During the Spanish Civil War, the city of Barcelona falls to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco.
In 1931, King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic. Alfonso subsequently went into exile, and the Second Republic, initially dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists, was proclaimed.
During the first five years of the republic, organized labor and leftist groups established widespread liberal reforms—including freedom of speech, women's suffrage, freedom of association and legalized divorce—and independence-minded Spanish regions such as Catalonia and the Basque provinces achieved virtual autonomy.
But the landed aristocracy, the Catholic Church, and a large military cadre increasingly employed violence in their opposition to the reforms of the Second Republic. In July 1936, Franco led a right-wing army revolt in Morocco, which prompted the division of Spain into two key camps: the Nationalists and the Republicans.
Franco’s Nationalist forces rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in central and northern Spain, while Catalonia remained a key Republican stronghold. During 1937, Franco unified the Nationalist forces under the command of the Falange, Spain’s fascist party, while the Republicans fell under the sway of the communists.
Fascist-controlled Germany and Italy aided Franco with an abundance of planes, tanks and arms, while the Soviet Union aided the Republican side. In addition, communists and other anti-fascists from France, the Soviet Union, the United States and elsewhere formed the International Brigades to aid the Republican cause. The most significant contribution of these foreign units was the successful defense of Madrid until the end of the war.
In June 1938, the Nationalists drove troops to the Mediterranean Sea and cut the Republicans’ territory in two. Later in the year, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia. In January 1939, its capital, Barcelona, was captured, and soon after the rest of Catalonia fell.
With their cause all but lost, the Republicans attempted to negotiate a peace, but Franco refused. On March 28, 1939, the victorious Nationalists entered the capital city of Madrid, and the bloody Spanish Civil War came to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the war, the most devastating in Spanish history.
