretty much all of the histories that you'll read. And it's pretty clear that it was Franco asserting himself there. It wasn't, the strategy wasn't working. And so he changed his, his strategy accordingly, which was highly successful after long periods of trying to do what they were kind of telling him to do and it not really working. Okay. All right. The war in the north, Republican forces in Basque country, cut off by land with little

resupply and reinforcement coming by sea due to blockade are slowly whittled down by rickete militias the navarre brigade and later nationalist army columns and italian troops in the west entire units of catholic basque conscript surrender to then join their cousins in the nationalist ricketts yeah small small point there is that the kind of uh the the the kind of retrospective Basque nationalist position is that, you know, oh, they were so put upon by Franco, and actually, uh, the early recetes were largely Basque and they made quick converts because you could be in a labor battalion or prison camp or dead, or you could hang out with your fellow traditionalist Catholics. And the, and the Basque were, uh, The kind of Basque nationalist piece up in Basque country was very divided between these kind of traditionalists and the socialists who were part of the real Republican orientation. That was a big division between the two. And so it was an easy move to move over and away from the kind of, there weren't as many indignity.

and atrocities in the north by the Republic because they were tempered by this kind of traditionalist Catholic Basque, you know, the bulk of the population. But they still weren't big fans of those people. And especially, as you pointed out, the last time we talked, Pete, like, they would just tell you what they thought, right? Like, nobody was mincing words. And so the Catholics, very quickly saw the light and came over to the, the recetes and the Navarre Brigade, because it was a much better deal for them than persisting in the delusion that they could, that they could win. All right. Combined arms operations, coordination between ground troops,

armor, and aviation are born, enabled by improvements in and availability of mobile radio. One of the Republic's greatest errors in the North is reliance upon press-ganged monarchist engineers in the development of defensive fortifications around Basque Country. Captain Pablo Murga is executed November 19, 1936, for providing plans of the fortifications to an Austrian consul, Wilhelm de Wokanig, who is himself arrested and executed by the Republic. On February 27, 1937, Captain Alejandro Goiko Aheia, goykoi, yeah.

Good job. Who, yeah, well, you put the pronunciation there. You have to. Who only wants to work on trains crosses to front with a group of Carlos sympathizers in a pre-arranged surrender of the Fourth Brigade of Navarre. He delivers detailed plans on the fortifications around Bilbao, known alternately as the iron belts in Spanish, the iron ring in English, and the iron French offense in Basque. Iron belt hits hardest, sorry, guys, including the locations of vulnerabilities he deliberately engineered into its construction. Yeah, so it's, it's, this is a story that, like, you'll just get this little brief thing that he went over in, in your,

kind of English language summary histories, but the Spanish material that Goico Aheia was like a big wheel in Spain for decades and a major player in transportation and the like. His his innovations are everywhere today and a lot of them are becoming fulfilled as technology and metallurgy and stuff advances. I have a fun little article about him on my substack for anyone who's interested, but he literally just wanted to work on trains and they wouldn't let him. He would say this like up to his death, total autist. And all anyone wants to talk about in interview, the rare interview with him in Spanish television in the 60s and 70s is about this period in history.

and all he wants to talk about is trains. He's so delightful. Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November.

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It's a risk you can avoid. Review your home insurance policy regularly. For more, visit Understanding Insurance.com. E forward slash under insurance. Brought to you by Insurance Ireland. That's really cool. Someone who knows what his strength that is just like

and just this is my lane. I'm staying in it. He called himself an enemy of war. And so the fact that they tried to make him participate in a war that he opposed, he just swore eternal hostility to them. But he also just set it out of his mind.

Now freed from distraction, Goeko Ehea is set loose to work on transportation infrastructure projects for the nascent nationalist government. He goes on to revolutionize rail transportation with his Talgo trains and his innovations still see fruition as technology catches up to his brilliant mind. Guico Ejia was given a great deal of leeway by Francisco Franco, who saw him in his inventions as exemplars of Spanish science and industry. While aerial bombings of urban areas are carried out by both the nationalist and Republican forces throughout Spain, atrocity propaganda reaches its 20th century pinnacle when military targets in the historic vast city of Guernica. Is it pronounced Guernica? Wernica, yeah. Wernica?

Yeah. Are bombed by German and Italian aircraft. In addition to Republican soldiers, many civilians are killed and much of the town destroyed. Red journalist George Stier passes on in his reporting from the scene the inflated figure of 1654 killed and 889 wounded. Although current consensus driven by thorough post-Franco investigators is a mere 153 deaths. Nationalist press liaisons reveal their ineptitude by first blowing off the claims of having bombed the city at all, blaming the destruction entirely upon retreating Republican forces, the standard, forces a standard tactic of demolishing corridors as both a delaying tactic and a

temper tantrum when in fact the Luftwaffe documented their bombing operation in great detail. Yeah, it's, it's a, this is one of the most complicated, um, elements of the war overall. And so, um, I, and it's really unfortunate that the nationalists like just completely denied it. should say the nationalist press liaisons completely denied it. But it did happen, but again, a lot of it was very clearly Republican. A lot of the damage was Republican behavior as well. It was their M.O. All right. Side note. Pablo Picasso's now famous painting, Gwernica, said to have shook up the world that the 1937 Paris's World Fair is a protest against the senseless bombings of the historic Basque city for no reason by evil mustache man had actually been a flop,

disdained by the global public, the Spanish, and the Basque. A heavy propaganda campaign persisted with the peace touring Great Britain in 1938, a little fanfare. A 1939 tour of the United States with the Spanish relief campaign saw critics continue to dismiss it. Only during a wildly successful touring show of a large Picasso collection begun in New York in November 1939, as war-raged in Europe, that the propaganda campaign finally succeed in elevating this piece to its now historically relevant position. It is alleged in older pieces that Guernica was originally inspired by the peninsular war as a general commentary on war and repurposed by Spanish Republican propagandists after the bombing. And I'm trying to find exactly where I've seen that. I've seen it in multiple places. I know Kemp makes a reference to it.

I've seen it in other written records, but I'm having trouble finding it right now, which is the joy of having read so many pieces. So that's something I'm going to correct. And once I find it, I think I'll have an article on my substack about all these kind of controversies and arguments about Guernica and just the fact that the propaganda campaign finally succeeded once World War II was kicking off. But that was hugely due to just, like, media promotion of it, because they tried and tried and tried, as you've explained. And it finally took when World War II had already started. In a typically courageous and honorable move, Rickete forces from the Terseo of Begonia first to capture Guernica two days after the bombing and circle the historic tree of Guernica and protected from Falunists from other parts of Span. who wished to fell the symbol of Basque nationalism, under which the lords of Biscay swore their oaths to the foeros for 500 years. Yeah, so it's actually a fun story, in a true story

that came out of written records from veterans of the Navarre brigades that this happened, and a nice little fist fight between officers ensued. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, It's one of these very interesting sore spots where the kind of the respect for the various expressions of locality as long as they didn't actually undermine the collective nationalism were kind of settled during the war. The Decretto April 19, 1937. The Falunge and Carlos Ricketts are formally unified into the Falunge Espanola Tradisian. and the Nationalistist and the Los Junta Offensive National

National National Syndicalista Yeah, it's a brutal mouthful But it's literally just they take the the traditionalist group and then smush

around it like envelop the traditionalist party name with Falun Gay and then And it was the Falunge de las yons, right? And so they just crammed everything together. And it's everyone, like, laughs about it, but the real point of it is what follows. One party, one army, one state.

Falungest and Carlist units still fight under the command of their own officers and are allowed to use their own symbols through the end of the war, but the militias are fully incorporated into the nationalist armies' command and logistic structure. And post-war, they're able to use those symbols as well. And then from then on, so the veterans' organizations can, you know, wear those colors. But after the war, the Spanish military is standardized, where it's strictly the symbols that the leadership selects.

So it was a tip of the hat to, you know, how they got there. And rather than trying to suppress one or the other, it was a pretty small move to allow people to keep their symbols. Because keep in mind, Franco was non-ideological. These groups may have been ideological, although I would guess that most of the actual fighters weren't particularly ideological other than like the outcomes that they were trying to get. So it's just, it's a very big thing for us all to think about as we go into this new world. The Maydays in Catalonia, fighting between the more libertarian anarchists, the communists, and the Benton, CNT, FAL. Is that FAAI, right? FAA.

Yeah. ends in Republican consolidation of power over Catalonia and a renewed focus upon the collective fight against the nationalists. As this tradition, this translates into the communist forces forcing the less radical and libertarian elements to submit or die. The decree to unify the militias went out in 1936, but the rule became de facto during the course of 1937 with the brigidas mixed brigades combining militias and the remains of international brigades with regular army troops. The last of the holdouts are liquidated by commissars. And for the average, for the average person in one of these militias, like they're just going to get with the program, but it was the,

the commissars were going after the, particularly the anarchists did not have commissars per se, but they had kind of natural leaders who would, you know, spit game as it were regarding what their ideology was. And those people were just eliminated if they didn't just shut up and get with the program. So you see the comparison where under the nationalists, you're allowed to keep your symbols and your songs and your talking points, as long as you're part of the operation, whereas with the Republicans, like the ideology is the important thing. The symbols are the important thing.

Right. June 3rd, 1937, General Mola, commander of the armies of the North and champion of the carless traditionalists. Air Grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans.

Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic, beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse.

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June 19th, Bilbao, the capital of Biscaya, falls to the nationalist after months of heavy fighting. July 6th, in an attempt to seize Nationalist territory and divert their forces in the north, the Republican Army launches an offensive west of Madrid, forced upon Brunette. Republican forces are ultimately routed at a loss of 25,000 men. And this will become a pattern when the Republicans attempt an offensive. August 24th, to the eastern Oregon, Republican forces conceive of an offensive. into nationalist territory in the direction of Zaragoza, the province's capital.

In a grinding battle against heavy resistance, the offensive stalls. For propaganda purposes, the Republic and their tame, gay, retard journalist Ernest Hemingway, dubbed the failed offensive the Battle of Bilschite, Belshita, Belshita, Belshita being the destroyed town that they finally capture on September 6th, despite the resistance of both nationalists, and civilian defenders. The Republican price for a bit of strategically useless territory is nearly 9,000 casualties and a heavy loss in equipment. August 26th, the city of Santander falls to nationalist troops supported by a substantial force of Italians.

60,000 Republican soldiers are captured. October 21st, Gihon, Asturius, the last toehold of the Republic in the North, falls to the nationalists. The Nationalist Army, fresh from victory in the North, retools and reorganizes with new equipment and tactical capabilities. The Republican Army, fresh from getting wrecked, retools and reorganizes under its ideologically pure communist officers trained in Russia. So if you look at the timeline, just to kind of summarize what brought us here, when the war kicks off at the very beginning, you know, the nationalists only hold the territory that they hold. There's that kind of band in the northern areas not counting, you know, Basque country.

And then little toe holds. And then towards the end of 1936 and 1937, it's consolidation of these holdings, kind of in a westward flank and slowly, slowly whittling away and making gains. All the kind of militias had to do before the nationalist, you know, the bulk of nationalist forces coming from the Army of Africa is hold these territories. And then what do they do? They continue to hold them. The Army continues to hold these territories.

and then they just grind out the north. A lot of that, though, again, like I made reference to, as a lot of it is large Basque forces going over and basically, you know, continuing to wear the red beret just as recetes and nationalist troops. So it's a big focus. The rest of the Republican forces are kind of just, just trying to hold on to what they have and consolidate into a single force and just failing

any time they try to do any kind of offensive operations. Terrell, December 37th, February through February 1938, the Republican Army, desperate for a successful battle and needing to secure the nationalist most obvious gateways of the South, drove into the remote capital during heavy snowfall. Nationalist forces prudently withdraw into the most defensible part of town, but General Franco orders that it be retaken. No provincial capital can fall to the Republicans. Due to the coldest winter in 20 years, the nationalist response stalls,

and a relief force is not able to attack until December 29. Worsetting weather, the temperature drops to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, minus 18, Celsius and four feet to 120 centimeters of snowfalls, keeps aviation largely grounded and prevents the nationalist from retaken the city. The besieged nationalist defenders surrender on January 8th, which allows the civilian population to be evacuated through nationalist lines. The weather eases up, and the nationalist now 100,000 strong in the immediate area begin to capture territory around the city where Republican forces are weakest. On February 7th, one of the last mass cavalry recharges in the history of warfare, breaks the Republican defenses to the north of the town,

and scatters them. The Nationalists take thousands of prisoners and massive stocks of weapons and equipment. They slowly encircle Teruel over the following weeks. When they take the city on February 22nd, they capture 14,500 men and some of the best weapons left in the Republican arsenal. While both sides take similarly heavy casualties from combat, illness, and the cold, the defeat breaks the back of the Republican Army while the Nationalists immediately launch a new offensive. Yeah, the other thing here, too, focusing on the weapons and equipment that are captured, this is like armor. So the nationalists really enjoyed taking captured Soviet tanks and armored cars and the like. guns, anti-tank guns, etc. They preferred them in a lot of cases because they were so simple and easy to train with, whereas like a lot of the German stuff, they'd have complicated optics that were more

complicated than necessary from, you know, when you're talking about the ranges that are involved in an effective range for like an anti-tank gun, right? So it's really interesting because the nationalist immediately put these weapons to use. They have fuel and they have people, to operate them, whereas the Republic, you know, is, you know, they have to get things delivered by sea or coming over the border from France. And, you know, the Soviets are, are pretty stingy after their initial deliveries of armor and a lot of more modern stuff. So it just becomes this, this grind where this becomes the repeated pattern that you just continue to see for the rest of the year. Let me ask you a question back in the middle of the paragraph, it says the besieged nationalist

defenders surrender on January 8th, which allows the civilian populations be evacuated through the nationalist lines. What do you mean by surrender there? Okay, so they gave up the last of their toehold in the city. So what they did is they held a position, they held positions and allowed the population to retreat because they had a connection to their own lines. by having, because remember, they secured all this territory around the outskirts of the city. So they just pulled out of the city, you know, these just completely annihilated remnants of the town. You can see images of it online. And then the last of them that ended up being trapped farther into and encircled, you know, within the town,

they surrendered. And then the retaking of the town happened. Because what would take place is that the Republicans were so focused on, we have to take the town, whereas the nationalists had this more long-term strategic view of what do we actually get. So they did have a lot of holdouts that were captured or killed. They wanted the population to be able to get out through channels that they had established. with the contact that the that the nationalists had made with them.

They didn't have enough forces to Russia and it wasn't worth it to try to, you know, hold more of the town or fight when they could withdraw and then, you know, isolate those people. Okay. It's interesting. There's great Wikipedia articles on it with good maps. Oh, cool. All right. Note, in February 1939, one of the last official acts of the Republican government is

the execution of the commander of the nationalist defenders of Teruel, Ray Dark Court, along with the Bishop of Teruel, and 41 other heroic prisoners who held out for so long. Man. Yeah. They just, they fucking loved killing people. That's all they are. Yeah, so you hold out, and so what do they do?

They hold them, they hold them as prisoners for a while, and it was literally the leadership of the Republican government said to execute them. Our democracy, yeah. Yeah. When it comes down to it, these are the people that, the spiritual brothers and sisters of the ones that won World War II. Yeah. And yeah, we have been so. fucking brainwashed into, well, you know, Hitler was worse than them.

So, you know, it's a good thing they did. It's a good thing. We have to choose, we have to choose one, apparently. So let's take, you know, let's take the ones that, um, brought us trans kids and, um, you know, all the fucking shit that we put up with now. Yeah, exactly. These are the spiritual forefathers of everything that we're dealing with now. But hey.

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visit drinkaware.e. Hey, you know, Germany had a problem with one group. It gets worse. The shift of focus into Aragon underscores Franco's intent to ignore Madrid for the time being and instead smashed a Spanish Republican army

through attrition rather than attempt a knockout blow, which frustrates his German and Italian allies, though it better serves Franco's goal of cleansing Spain. Because you need a lasting victory. You need a lasting victory. Yeah.

You know, what's funny is I was listening to John Harris on the Conversations at Matter podcast, Christian podcast. He was interviewing Paul Gottfried today. And you understand why Paul Gottfried is ignored, I mean, hated by the left, but also ignored by the right. when he starts talking about solutions. Yeah. And he says, you know, the only way forward is the left in this country has to be utterly defeated. Yeah. There can't be a trace of them left.

There can't be a trace of whatever it is that they're pushing and they believe left. And on the right can't hear that. There's an interesting thing that takes place nowadays when you talk about the Spanish Civil War. is there's people that are upset that Franco didn't just like murder all of them, which he wasn't going to do anyway because of his religious convictions. This is as close as you're going to get. I remember you and I were talking, oh gosh, some time ago, and you made a reference to a quote that had been attributed to Franco

where he said something like he was willing to shoot like 20% of the country or have 20% of the country shot, something like that. And what it was a reference to is the percentile of hardcore revolutionaries that were in the country. And so when you see what happened with the war, when they turned it into, oh, well, you know, we can resolve this through combat operations. It's this great heat sink where all the zealots are going to be fighting. The people who are, you know, just kind of along because that's the, you know, the thing or because they get drafted or, You know, they're told that it's the norm.

You know, they're not really going to be a problem in the future and can just be dealt with. They can, they'll get back to work and so on and so forth. But those real enemies were the ones that were annihilated, you know, through combat. And so, you know, the main thing with Spain is that it's, you know, no man is an island, no country is completely isolated. you know, the external world moved on, you know, the United States State Department sure whittled away on the Franco government and the like. So it's one of those criticisms where they did pretty much the best that they could. There was no scenario where you get a great cleansing that the same people will also

accurately state did not happen in Germany, but somehow will wish that they had done it. or as a critique, right, of Spain. And it's like there was no scenario where that was going to happen. The outside world wouldn't have allowed it either, particularly the British. On March 7th, the Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive and steamroll south through Aragon, eastern Valencia, province, and western Catalonia, and no small part due to strong support from German, Italian, and Spanish ground attack aircraft. The beleaguered Republicans are slowly mopped up and the nationalist reached,

the Mediterranean Sea on April 14th. By April 19th, they control 37 miles, 60 kilometers of coastland, and Catalonia has been isolated from the rest of the Republic. And I made that reference to combined arms operations before, and they were born before, but they really become polished in the Oregon offensive. There's really very interesting write-ups from the German perspective on how they kind of established the doctrine that we saw a lot of in World War II by the Germans. It was just, it was really impressive. And it comes down to having more portable radios and communications between forward air controller, aircraft. I mean, the United States uses the same doctrine today.

I mean, not exactly the same, but you know what I mean. France's government reopens the Spanish frontier March 17th and sends 18,000 tons of war material into Catalonia. With a new round of conscription from males aged 16 and up and retreating forces consolidated, Catalonia's remaining manpower is organized into the Ebro Army. May, the Republican government defended in Valencia behind the impressive XYZ or Matayana line, fortifications ringing the city and surrounding Iberian system mountain range sues for peace. General Franco declines and demands unconditional surrender. So they were very impressive defensive fortifications, and they sued for peace because they knew

what a nightmare it would be for the nationalist to try to grind through it. And they were trying, they were trying. but that wasn't going to happen. It was not going to be a split country. The Battle of the Ebro, the fall of the Republic. The Nationalist focused upon Valencia hold the Catalonian front along the Ebro River with a light complement of units and little fortification.

Condor Legion reconnaissance flights and Spanish Legion scouts on the ground alert nationalist forces to a Republican troop buildup along the Ebro River. The standard English language is historians take as the warning went unheeded, but some military analysts and Spanish sources claim that the resulting assault was permitted. The night of July 4th, the night of July 24th through 25th, while the moon is down, the Ebro Army consisting of the 5th and 15th Army Corps,

crosses the Ebro River at low points or via assault boats, pontoon bridges, and some established crossings along the river's eastern bulge, where Aragon and Catalonia meet, a natural border defined by the river and surrounding mountains. At Amposta to the south, near the sea where the river is wider and swifter, a secondary assault by the 14th International Brigade fails after 18 hours of combat. By July 26th, the northern assault advances three miles west, and at the Great Eastward bulge, 21 miles northwest, deep into mountainous territory. Nationalist reinforcements sweep in with eight divisions and where, than 240 aircraft to encircle and hold the oncoming Republican troops, driving them off the

navigable roads and destroying their vehicles. Republican infantry and tanks arrive via the northern route on the outskirts of their target, the town of Gundessa, a great crossroads by which they hope to break through the narrow nationalist salient and reach Republican territory to the west. Their ultimate delusion, you comment, delusional goal is to either secure, sessions by forcing the surrender of trap nationalist forces along the coastline, or to reinforce Madrid and hold out for international support. Yeah, completely delusional. They were cut off from the Valencia. Valencia was not quite encircled, but the eastern and northern areas were very heavily fortified, not fortified, but surrounded by nationalist troops who were attacking.

The breakout was very ill-conceived. And so looking at a map, there's essentially this bulge that I describe, where you could see at the farthest westernmost point, they made it about three miles. And then going up, if you count going up through the bulge, 21 miles northwest. So again, they're trapped in the mountains in this little tiny point with hundreds of thousands of men there. And it's just a horrifically idiotic attempt, last attempt for an assault. Yeah, people should understand. Books have been written just about this.

Yeah. The action in my novel, like one of the most pivotal points, takes place during this operation just because it's so incredibly interesting and it's very scenic and beautiful, too, down there. They are too late. General Franco orders the Ebro River dams at Tremp and Camarasa open. The deluge takes a Republican pontoon boats out of action for four days, and the bridges, supply lines and truck depots along the river are bombed and strafed by nationalist aviation. While trucks make it across the bridges, towing artillery and transporting troops, they are not able to establish supply lines back across the river and are destroyed in great numbers, as are the supporting gun batteries and supply. depots on the eastern side of the river. Only 22 tanks and a small number of artillery pieces had crossed the Ebro, and nearly 80,000

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For more, visit Understandinginsurance.i. forward slash under-insurance. Brought to you by Insurance Ireland. Republican engineers focus upon restoring their pontoon bridges every night, only for them to be destroyed the next day and within a few days. Republican forces are completely trapped within the pocket and cut off from their supply lines across the river, not that they would have been permitted to retreat. To the communist leadership, desperate for the propaganda value of a decisive victory, only attack was permitted. And you put LOL.

Well, I mean, it's insane, but they were basically like, do not come back or we'll shoot at you. There were several points where that was made. they relaxed that later on after they got spanked so badly, but it's really just insane and shows who you're talking about. There was no strategic value or chance of this succeeding, just completely delusional. And that's where the argument about the attack probably being somewhat allowed to happen, you know,

versus it being such a big support. prize because, I mean, it's one of those things that people will debate forever, you know, but it just seems so such an obviously stupid operation. But they, you know, thanks to, you know, aviation surveillance and the like, you know, plenty knew that it was going to happen. Republican forces never break through into Gendessa and suffer heavy casualties as its outskirts and hills, immediately overlooking the town thanks to the season nationalist military's combined arms attack. By August, most of the Republic's aircraft are swept from the sky, and the Nationalist achieved total air superiority. The first nationalist counteroffensive

is launched against the small northernmost pocket near Fayon, which drives entrenched Republicans across the river at a loss of 900 men and 200 precious brand-new machine guns. The next day, August 11th, the nationalist drive into the Pandolz mountain range and capture much of the high ground. The Ebro dams are opened again, destroying the remaining pontoon bridges, and six nationalist divisions sweep into the heights of Geita over five days of fighting. At this point, Franco's ally Mussolini, fingers clenched, no doubt in a rude gesture, states to Franco does not know how to make war and doesn't want to. Unlike Mussolini, and you put too soon,

Franco's strategy secures peace in his country for nearly 40 years as the enemies of Spain are blasted a machine gun into the mountains over the next three months. On September 21st, the International Brigades of those who are still alive, throw their hands up and formally withdraw from Spain, having sustained 25% fatalities in their two years in Spain. Is that S for spit? Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah, that was the operation. the international brigades were always used as shock troops. If you'll recall in the very first like two days of one of their units getting to Madrid,

they had something like 25% fatalities or casualties in two days. They were always the ones thrown into the assault because they were basically under command of Soviet fanatics, communist commissars and officers. who saw them as completely disposable. It was international Bolshevism, you know, just taking, taking their lives and throwing them into this fight.

The very end of them was the Battle of the Ebro, and they just, the leadership, they were completely broken by this. There was no way that they could get more people to volunteer. They couldn't get people to go back. They were, if you read any of the records written and the memoirs written by those people who I do not speak of in high esteem,

they were just completely shattered by this. It was stupid and they just got annihilated. By November 16th, the last Republican forces on the right bank of the Ebro escape at Flix. Both sides suffer massive casualties in the Battle of Ebro, although the figures are difficult to estimate. It's likely that Republican casualties number 75,000 with 30,000 dead. Additionally, the majority of the military relevant arms in Catalonia are lost in the battle. The Nationalists, too, take approximately 60,000 casualties, though almost certainly fewer than 10,000 dead. But among them are their very best frontline officers, and their armor and trucks are severely worn out from the tempo of mountain maneuver and combat. Yeah, that can't be understated just because, again, these are hardened veterans that had mastered, these combined arms operations, rapid response. They were just worn out. So things get quiet for a while, well, everyone kind of retools.

The Condor Legion withdraws most of its ground forces from the field and shifts a significant portion of their air crews to Germany due to tensions in Czechoslovakia. There we go. Yep. German aid is paused in mid-September as Germany and Spain negotiate compensation. They settle upon granting Germany an interest in the output of Spanish mines. New aircraft, BF-109, E's, H.E.11E's, and J's, and H.S.126A's, reinforce the Legion, and enable it to close out the war in a primary aviation role, and the older equipment is sold, to Spain during the Legion, before the Legion returns to Germany in May 1939.

Yeah, so all of the most modern German equipment is being proven in combat, but is then handed off to the Spanish, sold to the Spanish, because again, like, there's more coming out of German factories, and the latest and greatest is always coming, and they're iterating based on their operational observations in Spain. After rest, repair, and restructuring, fresh troops are brought in for the invasion of Catalonia in late December. 1939. Catalonia was captured against hardly any resistance by early February.

Hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees crowd the camps in southern France. February 27, the UK and France formally recognized the Franco government. March 5th, the Republican Army rises against the Prime Minister Negren and forms the National Defense Council to negotiate peace with Franco. Communist troops in Madrid attempt to continue the war or squashed in street fighting by their former allies. March 26th, the Nationalists advance from all sides towards Madrid. March 28th, Madrid surrenders almost bloodlessly. March 31st, the Nationalist Control All Spanish Territory. April 1st, Franco proclaims,

Liga es al final, the war is at its end, after accepting the surrender of the last Republican forces. The cost. Combat dead. Figures vary, but range between 150 and 200,000 killed in action on both sides. Both sides. Ramon Salas Laranzabal's authoritative 1977 study calculates 165,367 total combat dead. Yeah, Laranzabal is very interesting.

There's several websites online with his records and methodology in them, his sources for everything. He used every source that he could find and went through Spanish records just in exhausting minutia. And he also compared it to pre-war and post-war numbers where he wasn't like 100% sure. So when you talk about the cost of the war, it's a big topic. And so he's pretty much the best source that I've seen and what keeps happening. and I think we talked about this a little bit last time, is that during this truth and reconciliation regime that's taking place in Spain,

they'll say, oh, well, we think that these are, we're going to lean on what the Republican numbers were, and then as they actually go through and reconcile it, it just squares up with the numbers that Laurent de Paul put together, you know, almost 50 years ago. So. I think most people would be, if you look at that number,

165,000 in just a civil war in Spain. Yeah. In Europe. In Europe, in the 20th century, that's, I mean, World War II, obviously, we don't,

could be 40 million, could be 20 million. Yeah, yeah. It's impossible to tell. But this warm up, I mean, this is basically, you know, what I like to refer to as World War one and a half,

is just absolute insanity. And the total population from zero to 100, right, of Spain at the time, was about 25 million. Executions and murders. Salas La Ranzabal calculates that from 1936 to 1939, there were 72,344 non-combat executions and murders in Republican territory.

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visit drinkaware.e. In Nationalist Spain from 1936 to 1950, the figure was 57,662, with 16,763 judicially governed executions in the first two years of the war, and 5,878 more over the next 10 years. Non-historical academics such as bevore used these figures. Yeah. It's very important because, like you noticed, I made a distinction, the nationalists, there were just like executions and murders, you know, with no judicial procedure, and then there were pretty severe judicial

procedure numbers that followed. But again, these are being carried out against the people that largely committed these atrocities on the other side. So it's like, if you find someone that murdered 10 people and you shoot him after a fair trial, uh, that's a number that's here, but like, good, right? Yeah. Yeah. Additional civilian dead. Again, per Salas Lorenzabal.

Taking into account demographic comparisons over long stretches of time to exclude projected deaths due to natural causes, accidents, typical losses from disease, etc., and verified against documented war time records, he arrives at an excess loss of 300,000 civilian lives due to disease, hunger, lack of medicine, etc., which would have been avoidable in peacetime. Interestingly, 1935 under the Republic, had significantly elevated death due to hunger and disease in southern Spain, likely related to the disruption caused by land reform and resulting

poor harvests. Interestingly, Salas Lorenzabal notes that the otherwise expensive 157,185 children calculated to not having been born during the war years hurt Spanish demographics far worse than the losses from all other causes. And so if you think about what that means when you talk about unjust, like look at our situation demographically in America right now, you have crime, elevated crime and murder, right you have massive suicide drug overdoses deaths related to that deaths of despair right think of all the people that are that that are not having children right now because of the hell that a certain group of people are pushing on us and what that does to us and our strength so when you get

revenge theoretically lawfully legally keep that in mind as well We should have double the numbers that we have. Refugees. Excluding those who fled Spain at their own accord before or during the war, about 500,000 Spanish became refugees in the final days of the war, with 450,000 fleeing Catalonia for France in February 1939. The French separated military age men from the civilians and established open-air internment camps.

Over time, refugees were redistributed to different facilities. About 300,000 refugees returned to Spain within a few months, where they were sorted by the Franco regime between innocent civilians and those destined for internment camps, labor battalions, or prisons. These returnees were handled according to their role in the war, with those who committed atrocities executed while mere participants in the war, draftees and generic leftists saw their sentences quickly commuted. about 30,000 the refugees who remained in France soon emigrated to Latin America, with most going to Mexico, 160 to 180,000 remained in France and labor battalions. Thousands of communists and anarchist militants enjoyed the hospitality of the concentration camps of the Vichy and German governments. The Soviet Union accepted a few thousand prominent Republican communists, but not the Hoy-Polloy. Yeah, so I remember you were talking about Mexico last.

time. Yep, that's that Mexican government brought in quite a few of these refugees. And most of the anarchists from Catalonia ended up in Mexico. I mean, take that with a grain of salt, but of the ones who wrote memoirs, an awful lot of them ended up coming back to France after World War II or just stayed in Mexico. but huge numbers of those kind of apparatusics and members of the government and talking heads who could not go back to Spain under Franco ended up in Mexico. Yeah. I wonder how many of them went and said hello to Mr. Trotsky. Probably an awful lot of them.

April 14th, Pope Pius I addressed as a Spanish faithful. with immense joy. With great joy, we address you, most dear children of Catholic Spain, to address to you our fatherly congratulations for the gift of peace and a victory, with which God is deemed worthy to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, tried in so many and so generous sufferings. Our predecessor, a venerable memory, expected with longing and trust this providential peace, which is undoubtedly the fruit of that copious blessing which he sent in the very beginning of struggle, to all those who have devoted themselves to the difficult and dangerous task of

defending and restoring the rights and honor of God and religion, and we do not doubt that this space shall be the one that he himself foretold since then the sign of a future of tranquility and order and of honor in prosperity. The designs of Providence most beloved children have once again dawned over heroic Spain. The nation chosen by God as the main instrument of the evangelization of the new world, and as an impregnable fortress of the Catholic faith, has just shown to the apostles of materialistic atheism of our century the greatest evidence that the eternal values of religion and of the spirits stand above all things. The tenacious propaganda and the constant efforts of the enemies of Jesus Christ seem to have desired to try in Spain a supreme experiment of the

dissolving forces which they have at their disposal throughout the world. And even though it is true that the Almighty has for now not allowed them to achieve their goal, he has at least tolerated some of their terrible effects, so that the world could see how religious persecution undermining the very basis of justice and charity, which are love for God and respect for his holy law, may drag modern society's unthinkable abysses of evil destruction and passionate discord. To convince of this truth, the sane Spanish people with the two marks characteristic of their most noble spirit, which are generosity and frankness, rose up determinedly in defense of the ideals of Christian faith and civilization,

deeply rooted in the Spanish soil, and aided by God, who does not abandon those who hope in him. Could resist the push, that's Judah 13 and 17, sorry Protestants, could resist a push for those who deceived by what they believe to be a humanitarian ideal of the exultation of the meek, truly fought only for atheism. Yes. The primordial meaning of your victory makes us dwell in the most promising hopes

that God and His mercy will Dane lead Spain from the safe path through the safe path of its traditional and Catholic grandeur, which will be the point that will guide all Spaniards who love their religion and their fatherland in an effort to organize the life of the nation in perfect harmony with its most noble history. history of Catholic faith, piety, and civilization. We thus exhort the authorities and shepherds of Catholic Spain to enlighten the mind of those who were deceived, showing them lovingly the roots of materialism and secularism, from which their errors in wrongful acts came forth, and from which they could spring forth

again, proposed to them the principles of individual and social justice without which the peace and prosperity of nations, as mighty as they may be, cannot subsist and which are those contained in the Holy Gospel and the doctrine of the Church. We do not doubt that it will happen thus, and the basis for our firm hope are the most noble and Christian sentiments of which the Chief of State and so many gentlemen, his faithful collaborators, have given unequivocal, evidence with the legal protection which they have granted to the supreme religious and social interests according to the teachings of the Apostolic See. The same hope is also founded upon the enlightened zeal and abnegation of your bishops and priests tempered by pain,

and also in the faith, piety, and spirit of sacrifice, of which, in terrible hours, all classes of Spanish society gave heroic proof. And now before the remembrance of the mounting ruins of the bloodiest civil war recorded in the history of modern times, we, with priest regard, bow our head, above all, to the holy memory of the bishops, priests, religious of both sexes, and faithful of all ages and conditions who, in such an elevated number, sealed with blood, their faith in Jesus Christ, and their love for the Catholic religion. Majorum Hach, deliction, I haven't taken a lot of five. Delechonam Nemo Habet. Delechonim Nemo Habet.

Greater love than this, no man hath. John 1513. We also acknowledge our debt of gratitude towards all those who sacrificed themselves, even under heroism in defense of the unalienable rights of God and of religion, either in the battlefields or devoted to the sublime work of Christian charity in prisons and hospitals. We cannot hide the bitter sorrow that the remembrance of so many innocent children who, having been ripped from their homes, were taken to faraway lands, often in danger of apostasy and perversion. we desire nothing more ardently than to see them return to the bosom of their families, where they will once again find the warm and Christian tenderness of their own. And those others who, as prodigal sons, wish to return to the house of the Father, we doubt not they will be welcomed with goodwill and love.

It falls upon you, venerable brothers of the Episcopate, to advise all so that in their policy of pacification, all will follow the principles taught by the church and proclaim with such nobility by the generalissimo of justice for crime and of lenient generosity for the mistaken. Our solicitude, also as a father, cannot forget these deceived ones,

whom a deceitful and perverse propaganda succeeded in enticing with praise and promises. Your pastoral solicitude should be targeted at them with patience and meekness, pray for them, seek them, leave them again to the regenerative bosom of the church, and to the warmth of the

Fatherland and lead them to the merciful Father who awaits them with open arms. Therefore, most dear children, since the rainbow of peace as return to brighten the heavens of Spain, let us come together heartily in a fervent hymn of Thanksgiving to the God of peace and in a prayer of forgiveness and mercy for all those who perished, and in order that this peace be fruitful and long-lasting. We exhort you with all the fervor of our heart to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4 through 3. Thus united and obedient to your venerable episcopate, devote yourselves joyfully and with no delay to the urgent work of reconstruction which God and

the Fatherland expect from you. As a pledge of the copious graces which the Immaculate Virgin and St. James the Apostle, patrons of Spain, shall obtain for you, and which the great Spanish saints have merited for you. We bestow upon you, our dear children of Catholic Spain, upon the chief of state and his illustrious government upon the zealous episcopate and their selfless clergy upon the heroic combatants and upon all the faithful our apostolic blessing pious the 12th poxing christi victoria eternal amen and i had to close it with that because after you look at all the numbers after you hear about just brutal combat all over the the whole country. Spain was a smoking hole in the ground. Spain wasn't in a position to do anything

other than what they did, which is to buckle down and dig their way out, you know, establish or continue relationships with countries that they had good relationships with and, you know, do what they could. weren't in a position to, you know, get involved in another war. Nor was there an appetite for it. There were volunteers. There were quite heroic volunteers for the Blue Division, but they were volunteers. They were permitted to go and they came home and lived safely and in peace and many other

veterans of the Woff and SS and other groups were permitted to live. live peacefully in Spain by the Spanish government, but they stayed out of the next war because Franco removed his sword of victory from his belt and placed it on the altar on the victory celebration day and vowed never to pick it up again unless Spain was threatened. and people can say, well, look at Spain now, look at the West now, yada, yada. Okay, well, Spain was in peace and governed under his dictates, and the church flourished and still flourishes in Spain.

And that was his primary duty. there's an argument out there that the logical conclusion of is that Germany lost the war because Spain wasn't on their side, which is a very strange thing to say. But that's kind of the logical conclusion of many of the things that are said about what Spain did collectively as a nation after the war, which was to continue to send steel to, and, and other minerals to Germany and make some weapons for them. And other than that, you know, and allow certainly leeway with things, but also not go totally under the thumb of the British or anyone else and just kind of ride it out and enjoy some peace. So I just wanted to point out the stakes.

And you can't, a fervent Catholic cannot go against the, you know, that heavy, that heavy blessing with a with a you know now we know how to behave ourselves don't we

according to the precepts of the religion that you follow so hence the way I wanted that to wrap up

yeah and remember there there were more than a few people who fought the war valiantly

who would have faced the rope and Franco brought them in and protected them and let them live out their lives in Spain. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a sticking point with the allies, but he didn't care because they didn't have, you know, the leverage to do anything about it. And it wasn't worth stirring up. And they're very nice blessings. It makes a, uh, someone, a silly prod like myself, like,

look at our tradition, which is schism and people with a lot of goo in their hair and jeans with embroidery on the pockets and guitars, apparently. And then you hear that just heavy, like laden with emotion, prayer slash congratulatory speech. It's just something else. Yeah. and calls for reconciliation, calls for forgiveness. Yeah. Mercy. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Let's wrap this up. Please do your plugs. Tell people where they can find your stuff, and I'll make sure to include them in the show notes. Great. Thank you.

Carl doll. Dot substack.com is where most of my writing is. I have many narrative essays. and I have some of my fiction there. You can buy by book Faction with the Crusaders, which is a story about an American who ends up volunteering for the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.

You can get that on Amazon. There's links in my substack to that. There's a sample first chapter as well, which actually is in the drive to the south as part of the Oregon Offensive. That's the first chapter, and that story's in there. Lots of fun combined arms operations. And yeah, I'm on Twitter, too. Although I'm not a Twitter enthusiast, Caudillo doll, you'll be able to find me.

There's some numbers in there. It sucks, but you'll be able to find me under Carl Dahl, Caudio Dahl, on Twitter. Or excuse me. X, the platform, formerly known as Twitter, stupidly renamed X. Thanks, Pete. All right, man. Thank you.

Have a good evening. Thanks, you too.