Elizabeth executed Mary: that was the last straw. ibid.
A third of the ships never made it home. ibid.
After Philip every Spanish ruler would try to emulate his greatness. ibid.
The Spanish Hapsburg dynasty was in trouble. ibid.
The Bourbons went into exile. ibid.
The Right – from landowners to industrialists – believed that the Republic was a communist conspiracy. ibid.
200,000 people were murdered by the nationalists. ibid.
For more than 700 Spain has been run by the Moors, the Muslims of north Africa … Spain is the new power in Europe. Mankind: The Story of All of Us VI: Survivors
Charles’ empire stretched from the North Sea to north Africa … Not bad for a 17 year old, but still this wasn’t enough. Dan Jones, Britain’s War of Thrones: The Hundred Years War IV, 2017
Charles was unanimously elected Holy Roman emperor. ibid.
For three weeks Henry [VIII] and Francis [I] were inseparable … The Field of the Cloth of Gold was ultimately a waste of time. ibid.
Francis had lost Italy, and to make matter worse, the heir to the throne and his brother were still held hostage in Spain. ibid.
Both men [Charles & Francis] swore a ten-year truce … Europe was at peace for now. ibid.
Fascists, Communists, and liberal democracies were united in opposition to the libertarian revolution that swept over much of the country, turning to the conflict over the spoils only when popular forces were safely suppressed. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
There’s no libertarian-socialist society on any large scale that was able to withstand destructive attacks, so for example Spain … the movement was really destroyed by the communists. Noam Chomsky, lecture Litteraturhuset Oslo 7th September 2011, ‘Beyond State Socialism’
The best example to my knowledge is the Spanish revolution in 1936 … highly successful and in many ways inspiring. Noam Chomsky, The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism, interview Peter Jay 1976, Youtube
Men and women of every country who love freedom and progress, we appeal to you for the final time. If our appeal remains a voice crying out in the wilderness, our protests are ignored, our humane conduct, if all these are taken for signs of weakness, then the enemy will have only himself to blame – for we shall give vent to our wrath and destroy him in his lair. Dolores Ibarruri
Workers! Farmers! Antifascists! Patriotic Spaniards! Everyone rise to defend the Republic against the Fascist military uprising, to defend the common freedoms and the democratic triumphs of the people!
The country realizes the gravity of the current situation through the bulletins being issued by the government and the Popular Front. In Morocco and in the Canary Islands the workers are fighting beside the Armed Forces loyal to the Republic against the military rebels and Fascists.
To the cry of ‘Fascism shall not pass! The executioners of October shall not pass!’ the workers and farmers of the various provinces of Spain are joining the fight against the enemies of the Republic declared in armed rebellion. Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republican democrats, the soldiers and services loyal to the Republic have inflicted the first defeats on the insurgents, who drag through the quagmire of Treason the military honour they have boasted about so much.
The whole country roils with fury at those savages who want to plunge democratic and the people’s Spain into a hell of terror and death.
But they shall not pass! Dolores Ibarruri
Stand up, people of Spain!
Women! Defend the life of your children! Defend the liberty of your men! [Endure] Every conceivable sacrifice rather than grant the victory of the forces which represent a past of oppression, a past of tyranny.
Everybody against the Reaction! Everyone against Fascism! One front only! One faction united shoulder to shoulder until the enemy is defeated!
Down with the rebel generals! Down with the counter-revolutionary elements! Long live the brave popular militias! Long live the loyal Forces that fight alongside the workers!
Long live the Republic. Long live democracy. Down with Fascism. Down with the Reaction. Dolores Ibarruri
The feeble international response to the Spanish Civil War was even more disheartening. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States I: World War II, Sky Atlantic 2013
The legion will fight in Spain for nearly two years. Visions of War: The World in Flames 2012
I daresay we all become more competent press tourists of it, since we never again cared so much. You can only love on war; afterward, I suppose, you do your duty. Martha Gellhorn, The Honeyed Place 1953, of Spanish Civil War
But now that the guerrilla fighting is over, the Spaniards are again men without a country or families or homes or work, though everyone appreciates very much what they did. Martha Gellhorn
It is alleged that half a million Spanish men, women and children fled to France after the Franco victory. Martha Gellhorn
I would rather have three of four teeth extracted than go through that again. Adolf Hitler, on meeting Franco
To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs,
The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow the bicycle races
Through the suburbs on summer evenings: but to-day the struggle. W H Auden, Spain 1937
In 1936 civil war broke out in Spain ... The election of a government of communists and socialists caused elements of the army to break out in open rebellion ... The Italians and the Germans supported Franco, sending planes, soldiers and arms. Both desired to discredit democracy. And use Spain as a testing ground for new weapons. World War II: The Complete History, Discovery 2000
Guernica: What can art really do in the face of atrocity? Simon Schama’s Power of Art: Picasso, BBC 2006
In his own homeland Spain the old certainties were collapsing ... Violence regularly erupted between political factions on the right and the left ... Spain was about to be torn apart. It was already hopelessly divided. ibid.
Over five thousand bombs were dropped on the defenceless town ... Turning the town into an ashy cauldron. ibid.
Guernica: Something that reaches deep into modern nightmares. Hectic. Terrifying. Burning. Screaming. There’s no way out. It’s defiantly modern. But it also pulls us back into the tragedy of the ages ... This picture achieves a miracle ... It makes us feel it. It gets under our skin. This for me is what all great art has to do: crash into our lazy routines. ibid.
What can art do when the bombs start dropping? It can instruct us in the obligations of being human. ibid.
‘Anarchism is freedom.’ Living Utopia: The Anarchists and the Spanish Revolution, Miguel Alba, 1997
‘I woke up to the sound of the factory sirens. And it was as if all of Barcelona were beating with a single heart. It was something you experience maybe once in 100 years. And one thing I can say is that it marked my life. That emotion is always with me.’ ibid. Federico Arcos
‘The real revolution started on July 19th. The people started it spontaneously defending themselves against the army. It was the one and only time that the people defeated the army.’ ibid. Francisco Carrasquer
‘The people discovered they were the masters of their own fate.’ ibid. Federico Arcos
The misery in which so many Spaniards lived in 1930 had barely improved since the start of the industrial revolution the century before. Illiteracy and great social inequality continued while the authorities, the Church and the bourgeoisie did nothing. Anarchism, which seemed like a Utopian socialist proposal to fight against social injustice had been gradually establishing itself among the country’s poorest classes. ibid.
For anarchists it is the people who have to acquire a revolutionary awareness and get to know reality so as to change it. ibid.
In 1923 with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera the CNT was outlawed and many anarchists went into exile. ibid.
‘The unions were being constantly closed down; the jails were full of workers.’ ibid. witness
It was the citizens who organised the new society. ibid.
The people put into practice all the libertarian ideas cherished over a century … Barcelona became the advanced guard of the revolution. ibid.