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stranger to modern Spanish history. And Spain, like so many others, was a country and a people torn by civil war.
    Beginning in 1923, the government was held in place by the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Following de Rivera’s overthrow, the Second Republic was declared in 1931, a coalition of the left and center. over the next five years, tensions rose in all parts of Spain.
    On September 17, 1936, a nationalist-traditionalist rebellion began, igniting a civil war. General Francisco Franco assumed command of the insurgent nationalists. Franco’s supporters portrayed the conflict as a battle between Christian civilization on the one hand and communism and anarchy on the other. But on the other side, Republican sympathizers proclaimed the Civil War was a struggle between fascism and tyranny on Franco’s side and democracy and liberty on theirs. Many non-Spanish young, committed reformers, and communist revolutionaries joined the International Brigades to fight against Franco. Meanwhile, the troops of the International Brigades represented the largest foreign contingent of troops fighting for the Republicans. Thousands were from the United States.
    Both Fascist Italy, under Benito Mussolini, and Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, sent troops, aircraft, tanks, and other weapons to support Franco and his army of nacionalistas. The Italian government provided the Corps of Volunteer Troops, Il Corpo Truppe Volontarie, and Germany sent the Condor Legion, El Legión Condor.
    The Soviet Union backed the Republicans and sent Soviet “volunteers” who often piloted aircraft or operated tanks.
    In October of 1936, Franco’s troops launched their first major assault on Madrid. The Republican government fled to Valencia. When Franco’s forces failed to take the capital in ground fighting, however, Franco bombarded the city relentlessly from the air, then withdrew.
    Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February of 1937 but failed again. The city of Málaga was taken on February 8. On March 7 the German Condor Legion arrived in Spain; on April 26 the Legion massacred hundreds of Spaniards, including numerous women and children, at Guernica in the Basque countryside. The bombing was committed forever to notoriety in a stunning mural by Picasso that he began painting just fifteen days after the event.
    On March 9, Franco’s army overran the city.
    Less than three weeks later, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city, Madrid fell to the Nationalists. When the last of the Republican forces surrendered, Franco proclaimed victory in a radio speech aired on April 1.
    Like most wars, this one was ugly. Tens of thousands of people had been executed, most killed by their countrymen. Atrocities were common. These included the aerial bombing of cities carried out on Franco’s behalf. In the early days of the war, more than fifty thousand people who were caught on the “wrong” side of the lines were murdered. Victims were taken from their refugee camps or jails by armed people and shot outside of town. The corpses were abandoned or interred in graves dug by the victims themselves. Local police knew better than to intervene. Probably the most famous victim was the poet Federico García Lorca.
    Mass graves are still being unearthed today.
    The Republican authorities arranged the evacuation of children. These Spanish War children were shipped to Britain, Belgium, the Soviet Union, other European countries, and Mexico. Those in western European countries returned to their families after the war, but many of those in the Soviet Union remained in Russia after the Iron Curtain descended.
    Atrocities by the Republicans were known as Spain’s “red terror,” and among them were hundreds of attacks on Catholics. They were unspeakable in their cruelty. Nearly seven thousand clerics were killed. Thirteen bishops and more than four thousand diocesan priests were murdered. Nearly three hundred nuns were