When almost a century has passed since the outbreak of the Civil War and many myths have collapsed, the question is no longer how the Republican side was able to stand for so long, in a luck of david vs goliath that some have wanted to see, but how the Republic, with more financial means, industry and large cities on its side of Spain and an important part of the Armed Forces loyal to its cause, was able to squander its advantages so quickly against some military rebels who had to improvise a State on the run.
Fernando Calvo González-Regueral (Madrid, 1971) publishes the book ‘The Civil War: A Total History’ (Arzalia Ediciones) to answer this and other questions about a conflict where “whoever uses their armies best does not win or lose, but who knows how to rally in their favor all the resources available to win the victory”, in the words of this author. Wars are not won by great acts of bravery, nor by decisive battles, nor even by having revolutionary technologies… a long three-year conflict like the Civil War is decided by the logistical factor and the ability of the combatants to rise up faster than his rival.
«The victory in an industrial, modern, long war with deep international repercussions such as that of Spain is not due to a single factor, but to a sum of them. And, although military resources are the most important, they are not the only ones that decide wars, since other factors must also be taken into account: political, economic, social, diplomatic, cultural, etc. For this reason, it could be said that the side that best knew how to harness all the resources at its disposal won the Civil War, and this was the national side. If in the military aspect the rebels knew how to maximize the potential of half of the army that remained on his sideThey also knew how to take better advantage of the flow of foreign aid, ”defends this specialist in military history.
One of the chapters of the work, which is now in its second edition, focuses on the question of ‘Who pays for all this?’. While the Franco regime wanted to implement a socioeconomic model where business profit prevailed as the preponderant factor, the popular front fought for a model where the labor force was the privileged resource. Doing politics in the middle of the contest was a drag…
«From a frankly weak starting position, the economy of the national side was more efficient than that of its rival, making the most of its agricultural resources and putting the industrial zones it was conquering into full production. And this economic war, together with the blockade of the republican coasts, was decisive, since the war was decided in the North, on the industrious Cantabrian coast, in the hands of Franco since October 1937 after a tough campaign in Vizcaya-Santander-Asturias» , assures the author.
The revolution as an obstacle
With 80% of the industry, all of the fourth most important gold reserves in the world and the structures of a modern state, it is most likely that in a matter of months the republic would restore order, but just the opposite happened because of of political tensions, both at the level of the different parts of the country and in the factions of the Popular Front. “The Republic lost the war because of the Revolution”says the writer.
In a matter of half a year, the Republic was blown up, “unable to contain an exhausting and inefficient revolution, and unable to contain a separatist process that divided its resources. An example: on the government side they came to coexist six different administrations and two thousand types of banknotes and coins came to circulate, a good example of the fragmentation that occurred within it. While the national peseta was increasing its value in foreign markets, that of the republic sank until it reached total nullity, “explains Calvo.
The most obvious symptom of this crisis is that in the area of the insurgents, whose greatest asset was their agricultural resources, they never went hungry, while in loyal Spain there were hardships almost from the first moment due to the exhausting internal effort.
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Author: Fernando Calvo Gonzalez-Regueral. Pages: 415. Arzalia Editions.
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While the nationals always maintained the initiative and did not hesitate to use “all means, fair and unfair, legal or illegal, to win the victory”, their rival squandered their advantages, unable to get the most out of the units and leaders and officers who remained on his side. Among these were approximately half of the Armed Forces prior to July 1936 and, what is very representative, most of the Navy. The Republic not only I do not block rival coasts, having an undoubted naval supremacy from the beginning, but they gave up the initiative to the enemy ships, which seized control of the seas to establish a closed blockade. They squandered, above all, time, that vital resource in wars and that can never be recovered or replaced, “he recalls.
A peasant in 1936 advances towards Zaragoza to fight by making the communist symbol.
Seen with the perspective that time gives, the chances of victory for the Republic they happened to do it in the first phase of the conflict, finishing off with all republican force what had been a failed coup d’état. They could, in the opinion of the author of ‘The Civil War: A Total History’, have done so, for example, by blocking the Strait to prevent the passage of Africanist troops to the Peninsula or by attacking without delay the logistics base that they built between the four Andalusian capitals in her hands, Cádiz-Seville-Córdoba-Granadawhich would be the focus of their future attacks.
After the first year of the war, however, Republican hopes focused on saving Madrid and maintaining a defensive position (with the exception of offensives such as the Ebro that ended in disaster). «His only trump card was to prolong the war until linking it with the Second World War, which was already intuited on the near horizon. That is why the last efforts of the most expeditious president of the Government at War, Negrín, were directed towards this objective, exemplified in a slogan. ‘To resist is to win’. But in wars it’s not worth resisting, you have to move forward, on pain of giving up all the advantage to the enemy,” says the specialist, also author of ‘A man of war‘.