The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1130: An Overview of the Spanish Civil War - Part 1 - W/ Karl Dahl

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

91 MinutesPG-13Karl Dahl is an author specializing in the Spanish Civil War and historical "fiction."Karl and Pete begin 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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Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Piquaneda show. Carl Dahl is back. How you done, Carl? Doing great Pete. Hail victory. We 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, you know, 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. and be able to tell people about an event that happened last century that is basically 98% of the people who talk about it are lying about it. Yeah. And you know what just popped into my mind, Pete? Hyperlinks. 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 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, etc. So. All right. So I'm going to start going through the document. I'll just start. You have a nice preface here. And then I'll start reading. And you stop me when, I mean, 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.

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 culture. 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 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, Finnish 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 of 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 goes largely to the rest of the continent,

other than the cut that like the Merchant Guild and, you know, 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 million pesos, of which the royal family gained only 1.5, 550,000.

thousand 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, it's 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 beautiful cathedrals and stuff that date from that time, but it wasn't, not huge amounts of it were going to improve 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. They move you, even before you drive.

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The Habsburg rulers of Spain, 15062, was that 17.0? I think it was like 1703 or something like that. Yeah. Left domestic policy up to the established order in Spain. Isabella I and Fernand the second's daughter, Joanna, married Philip the handsome son of Maximilian I first holy Roman emperor in 1496 Philip became king of Castile Jure how do you pronounce that Jure usaurus 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 need it to know how to 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 reconquista taking place against the Turks. and then just, you know, the religious wars, you know, 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 outsides. 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. 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 which 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. Traditionalist support Carlos and his descendants call, hence the Carlis, in three armed risings this century. the first Carlos War 1833 to 1840 the second carlust war 1846 to 1849 and the third carlest war 1872 to 1876 1876 1873 to 1874 the first Spanish Republic lasts 11 months ends in a military coup and then the bourbon restoration yeah so they 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 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 large swads of the urban working classes,

joining Marxist and anarchist labor unions. And I'll point out, like, Pete, you, you're knowledgeable because you've read it enough about it of the kind of 19th century anarchist movements, you know, Bakunin 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, of the times that the opinions on anarchism versus Marxism came down to people's impressions of like Buchanan 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 a lie 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 purist, 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 C&T FAAI is completely the inheritors of Finnelli and his, and his, you know, 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. All 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 invaluable 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 that not one of those people is worth the life of a single Republican. Airgrid, 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.com.i. foreslash northwest. Employers, did you know you can now reward you and your staff with up to 1500 euro and gift cards annually completely tax-free.

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12 month minimum term, standard pricing thereafter, European broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more info is he skydadae slash beads. The Republic imposes de juree social revolution nationalizing church properties banning religious instruction and public processions

and instituting land seizures in 1932. There's some Michael Jones talks about how a lot of the Protestant Reformation was about yes stealing church properties and

stealing land and the history in in uh britain is very interesting uh on that subject as well yeah it's all all over the Protestant countries that was done absolutely 1932 carlos form communion tradition lista and riquete 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 youth organizations and 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.

Conservative and reactionary elements win the 1933 elections, which triggers mass, left-wing violence, and church burnings. Yeah, so it's basically Antifa gets called out because they weren't able to do fraud in 2016. They were totally taken aback by the actual turnout. Their fraud failed, and so they chimped out. 1934. Seda's victory at the polls doesn't materialize into power due to suppression by moderate Republicans under Rizania. 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 Seda 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 de 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 are 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 Tartland of Backwater, Nevada, because the Republican government couldn't imagine right-wing factional alliances. Yeah, so the Jaimeists 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 Carlos 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, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the succession nonsense. So there's no way that they would come together because they hate each other wrong.

The militant anarchist of the CNT 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 unions, budget will be devoted to manufacture of the FAA bomb hand grenade in Barcelona.

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 Raquette 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 September? History is so interesting that way.

Yeah. I think the Pinotche in Chile, they tried to assassinate, they tried to assassinate Mussolini on September 11th. 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 going back centuries. It's like, I'll ask my son. He probably knows all of them. Kidd, 9-11 is like a joke to zoomers at this point. It's crazy. 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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And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing each other. And ballad of a small player. starring Colin Farrell on Netflix. I made some mistakes. Great, who hasn't? Get one gig Sky broadband, essential TV and Netflix,

all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location, new customers only, 12-month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infooshee sky.a slash speeds. Falun 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 de 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. No.

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, and 37 or 38, 38 actually. Yeah, exactly. The cool thing about it, though, is because 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 conservative parts of Spain and in military strongholds, but it's squashed in street fighting in leftist strongholds, such as Barcelona, Sant'Ather, 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. You know, 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 Bivor 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 a wall and then boom. And he was an older gentleman and the pilot survived. Yeah. But San Juan Huero passed away. Right.

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 Riccate 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 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. do 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 Navar, for example, Carlos and Falunus arrests subdue in 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 dioceses 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 laypeople, along with many thousands more by revolutionary Republicans.

Most of the non-combat extraditial 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 illusion of trials. Yeah. So the, 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, 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. And the narrative about the Republican factions has changed multiple times.

times, 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 were executions of people, for example, that supported 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 Bivore, 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 national 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? 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.Nor slash northwest. Employers, rewarding your staff?

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Make your awards more rewarding. Visit optionscard.i.e. today. This Black Friday game, stream and go full speed with one gig Sky broadband. And watch unmissable shows like all her fault on Sky. These nice people killing each other. And ballad of a small player. starring Colin Farrell on Netflix.

I've made some mistakes. Right, who hasn't? Get one gig Sky broadband, essential TV and Netflix, all for just 44 euro a month for 12 months. Our lowest ever price. Availability subject location, new customers only,

12 month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infooshees sky.a slash speeds. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, really books in English were only written from the,

from the Republican side for so long. but those numbers got embedded into people's brains and then when you now they have excavations and all sorts of things and it's like we're gonna we're gonna 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 sixties 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 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 Cordoba and Seville, the city and a portion of the province of Cadiz, the Canary Island, Spanish, Morocco, and the Baleeric, is that right? Yeah, Beliarek.

Yeah, Balearic Islands, accepting Manorca and Formintera. 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 Carles McKay 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. Liberals, socialists, 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 FBI, but more 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. 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 CNTFAI 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, 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. The anarchists who caused the police to attack the protesters because the anarchists came up from Eugene and did a during the parade of like 100,000, like just regular people protesting the WTO, whether they were in, fire mentalists, 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 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 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 that's the same thing yes yes john reed went to frie in moscow yep promised lennon would happen in the united states and the united states is just not fucking made for that no not at all and it and that was what the that was what the communists and the anarchists thought they could do and 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 FAA, 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 Tards were around Madrid as whenever they could so that the 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. Air grid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest.

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subject location, new customers only, 12-month minimum terms, standard pricing thereafter, TV and broadband sold separately. Terms apply for more infoos east sky. a.e slash speeds. 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 Nationalists 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 France, 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. please this is one of the first entries in that ledger per the libtarts 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 going 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, or 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, like, tiny sliver of French culture. It was the French traditionalist. 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 Soviet Union.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. They had their own, like Viva Cristo-Ray, 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 read 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 through March 1937. These funds are used for purchases of fuel and arms from a variety of arms dealers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The Republic's Council of Ministers authorized to 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

Albesete via France. The first shipment of arms from the Soviet Union reaches Cartagena October 4th. It includes both modern and obsolete small arms and ammunition, most meaningfully, the latest T-26 tanks, B-T-3 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 B-T-3s, they're fully outfitted with, what are what are they is it the tp 28 light machine guns the um 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 um uh 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, 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 Caballero government implements universal conscription of all Spanish males between 20 and 45 in the territory they control. Sounds like Ukraine. 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 other parties, the other political parties,

parties are essentially suppressed in the formal government, including assassination of upity people. 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 CNC FAI chooses to put the revolution on hold and submit to Republican army in the field. Yeah. And actually, the crazy thing is that the the the DeRuti column, which

are the hardcore, well, we'll talk about it in a second. Yeah. Hardcore. 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 hard. hardcore anarchist killers, which was the Derutie column that had been heading into Oregon and got stopped by the carolists, 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 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 religion people with their friggin mythology and everything these dumb people really fucking how smart do they ever prove themselves to be i'm going to say something pete the word libertarian is a spanish word uh it represents the non bolshevik 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. The, um, oh, I just wanted to warn people. Um, Bivore's battle, battle for Spain is a great book for facts. Um, yeah, the death tolls we've already talked about. or you know, but know this if you're going in. Bevor 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 I'm trying to counter your point, but I can't. That's where his, 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 imaginary.

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. Yeah. And it's like, no, you don't get to do that. You get to go based on the, um, 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 Bivor does. And he doesn't. I wouldn't say he does it explicitly. He's not making anything up, but he does it 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, that was me looping back around to, 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. Yeah. 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 Mandaruti column speed toward Madrid. to intercept them. After securing Soleil, though, now maybe we can talk about this before we got to talk about the Al-Qazar. A lot of people make the argument

that by choosing to go and help them at the Al-Qazar and Soledo, 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, that 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. Um, you know, at very best, maybe they could have taken Madrid, but they wouldn't have captured the enemy leadership. Because it's urban. combat. Urban combat is not fast. It's it's it's the opposite of fast and and they found that out when they got there. They couldn't even get through a college fucking campus in a couple 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, Toledo is about 45 miles. southwestish of Madrid 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 Toledo is due south and a little southwest and it's kind of hilly around it too so that it's not fully in that 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 an easy thing to say. It's an easy thing to say if they had bypassed 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's, that was the successful nationalist strategy. And that they, they did that there. And then they tried for a knockout blow on Madrid

and failed at it. Sorry, all 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 Toledo 45 miles, 72 kilometers from Madrid, and rescuing

the besieged heroes of the Al-Qa-Zar on September 28th, the advancing nationalist forces split into three prongs to encircle Madrid and established ties with territory secured by Allied forces. for more on the 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 like the soul the soul of the Spanish Civil War in my opinion 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 train General Lister. The unit sometime look up all of the the Russian officers that were sent to 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 of

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, Bivore 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, it wouldn't have given them, you know, 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 Lestan, or is that rough? About roughly. Yeah.

More international brigade units arrive in the next few days and enable Republican forces to turn the battle from 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. were like half of the tanks that the that the republic had were in bar we were around Madrid and 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 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 Comintern was an organ of the Soviet Union under Soviet command in the interest of Soviet. of Soviet strategic purposes. The estimated size of the force varies, with Wikipedia stating from 40,000 to 59,000, though more authoritative estimates calculated by, is 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. of the international volunteer forces are being inflated by numbers of people who came through like the, what was the, oh gosh, 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, 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 the, you know, 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 may have a high verbal IQ, but I don't think you're, you know, just continue, continue, please keep telling us

what you are actually doing. Not very good strategically when it comes to properly. 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 Aviation 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 end of the war. Mussolini, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shiano, and General Roada, launched an expeditionary force December 12, 1936, with Rada as commander-in-chief of what was later named the Corpo Trooper Voluntari. They furnished 50,000 men at the peak of operations and a total of 150 tanks and 800 artillery peak. in addition to small arms and ammunition that 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 Luft Hansa, nominally commercial, junkers, 52 transport aircraft supported by Luftwaffe. Is that Henkel? It's 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, Fjord, Zabar, Trans. Port 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, and anti-aircraft guns. Over time, older aircraft would be transitioned to the Spanish Nationalist Air Force, while German pilots brought the latest aircraft into the fight. The Kriegs Marine engaged in convoy 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, Vidiathus. 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 Adacete 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 1936. Yeah, so the Portuguese contribution is there are those most.

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, their fingerprints were all over the world. And they had risen and fallen very sharply as well. Isn't that mostly because a lot of the great port, the great men of Portugal would just hop over the border and go in. Yeah. Join the Spanish so that they could go overseas. And then many of them were promoted to leadership.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Spanish system had an allowance for that. Like, you know, okay, you have a charter. And, but the big thing was that there are seaports. Because as you'll recall, when, when you, like, when you look at the map of the seaports that the nationalists controlled, there weren't that many. You know, there was, there was the landing at Cadiz, and then Sevilla that they had. But they, you know, they, you know, there was, there was the landing at Cadiz. And then Seveh. 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, by the libtarts. Because the Portuguese, they don't want a communist country right on their border. And Portugal and Spain, you know, that is a struggle that goes back for their whole history, right?

So it's a really important contribution that the government did. 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 bitch 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. 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 jump off. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Remind everybody where they can find your stuff. 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, carl doll.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. Hill, Vic, until part two,

Hail Vic.