The Spanish Empire and Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Empire and Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Empire (Spanish: Imperio español) comprised territories and colonies administered by the Spanish Crown in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was one of the first global empires. Sony PCG-41112L Keyboard
Sony PCG-61317L Keyboard Under the Spanish Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its political and economic power[1] when its empire became the foremost global power. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire,
Sony PCG-61316L Keyboard the Spanish Empire's establishment in the 15th century ushered in the modern global era and the rise of European dominance in global affairs. Spain's territorial reach beyond Europe spanned five centuries, from the first voyages to the Americas in 1492 until the loss of its last African colonies in 1975. Sony PCG-51311L Keyboard
The land of the Iberian peninsula was commonly called Hispania since Roman times and during the Visigothic Kingdom. The process of the Reconquista produced the emergence of four Christian realms: Castile, the Crown of Aragon, Navarre and Portugal. Sony PCG-51312L Keyboard
The dynastic union between the Crown of Castile (which will include the kingdom of Navarre since 1515) and the Crown of Aragon,[2] in Catholic Monarchs's time, initiated a political authoritarian system in force until the beginning of the eighteenth century labelled as Hispanic monarchy: Sony PCG-51412L Keyboard
Sony PCG-71317L Keyboardthe Spanish sovereign acted as monarch in a unitary manner[3] over all his territories through a polisynodial system of Councils, but his power as king or lord varied from one territory to another one, since each territory retained its own particular administration and juridical configuration. The unity did not mean uniformity.[4] Sony PCG-51111L Keyboard
According to this political configuration, independently of the denominations [5] given to the "dynastic union"[6][7] between 1580 and 1640, the scholars argue that the Portuguese Empire kept its own administration and jurisdiction over its territory as the other kingdoms and realms ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs.[8] Sony PCG-51211L Keyboard
Nevertheless, some historians assert that Portugal was a kingdom which formed part of the Spanish Monarchy at that time;[9][10][11][12][13] while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and the Spanish Empires.[14][15] Sony PCG-51511L Keyboard
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The Spanish Empire included the dominions of the Spanish monarch in the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Africa, but some disputes exist as to which European territories are to be counted. For instance, normally the Habsburg Netherlands are included, as they were part of the possessions of the King of Spain,
Sony PCG-61313L Keyboard were governed by Spanish officials, and were defended by Spanish troops. However, authors like the British historian Henry Kamen contend that these territories were not fully integrated into a Spanish state and instead formed part of the wider Habsburg possessions.
Sony PCG-61312L Keyboard Some historians use "Habsburg" and "Spanish" almost interchangeably when referring to the dynastic inheritance of Charles V or Philip II.
[edit]Origins
During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal became territorial and commercial rivals in the Atlantic western zone. Portugal obtained several Papal bulls which acknowledged Portuguese control over the discovered territories, but Castile also obtained from the Pope the safeguard of its rights to the Canary Islands with the bulls Romani Pontifex dated 6 November 1436 and Dominatur Dominus dated 30 April 1437.[16] Sony PCG-81113L Keyboard
Sony PCG-61311L Keyboard The Conquest of the Canary Islands, inhabited by Guanche people, began in 1402 under the reign of Henry III of Castile, authorizing under feudal agreement to Norman noblemen Jean de Béthencourt.
Sony PCG-61211L Keyboard The conquest only finished when the armies of the Crown of Castille won, after long and bloody wars, the islands of Gran Canaria (1478–1483), La Palma (1492–1493) and Tenerife (1494–1496).
The proclamation of Isabella I of Castile jointly with her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, at that time king of Sicily, as sovereigns of Castile led to a war with Portugal which ended with the Treaty of Alcáçovas (4 September 1479).
Sony PCG-61611L Keyboard The Portuguese gave up their claims to the Canary Islands but were secured in their sovereignty over Madeira, the Azores and the Cape Verde islands, and over the trade of Guinea,[17]
Sony PCG-81411L Keyboard from the south of the Cape Bojador,[18] and the right to conquer the Kingdom of Fez.[19][20] This treaty was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis (dated on 21 June 1481).[21]
Columbus and the Catholic Monarchs (The return of Columbus to Spain).
Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, King John II of Aragon died, and his son Ferdinand II of Aragon inherited the thrones of the Crown of Aragon; therefore, a personal union was created between the Crown of Aragon and Castile, each with their own administrations, but ruled by a common monarchy.[22]
After a war of 10 years, the Granada War, in 1492, the Reyes Católicos drove out the last Moorish king of Granada. After their victory, the Catholic monarchs negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west. Sony PCG-81114L Keyboard
Sony PCG-81214L Keyboard Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. In the Capitulations of Santa Fe, dated on 17 April 1492, Christopher Columbus obtained from the Catholic Monarchs his appointment as viceroy and governor in the lands already discovered[23] and that of he might discover thenceforth;[24][2
Sony PCG-71318L Keyboard 5] thereby, it was the first document to establish an administrative organization in the Indies.[26] Columbus' discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Spain's claim[2
Sony PCG-71316L Keyboard 7] to these lands was solidified by the Inter caetera papal bull dated 4 May 1493, and Dudum siquidem on 26 September 1493, which vested the sovereignty of the territories discovered and to be discovered. Sony PCG-71211L Keyboard
Since the Portuguese wanted to keep the line of demarcation of Alcaçovas running east and west along a latitude south of Cape Bojador, a compromise was worked out which was incorporated in the Treaty of Tordesillas dated on 7 June 1494, Sony PCG-71212L Keyboard
Sony PCG-71315L Keyboard in which the globe was split into two hemispheres dividing Spanish and Portuguese claims. These actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from Alaska to Cape Horn (except Brazil), as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506.
Sony PCG-71314L Keyboard [28] Spain's expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World.
On the other hand, the treaty of Tordesillas[29] and the treaty of Cintra (18 September 1509)[30] established the limits of the Kingdom of Fez for Portugal, and outside of these limits the Castilian expansion was allowed, beginning with the conquest of Melilla in 1497. Sony PCG-71213L Keyboard
[edit]Struggles for Italy
The death of French general Gaston de Foix at the Battle of Ravenna (1512).
The Catholic Monarchs had developed a strategy of marriages for their children in order to isolate their long-time enemy: France. Sony PCG-71311L Keyboard
Sony PCG-71312L Keyboard The Spanish princes married the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Catalan-Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars from 1494.
Sony PCG-71511L BatteryAs King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy; these conflicts became the center of Ferdinand's foreign policy as king. In these battles,
Sony PCG-71411L Battery which established the supremacy of the Spanish Tercios in European battlefields, the forces of the kings of Spain acquired a reputation for invincibility that would last until the mid-17th century.
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After the death of Queen Isabella, Ferdinand, as Spain's sole monarch, adopted a more aggressive policy than he had as Isabella's husband, enlarging Spain's sphere of influence in Italy and against France.
Sony PCG-71C11L Battery Ferdinand's first deployment of Spanish forces came in the War of the League of Cambrai against Venice, where the Spanish soldiers distinguished themselves on the field alongside their French allies at the Battle of Agnadello (1509). Sony PCG-61A11L Battery
Sony PCG-91311L BatteryOnly a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France, seeing a chance at taking both Milan — to which he held a dynastic claim – and Navarre. This war was less of a success than the war against Venice, Sony PCG-61A12L Battery
Sony PCG-91211L Battery and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre.
[edit]The Indias, islands and mainland of the ocean sea
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Upon the death of Ferdinand the Catholic, the lordship of the Spanish Indies became Kingdoms of the Indies.
The Papal Bull Inter caetera of 1493 vested government and jurisdiction of newly found lands in the kings of Castile and León and their successors.[31Sony PCG-61A13L Battery
Sony PCG-71914L Battery][32] According to the Concord of Segovia of 1475, Ferdinand was mentioned in the bulls as king of Castile and upon his death the title of the Indies was to be incorporated into the Crown of Castile.[33] The territories were incorporated by the Catholic monarchs as jointly held assets.[34][35][36] Sony PCG-61A14L Battery
In the 1506 Treaty of Villafáfila king Ferdinand the Catholic renounced not only the government of Castile in favour of his son-in-law Philip I of Castile but also the lordship of the Indies, withholding a half of the income of the kingdoms of the Indies.[ Sony PCG-61911L Battery
Sony PCG-71913L Battery37] Joanna of Castile and Philip immediately added to their titles the kingdoms of Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea. But the Treaty of Villafáfila did not hold for long because of the death of Philip; Ferdinand returned as regent of Castile and as "lord the Indies".[33]
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According to the domain granted by Papal bulls and the wills of queen Isabella of Castile in 1504 and king Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, such property become definitely a property of the Crown of Castile. This arrangement was ratified by successive monarchs, Sony PCG-61913L Battery
Sony PCG-71911L Batterybeginning with Charles I in 1519[34] in a decree that spelt out the juridical status of the new overseas territories.[38]
The lordship of the discovery territories conveyed by papal bulls was private as public to kings of Castile and León. The political condition of the Indias were to transform from "Lordship" of the Catholic monarchs to "Kingdoms" for the heirs of Castile. Although the Alexandrine Bulls gave full, free and omnipotent power to Catholic Monarchs,[39Sony PCG-61611L Battery
] they did not rule them as a private property but as a public property through the public bodies and authorities from Castile,[40] and when those territories were incorporated into the Crown of Castile the royal power was subject to the laws of Castile.[41] Sony PCG-61511L Battery
[edit]First settlements in America
The Capitulations of Santa Fe granted excessive power to Columbus, and the Catholic Monarchs reacted when Colon discovered the mainland in 1498.[ Sony PCG-61211L Battery
42] They learned of his discovery in May 1499, and, taking advantage of a revolt against Columbus in La Española, Dell XPS 14 Battery
Dell Inspiron 14R battery they appointed Francisco de Bobadilla as governor of the Indies with civil and criminal jurisdiction over the lands discovered by Columbus. He, however, was soon replaced by Nicolás de Ovando in September 1501.[4Sony PCG-61311L Battery
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3] Thenceforth the Crown could authorize to individuals voyages to discover territories in the Indies with previous license,[44Dell XPS 14D Battery
] and since 1503, the monopoly of the Crown was assured by the Casa de Contratación at Seville. But the successors of Columbus litigated against the Crown until 1536[45][46] for the fulfillment of the Capitulations of Santa Fe in the pleitos colombinos.
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Spanish territories in the New World around 1515.
In metropolitan Spain, the direction of the issues of the Indies was taken over by the Bishop Fonseca[47][48] between 1493 and 1516,[49] Dell XPS 14D-L401X Battery
and again between 1518 and 1524, after a brief period of Jean le Sauvage.[50] Sony PCG-61312L Battery
Since 1504 the figure of the secretary was added, so then between 1504 and 1507 Gaspar de Gricio took charge,[51] between 1508 and 1518 Lope de Conchillos followed him,[52] and since 1519, Francisco de los Cobos.[53Sony PCG-61313L Battery
Sony PCG-71314L Battery] In 1511, the Junta of The Indies was constituted as a standing committee belonging to the Council of Castile to address issues of the Indies,[54] and this junta constituted the origin of the Council of the Indies in 1524.[55] Sony PCG-61215L Battery
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Following the settlement of Hispaniola which was successful towards the end of the 15th century, the colonists began searching elsewhere to begin new settlements. Dell XPS 15D Battery
Dell Inspiron 13R battery Those from the less prosperous Hispaniola were eager to search for new success in a new settlement. From there Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velázquez took Cuba. Sony PCG-71317L Battery
In 1508, the Board of Navigators met in Burgos concurred the need to colonize the mainland, that which was entrusted to Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa as governors subordinated to the governor of Hispaniola,[56] who was the newly appointed Diego Columbus,[57][58] with the same legal authority that Ovando.[
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59] The first settlement on the mainland was Santa María la Antigua del Darién in Castilla de Oro (now Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia), settled by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1510. In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the West coast of the New World. Sony PCG-61315L Battery
In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all the lands adjoining it for the Spanish Crown.[60] Sony PCG-61316L Battery
The judgment of Seville of May 1511 recognized the viceregal title to Diego Columbus but limited to Hispaniola and to the islands discovered by his father, Christopher Columbus,[61] nevertheless his power was limited by royal officers and magistrates[62][63] constituting a dual regime of government.[64
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] Therefore, the king Ferdinand II of Aragon as regent of his daughter the queen Joanna separated the territories of mainland, designated as Castilla de Oro,[65] from the viceroy of Hispaniola, establishing as General Lieutenant to Pedrarias Dávila in 1513[66] Sony PCG-61317L Battery
Sony PCG-71213L Battery with functions similar to those of a viceroy, remaining Balboa subordinated as governing of Panama and Coiba[67] Dell XPS 15-L501X Battery
Dell Inspiron N4110 battery [68] on the Pacific Coast,[69] and that after his death returned to Castilla de Oro. The territory of Castilla de Oro did not include either Veragua (which was comprised approximately between the river Chagres[70] Sony PCG-71211L Battery
Sony PCG-71212L Batteryand cape Gracias a Dios[71]), due to this territory was subject to a lawsuit between the Crown and Diego Columbus, or the region farther north, towards the Yucatán, explored by Yáñez Pinzón and Solís in 1508–1509,[ Sony PCG-41112L Battery
Sony PCG-81411L Battery 72] due to its remoteness.[73] The conflicts of the viceroy Columbus with the royal officers and with the Audiencia, created in 1511,[74][75] caused his return to the Peninsula in 1515. Sony PCG-51311L Battery
[edit]Campaigns in Africa
After the conquest of Melilla in 1497, the Spanish expansionist policy in North Africa was developed during the regency of Ferdinand the Catholic in Castile, stimulated by the Cardinal Cisneros, once the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula was finished. Dell XPS 15-L502X Battery
That way, several towns and outposts in the North African coast were conquered and occupied by Castile: Mazalquivir (1505), Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1508), Oran (1509), Sony PCG-51312L Battery
Sony PCG-81311L Battery Algiers (1510), Bugia (1510), and Tripoli (1511). In the Atlantic coast, Spain took possession of the outpost of Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña (1476) with support from the Canary Islands, and it was retained until 1525 with the consent of the treaty of Cintra (1509).
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[edit]The Spanish Habsburgs: The Sun Never Sets (1516–1700)
The 16th and 17th centuries are sometimes called "the Golden Age of Spain" (in Spanish, Siglo de Oro). As a result of the marriage politics of the Reyes Católicos, their Habsburg grandson Charles inherited the Castilian empire in America, the Possessions of the Crown of Aragon in the Mediterranean (including a large portion of modern Italy), Sony PCG-51411L Battery
Sony PCG-81115L Battery lands in Germany, the Low Countries, Franche-Comté, and Austria (this one, along with the rest of hereditary Habsburg domains was almost immediately transferred to Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother). Sony PCG-51412L Battery
While not directly an inheritance, Charles was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of his grandfather Emperor Maximilian thanks to prodigious bribes paid the prince-electors. Charles became the most powerful man in Europe, Sony PCG-51111L Battery
Sony PCG-81113L Battery his rule stretching over an empire in Europe unrivalled in extent until the Napoleonic era. It was often said during this time that it was the empire on which the sun never set. This sprawling overseas empire of the Spanish Golden Age was controlled, not from inland Valladolid, but from Seville. Sony PCG-51513L Battery
The Castilian Empire abroad was initially a disappointment. It did stimulate some trade and industry, Dell XPS 17 Battery
Dell Inspiron N5010 batterybut the trading opportunities encountered were limited. Matters began to change in the 1520s with the large-scale extraction of silver from the rich deposits of Mexico's Guanajuato region,
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but it was the opening of the silver mines in Mexico's Zacatecas and Potosí in Upper Peru (modern-day Bolivia) in 1546 that became legendary. During the 16th century, Spain held the equivalent of US$1.5 trillion (1990 terms) in gold and silver received from New Spain. Ultimately, however, Sony PCG-51113L Battery
Sony PCG-51211L Battery these imports diverted investment away from other forms of industry and contributed to inflation in Spain in the last decades of the 16th century: "I learnt a proverb here", said a French traveler in 1603: Sony PCG-7191L Battery
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"Everything is dear in Spain except silver".[7Dell XPS L702X Battery
Dell Inspiron N5010D battery6] This situation was aggravated by the loss of much of the commercial and artisan classes with the expulsions of the Jews (1492) and Moriscos (1609). The vast imports of silver ultimately made Spain overly dependent on foreign sources of raw materials and manufactured goods.[citation needed] Sony PCG-7192L Battery
The wealthy preferred to invest their fortunes in public debt (juros), which were backed by these silver imports, rather than in production of manufactures and the improvement of agriculture.
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Sony PCG-7133L Battery This helped perpetuate the medieval aristocratic prejudice that saw manual work as dishonorable long after this attitude had started to decline in other west European countries. Sony PCG-7173L Battery
Sony PCG-7132L Battery The silver and gold whose circulation helped facilitate the economic and social revolutions in the Low Countries, France and England and other parts of Europe helped stifle them in Spain.
Sony PCG-7131L Battery The problems caused by inflation were discussed by scholars at the School of Salamanca and arbitristas but they had no impact on the Habsburg government.[citation needed]
The Habsburg dynasty spent the Castilian and American riches in wars across Europe on behalf of Habsburg interests,
Sony PCG-7113L Battery defaulted on their debt several times, and left Spain bankrupt several times. These problems led to a number of revolts across his empire, notably that of Castilian rebels in the Revolt of the Comuneros, but these rebellions were put down. Sony PCG-7172L Battery
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The Habsburgs' political goals were several:
Access to the resources of the Americas (gold, silver, sugar) and products of Asia (porcelain, spices, silk) Dell XPS 17-L701X Battery
Undermining the power of France and containing it in its eastern borders.
Maintaining Catholic Habsburg hegemony in Germany, defending Catholicism against the Protestant Reformation. Charles attempted to quell the Reformation at the Diet of Worms but Martin Luther refused to recant his 'heresy.'Sony PCG-7181L Battery
Sony PCG-7112L Battery However, Charles's piety could not stop his mutinying troops from plundering the Holy See in the Sacco di Roma.
Defending Europe against Islam, notably the Ottoman Empire.
To spread religion to the unconverted souls of the new world. With conflict between Catholics and Protestants raging in Europe, the new world was an ideal place for more Catholics to be recruited. Sony PCG-7182L Battery
The Pillars of Hercules with the motto "Plus Ultra" as symbol of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the Town Hall of Seville (16th century)
[edit]Spanish intervention in Europe Dell XPS 17-L702X Battery
[edit]Struggles of Charles V for Italy
With the ascent of the king Charles I in 1516 and his election as sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, Francis I of France found himself surrounded by Habsburg territories, invaded the Spanish possessions in Italy in 1521, Sony PCG-7183L Battery
Sony PCG-7111L Battery and inaugurated the second war of Franco-Spanish conflict. The war was a disaster for France, which suffered defeat at the Battle of Biccoca (1522), the Battle of Pavia (1525, at which Francis was captured), and the Battle of Landriano (1529) before Francis relented and abandoned Milan to Spain once more.
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The Battle of Pavia (1525)
King Charles I (Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor)) achieved victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and surprised many Italians and Germans and elicited concerns that Charles would endeavor to gain ever greater power.[citation needed] Sony PCG-7184L Battery
Sony PCG-7161L Battery Pope Clement VII switched sides and now joined forces with France and prominent Italian states against the Habsburg Emperor, in the War of the League of Cognac. In 1527, Charles grew exhausted with the pope's meddling in what he viewed as purely secular affairs, and sacked Rome itself, Sony PCG-7185L Battery
Sony PCG-7154L Battery embarrassing the papacy sufficiently enough that Clement, and succeeding popes, were considerably more circumspect in their dealings with secular authorities.[citation needed]
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In 1533, Clement's refusal to annul the first marriage of King Henry VIII of England was a direct consequence of his unwillingness to offend the emperor and have his capital sacked for perhaps a second time. Sony PCG-7171L Battery
Sony PCG-7152L Battery The Peace of Barcelona, signed between Charles V and the Pope in 1529, established a more cordial relationship between the two leaders. Dell XPS L502X Battery
Dell Inspiron N4010R battery Spain was effectively named the protector of the Catholic cause and Charles was crowned as King of Italy (Lombardy) in return for Spanish intervention in overthrowing the rebellious Florentine Republic. Sony PCG-3G1L Battery
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In 1528, the great admiral Andrea Doria allied with the Emperor to oust the French and restore Genoa's independence, opening the prospect for financial renewal: 1528 marks the first loan from Genoese banks to Charles.[77] Sony PCG-3G5L Battery
In 1543, the king of France Francis I announced his unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, by occupying the Spanish-controlled city of Nice in concert with Ottoman forces. Sony PCG-3C2L Battery
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Sony PCG-394L Battery Henry VIII of England, who bore a greater grudge against France than he held against the Emperor for standing in the way of his divorce, joined Charles in his invasion of France. Although the Spanish army was defeated at the Battle of Ceresole in Savoy the French were unable to seriously threaten Spanish controlled Milan, Sony PCG-3C3L Battery
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Sony PCG-384L Battery whilst suffering defeat in the north at the hands of Henry, thereby being forced to accept unfavourable terms. The Austrians, led by Charles's younger brother Ferdinand, continued to fight the Ottomans in the east. Charles went to take care of an older problem: the Schmalkaldic League. Sony PCG-9Z1L Battery
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[edit]Religious conflicts in the Holy Empire
A map of the dominion of the Habsburgs following the abdication of Charles V (1556) as depicted in The Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912); Habsburg lands are shaded green. From 1556 the lands in a line from the Netherlands, through to the east of France, to the south of Italy and the islands were retained by the Spanish Habsburgs. Sony PCG-3F3L Battery
The Schmalkaldic League had allied itself to the French, and efforts in Germany to undermine the League had been rebuffed. Francis's defeat in 1544 led to the annulment of the alliance with the Protestants, and Charles took advantage of the opportunity. He first tried the path of negotiation at the Council of Trent in 1545, Sony PCG-3F4L Battery
Sony PCG-381L Battery but the Protestant leadership, feeling betrayed by the stance taken by the Catholics at the council, went to war, led by the Saxon elector Maurice.
In response, Charles invaded Germany at the head of a mixed Dutch–Spanish army, hoping to restore the Imperial authority. Sony PCG-3H1L Battery
Sony PCG-3A4L Battery The emperor personally inflicted a decisive defeat on the Protestants at the historic Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. Dell XPS L701X Battery
Dell Inspiron N4010D batteryIn 1555, Charles signed the Peace of Augsburg with the Protestant states and restored stability in Germany on his principle of cuius regio, eius religio, a position unpopular with Spanish and Italian clergymen. Charles's involvement in Germany would Sony PCG-3H2L Battery
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Sony PCG-3A3L Battery establish a role for Spain as protector of the Catholic, Habsburg cause in the Holy Roman Empire; the precedent would lead, seven decades later, to involvement in the war that would decisively end Spain as Europe's leading power. Sony PCG-3H3L Battery
[edit]Defeat of France
Charles V's only legitimate son, Philip II of Spain (r. 1556–98) parted the Austrian possessions with his uncle Ferdinand. Philip treated Castile as the foundation of his empire, but the population of Castile (that was about ? of France's) Dell Inspiron 14V battery
Dell Inspiron N4010 battery was never great enough to provide the soldiers needed to support the Empire. When he married Mary Tudor, England was allied to Spain. Sony PCG-3H4L Battery
The celebrations following the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) between Spain and France
Spain was not yet at peace, as the aggressive Henry II of France came to the throne in 1547 and immediately renewed conflict with Spain. Sony PCG-3B2L Battery
Charles's successor, Philip II, aggressively prosecuted the war against France, crushing a French army at the Battle of St. Quentin in Picardy in 1558 and defeating Henry again at the Battle of Gravelines. Sony PCG-3J1L Battery
The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559, permanently recognized Spanish claims in Italy. In the celebrations that followed the treaty, Henry was killed by a stray splinter from a lance. France was stricken for the next thirty years by chronic civil war and unrest (see French Wars of
Sony PCG-3D3L Battery Religion) and removed from effectively competing with Spain and the Habsburg family in European power games. Dell Inspiron N4020 battery
Dell Inspiron N3010 battery Freed from effective French opposition, Spain saw the apogee of its might and territorial reach in the period 1559–1643. Sony PCG-3B3L Battery
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The opening for the Genoese banking consortium was the state bankruptcy of Philip II in 1557, which threw the German banking houses into chaos and ended the reign of the Fuggers as Spanish financiers.[7Sony VPCF115FM battery
Sony VPCF119HX battery8] The Genoese bankers provided the unwieldy Habsburg system with fluid credit and a dependably regular income. In return the less dependable shipments of American silver were rapidly transferred from Seville to Genoa, to provide capital for further ventures.
[edit]European conflicts at the time of Philip II
The time for rejoicing in Madrid was short-lived. In 1566, Calvinist-led riots in the Netherlands prompted the Duke of Alba to march into the country to restore order. In 1568, William of Orange, better known as William the Silent, Sony VPCF11MFX battery
Sony VPCF11PFX battery led a failed attempt to drive Alba from the Netherlands. These battles are generally considered to signal the start of the Eighty Years' War that ended with the independence of the United Provinces. The Spanish, who derived a great deal of wealth from the Netherlands and particularly from the vital port of Antwerp, Sony VPCF11FGX battery
were committed to restoring order and maintaining their hold on the provinces. According to Luc-Normand Tellier, "It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the Americas."[ Sony VPCF11LFX battery
Sony VPCF11HGX battery79] In 1572, a band of rebel Dutch privateers known as the watergeuzen ("Sea Beggars") seized a number of Dutch coastal towns, proclaimed their support for William and denounced the Spanish leadership.
Otto van Veen: The Relief of Leiden (1574) after the Dutch had broken their dykes in the Eighty Years' War
For Spain, the war became an endless quagmire, sometimes literally. In 1574, the Spanish army under Luis de Requeséns was repulsed from the Siege of Leiden after the Dutch broke the dykes, thus causing extensive flooding. Sony VPCF117FX battery
Sony VPCF11AFX batteryIn 1576, faced with the bills from his 80,000-man army of occupation in the Netherlands, the cost of his fleet that had won at Lepanto, together with the growing threat of piracy in the open seas reducing his income from his American colonies, Dell Inspiron N4030 battery
Dell Inspiron N3010R battery Philip was forced to accept bankruptcy.
The army in the Netherlands mutinied not long after, seizing Antwerp and looting the southern Netherlands, prompting several cities in the previously peaceful southern provinces to join the rebellion. The Spanish chose to negotiate, Sony VPCF112FX battery
Sony VPCF11NFX battery and pacified most of the southern provinces again with the Union of Arras in 1579. In response, the Netherlands created the Union of Utrecht, as an alliance between the northern provinces, later that month. They officially deposed Philip in 1581 when they enacted the Act of Abjuration.
Under the Arras agreement the southern states of the Spanish Netherlands, today in Wallonia and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (and Picardy) régions in France, expressed their loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized his Governor-General, Sony VPCF11KFX battery
Sony VPCF111FX batteryDon Juan of Austria. In 1580, this gave King Philip the opportunity to strengthen his position when the last member of the Portuguese royal family, Cardinal Henry of Portugal, died. Philip asserted his claim to the Portuguese throne and in June sent the Duke of Alba with an army to Lisbon to assure his succession. Sony VPCF11CGX battery
Sony VPCF116FX battery Though the Duke of Alba and the Spanish occupation, however, was little more popular in Lisbon than in Rotterdam,
Dell Inspiron N5010R battery the combined Spanish and Portuguese empires placed into Philip's hands almost the entirety of the explored New World along with a vast trading empire in Africa and Asia. In 1582, Sony VPC EL series Keyboard
Sony PCG-71C11M Keyboardwhen Philip II moved his court back to Madrid from the Atlantic port of Lisbon where he had temporarily settled to pacify his new Portuguese kingdom, the pattern was sealed, in spite of what every observant commentator privately noted: Sony VPCEL3S1E Keyboard
"Sea power is more important to the ruler of Spain than any other prince" wrote a commentator, "for it is only by sea power that a single community can be created out of so many so far apart." A writer on tactics in 1638 observed, Sony VPCEL2S1E/W Keyboard
Sony 9Z.N5CSW.A0U Keyboard"The might most suited to the arms of Spain is that which is placed on the seas, but this matter of state is so well known that I should not discuss it, even if I thought it opportune to do so."[80] Sony VPCEL3S1E/W Keyboard
The defense of Cádiz, by Zurbarán.
Portugal required an extensive occupation force to keep it under control, and Spain was still reeling from the 1576 bankruptcy. In 1584, William the Silent was assassinated by a half-deranged Catholic, and the death of the popular Dutch resistance leader was hoped to bring an end to the war. It did not. In 1586, Sony VPCEB1B4E Keyboard
Queen Elizabeth I of England, sent support to the Protestant causes in the Netherlands and France, and Sir Francis Drake launched attacks against Spanish merchants in the Caribbean and the Pacific, along with a particularly aggressive attack on the port of Cadiz. Sony VPCEB1C5E Keyboard
In 1588, hoping to put a stop to Elizabeth's intervention, Philip sent the Spanish Armada to attack England. Favourable weather, more heavily armed and manœuvrable English ships, and the fact that the English had been warned by their spies in the Netherlands and were ready for the attack resulted in defeat for the Armada. Sony VPCEB1E0E Keyboard
However the failure of the Drake–Norris Expedition to Portugal and the Azores in 1589 marked a turning point in the on-off 1585–1604 Anglo–Spanish War. The Spanish fleets became more effective in transporting greatly increased quantities of silver and gold from the Americas, while English attacks suffered costly failures.
The Spanish Armada leaving the Bay of Ferrol (1588).
Spain had invested itself in the religious warfare in France after Henry II's death. In 1589, Henry III, the last of the Valois lineage, died at the walls of Paris. His successor, Henry IV of Navarre, the first Bourbon king of France, Sony VPCEB1E9E Keyboard
was a man of great ability, winning key victories against the Catholic League at Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590). Committed to stopping Henry of Navarre from becoming King of France, the Spanish divided their army in the Netherlands and invaded France in 1590.
[edit]The pacification at the time of Philip III Sony VPCEB1E9J Keyboard
Faced with wars against England, France and the Netherlands, each led by capable leaders, the bankrupted empire found itself competing against strong adversaries. Continuing piracy against its shipping in the Atlantic and the costly colonial enterprises forced Spain to renegotiate its debts in 1596.
Sony VPCEB2M0E KeyboardThe crown attempted to reduce its exposure to the different conflicts, first signing the Treaty of Vervins with France in 1598, recognizing Henry IV (since 1593 a Catholic) as king of France, and restoring many of the stipulations of the previous Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. The Kingdom of England, Sony VPCEB1E9R Keyboard
suffering from a series of repulses at sea and from an endless guerrilla war by Catholics in Ireland, who were supported by Spain, agreed to the Treaty of London, 1604, following the accession of the more tractable Stuart King James I. Sony VPCEB1J8E Keyboard
Castile provided the Spanish crown with most of its revenues and its best troops.[81] The plague devastated Castilian lands between 1596 and 1602, causing the deaths of some 600,000 people.[82]
Sony VPCEB2G4E Keyboard A great number of Castilians went to America or died in battle. In 1609, the great majority of the Morisco population of Spain was expelled. It is estimated that Castile lost about 25% of its population between 1600 and 1623. Dell Inspiron N7110 battery
Dell Inspiron N5030 batterySuch a dramatic drop in the population meant the basis for the Crown's revenues was dangerously weakened in a time when it was engaged in continuous conflict in Europe.[83] Sony VPCEB1M0E Keyboard
Peace with England and France gave Spain an opportunity to focus its energies on restoring its rule to the Dutch provinces. The Dutch, led by Maurice of Nassau, the son of William the Silent and perhaps the greatest strategist of his time, Dell Inspiron N7010R battery
Dell Inspiron N5110 batteryhad succeeded in taking a number of border cities since 1590, including the fortress of Breda. Sony VPCEB1M1R Keyboard
Sony VPCEB2E9R Keyboard Following the peace with England, the new Spanish commander Ambrogio Spinola, a general with the ability to match Maurice, pressed hard against the Dutch and was prevented from conquering the Netherlands only by Spain's latest bankruptcy in 1607. In 1609, HP 496120-031 Keyboard
the Twelve Years' Truce was signed between Spain and the United Provinces. At last, Spain was at peace – the Pax Hispanica. Sony VPCEB1S0E Keyboard
Spain made a fair recovery during the truce, putting its finances in order and doing much to restore its prestige and stability in the run-up to the last truly great war in which she would play a leading part. HP 496121-031 Keyboard
HP 496121-041 Keyboard
Sony VPCEB2C5E Keyboard Philip II's successor, Philip III, was a man of limited ability, uninterested in politics and preferring to delegate management of the empire to others.[citation needed] His chief minister was the capable Duke of Lerma. Sony VPCEB1S1R Keyboard
The Surrender of Breda (1625) to Ambrogio Spinola, by Velazquez. This victory came to symbolize the renewed period of Spanish military vigour in the Thirty Years' War.
The Duke of Lerma (and to a large extent Philip II) had been uninterested in the affairs of their ally, Austria. In 1618, the king replaced him with Don Balthasar de Zúñiga, Sony VPCEB1S8E Keyboard
a veteran ambassador to Vienna. Don Balthasar believed that the key to restraining the resurgent French and eliminating the Dutch was a closer alliance with Habsburg Austria. In 1618, beginning with the Defenestration of Prague,
Sony VPCEB2B4E KeyboardAustria and the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, embarked on a campaign against the Protestant Union and Bohemia. Don Balthasar encouraged Philip to join the Austrian Habsburgs in the war, and Spinola, the rising star of the Spanish army in the Netherlands, was sent at the head of the Army of Flanders to intervene. Thus, Spain entered into the Thirty Years' War.
[edit]The road to Rocroi
In 1621, Philip III was succeeded by the considerably more religious Philip IV. The following year, Don Balthasar was replaced by Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, a reasonably honest and able man. After certain initial setbacks, the Bohemians were defeated at White Mountain in 1621, and again at Stadtlohn in 1623. Sony VPCEB1Z0E Keyboard
Sony VPCEB1Z1E KeyboardThe war with the Netherlands was renewed in 1621 with Spinola taking the fortress of Breda in 1625. The intervention of Christian IV of Denmark in the war threatened the Spanish position, but the victory of the Imperial general Albert of Wallenstein over the Danes at Dessau Bridge and again at Lutter (both in 1626), eliminated that threat. Sony VPCEB3A4E Keyboard
There was hope in Madrid that the Netherlands might finally be reincorporated into the Empire, and after the defeat of Denmark the Protestants in Germany seemed crushed. France was once again involved in its own instabilities (the famous Siege of La Rochelle began in 1627), and Spain's eminence seemed clear.
Sony VPCEB2H4E Keyboard The Count-Duke Olivares stridently affirmed, "God is Spanish and fights for our nation these days".[84]
Olivares realized that Spain needed to reform, and to reform it needed peace, first and foremost with the United Provinces. Sony VPCEB3A4R Keyboard
Sony VPCEB1A4E Keyboard However, Olivares aimed for "peace with honour" which meant in practice a peace settlement which would have restored to Spain something of its predominant position in the Netherlands.
Sony VPCEB4B4E KeyboardThis was unacceptable to the United Provinces and the inevitable consequence of that was the constant hope that one more victory would after all lead to "peace with honour" – perpetuating the ruinous war which Olivare had wanted to avoid to begin with.
Sony VPCEB4J1R KeyboardTo illustrate the precarious economic situation of Spain at the time, it is sufficient to recall that it was actually Dutch bankers who financed the East India merchants of Seville (during the truce, presumably). Sony VPCEB3B4R Keyboard
Sony VPCEB4E0E Keyboard At the same time, everywhere in the world Dutch entrepreneurship and colonists were undermining Spanish and Portuguese hegemony. Spain badly needed time and peace to repair its finances and to rebuild its economy. Sony VPCEB3C4E Keyboard
While Spinola and the Spanish army were focused on the Netherlands, the war seemed to go in Spain's favor. But 1627 saw the collapse of the Castilian economy. The Habsburgs had been debasing their currency to pay for the war and prices exploded, just as they had in previous years in Austria. Until 1631, Sony VPCEB3C4R Keyboard
parts of Castile operated on a barter economy owing to the currency crisis, and the government was unable to collect any meaningful taxes from the peasantry and had to depend on revenue from its colonies. The Spanish armies, like others in German territories, resorted to "paying themselves" on the land.
Battle of Nördlingen (1634). Decisive victory for the Catholic Imperial army and Spain over the Swedes.
Olivares had backed certain taxation reforms in Spain pending the end of the war, but was blamed for another embarrassing and fruitless war in Italy. The Dutch, who during the Twelve Years' Truce had made increasing their navy a priority, (which showed its maturing potency at the Battle of Gibraltar 1607), Sony VPCEB3D4R Keyboard
managed to strike a great blow against Spanish maritime trade with the capture by captain Piet Hein of the Spanish treasure fleet on which Spain had become dependent after the economic collapse.
Spanish military resources were stretched across Europe and also at sea as they sought to protect maritime trade against the greatly improved Dutch and French fleets, while still occupied with the Ottoman and associated Barbary pirate threat in the Mediterranean. Sony VPCEB3E1R Keyboard
Sony VPCEB4A4E Keyboard In the meantime the aim of choking Dutch shipping was carried out by the Dunkirkers with considerable success. In 1625 a Spanish-Portuguese fleet, under Admiral Fradique de Toledo, regained the strategically vital Brazilian city of Salvador da Bahia from the Dutch. Elsewhere,
Sony VPCEB3S1R Keyboard the isolated and undermanned Portuguese forts in Africa and the Asia proved vulnerable to Dutch and English raids and takeovers or simply being bypassed as important trading posts.
In 1630, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, one of history's most noted commanders, landed in Germany and relieved the port of Stralsund, the last continental stronghold of German forces belligerent to the Emperor. Gustavus then marched south and won notable victories at Breitenfeld and Lützen, Sony VPCEB3E4R Keyboard
Sony VPCEB3G4E Keyboard attracting more Protestant support with every step he took. The situation for the Catholics improved with Gustavus's death at Lutzen in 1632, and a key victory at Nordlingen was won in 1634. From a position of strength, the Emperor approached the war-weary German states with a peace in 1635: HP Pavilion DV6-6C48US Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV6-6110US Keyboard many accepted, including the two most powerful, Brandenburg and Saxony. But then France entered the war, and diplomatic calculations were once again thrown in confusion.
HP Pavilion DV6-6108US Keyboard
The Battle of Rocroi (1643), the symbolic end of Spain's grandeur.
Cardinal Richelieu of France had been a strong supporter of the Dutch and Protestants since the beginning of the war, sending funds and equipment in an attempt to stem Habsburg strength in Europe.
HP Pavilion DV6-7020US KeyboardRichelieu decided that the recently signed Peace of Prague was contrary to French interests and declared war on the Holy Roman Emperor and Spain within months of the peace being signed. In the war that followed, the more experienced Spanish forces scored initial successes. HP Pavilion DV6-6C50US Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV6-7010US Keyboard Olivares ordered a lightning campaign into northern France from the Spanish Netherlands, hoping to shatter the resolve of King Louis XIII's ministers and topple Richelieu. In the "année de Corbie", 1636, Spanish forces advanced as far south as Corbie, and such was the threat to Paris that the war came close to a conclusion on Spanish terms.
HP Pavilion DV6-6190US Keyboard
After 1636, however, Olivares halted the advance, fearful of provoking another crown bankruptcy. The hesitation in pressing home the advantage proved fateful; French forces regrouped and pushed the Spanish back towards the border. HP Pavilion DV6-6090US Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV6-6180US KeyboardThe Spanish army would never again penetrate so far. At the Battle of the Downs in 1639 a Spanish fleet carrying troops was destroyed by the Dutch navy, and the Spanish found themselves unable to supply and reinforce their forces adequately in the Netherlands.
HP Pavilion DV6-6170US Keyboard
The Army of Flanders, which represented the finest of Spanish soldiery and leadership, faced a French assault led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé in northern France at Rocroi in 1643. The Spanish, led by Francisco de Melo, HP Pavilion DV6-6120US Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV6-6150US Keyboard were beaten by the French. After a closely fought battle the Spanish were forced to surrender on honorable terms. As a result, while the slaughter was not great, the high reputation of the Army of Flanders was broken at Rocroi, and with it, the grandeur of Spain.
HP Pavilion DV6-6145US Keyboard
The defeat at Rocroi also led to the dismissal of the embattled Olivares, who was confined to his estates by the king's order and died two years later, broken and mad.
[edit]The Last Spanish Habsburgs
Traditionally, historians mark the Battle of Rocroi (1643) as the end of Spanish dominance in Europe, but the war was not finished. Supported by the French, HP Pavilion DV6-6130US Keyboard
the Catalans, Neapolitans, and Portuguese rose up in revolt against the Spanish in the 1640s. With the Spanish Netherlands caught between the tightening grip of French and Dutch forces after the Battle of Lens in 1648, HP Pavilion DV6-6131US Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV6-6140US Keyboardthe Spanish made peace with the Dutch and recognized the independent United Provinces in the Peace of Westphalia that ended both the Eighty Years' War and the Thirty Years' War.
The meeting of Philip IV of Spain and Louis XIV of France on 7 July 1660 at Pheasant Island.
War with France continued for eleven more years. Although France suffered from a civil war from 1648 to 1652 (see Wars of the Fronde) the Spanish economy was so exhausted that it was unable to effectively cope with war on so many fronts. HP Pavilion DV7-3160US keyboard
Yet the decline of Spanish power in this period has often been overstated. Spain retook Naples in 1648 and Catalonia in 1652, but the war came to an end at the Battle of the Dunes (1658) where the French army under Viscount Turenne defeated the remnants of the Spanish army of the Netherlands.
HP Pavilion DV7-1020US keyboard Spain agreed to the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 that ceded to France Roussillon and Artois.
Portugal had rebelled in 1640 under the leadership of John of Braganza, a pretender to the throne. He had received widespread support from the Portuguese people, and Spain—which had to deal with rebellions elsewhere, along with the war against France – was unable to respond adequately. HP Pavilion DV7-3180US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1150US keyboardJohn mounted the throne as King John IV of Portugal and the Spanish and Portuguese co-existed in a de facto state of peace from 1644 to 1656. When John died in 1656, the Spanish attempted to wrest Portugal from his son Alfonso VI of Portugal but were defeated at Ameixial (1663) and Montes Claros (1665), leading to Spain's recognition of Portugal's independence in 1668. HP Pavilion DV7-3080US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1130US keyboard
Spain still had a huge overseas empire, but France was now the dominant power in Europe and the United Provinces were in the Atlantic.
The Great Plague of Seville (1647–1652) killed up to 25% of Seville's population[citation needed]. Sevilla, and indeed the economy of Andalucía, HP Pavilion DV7-3060US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1134US keyboardwould never recover from so complete a devastation. Altogether Spain was thought to have lost 500,000 people, out of a population of slightly fewer than 10,000,000, or nearly 5% of its entire population. HP Pavilion DV7-2270US keyboard
Historians reckon the total cost in human lives due to these plagues throughout Spain, throughout the entire 17th century, to be a minimum of nearly 1.25 million.[85]
The regency of the young Spanish king Charles II was incompetent in dealing with the War of Devolution that Louis XIV of France prosecuted against the Spanish Netherlands in 1667–68, losing considerable prestige and territory, HP Pavilion DV7-2180US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1137US keyboard including the cities of Lille and Charleroi. In the Franco-Dutch War of 1672–1678, Spain lost still more territory when it came to the assistance of its former Dutch enemies, most notably Franche-Comté. In the Nine Years' War (1688–1697) Louis once again invaded the Spanish Netherlands. HP Pavilion DV7-2170US keyboard
French forces led by the Duke of Luxembourg defeated the Spanish at Fleurus (1690), and subsequently defeated Dutch forces under William III of Orange, who fought on Spain's side. The war ended with most of the Spanish Netherlands under French occupation, including the important cities of Ghent and Luxembourg. HP Pavilion DV7-2111US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1150US keyboard The war revealed to Europe how vulnerable the Spanish defenses and bureaucracy were. Also the ineffective Spanish Habsburg government took no action to improve them.
HP Pavilion DV7-1170US keyboard
The final decades of the 17th century saw utter decay and stagnation in Spain; while the rest of Western Europe went through exciting changes in government and society – the Glorious Revolution in England and the reign of the Sun King in France – Spain remained adrift. The Spanish bureaucracy that had built up around the charismatic, industrious, HP Pavilion DV7-2040US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1240US keyboardand intelligent Charles I and Philip II demanded a strong and hardworking monarch; the weakness and lack of interest of Philip III and Philip IV contributed to Spain's decay. Charles II was mentally retarded and impotent.
HP Pavilion DV7-1450US keyboard
He was therefore childless, and in his final will he left his throne to the Bourbon prince Philip of Anjou, rather than to a fellow Habsburg, albeit from Austria. This resulted in the War of the Spanish Succession.
HP Pavilion DV7-1260US keyboard [edit]Africa and the Mediterranean
By the 16th century, the Ottomans had become an existential threat to Europe. Ottoman conquests in Europe made significant gains with a decisive victory at Mohács.[86] Charles had preferred to suppress the Ottomans through a considerably more maritime strategy, hampering Ottoman landings on the Venetian territories in the Eastern Mediterranean. HP Pavilion DV7-1444US keyboard
The coastal villages and towns of Spain, Italy and the Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa; the Formentera was even temporarily left by its population and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. HP Pavilion DV7-1270US keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-1262US keyboard The most famous corsair was the Turkish Barbarossa ("Redbeard"). According to Robert C. Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by North African pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.[87] HP V112846AS1 keyboard
The reign of Charles V saw a decline in the presence of Spain in the North of Africa, even if Tunis and its port, La Goleta, were taken in 1535. One after the other, most of the Spanish possessions were lost: Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1522), Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña (1524), Algiers (1529), Tripoli (1551), Bujia (1554), and La Goleta and Tunis (1569). HP V112846AS1 keyboard
Only in response to Barbary pirates' raids on the eastern coast of Spain did Charles lead attacks against Tunis (1535) and Algiers (1541).
The Battle of Lepanto (1571), marked the end of the Ottoman naval supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1565, the Spanish defeated an Ottoman landing on the strategic island of Malta, defended by the Knights of St. John. Suleiman the Magnificent's death the following year and his succession by his less capable son Selim the Sot emboldened Philip, and he resolved to carry the war to the sultan himself. In 1571, Spanish and Venetian warships, HP 606743-031 keyboard
HP 593296-031 keyboard joined by volunteers across Europe, led by Charles's illegitimate son Don John of Austria annihilated the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, in what is perhaps the most decisive battle in modern naval history. Sony VGP-AC19V33 AC Adapter
The battle ended the threat of Ottoman naval hegemony in the Mediterranean. This mission marked the height of the respectability of Spain and its sovereign abroad as Philip bore the burden of leading the Counter-Reformation. Sony VGP-AC19V37 AC Adapter
The Ottomans recovered soon. They reconquered Tunis in 1574, and they helped to restore an ally, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi, in the throne of Morocco, in 1576. The death of the Persian shah, Tahmasp I was an opportunity for the Ottoman sultan to intervene in that country, so, in 1580 was agreed a truce in the Mediterranean with Philip II.[88] Sony VGP-AC19V41 AC Adapter
In the first half of the 17th century, Larache and La Mamora, in the Moroccan Atlantic coast, and the island of Alhucemas, in the Mediterranean, were taken, but during the second half of the 17th century, Larache and La Mamora were also lost. Sony VGP-AC19V43 AC Adapter
[edit]The New World
[edit]Explorers and conquistadors
After Columbus, the Spanish colonization of America was led by a series of warrior-explorers called Conquistadors. The Spanish forces, in addition to significant armament and equestrian advantages,
Sony VGP-AC19V13 AC Adapterexploited the rivalries between competing Indigenous peoples, tribes, and nations, some of which were willing to form alliances with the Spanish in order to defeat their more-powerful enemies, such as the Aztecs or Incas—a tactic that would be extensively used by later European colonial powers. The Spanish conquest was also facilitated by the spread of diseases (e.g. smallpox), Sony VGP-AC19V48 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V7 AC Adapter common in Europe but never present in the New World, which reduced the indigenous populations in America. This sometimes caused a labour shortage for plantations and public works and so the colonists informally and gradually, at first, initiated the Atlantic slave trade. (see Population history of American indigenous peoples)
Emperor Atahualpa is shown surrounded on his palanquin at the Battle of Cajamarca.
One of the most accomplished conquistadors was Hernán Cortés, who leading a relatively small Spanish force but with local translators and the crucial support of thousands of native allies, achieved the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the campaigns of 1519–1521.
Sony VGP-AC19V22 AC Adapter This territory later became the Viceroyalty of New Spain, present day Mexico. Of equal importance was the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire by Francisco Pizarro, which would become the Viceroyalty of Peru.[89] Sony VGP-AC19V25 AC Adapter
After the conquest of Mexico, rumours of golden cities (Quivira and Cíbola in North America and El Dorado in South America) motivated several other expeditions. Many of those returned without having found their goal, Sony VGP-AC19V26 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V20 AC Adapteror finding it much less valuable than was hoped. Indeed, the New World colonies only began to yield a substantial part of the Crown's revenues with the establishment of mines such as that of Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) both started in 1546. By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for 1⁄5 of Spain's total budget.[89]
Eventually the world's stock of precious metal was doubled or even tripled by silver from the Americas.[90] Official records indicate that at least 75% of the silver was taken across the Atlantic to Spain and no more than 25% across the Pacific to China. Some modern researchers argue that due to rampant smuggling about 50% went to China.[90] Sony VGP-AC19V27 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V38 AC AdapterIn the 16th century "perhaps 240,000 Europeans" entered American ports.[91]
Further Spanish settlements were progressively established in the New World: New Granada in the 1530s (later in the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717 and present day Colombia), Lima in 1535 as the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Buenos Aires in 1536 (later in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776), and Santiago in 1541. Sony VGP-AC19V31 AC Adapter
Cristóbal de Olid leads Spanish soldiers with Tlaxcalan allies in the conquests of Jalisco, 1522. From Lienzo de Tlaxcala.
Spanish settlements in Chile before the Destruction of the Seven Cities; in 1604, all settlements south Biobío River except those in Chiloé had fallen.
Florida was colonized in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés when he founded Saint Augustine and then promptly defeated an attempt led by the French Captain Jean Ribault and 150 of his countrymen to establish a French foothold in Spanish Florida territory. Sony VGP-AC19V5 AC Adapter
Saint Augustine quickly became a strategic defensive base for the Spanish ships full of gold and silver being sent to Spain from its New World dominions.
The Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan died while in the Philippines commanding a Castilian expedition to circumnavigate the globe in 1522. Sony VGP-AC19V16 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V34 AC Adapter Juan Sebastián Elcano would lead the expedition to success. Therefore, Spain sought to enforce their rights in the Moluccan islands, which led a conflict with the Portuguese, but the issue was resolved with the Treaty of Zaragoza (1525), Sony VGP-AC19V52 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V30 AC Adaptersettling the location of the antimeridian of Tordesillas, which would divide the world into two equal hemispheres. Thenceforth, maritime expeditions led to the discovery of several archipelagos in the South Pacific as the Pitcairn Islands, the Marquesas, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands or New Guinea. Sony VGP-AC19V53 AC Adapter
On 27 April 1565, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines was founded by Miguel López de Legazpi and the service of Manila Galleons was inaugurated. The Manilla Galleons shipped goods from all over Asia across the Pacific to Acapulco on the coast of Mexico. From there, the goods were transshipped across Mexico to the Spanish treasure fleets, for shipment to Spain.
Sony VGP-AC19V28 AC AdapterThe Spanish trading post of Manila was established to facilitate this trade in 1572. The control of Guam, Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands, and Palau was later, from the end of the 17th century, and remained under Spanish control until 1898. Sony VGP-AC19V4 AC Adapter
In 1599, the Spanish Empire suffered one of its greatest setbacks in the Americas when native Mapuches destroyed the Spanish army of Chile and killed the governor Martín García Óñez de Loyola in the Battle of Curalaba. This event led to a generalized rebellion that ended in the Destruction of the Seven Cities, and established the Bío-Bío River as frontier. Sony VGP-AC19V8 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V24 AC Adapter This led to the prolonged war called the War of Arauco, and southern Chile received the name of Flandés Indiano (Indian Flanders) due to the resistances of the Mapuches.[3] In a case unique for America, the Spanish established a professional army in Chile financed through the Real Situado by the Viceroyalty of Peru.
[edit]Organization and administration
From the beginning of the exploration and conquest of the Indies, the Crown assumed the control of the venture turning away the Columbus family. In 1503 the Casa de Contratación was founded to control migration to the New World, which was restricted to old Christians especially families and women.[92]
Sony VGP-AC19V3 AC Adapter In addition, the Casa de Contratación took charge of the fiscal organization, and of the organization and judicial control of the trade with the Indies.[93]
The system of government in Spain was constituted by a polisynodial system of Councils which advised the monarch and made decisions on his behalf about specific matters of government.
Sony VGP-AC19V45 AC Adapter In 1524 it was established the Council of The Indies with the assignment of the government of the Indies from the mainland, thus it was responsible for drafting legislation, proposing the appointments to the King and pronouncing judicial sentences; as maximum authority in the ultramarine territories, Sony VGP-AC19V42 AC Adapter
Sony VGP-AC19V44 AC Adapterthe Council of The Indies took over both the institutions in the Indies as the defense of the interests of the Crown and of the aborigens.[94]
The Laws of the Indies resulted in the Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513, which were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in the Americas, particularly with regards to treatment of native Indians. They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed the Indian Reductions with attempts of conversion to Catholicism.[9Dell Latitude E4310 Battery
5] Upon their failure, they were replaced by the New Laws (1542)
1541 founding of Santiago de Chile
Spain passed some laws for the protection of the indigenous peoples of its American colonies, the first such in 1542; the legal thought behind them was the basis of modern international law.[citation needed] Taking advantage of their extreme remoteness, the European colonists revolted when they saw their power being reduced, Dell Latitude E4320 Battery
Dell Latitude E6400 Battery forcing a partial revoking of these New Laws. Later, weaker laws were introduced to protect the indigenous peoples but records show their effect was limited.[citation needed] The restored Encomenderos increasingly used native Indian workforce.
The politics of implantation of the royal authority opposite to the Colón caused the suppression of the unit of government of the Indies and the appearance of governorates under royal authority. These governorates,
Dell Latitude E5420M Batteryalso called as provinces, were the basic circumscriptions of the territorial government of the Indies,[96] and arose as the territories were conquered and colonized.[97] To carry out the conquest of the territory, Dell Latitude E4200 Battery
Dell Latitude E5220 Batterythe king, as owner of the Indies, agreed a capitulación with a particular laying down the conditions of the venture of conquest of a territory. The individuals assumed the expenses of the venture and in return received as reward the grant from the government of the conquered territories;[98] Dell Latitude E4300 Battery
Dell Latitude E6530 Batteryand in addition, they received instructions about treating the aborigens.[99]
After the end of the period of conquests, it was necessary to manage extensive and different territories with a strong bureaucracy. In the face of the impossibility of the Castilian institutions to take care of the American affairs, other new institutions were created.[100Dell Latitude E5400 Battery
As the basic political entity it was the governorate, the governors exercised judicial ordinary functions of first instance, and prerogatives of government legislating by ordinances.[101] To these political functions of the governor, it could be joined the military ones, according to military requirements, with the rank of Captain general.[102
Dell Latitude E6430-XFR Battery] The office of captain general involved to be the supreme military chief of the whole territory and he was responsible for recruiting and providing troops, the fortification of the territory, the supply and the shipbuilding.[103]
The impossibility of the physical presence of the monarch was replaced by viceroys, the post of viceroy the direct representation of the monarch.[10Dell Latitude E5410 Battery
Dell Latitude E6430S Battery4] The functions of the viceroy were: governor, captain general, president of the Audiencia, superintendent of the Royal Treasury and vicepatronage of the Church.[105][106
Dell Latitude E6430-ATG Battery] Thus, the territories of the viceroyalties emerged with posteriority to affirm the authority of the king in a specific territory. The territory which comprised the viceroyalty was divided in provinces —also called governorates- headed by the governor.[107] In the 16th century the Spanish overseas territories were divided in two viceroyalties: Dell Latitude E5500 Battery
Dell Latitude E6430 BatteryNew Spain (1535) for North America, Antilles, the Philippines and Venezuela, and Peru (1542) for South America, which was divided in the 18th century.[108]
On the other hand, the Audiencias were constituted as a key administrative institution due to receive the confidence of the Crown as depositaries of an impartial authority opposite to conquerors and settlers.[10Dell Latitude E5510 Battery
Dell Latitude E6420-ATG Battery9] Their main function was that of being a court of justice of second instance —court of appeal— in penal and civil matters, but also the Audiencias were courts the first instance in the city where it had its headquarters, and also in the cases involving the Royal Treasury.[110]
Dell Latitude E6330 Battery Besides court of justice, the Audiencias had functions of government as counterweight the authority of the viceroys, since they could communicate with both the Council of the Indies and the king without the requirement of requesting authorization from the viceroy.[110]
Dell Latitude E6230 Battery This direct correspondence of the Audiencia with the Council of The Indies made possible that the Council gave to the Audiencia all kinds of orientations about general aspects of government.[109] Dell Latitude E5420 Battery
The fact that the presidents were not habitually either magistrates or lawyers, but men clad in sword and cape,[110] caused that they did not have any vote in court cases, and the court did not submit to their authority, but in representation that of the king.[111] Thus, the authority of the president, when he was not a magistrate, Dell Latitude E5520 Battery
Dell Latitude E6120 Batterywas void in judicial matter and merely signed the verdicts.[112] The Audiencias chaired by the viceroy were called viceregal Audiencias,[113] and the chaired ones by a governor-captain general were the pretorial Audiencias.[114][115][116] Dell Latitude E6420 Battery
As the pretorial Audiencias were chaired by a governor-captain general, this situation caused to appear the post of president-governor of major districts, with direct rule over a province and superior control of other provinces included inside the territorial district of the Audiencia, so that they exercised functions similar to the viceroys.[1Dell Latitude E6520 Battery
Dell Latitude E5530 Battery17] Thus, another administrative division appeared: while the territories in charge of a governor were the minor provinces,[118] the juridisdiccional scope of the Audiencias constituted the major provinces.[119]
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Former Viceregal Palace and seat of the Audiencia of Mexico, nowadays, the National Palace.
The members (oidores) of the Audiencia met with the president in a committee called royal agreement (real acuerdo), to take measurements for the government concerning the review of bylaws, appointments of commissioners (jueces pesquisidores), or retention of bulls, but the advice did not correspond to the Audiencia as institution but to its members as reputable people.[11Dell Latitude E6400-XFR Battery
Dell XPS L701X Battery 1] The decisions of the royal agreement were established in the concerted writs (autos acordados), nevertheless, there were matters as dispatching the issues of government, in which the Audiencia could not interfere either with the viceroy or the president-governor.[120] This way, the control of the Audiencias over the viceroys enabled to the Crown to control the functions of government of the viceroys.[121] Dell Latitude E6410 Battery
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While the viceregal and pretorial Audiencias were chaired by men clad in sword and cape, the presidents of the subordinated Audiencias were magistrates,[113] so that, in the juridisdiccional scope of the subordinated Audiencias, the functions of government, Treasury and war belonged to the viceroy.[112][114Dell Latitude E5430 Battery
][122] Therefore, in these sections of the viceroyalties there were no governors-captains general but Audiencias, and the presidency gave them the name, for example in Charcas and Quito.[123]
Although there were accumulated in the same person the offices of viceroy, governor, captain general and president of the Audiencia, each of them had different jurisdictional areas.[124][ Dell Precision M2400 Battery
125] The jurisdiction of the viceregal Audiencia, whose president was the viceroy, ended face up to the jurisdiction of other Audiencias inside the same viceroyalty: as the pretorial Audiencias chaired by a governor-captain general, who had administrative, political and military authority, as the subordinated Audiencias, whose president did not have this administrative, political and military authority.[1Dell Precision M4600 Battery
Dell XPS L502X Battery 14] Therefore, as governor, the direct administration of the province where was placed the viceregal capital belonged to the viceroy; nevertheless, with respect to the other governorates of the viceroyalty, his function was mere oversight or general inspection over the management of political affairs.[126][ Dell Precision M4500 Battery
Dell XPS L501X Battery 127][128] The imprecision in defining the powers of the viceroy and those of the provincial governors allowed the Crown to control their officials.[129]
In the viceroyalty of New Spain, the Audiencia of Mexico, chaired by the viceroy, ended its jurisdiction face up to the jurisdiction of other Audiencias of Guatemala (1543–1563; 1568-),Dell Precision M6400 Battery
of Manila (1583–1589; 1595-), of Guadalajara (established in Compostela in 1548 and transferred in 1560 to Guadalajara)[130] and that of Santo Domingo (1526-). The viceroy of New Spain as governor only had jurisdiction over a more reduced governorate of New Spain, and as captain general his authority did not comprise either the captaincies of Yucatán or the New Kingdom of León,[13
Dell XPS 17-L702X Battery 1] but it comprised the military command over the governorate of Nueva Galicia,[132][133] which was a territory under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Guadalajara, until in 1708 the captaincy general was attached to the governor of this province of Nueva Galicia.[134] Dell Precision M6500 Battery
In the viceroyalty of Peru, the viceroy presided the Audiencia of Lima (1542-), and the jurisdiction of this Audiencia ended face up to the jurisdictions of the pretorial Audiencias of Panama (1538–1543; 1563–1717),
of Santa Fe de Bogotá (1547-), of Santiago de Chile (in Concepción between 1565 and 1575, and in Santiago de Chile since 1605), and that of Buenos Aires (1661–1672), whose presidents were also both governors and captains general, and in addition to these Audiencias, Dell Precision M4400 Battery
the viceroyalty comprised the subordinated Audiencias of Charcas (La Plata; 1559-) and Quito (1563-).[135]
The settlers came from Spain had to settle in towns, where the local government belonged to the Cabildo. The Cabildo was composed by a variable number of aldermen (regidores), around a dozen, depending on the size of the town, also two municipal judges (alcaldes menores), who were judges of first instance, and also other officials as police chief, inspector of supplies, court clerk, and a public herald.[13Dell XPS 14 Battery
6] They were in charge of distributing land to the neighbors, establishing local taxes, dealing with the public order, inspecting jails and hospitals, preserving the roads and public works such as irrigation ditchs and bridges, supervising the public health, regulating the festive activities, monitoring market prices, or the protection of Indians.[137][138][139] Dell XPS 14D Battery
Since the end of the reign of Philip II, the municipal offices, including the aldermen, were auctioned to alleviate the need for money of the Crown, even the offices could also be sold, which became hereditary,[140] so that the government of the cities went on to hands of urban oligarchies.[14
1] In order to control the municipal life, the Crown ordered the appointment of corregidores and alcaldes mayores to exert greater political control and judicial functions in minor districts.[142]
Their functions were governing the respective municipalities, administering of justice and being appellate judges in the alcaldes menores' judgments,[143] but only the corregidor could preside over the cabildo.[144] However, both charges were also put up for sale freely since the late sixteenth century.[145]
[edit]The Spanish Empire: reform and recovery (1700–1808)
Under the Treaties of Utrecht (11 April 1713), the European powers decided what the fate of Spain would be, in terms of the continental balance of power. The new Bourbon king Philip V retained the Spanish overseas empire, but ceded the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Dell XPS 14D-L401X Battery
Milan, and Sardinia to Austria; Sicily and parts of Milan to Duchy of Savoy; and Gibraltar and Minorca to the Kingdom of Great Britain. Moreover, Philip V granted the British the exclusive right to slave trading in Spanish America for thirty years, the so-called asiento, as well as licensed voyages to ports in Spanish colonial dominions, openings, as Fernand Braudel remarked, for both licit and illicit smuggling (Brudel 1984 p 418). HP Pavilion dv6-6000 Battery
The Battle of Cape Passaro, 11 August 1718.
Spain's economic and demographic recovery had begun slowly in the last decades of the Habsburg reign, as was evident from the growth of its trading convoys and much more rapid growth of illicit trade during the period, HP Pavilion DV6-6B06SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6B08SA Battery
though this growth was slower than in its northern rivals who had gained increasing illicit access to its empire's markets. Critically, this recovery was not translated into institutional improvement HP Pavilion DV6-6B26SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6B07EA Battery because of the incompetent leadership of the unfortunate last Habsburg. This legacy of neglect was reflected in the early years of Bourbon rule in which the military was ill-advisedly pitched into battle against the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720). HP Pavilion DV6-6B09SA Battery
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Following the war, the new Bourbon monarchy would take a much more cautious approach to international relations, built upon a family alliance with Bourbon France, and continuing to follow a program of institutional renewal. HP Pavilion DV6-6B50SA Battery
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[edit]Bourbon Reforms
Main article: Bourbon Reforms
At the beginning of the Philip V's reign and due to the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish king Philip V initiated organizational reforms headed for a government more executive, giving priority to the direct decision of the monarch, opposite to the deliberative way of the polisynodial system of Councils.[146] HP Pavilion DV6-6B51SA Battery
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The Spanish Bourbons' broadest intentions were to break the power of the entrenched aristocracy of the Criollos in America (locally born colonials of European descent), and, eventually, loosen the territorial control of the Society of Jesus over the virtually independent theocracies[citation needed] of Guarani Misiones: HP Pavilion DV6-6B57SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6002SA Battery the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish America in 1767. In addition to the established consulados of Mexico City and Lima, firmly in the control of local landowners, a new rival consulado was set up at Vera Cruz.
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Immediately, Philip's government set up a ministry of the Navy and the Indies (1714) and created first a Honduras Company (1714), a Caracas company, the Guipuzcoana Company (1728) and—the most successful one—a Havana Company (1740). HP Pavilion DV6-6B58SA Battery
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HP Pavilion DV6-6C57EA Battery In 1717–1718, the structures for governing the Indies, the Consejo de Indias and the Casa de Contratación that governed investments in the cumbersome escorted fleets were transferred from Seville to Cádiz, HP Pavilion DV6-6C12EA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6C56EA Battery which became the one port for all Indies trading (see flota system). Individual sailings at regular intervals were slow to displace the old habit of armed convoys, but by the 1760s there were regular packet ships plying the Atlantic between Cádiz and Havana and Puerto Rico, and at longer intervals to the Río de la Plata, HP Pavilion DV6-6B51EA Battery
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HP Pavilion DV6-6156EA Battery where an additional viceroyalty was created in 1776. The contraband trade that was the lifeblood of the Habsburg empire declined in proportion to registered shipping (a shipping registry having been established in 1735). HP Pavilion DV6-6B59EA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6B60EA Battery
Two upheavals registered unease within Spanish America and at the same time demonstrated the renewed resiliency of the reformed system: the Tupac Amaru uprising in Peru in 1780 and the rebellion of the comuneros of New Granada, both in part reactions to tighter, more efficient control. HP Pavilion DV6-6C01EA Battery
[edit]18th century prosperity
San Felipe de Barajas Fortress Cartagena de Indias. In 1741 the Spanish defeated a vast British invasion fleet and army from this fortress in present-day Colombia during the Battle of Cartagena de Indias.
HP Pavilion DV6-6155EA Battery
The 18th century was a century of prosperity for the overseas Spanish Empire as trade within grew steadily, particularly in the second half of the century, under the Bourbon reforms. Spain's crucial victory in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias against a massive British fleet and army in the Caribbean port of Cartagena de Indias, one of a number of successful battles, helped Spain secure its dominance of America until the 19th century. HP Pavilion DV6-6C01SA Battery
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With a Bourbon monarchy came a repertory of Bourbon mercantilist ideas based on a centralized state, put into effect in America slowly at first but with increasing momentum during the century. Rapid shipping growth from the mid-1740s until the Seven Years' War (1756–1763),
HP Pavilion DV6-6153EA Battery reflecting in part the success of the Bourbons in bringing illicit trade under control. With the loosening of trade controls after the Seven Years' War, shipping trade within the empire once again began to expand, reaching an extraordinary rate of growth in the 1780s. HP Pavilion DV6-6C04SA Battery
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The ending of Cádiz's trade monopoly with America brought about a rebirth of Spanish manufactures. Most notable was the rapidly growing textile industry of Catalonia which by the mid-1780s saw the first signs of industrialisation. HP Pavilion DV6-6C04EA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6107SA Battery This saw the emergence of a small, politically active commercial class in Barcelona. This isolated pocket of advanced economic development stood in stark contrast to the relative backwardness of most of the country. HP Pavilion DV6-6C05SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6104EA Battery Most of the improvements were in and around some major coastal cities and the major islands such as Cuba, with its plantations, and a renewed growth of precious metals mining in America. HP Pavilion DV6-6C05EA Battery
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On the other hand most of rural Spain and its empire, where the great bulk of the population lived, lived in relatively backward conditions by 18th century West European standards, reinforced old customs and isolation.
HP Pavilion DV6-6102SA Battery Agricultural productivity remained low despite efforts to introduce new techniques to what was for the most part an uninterested, exploited peasant and labouring groups. Governments were inconsistent in their policies. Though there were substantial improvements by the late 18th century, HP Pavilion DV6-6C11SA Battery
Spain was still an economic backwater. Under the mercantile trading arrangements it had difficulty in providing the goods being demanded by the strongly growing markets of its empire, and providing adequate outlets for the return trade. HP Pavilion DV6-6C11SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6C40SA Battery
[edit]Overseas expansion
A Spanish army captures British Pensacola in 1781. In 1783 the Treaty of Paris returns all of Florida to Spain for the return of the Bahamas.
The Bourbon institutional reforms were to bear fruit militarily when Spanish forces easily retook Naples and Sicily from the Austrians in 1734 during War of the Polish Succession, and during the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739–1742) HP Pavilion DV6-6C41SA Battery
thwarted British efforts to seize the strategic cities of Cartagena de Indias and Santiago de Cuba by defeating a massive British army and navy[147] led by Edward Vernon, which ended Britain's ambitions in the Spanish Main. Moreover, though Spain lost minor territories to British forces towards the end of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), HP Pavilion DV6-6C51SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6C56SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6077SA Battery she was to recover these losses and seize the British naval base in the Bahamas during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83).
The greater part of what is the territory of today's Brazil had been claimed as Spanish when exploration began with the navigation of the length of the Amazon River in 1541–42 by Francisco de Orellana.
HP Pavilion DV6-6060SA Battery Many Spanish expeditions explored large parts of this vast region, especially those close to Spanish settlements. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish soldiers, missionaries and adventurers also established pioneering communities, primarily in Paraná, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo, and forts on the northeastern coast threatened by the French and Dutch.
HP Pavilion DV6-6055EA Battery
As Portuguese-Brazilian settlement expanded, following in the trail of the Bandeirantes exploits, these isolated Spanish groups were eventually integrated into Brazilian society. Only some Castilians who were displaced from the disputed areas of the Pampas of Rio Grande do Sul have left a significant influence on the formation of the gaucho, HP Pavilion DV6-6C75SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6053EA Battery when they mixed with Indian groups, Portuguese and blacks who arrived in the region during the 18th century. The Spanish were barred by their laws from slaving of indigenous people, leaving them without a commercial interest deep in the interior of the Amazon basin. The Laws of Burgos (1512) and the New Laws (1542) HP Pavilion DV6-6C77SA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6000EA Battery
HP Pavilion DV6-6051EA Battery had been intended to protect the interests of indigenous people. While in spirit they were often abused, as through forced exploitative labour of locals, they did prevent widespread formal enslavement of indigenous people in Spanish territories. The Portuguese-Brazilian slavers, HP Pavilion DV6-6006EA Battery the Bandeirantes, had the advantage of access from the mouth of the Amazon River, which was on the Portuguese side of the line of Tordesillas. One famous attack upon a Spanish mission in 1628 resulted in the enslavement of about 60,000 indigenous people.[148] HP Pavilion DV6-6001SA Battery
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In time, there were in effect a self-funding force of occupation. By the 18th century, much of the Spanish territory was under defacto control of Portuguese-Brazil. This reality was recognised with the legal transfer of sovereignty in 1750 of most of the Amazon basin and surrounding areas to Portugal in the Treaty of Madrid.
HP Pavilion DV7-4180SA Keyboard This settlement sowed the seeds of the Guarani War in 1756.
The California mission planning was begun in 1769. The Nootka Crisis (1789–1791) involved a dispute between Spain and Great Britain about the British settlement in Oregon to British Columbia. In 1791, the king of Spain gave Alessandro Malaspina an order to search for a Northwest Passage. HP Pavilion DV7-1105EA Keyboard
The Spanish empire had still not returned to first rate power status, but it had recovered considerably from the dark days at the beginning of the 18th century when it was, and particularly in continental matters, HP Pavilion DV7-1210EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4150EA Keyboard at the mercy of other powers' political deals. The relatively more peaceful century under the new monarchy had allowed it to rebuild and start the long process of modernizing its institutions and economy. The demographic decline of the 17th century had been reversed. It was a middle-ranking power with great power pretensions that could not be ignored. But time was to be against it. HP Pavilion DV7-1135EA Keyboard
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The growth of trade and wealth in the colonies caused increasing political tensions as frustration grew with the improving but still restrictive trade with Spain. Malaspina's recommendation to turn the empire into a looser confederation to help improve governance and trade so as to quell HP Pavilion DV7-1130EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4143EA Keyboard the growing political tensions between the élites of the empire's periphery and centre was suppressed by a monarchy afraid of losing control. All was to be swept away by the tumult that was to overtake Europe at the turn of the 19th century with the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. HP Pavilion DV7-1125EA Keyboard
[edit]Twilight of the Global Empire (1800–1899)
Churruca's Death, oil on canvas about the Battle of Trafalgar by Eugenio Álvarez Dumont, Prado Museum.
The Second of May 1808: The Charge of the Mamelukes, by Francisco de Goya (1814).
The first major territory Spain was to lose in the 19th century was the vast and wild Louisiana Territory, which stretched north to Canada and was ceded by France in 1763 under the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau. HP Pavilion DV7-1213EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4141SA KeyboardThe French, under Napoleon, took back possession as part of the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800 and sold it to the United States (Louisiana Purchase, 1803).
The destruction of the main Spanish fleet, under French command, at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) undermined Spain's ability to defend and hold on to its empire. HP Pavilion DV7-1211EA Keyboard
The British invasions of the Río de la Plata attempt to seize the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1806. The viceroy retreated hastily to the hills when defeated by a small British force. However the Criollos militias and colonial army eventually repulsed the British. HP Pavilion DV7-1212EA Keyboard
The later intrusion of Napoleonic forces into Spain in 1808 (see Peninsular War) cut off effective connection with the empire. But it was internal tensions that ultimately ended the empire in the Americas.
HP Pavilion DV7-4140EA Keyboard
Napoleon's sale in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory to the United States caused border disputes between the United States and Spain that, with rebellions in West Florida (1810) and in the remainder of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi, led to their eventual cession to the United States, along with the sale of all of Florida, HP Pavilion DV7-1214EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4132EA Keyboard in the Adams–Onís Treaty (1819). In 1806 Baron Nikolai Rezanov attempted to negotiate a treaty between the Russian-American Company and Viceroyalty of New Spain but his premature death in 1807 ended any treaty hopes. HP Pavilion DV7-2110SA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4131SA Keyboard
In 1808, Napoleon forced the abdication of the Spanish monarchy and placed his brother on the throne, however his unpopularity provoked an uprising from the Spanish people and the grinding guerrilla warfare, which Napoleon dubbed his "ulcer", the Peninsular War, HP Pavilion DV7-2120SA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4130SA Keyboard (famously depicted by the painter Goya) ensued, followed by a power vacuum lasting up to a decade and turmoil for several decades, civil wars on succession disputes, a republic, and finally a liberal democracy. HP Pavilion DV7-2230SA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4045SA Keyboard
Napoleon forces the Abdications of Bayonne on 5 May and places his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne a month later. Popular uprising against the French and the abdications starts the Peninsular War. Resistance coalesces around juntas, emergency ad-hoc governments. A Supreme Central and Governing Junta of the Kingdom, ruling in the name of Ferdinand VII, is created on 25 September to coordinate efforts among the various juntas. HP Pavilion DV7-3000 Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-3001EA Keyboard
[edit]Spanish American Independence
In North America, Mexico led by Agustin de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero declared independence in 1821
The Battle of Ayacucho, 9 December 1824. The defeat of the Spanish army at Ayacucho was the definitive end of Spain's empire in South America.
Main articles: Spanish American wars of independence and Junta (Peninsular War)
Juntas emerged in Spanish America as a result of Spain facing a political crisis due to the abdication of Ferdinand VII and Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion. HP Pavilion DV7-3020EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4040SA Keyboard Spanish Americans reacted in much the same way the Peninsular Spanish did, legitimizing their actions through traditional law, which held that there was a retroversion of the sovereignty to the people in the absence of a legitimate king. HP Pavilion DV7-3101SA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-4035SA Keyboard
The majority of Spanish Americans continued to support the idea of maintaining a monarchy under Ferdinand VII, but did not support retaining Absolute monarchy. Spanish Americans wanted auto-governance.
HP Pavilion DV7-4015SA Keyboard The juntas in the Americas did not accept the governments of the Europeans, neither government set up for Spain by the French nor the various Spanish governments set up in response to the French invasion. The juntas did not accept the Spanish regency, which was under siege in the city of Cadiz.
HP Pavilion DV7-4020SA Keyboard They also rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812 although the Constitution gave Spanish citizenship to natives of the territories that had belonged to the Spanish monarchy in both hemispheres.[149
HP Pavilion DV7-2215SA Keyboard] Constitution of 1812 include Indigenous peoples of the Americas to Spanish citizenship. But the acquisition of citizenship for any casta of Afro-American peoples of the Americas was trough naturalization excluding slaves. HP Pavilion DV7-3105EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-3110EA Keyboard
A long period of wars followed in America from 1811 to 1829. In South America this period of wars led to the freedom and independence of Argentina (1810), Paraguay (1811) and Uruguay (1815), but subsequently ruled by Brazil until 1828. José de San Martín campaigned for independence in Chile (1818) HP Pavilion DV7-3112EA Keyboard
HP Pavilion DV7-3115EA Keyboardand Peru (1820). Further north Simón Bolívar led forces that won independence between 1811 and 1825 for the area that is currently Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Bolivia (then Alto Perú). In North America, a free thinking priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, declared in 1810 Mexican freedom, which independence was won by Agustín de Iturbide in 1821. Sony PCG-7T1M Keyboard
Central America declared its independence in 1821 and was joined to Mexico for a brief time (1822–23). Panama declared independence in 1821 and joined to the Republic of Gran Colombia (from 1821 to 1903).
Sony VGN-N38Z KeyboardRoyalist guerrillas continued the war in several countries, and Spain launched attempts to retake Venezuela in 1827 and Mexico in 1829. Spain finally abandoned all plans of military re-conquest at death of King Ferdinand in 1833. Sony PCG-7T2M Keyboard
Santo Domingo likewise declared independence in 1821 and began negotiating for inclusion in Bolivar's Republic of Gran Colombia, but was quickly occupied by Haiti, which ruled it until an 1844 revolution. Sony PCG-7X1M Keyboard
Sony VGN-N38M KeyboardThen after 17 years of independence, in 1861, Santo Domingo was again made a colony due to Haitian aggressions, yet by 1865 Santo Domingo again declared independence, making it the only territory to be recolonized by Spain. Thus only Cuba and Puerto Rico, and on the far side of the globe, the Philippines, Guam and nearby Pacific islands, remained in Spanish hands in the New World after 1865. Sony PCG-7X2M Keyboard
[edit]Changes and Reaction
See also: Spanish–American War
Vizcaya explodes in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.
The Spanish Empire in 1898.
In devastated Spain, the post-Napoleonic era created a political vacuum, broke apart any traditional consensus on sovereignty, fragmented the country politically and regionally and unleashed wars and disputes between progressives, Sony PCG-7Y1M Keyboard
Sony VGN-N38E Keyboard liberals and conservatives. The instability inhibited Spain's development, which had started fitfully gathering pace in the previous century. A brief period of improvement occurred in the 1870s when the capable Alfonso XII of Spain and his thoughtful ministers succeeded in restoring some vigour to Spanish politics and prestige, but this was cut short by Alfonso's early death. Sony PCG-7Y2M Keyboard
An increasing level of nationalist, anti-colonial uprisings in various colonies culminated with the Spanish–American War of 1898, fought primarily over Cuba. Military defeat was followed by the independence of Cuba and the cession, for US$20 million, of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States. On 2 June 1899, Sony VGN-N11M Keyboard
Sony VGN-N31Z Keyboardthe second expeditionary battalion "Cazadores" of Philippines the last Spanish garrison in the Philippines, located in Baler, Aurora, was pulled out, effectively ending around 300 years of Spanish hegemony in this archipelago.[150] Its American and Asian presence ended, Spain then sold its remaining Pacific Ocean possessions to Germany in 1899, retaining only its African territories. Sony VGN-N11S Keyboard
[edit]Territories in Africa (1885–1975)
By the end of the 17th century, only Melilla, Alhucemas, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (which had been taken again in 1564), Ceuta (part of the Portuguese Empire since 1415, has chosen to retain its links to Spain once the Iberian Union ended; Sony VGN-N11SR Keyboard
Sony VGN-N31S Keyboardthe formal allegiance of Ceuta to Spain was recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668), Oran and Mazalquivir remained as Spanish territory in Africa. The latter cities were lost in 1708, reconquered in 1732 and sold by Charles IV in 1792.
A map of Equatorial Guinea.
In 1778, Fernando Poo Island (now Bioko), adjacent islets, and commercial rights to the mainland between the Niger and Ogooué Rivers were ceded to Spain by the Portuguese in exchange for territory in South America (Treaty of El Pardo). In the 19th century, some Spanish explorers and missionaries would cross this zone, among them Manuel de Iradier. Sony VGN-N21E Keyboard
In 1848, Spanish troops conquered the Islas Chafarinas.
In 1860, after the Tetuan War, Morocco ceded Sidi Ifni to Spain as a part of the Treaty of Tangiers, on the basis of the old outpost of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña, thought to be Sidi Ifni. The following decades of Franco-Spanish collaboration resulted in the establishment and extension of Spanish protectorates south of the city,
Sony VGN-N29VN Keyboardand Spanish influence obtained international recognition in the Berlin Conference of 1884: Spain administered Sidi Ifni and Western Sahara jointly. Spain claimed a protectorate over the coast of Guinea from Cape Bojador to Cap Blanc, too. Río Muni became a protectorate in 1885 and a colony in 1900. Conflicting claims to the Guinea mainland were settled in 1900 by the Treaty of Paris.
Following a brief war in 1893, Spain expanded its influence south from Melilla.
Morocco and Spanish territories.
In 1911, Morocco was divided between the French and Spanish. The Rif Berbers rebelled, led by Abdelkrim, a former officer for the Spanish administration. The Battle of Annual (1921) was a sudden, grave, and almost fatal, Sony VGN-N21M Keyboard
military defeat suffered by the Spanish army against Moroccan insurgents. A leading Spanish politician emphatically declared: "We are at the most acute period of Spanish decadence".[citation needed] Sony VGN-NS10E keyboard
The statement reflected the mood of the country. The rebellion exposed the utter corruption and incompetence of the military and destabilised the Spanish government, leading to dictatorship. A campaign in conjunction with the French suppressed the Rif rebels by 1925 but at a terrible cost to both sides. In 1923, Tangier was declared an international city under French, Spanish, British, and later Italian joint administration. Sony VGN-NS10L keyboard
In 1926 Bioko and Rio Muni were united as the colony of Spanish Guinea, a status that would last until 1959. In 1931, following the fall of the monarchy, the African colonies became part of the Second Spanish Republic. Sony VGN-NS11J keyboard
Sony VGN-NS31S keyboardFive years later, Francisco Franco, a general of the Army of Africa, rebelled against the republican government and started the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). During the Second World War the Vichy French presence in Tangier was overcome by that of Francoist Spain.
Spain lacked the wealth and the interest to develop an extensive economic infrastructure in its African colonies during the first half of the 20th century. However, through a paternalistic system, particularly on Bioko Island, Spain developed large cocoa plantations for which thousands of Nigerian workers were imported as laborers. Sony VGN-NS20E/P keyboard
In 1956, when French Morocco became independent, Spain surrendered Spanish Morocco to the new nation, but retained control of Sidi Ifni, the Tarfaya region and Spanish Sahara. Moroccan Sultan (later King) Mohammed V was interested in these territories and invaded Spanish Sahara in 1957 (The Ifni War, or, in Spain, the Forgotten War, Sony VGN-NS20J/P keyboard
Sony VGN-NS31M keyboard la Guerra Olvidada). In 1958, Spain ceded Tarfaya to Mohammed V and joined the previously separate districts of Saguia el-Hamra (in the north) and Río de Oro (in the south) to form the province of Spanish Sahara. Sony VGN-NS30E keyboard
In 1959, the Spanish territory on the Gulf of Guinea was established with a status similar to the provinces of metropolitan Spain. As the Spanish Equatorial Region, it was ruled by a governor general exercising military and civilian powers. Sony VGN-NS20EF/P keyboard
Sony VGN-NS21Z keyboard The first local elections were held in 1959, and the first Equatoguinean representatives were seated in the Spanish parliament. Under the Basic Law of December 1963, limited autonomy was authorized under a joint legislative body for the territory's two provinces. The name of the country was changed to Equatorial Guinea. Sony VGN-NS20EF keyboard
In March 1968, under pressure from Equatoguinean nationalists and the United Nations, Spain announced that it would grant the country independence. In 1969, under international pressure, Spain returned Sidi Ifni to Morocco.
Sony VGN-NS21M/W keyboard Spanish control of Spanish Sahara endured until the 1975 Green March prompted a withdrawal, under Moroccan military pressure. The future of this former Spanish colony remains uncertain. Sony VGN-NS20EF/W keyboard
The Canary Islands and Spanish cities in the African mainland are considered an equal part of Spain and the European Union but have a different tax system without Value Added Tax.
Morocco still claims Ceuta, Melilla, and plazas de soberanía even though they are internationally recognized as administrative divisions of Spain Sony VGN-NS11E keyboard
(despite Plazas de Soberania which is a territory of Spain). Isla Perejil (Arabic: Leila ("night")) was occupied on 11 July 2002 by Moroccan Gendarmerie and troops, who were evicted peacefully by Spanish naval forces.
[edit]Legacy
The Renaissance Cathedral of Lima is a legacy of the Spanish settlement in that city.
The Spanish language (now the second most widely spoken language in the world) and the Roman Catholic faith were brought to America, parts of Africa and the Spanish East Indies, by Spanish colonization which began in the 15th century. It also played a crucial part in sustaining the Catholic Church as the leading Christian denomination in Europe when it was under extreme pressure.
The long colonial period in Spanish America resulted in a mixing of peoples. Most Hispanics in the Americas have mixed indigenous and European ancestry, while a substantial proportion also have African ancestry. The only exceptions are Argentina, Chile and Uruguay which experienced heavy European immigration in the post colonial period. Sony VGN-NS11ER keyboard
In concert with the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire laid the foundations of a truly global trade by opening up the great trans-oceanic trade routes. The Spanish Dollar became the world's first global currency. Sony VGN-NS11J keyboard
One of the features of this trade was the exchange of a great array of domesticated plants and animals between the Old World and the New and vice versa. Some that were introduced to America included wheat, barley, apples,
Sony VGN-NS12M keyboardcattle, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys, and many others. The Old World received from America such things as maize, potatoes, chili peppers, tomatoes, tobacco, beans, squash, cacao (chocolate), vanilla, avocados, pineapples, chewing gum, rubber, peanuts, cashews, Brazil nuts, pecans, blueberries, strawberries, quinoa, amaranth, chia, Sony VGN-NS11L keyboard
Sony VGN-NS11ZR keyboardand agave. The result of these exchanges, known generally as the Columbian Exchange, was to significantly improve the agricultural potential of not only in America, but also that of Europe and Asia. Sony VGN-NS11S keyboard
There were also cultural influences, which can be seen in everything from architecture to food, music, art and law, from Southern Argentina and Chile to the Southwest United States. The complex origins and contacts of different peoples resulted in cultural influences coming together in the varied forms so evident today in the former colonial areas. Sony VGN-NS11SR keyboard
The Spanish Civil War[nb 2] was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the established Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists, a rebel group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists prevailed and Franco would rule Spain for the next 36 years. Sony VGN-FZ39VN Keyboard
The war began after a pronunciamiento (declaration of opposition) by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces under the leadership of José Sanjurjo against the elected government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right,[nbSony VGN-FZ39VN Keyboard
3] monarchists such as the religious conservative Carlists, and the Fascist Falange.[nb 4][5]
The coup was supported by military units in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Valladolid, Cádiz, Cordova, and Seville. However, rebelling units in important cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, Sony VGN-FZ31ZR Keyboard
Sony VGN-FZ31M Keyboard Bilbao and Málaga were unable to capture their objectives, and those cities remained in control of the government. Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided. The rebels, led by General Franco, then embarked upon a war of attrition against the established government for the control of the country. Sony VGN-FZ31SR Keyboard
The rebel forces received support from Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and neighboring Portugal, while the Soviet Union and Mexico intervened in support of the "loyalist," or Republican, side. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, operated an official policy of non-intervention. Sony VGN-FZ31ER Keyboard
Atrocities were committed by both sides in the war. Organized purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces to consolidate the future regime.[6] A smaller but significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, normally associated with a breakdown in law and order.[7] The extent to which Republican authorities connived in Republican territory killings varied.[8SONY VGN-FZ31B Keyboard
][9] The Civil War became notable for the passion and political division it inspired. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides were killed for their political or religious views, and after the War's conclusion in 1939, those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. SONY VGN-FZ21S Keyboard
The war ended with the victory of the Nationalists and the exile of thousands of left-leaning Spaniards, many of whom fled to refugee camps in Southern France. With the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco in the aftermath of the Civil War, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime.[5] SONY VGN-FZ11L Keyboard
At the end of the 19th century, the owners of large estates, called latifundia, held most of the power in a land-based oligarchy. The landowners' power was unsuccessfully challenged by the industrial and merchant sectors.[10] Sony VGN-FZ Keyboard
Sony VGN-FZ31J Keyboard In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon. In 1873 Isabella's replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated due to increasing political pressure, and the short-lived First Spanish Republic was proclaimed.[11
Sony VGN-FZ31E Keyboard][12] After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874,[13] Carlists and anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy.[14][15] Alejandro Lerroux helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was particularly acute.[16] Growing resentment of conscription and of the military culminated in the Tragic Week in Barcelona in 1909.[17]
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After the First World War, the working class, the industrial class, and the military united in hopes of removing the corrupt central government, but were unsuccessful.[18] Fears of communism grew.[19] A military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in 1923, and he ran Spain as a military dictatorship.
Sony VGN-FZ21Z Keyboard [20] Support for his regime gradually faded, and he resigned in January 1930.[21] There was little support for the monarchy in the major cities, and King Alfonso XIII abdicated;[22] the Second Spanish Republic was formed, whose power would remain until the culmination of the Spanish Civil War.[23] Sony VGN-FZ11 Keyboard
Niceto Alcalá-Zamora became the first prime minister.[24] The Republic had broad support from all segments of society;[25] elections in June 1931 returned a large majority of Republicans and Socialists.[2
Sony VGN-FZ21M Keyboard6] With the onset of the Great Depression, the government attempted to assist rural Spain by instituting an eight-hour day and giving tenure to farm workers.[27][28] Fascism remained a reactive threat, helped by controversial reforms to the military.[29] In December a new reformist, liberal, and democratic constitution was declared. It included strong provisions enforcing a broad secularization of this Catholic country, Sony VGN-FZ11M Keyboard
Sony VGN-FZ21E Keyboard which many moderate committed Catholics opposed.[30] In October 1931 Manuel Azaña became Prime Minister of a minority government.[31][32] In 1933 the Right won the general elections following an unsuccessful uprising by General José Sanjurjo in August 1932.[33][34]
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Events in the period following November 1933, called the black two years, seemed to make a civil war more likely.[35Sony VGN-FZ11E Keyboard
Sony VGN-FZ11S Keyboard] Alejandro Lerroux of the Radical Republican Party (RRP) formed a government and rolled back changes made under the previous administration.[36] Some monarchists joined with the Fascist Falange Española to help achieve their aims.[37]
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Open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities and militancy continued to increase,[38] reflecting a movement towards radical upheaval rather than peaceful democratic means as solutions.[39]
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In the last months of 1934, two government collapses brought members of the right-wing Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) into the government.[40][41] Farm workers' wages were cut in half, and the military was purged of republican members.[41] A Popular Front alliance was organized,[41]
Sony VGN-NR21J Keyboard which narrowly won the 1936 elections.[42] Azaña led a weak minority government, but soon replaced Zamora as president in April.[43] Prime Minister Casares ignored warnings of a military conspiracy involving several generals, who decided that the government had to be replaced to prevent the dissolution of Spain.[44] Sony VGN-NR31E Keyboard
Military coup [edit]
Main article: Spanish coup of July 1936
Preparations [edit]
The republican government had been attempting to remove suspect generals from their posts, and sacked Franco as chief of staff and transferred him to command of the Canary Islands.[45] Manuel Goded Llopis was sacked as Inspector General and made general of the Balearic islands; Emilio Mola was moved from head of the Army of Africa to military commander of Pamplona in Navarre.[4
Sony VGN-NR11Z/T Keyboard5] However, this allowed Mola to direct the mainland uprising. General José Sanjurjo became the figurehead of the operation, and helped to come to an agreement with the Carlists.[45
Sony VGN-NR11Z Keyboard] Mola was chief planner and second in command.[46] José Antonio Primo de Rivera was put in prison in mid-March in order to restrict the Falange.[45] However, government actions were not as thorough as they might have been: warnings by the Director of Security and other figures were not acted upon.[47] Sony VGN-NR31ER Keyboard
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On 12 June, Prime Minister Casares Quiroga met General Juan Yagüe, who managed to falsely convince Casares of his loyalty to the Republic.[48] Mola began serious planning in the spring.[46] Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and as the man who suppressed the Socialist uprising of 1934.[4Sony VGN-NR31MR Keyboard
Sony VGN-NR11S Keyboard6] He was well respected in the Army of Africa, the Spanish Republican Army's toughest military force.[49] He wrote a cryptic letter to Casares on 23 June, suggesting that the military was disloyal,
Sony VGN-NR11M Keyboard but could be restrained if he were put in charge; Casares did nothing, failing to arrest or buy off Franco.[49] On 5 July, an aircraft was chartered to take Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco.[50] It arrived on 14 July.[50] Sony VGN-NR31S Keyboard
On 12 July 1936, in Madrid, members of the Falange murdered Lieutenant José Castillo of the Assault Guards police force.[50] Castillo was a member of the Socialist party. The next day, members of the Assault Guards arrested José Calvo Sotelo, a leading Spanish monarchist and a prominent parliamentary conservative.[51]
Sony VGN-NR38Z Keyboard Calvo Sotelo was shot by the Guards without trial.[51] The killing of Calvo Sotelo, a prominent member of Parliament, with involvement of the police, aroused suspicions and strong reactions among the government's opponents on the right.[52][nb 5] Massive reprisals followed.[51]
Sony VGN-NR38S Keyboard Although the conservative Nationalist generals were already in advanced stages of a planned uprising, the event provided a catalyst and convenient public justification for their coup.[51] The Socialists and Communists (led by Prieto) demanded that arms be distributed to the people before the military took over. The Prime Minister was hesitant.[51] Sony VGN-NR31SR Keyboard
The uprising's timing was fixed at 17 July, at 5:01 p.m.; this was agreed to by the leader of the Carlists, Manuel Fal Conde.[53] However, the timing was changed: the men in Spanish Morocco were to rise up at 5:00 a.m. and those in Spain itself starting exactly a day later, so control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent to Iberia from Morocco to coincide with the risings there.[54
Sony VGN-NR38M Keyboard] The rising was intended to be a swift coup d'état, but the government retained control of most of the country.[55]
Control in Spanish Morocco was all but certain.[56] The plan was discovered in Morocco on 17 July, which prompted the conspirators to enact it immediately. Little resistance was encountered; in total, the rebels shot 189 people.[ Sony VGN-NR31Z Keyboard
Sony VGN-NR38E Keyboard57] Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands where they were assigned.[46] On 18 July, Casares Quiroga refused an offer of help from the CNT and UGT, leading the groups to proclaim a general strike, in effect mobilizing. They opened weapons caches, some buried since the 1934 risings. Sony VGN-NR31Z/T Keyboard
Sony VGN-NR31ZR Keyboard [56] The paramilitary forces[clarification needed] often waited to see the outcome of militia action before either joining or suppressing the rebellion. Quick action by either the rebels or anarchist militias was often enough to decide the fate of a town.[58] General Queipo de Llano managed to secure Seville for the rebels, arresting a number of other officers.[59]
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Outcome [edit]
The rebels failed to take any major cities, with the critical exception of Seville, which provided a landing point for Franco's African troops, and the primarily conservative and Catholic areas of Old Castile and León, which fell quickly.[55] Cadiz was taken for the rebels with the help of the first troops from the Army of Africa.[60] Sony VPCF11C4E/B Keyboard
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The government retained control of Málaga, Jaén and Almería. In Madrid the rebels were hemmed into the Montaña barracks, which fell with much bloodshed. Republican leader Santiago Casares Quiroga was replaced by José Giral who ordered the distribution of weapons among the civilian population.[61
Sony VPCF13Z0E/B Keyboard] This facilitated the defeat of the army insurrection in the main industrial centres, including Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, but it allowed the anarchists to take control of Barcelona along with large swathes of Aragon and Catalonia.[62] General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death.[63] Sony VPCF11D4E Keyboard
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The Republican Government ended up controlling almost all of the east coast and central area around Madrid, as well as Asturias, Cantabria and part of the Basque Country in the north.
The rebels termed themselves Nacionales, normally translated as Nationalists, though the former implies "true Spaniards" rather than a pure nationalistic cause.[64Sony VPCF11S1E/B Keyboard
Sony VPCF12M0E/B Keyboard
Sony VPCF13M8E/B Keyboard] The result of the coup was a nationalist area of control containing 11 million of Spain's population of 25 million.[65] The Nationalists had secured the support of around half of Spain's territorial army, some 60,000 men, joined by the Army of Africa, made up of 35,000 men,[66] and a little under half of Spain's militaristic police forces, the Assault Guards, the Civil Guards, and the Carabineers.[ Sony VPC-F2 Keyboard
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Sony VPCF12S1E/B Keyboard67] Republicans controlled under half of rifles, and about a third of both machine guns and artillery pieces.[66][68]
The Spanish Republican Army had just 18 tanks of a sufficiently modern design, and the Republicans retained 10.[69Sony VPCF22J1E Keyboard
Sony VPCF12Z1E Keyboard] Naval capacity was uneven, with the Republicans retaining a numerical advantage but with the Navy's top commanders and two of the most modern ships, heavy cruisers Canarias —captured at the Ferrol shipyard—Sony VPCF22L1E Keyboard
Sony VPCF13S0E/B Keyboard and Baleares, in Nationalist hands.[70] The Spanish Republican Navy suffered from the same problems as the army: many officers had defected or had been killed after trying to do so.[69] Two-thirds of air capability was retained by the government – however, the whole of the Republican Air Force was very outdated.[71] Sony VPCF22M1E Keyboard
Combatants [edit]
The war was cast by Republican sympathizers as a struggle between tyranny and democracy, and by Nationalist supporters as between communist and anarchist "red hordes" and "Christian civilization".[72] Nationalists also claimed they were protecting the establishment and bringing security and direction to an ungoverned and lawless society.[72] Sony VPCF22S1E Keyboard
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Spanish politics, especially on the left, were quite fragmented, as socialists and communists supported the Republic. During the Republic, anarchists had had mixed opinions, but major groups opposed the Nationalists during the Civil War. The Conservatives, by contrast, were united by their fervent opposition to the Republican government, and presented a more unified front.[73]
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Republicans [edit]
Main article: Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)
Flags of the Popular Front (left) and CNT/FAI (right)
Republican volunteers at Teruel, 1936.
The Republicans received weapons and volunteers from the Soviet Union, Mexico, the international Marxists movement and International Brigades. Their supporters ranged from centrists who supported a moderately capitalist liberal democracy to revolutionary anarchists; their base was primarily secular and urban, Sony VPCF23M1E Keyboard
Sony VPCY21S1E/L Keyboardbut also included landless peasants, and was particularly strong in industrial regions like Asturias and Catalonia.[74]
This faction was called variously loyales ("loyalists") by supporters; Republicans, the Popular Front, or the Government by all parties—while their opponents frequently called them los rojos ("the reds").[75] Republicans were supported by most urban workers, a large share of peasants, and much of the educated middle class. Sony VPCF23Q1E Keyboard
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The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or even independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions,[76]
Sony VPCF23P1E Keyboardwhose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR), which was reorganized into Mixed brigades after October 1936.[77]
Nationalists [edit]
Main article: National faction (Spanish Civil War)
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Flags of the Falange (left) and Carlist Traditionalist Requetés (right)
The Nationalists (nacionales), (also called insurgents, rebels—or, by opponents, Franquists or Fascists) feared national fragmentation and opposed the separatist movements. They were chiefly defined by their anti-communism, which galvanized diverse or opposed movements like falangists and monarchists. Their leaders had a generally wealthier, more conservative, monarchist, landowning background.[78] Sony VPCF23S1E Keyboard
The Nationalist side included the Carlists and Alfonsist monarchists, Spanish nationalists, the fascist Falange, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. Virtually all Nationalist groups had strong Catholic convictions and supported the native Spanish clergy.[78Sony VPCF24M1E Keyboard
Sony VPCF13M1E/H Keyboard] The Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and practitioners (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most large landowners, and many businessmen.[72]
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Republican troops at Guadalajara, 1937.
One of the rightists' principal stated motives was to confront the anti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Church,[78] which had been targeted by opponents, including Republicans who blamed the institution for the country's ills. Prior to the war, in the Asturias uprising of 1934,
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Sony VPCF12S1E/B Keyboard religious buildings were burnt and at least one hundred clergy, religious civilians, and police were killed by revolutionaries.[79][80] Franco had brought in the mercenaries of Spain's colonial Army of Africa and reduced the miners to submission by heavy artillery attacks and bombing raids.
Sony VPCF11C4E/B KeyboardThe Spanish Foreign Legion committed atrocities, many women and children were killed, and the army carried out summary execution of leftists. The repression in the aftermath was brutal. In Asturias, prisoners were tortured.[8Sony VPCF11S1E Keyboard
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1] Franco believed that he was justified in the brutal use of troops against Spanish civilians. Historian Paul Preston: "Unmoved by the fact that the central symbol of rightist values was the reconquest of Spain from the Moors, Franco did not hesitate to ship Moorish mercenaries to fight in Asturias, the only part of Spain where the crescent had never flown. Sony VPCF11Z1E/BI Keyboard
Sony VPCF13M1E/B KeyboardHe saw no contradiction about using the Moors because he regarded left-wing workers with the same racialist contempt he possessed towards the tribesmen of the Rif." [82]
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Articles 24 and 26 of the 1931 constitution had banned the Jesuits; this proscription deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, killing 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people, deepened Catholic support for the Nationalists.[83][84]
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Other factions [edit]
Catalan and Basque nationalists were not univocal. Left-wing Catalan nationalists sided with the Republicans, while Conservative Catalan nationalists were far less vocal supporting the government due to anti-clericalism and confiscations occurring in areas within its control. Basque nationalists,
Sony VPCF13E8E Keyboard heralded by the conservative Basque Nationalist Party, were mildly supportive of the Republican government, even though some in Navarre sided with the uprising for the same reasons influencing conservative Catalans. Notwithstanding religious matters, Basque nationalists, who were for the most part Catholic, generally sided with the Republicans.[85]
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Foreign involvement [edit]
Main article: Foreign involvement in the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War involved large numbers of non-Spanish citizens who participated in combat and advisory positions. Germany and Italy contributed large amounts of financial assistance and military aid to forces led by Franco. Sony VPCF12M1E/H KeyboardForces fighting on behalf of the Republican faction also received support, but the Republic's allies were seriously hampered by the non-intervention proclaimed by France and the United Kingdom. The attempted suppression of imported materials was largely ineffective, Sony VPCF12E1E/H Keyboard
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however, and France especially was accused of allowing large shipments to Republican troops.[86] The clandestine actions of the various European powers were, at the time, considered to be risking another 'Great War'.[87] Sony VPCSA2Z9E Battery
The League of Nations' reaction to the war was mostly neutral and insufficient to contain the massive importation by fighting factions of arms and other war resources. Although a Non-Intervention Committee was formed, its policies accomplished little, Sony VPCSA3M9E Battery
Sony VPCSE2M9E Batteryand its directives were rendered ineffective by the policies of appeasement practised by European states; the official Spanish government of Juan Negrín was gradually abandoned within the organization during this period.[88] Sony VPCSA3N9E Battery
Support for the Nationalists [edit]
Germany [edit]
Main article: German involvement in the Spanish Civil War
Members of the Condor Legion.
Despite the German signing of a non-intervention agreement in September 1936, various forms of aid and military help from Germany found their way to both sides of the Spanish conflict, largely in support of the Nationalist faction. Sony VPCSA3S9E Battery
Sony VPCSE2L9E Battery Nazi actions included the formation of the multitasking Condor Legion, while German efforts to move the Army of Africa to mainland Spain proved successful in the war's early stages.[89
Sony VPCSE2J9E Battery] German operations slowly expanded to include strike targets, most notably – and controversially – the bombing of Guernica, which on 26 April 1937 killed 200 to 300 civilians.[90]
German involvement was further manifested through undertakings such as Operation Ursula, a U-boat undertaking, and contributions from the Kriegsmarine. The Legion spearheaded many Nationalist victories, particularly in aerial combat,[91] Sony VPCSA3X9E Battery
Sony VPCSE2E1E Battery while Spain further provided a proving ground for German tank tactics. The training German units provided to Nationalist forces would prove valuable; by the War's end, perhaps fifty-six thousand Nationalist soldiers encompassing infantry, artillery, aerial and naval forces had been trained by German detachments.[89] Sony VPCSA3Z9E Battery
Probably a total of 16,000 German citizens fought in the War, including approximately 300 killed,[92] though no more than ten thousand participated at any one time. German aid to the Nationalists amounted to approximately £43,000,000 ($215,000,000) Sony VPCSA4W9E Battery
Sony VPCSE1Z9E Battery in 1939 prices,[92][nb 6] 15.5% of which was used for salaries and expenses and 21.9% for direct delivery of supplies to Spain, while 62.6% was expended on the Condor Legion.[92] In total Germany provided the Nationalists with 600 planes and 200 tanks.[93] Sony VPCSB Battery
Italy [edit]
After Francisco Franco's request and encouragement by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini joined the war. While the conquest of Abyssinia had made Italy delirious with power, a Spanish ally would help secure Italian control of the Mediterranean.[94] The Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina Italiana) played a substantial role in the Mediterranean blockade and ultimately Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft, tankettes, the Legionary Air Force (Italian: Aviazione Legionaria), and the Corps of Volunteer Troops (Italian: Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV) to the Nationalist cause.[95]
Sony VPCSE1V9E Battery The Italian CTV would at its peak supply the Nationalists with 50,000 men.[95] Italian warships took part in breaking the Republican navy's blockade of Nationalist-held Spanish Morocco and took part in naval bombardment of Republican-held Malaga, Valencia, and Barcelona.[ Sony VPCSB1A7E Battery
Sony VPCSE1L1E Battery96] In total Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine-guns and 240,000 rifles.[97]
Portugal [edit]
António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo played an important role in supplying Franco's forces with ammunition and logistical help.[98] Despite its discreet direct military involvement – restrained to a somewhat "semi-official" endorsement, by its authoritarian regime, of a volunteer force of up to 20,000,[99][10Sony VPCSB1A9E Battery
0] so-called "Viriatos" – for the whole duration of the conflict, Portugal was instrumental in providing the Nationalists with organizational skills and reassurance from the Iberian neighbour to Franco and his allies that no interference would hinder the supply traffic directed to the Nationalist cause.[101] Sony VPCSB1B7E Battery
Others [edit]
While Great Britain maintained a position of public neutrality, in private British leaders and diplomats favored a Franco victory over the Republic, which they regarded as pro-Communist. They believed Franco was a liberal-minded figure who would return Spain to a state similar to that before the days of the Second Republic. Sony VPCSB1B9E Battery
The British leadership was also concerned about the security of their ports in the Mediterranean, especially Gibraltar, which they felt was more assured by Franco than the unstable Republic. In consequence,
Sony VPCSE1E1E Battery Britain strongly supported and expanded the sea blockade against Spain under the pretext of keeping foreign nations out of the conflict, even though leading government figures were aware of heavy Italian and German involvement as early as August 1936.[102Sony VPCSB1C5E Battery
] The blockade ensured the Republic received little support from abroad while private interests in Great Britain and the United States, among other democracies, sent considerable material aid to Franco. Sony VPCSB1C7E Battery
Despite the Irish government's prohibition against participating in the war, around six hundred Irishmen, followers of Eoin O'Duffy known as the "Irish Brigade", went to Spain to fight alongside Franco.[99] Romanian volunteers were led by Ion I Moţa, deputy-leader of the Legion of the Archangel Michael (or Iron Guard), whose group of seven Legionaries visited Spain in December 1936 to ally their movement with the Nationalists.[103] Sony VPCSB1D7E Battery
Support for the Republicans [edit]
International Brigades [edit]
The Etkar André battalion of the International Brigades.
British Battalion banner
Many non-Spaniards, often affiliated with radical communist or socialist entities, joined the International Brigades, believing that the Spanish Republic was a front line in the war against fascism.
Sony VPCSB3T9E BatteryThe units represented the largest foreign contingent of those fighting for the Republicans. Roughly forty thousand foreign nationals fought with the Brigades, though no more than 18,000 were entered into the conflict at any given time; they claimed to represent 53 states.[104]
Significant numbers of volunteers originated in France (10,000), Germany and Austria (5,000) and Italy (3,350). More than 1,000 came each from the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland,
Sony VPCSB3N9E Battery Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Canada.[104] The Thälmann Battalion, a group of Germans, and the Garibaldi Battalion, a group of Italians, distinguished their unit during the Siege of Madrid. Americans fought in units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, while Canadians joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.[105] Sony VPCSB1S1E Battery
Over five hundred Romanians fought on the Republican side, including Romanian Communist Party members Petre Borilă and Valter Roman.[106] About 80 volunteers from Ireland formed the Connolly Column,
Sony VPCSB2M9E Battery which was immortalized by Irish folk singer Christy Moore in the song 'Viva La Quince Brigada.' Some Chinese joined the Brigades; the majority of them eventually returned to China, while some went to prison or French refugee camps, and a handful remained in Spain.[107]
Soviet Union [edit]
Though Joseph Stalin had signed the Non-Intervention Agreement, the Soviet Union contravened the League of Nations embargo by providing material assistance to the Republican forces, becoming their only source of major weapons. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin tried to do this covertly.[108] In total,
Sony VPCSB1Z9E Battery estimates of material provided by the USSR to the Republicans vary between 634 and 806 planes, 331 and 362 tanks, and 1,034 and 1,895 artillery pieces.[109]
Stalin also created Section X of the Soviet Union military to head the weapons shipment operation; this was called Operation X. Despite Stalin's interest in aiding the Republicans, the quality of arms was inconsistent.[110][
Sony VPCSB1X9E Battery111] On one hand, many of the rifles and field guns provided were old, obsolete or otherwise of limited use. On the other hand, the T-26 and BT-5 tanks were modern and effective in combat.[110] The Soviet Union supplied aircraft that were in current service with their own forces, but the aircraft provided by Germany to the Nationalists proved superior by the end of the war.[111] Sony VPCSB1V9E Battery
The process of getting arms from Russia to Spain was extremely slow. Many shipments were lost or arrived only partially matching what had been authorised.[112] Stalin ordered ship builders to include false decks in the original designs of ships, and while at sea Soviet captains employed deceptive flags and paint schemes to evade detection by the Nationalists.[113] Sony VGN-NW21MF Keyboard
The Republic paid for Soviet arms with official Bank of Spain gold reserves, this would later be the frequent subject of Franquist propaganda, under the term Moscow Gold. The cost to the Republic of Soviet arms was more than the value of Spain's gold reserves, the fourth-largest in the world, estimated at US $500 million (1936 prices). 176 tonnes of this was transferred through France.[114] Sony VGN-NW21EF Keyboard
The USSR sent a number of military advisers to Spain (2,000[115]–3,000[116]),[117] and while Soviet troops were fewer than 500 men at a time, Soviet volunteers often operated Soviet-made tanks and aircraft, particularly at the beginning of the war.[10Sony VGN-NW21JF Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW31EF Keyboard] In addition, the Soviet Union directed Communist parties around the world to organize and recruit the International Brigades. Another significant Soviet involvement was the activity of the NKVD. Communist figures like Vittorio Vidali ("Comandante Contreras"), Iosif Grigulevich and, most prominently, Alexander Orlov led operations that included the murders of Andreu Nin[118] and José Robles.[119] Sony VGN-NW21ZF Keyboard
Mexico [edit]
Unlike the United States and major Latin American governments such as the ABC Powers and Peru, the Mexican government supported the Republicans.[120][121] Mexico refused to follow the French-British non-intervention proposals,[120] furnishing $2,000,000 in aid and material assistance, which included 20,000 rifles and 20 million cartridges.[120]
Mexico's most important contributions to the Spanish Republic was its diplomatic help, as well as the sanctuary the nation arranged for Republican refugees, including Spanish intellectuals and orphaned children from Republican families. Some 50,000 took refuge, primarily in Mexico City, accompanied by $300 million in various treasures still owned by the Left.[122]
France [edit]
Though the government of France did not send direct support to the Republican faction, the left-wing government of French Prime Minister Léon Blum was sympathetic to the Republic,[123] fearing that the success of Nationalist forces in Spain would result in the creation of an ally state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (largely surrounding France).[1Sony VGN-NW31ZF/S Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW20SF Keyboard23] Right-wing politicians opposed the French government's actions and began a vicious campaign against the Blum government.[124] On 27 July 1936, British officials held discussions with Prime Minister Blum, and it is believed that they convinced Blum not to send arms to the Republicans.[125] Sony VGN-NW31JF Keyboard
On 27 July, the French government declared that it would not send military aid, technology or forces to assist the Republican forces.[126] However, Blum made clear that France reserved the right to provide aid should it wish to the Republic: Sony VGN-NW31EF Keyboard
We could have delivered arms to the Spanish Government [Republicans], a legitimate government ... We have not done so, in order not to give an excuse to those who would be tempted to send arms to the rebels [Nationalists]. Blum, 1936.[127] Sony VGN-NW20EF/P Keyboard
On 1 August 1936, a pro-Republican rally of 20,000 people confronted Blum demanding that he send aircraft to the Republicans at the same time as right-wing politicians attacked Blum for supporting the Republic and being responsible for provoking Italian intervention on the side of Franco.[127]
Sony VGN-NW24MR Keyboard Germany informed the French ambassador in Berlin that Germany would hold France responsible if it supported "the maneouvres of Moscow" by supporting the Republicans.[128]
Sony VGN-NW24MG Keyboard On 21 August 1936, France signed the Non-Intervention Agreement.[128]
However the Blum government provided aircraft to the Republicans through covert means with Potez 54 bomber aircraft, Dewoitine aircraft, and Loire 46 fighter aircraft being sent from 7 August 1936 to December of that year to Republican forces.[129] Also, until 8 September 1936, aircraft could freely pass from France into Spain if they were bought in other countries.[130]
Sony VGN-NW24JG Keyboard
Even after covert support by France to the Republicans ended in December 1936, the possibility of French intervention against the Nationals remained a serious possibility throughout the war. German intelligence reported to Franco and the Nationals that the French military was engaging in open discussions about intervention in the war through French military intervention in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.[1Sony VGN-NW20EF/S Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW24EG Keyboard31] In 1938 Franco feared an immediate French intervention against a potential Nationalist victory in Spain through French occupation of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and Spanish Morocco.[132] Sony VGN-NW20EF/W Keyboard
Course of the war [edit]
1936 [edit]
Map showing Spain in September 1936:
Area under Nationalist control
Area under Republican control
Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1936
A large air and sea-lift of Nationalist troops in Spanish Morocco was organized to the south-west of Spain.[133]
Sony VGN-NW20EF Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW20SF Keyboard Coup leader Sanjurjo was killed in a plane crash on 20 July,[134][135] leaving an effective command split between Mola in the North and Franco in the South.[46] This period also saw the worst actions of the so-called "Red" and "White" "Terrors" in Spain.[136][137] On 21 July, the fifth day of the rebellion, the Nationalists captured the central Spanish naval base, located in Ferrol in north-western Spain.[138] Sony VGN-NW11Z/T Keyboard
A rebel force under Colonel Beorlegui Canet, sent by General Mola and Colonel Esteban Garcia, undertook the Campaign of Gipuzkoa from July to September. The capture of Gipuzkoa isolated the Republican provinces in the north. On 5 September, after heavy fighting the force took Irún, closing the French border to the Republicans.[13Sony VGN-NW11Z/S Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW24S Keyboard9] On 15 September, San Sebastián, home to a divided Republican force of anarchists and Basque nationalists, was taken by Nationalist soldiers.[101] The Nationalists then advanced toward their capital, Bilbao, but were halted by Republican militias on the border of Biscay at the end of September. Sony VGN-NW11S/T Keyboard
The Republican government under Giral resigned on 4 September, unable to cope with the situation, and was replaced by a mostly Socialist organization under Largo Caballero.[140] The new leadership began to unify central command in the republican zone.[ Sony VGN-NW11S/S Keyboard
Sony VGN-NW31EF Keyboard141] On the Nationalist side, Franco was chosen as chief military commander at a meeting of ranking generals at Salamanca on 21 September, now called by the title Generalísimo.[46][142]
Franco won another victory on 27 September when his troops relieved the Alcázar in Toledo[142] that had been held by a Nationalist garrison under Colonel Moscardo since the beginning of the rebellion, Sony PCG-61211M Keyboard
Sony PCG-71911M Keyboard resisting thousands of Republican troops who totally surrounded the isolated building. Two days after relieving the siege, Franco proclaimed himself Caudillo ("chieftain"), while forcibly unifying the various and diverse Falangist, Royalist and other elements within the Nationalist cause.[140] The diversion to Toledo gave Madrid time to prepare a defense, but was hailed as a major propaganda victory and personal success for Franco.[143]
In October, the Francoist troops launched a major offensive toward Madrid,[144] reaching it in early November and launching a major assault on the city on 8 November.[145] The Republican government was forced to shift from Madrid to Valencia, outside the combat zone, on 6 November.[1Sony PCG-71211M Keyboard
46] However, the Nationalists' attack on the capital was repulsed in fierce fighting between 8 and 23 November. A contributory factor in the successful Republican defense was the arrival of the International Brigades, though only an approximate three thousand foreign volunteers participated in the battle.[147] Sony PCG-71213M Keyboard
Having failed to take the capital, Franco bombarded it from the air and, in the following two years, mounted several offensives to try to encircle Madrid. The battle of the Corunna Road, a Nationalist offensive to the north-west, pushed Republican forces back, but failed to isolate Madrid. The battle lasted into January.[148] Sony PCG-71212M Keyboard
1937 [edit]
Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1937
Map showing Spain in October 1937:
Area under Nationalist control
Area under Republican control
With his ranks swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made another attempt to capture Madrid in January and February 1937, Sony PCG-71312M Keyboard
but was again unsuccessful. The Battle of Málaga started in mid-January; this Nationalist offensive in Spain's south-east would turn into a disaster for the Republicans, who were poorly organised and armed. The city was taken by Franco on 8 February.[ Sony PCG-71311M Keyboard
149] The consolidation of various militias into the Republican Army had started in December 1936.[1
Sony PCG-71D14M Keyboard50] The main Nationalist advance, to cross the Jarama river and cut the supply of Madrid by the Valencia road, termed the Battle of Jarama, led to heavy casualties (6–20,000) on both sides. The operation's main objective was not met, though Nationalists gained a modest amount of territory.[151]
A similar Nationalist offensive, the Battle of Guadalajara, was a more significant defeat for Franco and his armies; it proved the only publicised Republican victory of the war. Italian troops and blitzkrieg tactics were used by Franco, and while many strategists blamed the latter for the rightists' defeat,
Sony PCG-71511M Keyboard the Germans believed it was the former at fault for the Nationalists' 5,000 casualties and loss of valuable equipment.[152] The German strategists successfully argued that the Nationalists needed to concentrate on vulnerable areas first.[153]
Ruins of Guernica.
The "War in the North" began in mid-March,[154] with Biscay as a first target.[155] The Basques suffered most from the lack of a suitable air force;[156] on 26 April, the Condor Legion bombed the town of Guernica, killing two to three hundred. The destruction had a significant effect on international opinion.[157] The Basques retreated.[158] Sony PCG-71313M Keyboard
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April and May saw infighting among Republican groups in Catalonia. The dispute was between an ultimately victorious government – Communist force and the anarchist CNT. The disturbance pleased Nationalist command, but little was done to exploit Republican divisions.[159
Sony PCG-7171M Keyboard] After the fall of Guernica, the Republican government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness. In July, it made a move to recapture Segovia, forcing Franco to delay his advance on the Bilbao front, but for only two weeks. A similar Republican attack on Huesca failed similarly.[160] Sony PCG-7181M Keyboard
Mola, Franco's second-in-command, was killed on 3 June.[161] In early July, despite the earlier fall in June of Bilbao, the government launched a strong counter-offensive to the west of Madrid, focusing on Brunete. The Battle of Brunete, however, Sony PCG-7182M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7186M Keyboardwas a significant defeat for the Republic, which lost many of its most accomplished troops. The offensive had led to an advance of 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi), and left 25,000 Republican casualties.[162] Sony PCG-7183M Keyboard
A Republican offensive against Zaragoza was also a failure. Despite having land and aerial advantages, the Battle of Belchite resulted in an advance of only ten kilometres and the loss of much equipment.[
Sony PCG-7185M Keyboard3] Franco invaded Aragón in August and then took the city of Santander.[164] With the surrender of the Republican army in the Basque territory came the Santoña Agreement;[165] Gijón finally fell in late October.[166] Franco had effectively won in the north. At November's end, with Franco's troops closing in on Valencia, the government had to move again, this time to Barcelona.[167] 16Sony PCG-7184M Keyboard
1938 [edit]
Map showing Spain in July 1938:
Area under Nationalist control
Area under Republican control
Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1938–1939
The Battle of Teruel was an important confrontation. The city, which had formerly belonged to the Nationalists, was conquered by Republicans in January. The Francoist troops launched an offensive and recovered the city by 22 February, but Franco was forced to rely heavily on German and Italian air support.[168] Sony PCG-41111M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7186M Keyboard
On 7 March, Nationalists launched the Aragon Offensive, and by 14 April, they had pushed through to the Mediterranean, cutting the Republican-held portion of Spain in two. The Republican government attempted suing for peace in May,[16Sony PCG-41112M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7181M Keyboard9] but Franco demanded unconditional surrender; the war raged on. In July, the Nationalist army pressed southward from Teruel and south along the coast toward the capital of the Republic at Valencia, but was halted in heavy fighting along the XYZ Line, a system of fortifications defending Valencia.[170] Sony PCG-81111M Keyboard
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The Republican government then launched an all-out campaign to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro, from 24 July until 26 November.[171] The campaign was unsuccessful, and was undermined by the Franco-British appeasement of Hitler in Munich. Sony PCG-81112M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7151M KeyboardThe agreement with Britain effectively destroyed Republican morale by ending hope of an anti-fascist alliance with Western powers.[172] The retreat from the Ebro all but determined the final outcome of the war.[171] Eight days before the new year, Franco threw massive forces into an invasion of Catalonia.[173] Sony PCG-81212M Keyboard
1939 [edit]
Main article: Spanish Civil War chronology 1938–1939
Map showing Spain in February 1939:
Area under Nationalist control
Area under Republican control
Franco's troops conquered Catalonia in a whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939. Tarragona fell on 15 January,[174] followed by Barcelona on 26 January[175] and Gerona on 2 February.[176] On 27 February, the United Kingdom and France recognized the Franco regime.[177] Sony PCG-81313M Keyboard
Franco declares the end of the war. However, small pockets of Republicans fight on.
Only Madrid and a few other strongholds remained for the Republican forces. On 5 March 1939, the Republican army led by the colonel Segismundo Casado and the politician Julián Besteiro, rose against the prime minister Juan Negrin and formed a military Junta, Sony PCG-31311M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7143M Keyboard
the Council of National Defense (Consejo Nacional de Defensa or CND) to negotiate a peace deal. Negrin fled to France on 6 March, but the Communist troops around Madrid rose against the Junta, starting a brief civil war within the civil war. Casado defeated them, and started peace negotiation with the Nationalists, Sony PCG-51512M Keyboard
but Francisco Franco only accepted an unconditional surrender. On 26 March the Nationalists started a general offensive, on 28 March the Nationalists occupied Madrid and by 31 March they controlled all the Spanish territory.[ Sony PCG-51212M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7162M Keyboard178] Franco proclaimed victory in a radio speech aired on 1 April, when the last of the Republican forces surrendered.
After the end of the War, there were harsh reprisals against Franco's former enemies;[179] thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and at least 30,000 executed.[180] Other calculations of these deaths range from 50,000[181] to 200,000 depending on which killings are included. Many others were put to forced labour, building railways, drying out swamps, and digging canals.[181]
Sony PCG-7154M Keyboard
Hundreds of thousands of Republicans fled abroad, some 500,000 to France.[182] Refugees were confined in internment camps of the French Third Republic, such as Camp Gurs or Camp Vernet, where twelve thousand Republicans were housed in squalid conditions. Sony PCG-51112M Keyboard
In his capacity as consul in Paris Pablo Neruda organized the immigration to Chile of 2,200 Republican exiles in France using the ship SS Winnipeg.[183] Sony PCG-51111M Keyboard
Of the 17,000 refugees housed in Gurs, farmers and others who could not find relations in France were encouraged by the Third Republic, in agreement with the Franquist government, to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Franquist authorities in Irún.[184]
Sony PCG-7151M KeyboardFrom there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for "purification" according to the Law of Political Responsibilities. After the proclamation by Marshal Philippe Pétain of the Vichy regime, the refugees became political prisoners, and the French police attempted to round up those who had been liberated from the camp. Along with other "undesirable" people, Sony PCG-51211M Keyboard
Sony PCG-5S1M Keyboard
the Spaniards were sent to the Drancy internment camp before being deported to Nazi Germany. About 5,000 Spaniards thus died in the Mauthausen concentration camp.[184]
After the official end of the war, guerrilla war was waged on an irregular basis by the Spanish Maquis well into the 1950s, being gradually reduced by military defeats and scant support from the exhausted population. In 1944, Sony PCG-7171M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7141M Keyboarda group of republican veterans, who also fought in the French resistance against the Nazis, invaded the Val d'Aran in northwest Catalonia, but were defeated after ten days.[185]
Children preparing for evacuation, some giving the Republican salute. The Republicans showed a raised fist whereas the Nationalists gave the Roman salute.[186] Sony PCG-5P1M Keyboard
Evacuation of children [edit]
Main article: Evacuation of children in the Spanish Civil War
The Republicans oversaw the evacuation of 30–35,000 children from their zone.[187] This started with Basque areas, from which 20,000 were evacuated. Their destinations included the United Kingdom[188
Sony PCG-7144M Keyboard] and the USSR, and many other locations in Europe, along with Mexico.[187] Around 4,000 were taken to the UK against initial opposition from both the government and charitable groups who saw the removal of children from their native country as potentially harmful. The upper age limit was initially set at 12 but raised to 15.[189] Sony PCG-5N2M Keyboard
Atrocities [edit]
Death totals remain debated. Antony Beevor writes in his history of the Civil War that Franco's ensuing 'white terror' resulted in the deaths of 200,000 people and that the 'red terror' killed 38,000.[
Sony PCG-7192M Keyboard190] Julius Ruiz contends that, "Although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain."[191]
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Spanish Civil War grave sites. Location of known burial places. Colors refer to the type of intervention that has been carried out. Green: No Interventions Undertaken so far. White: Missing grave. Yellow: Transferred to the Valle de los Caídos. Red: Fully or Partially Exhumed. Blue star: Valle de los Caídos. Source: Ministry of Justice of Spain Sony PCG-3C2M Keyboard
Sony PCG-7195M Keyboard
In 2008 a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, opened an investigation into the executions and disappearances of 114,266 people between 17 July 1936 and December 1951 (Garzón has since been indicted for violating a 1977 amnesty law through his actions). Among the executions investigated was that of the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca;[3] mention of his death was forbidden during Franco's regime.[192] Sony PCG-3F1M Keyboard
The view of historians including Helen Graham,[193] Paul Preston,[194] Antony Beevor,[195] Gabriel Jackson[196] and Hugh Thomas,[19Sony PCG-3H1M Keyboard
7] is that the mass executions behind the Nationalists lines were organized and approved by the Nationalists rebel authorities while the executions behind the Republican lines were the result of the breakdown of the republican state and anarchy: Sony PCG-3J1M Keyboard
Though there was much wanton killing in rebel Spain, the idea of the limpieza, the "cleaning up" of the country from the evils which had overtaken it, was a disciplined policy of the new authorities and a part of their programme of regeneration. In republican Spain, most of the killing was the consequence of anarchy, Sony PCG-3G2M Keyboardthe outcome of a national breakdown, and not the work of the state; even though some political parties in some cities abetted the enormities, and even though some of those responsible ultimately rose to positions of authority.
– Hugh Thomas[197] Sony PCG-3C1M Keyboard
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Nationalists [edit]
See also: White Terror (Spain)
Nationalist SM.81 aircraft bomb Madrid in late November 1936.
Bombing in Barcelona, 1938.
Nationalists atrocities, which authorities frequently ordered to eradicate any trace of leftism in Spain, were common. According to historian Paul Preston, the minimum number of those executed by the rebels is 130,000,[198] Sony 148781111 Keyboard
Sony 148792821 keyboard and is likely to have been far higher.[199] The violence carried out in the rebel zone was carried out by the military, the Civil Guard and the Falange in the name of the regime and legitimized by the Catholic Church.[200] Sony 148792611 Keyboard
Many such acts were committed by reactionary groups during the first weeks of the war.[200] This included the execution of school teachers,[20Sony 148088721 Keyboard
Sony 148768711 keyboard1] because the efforts of the Second Spanish Republic to promote laicism and displace the Church from schools by closing religious educational institutions were considered by the Nationalists as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church. Extensive killings of civilians were carried out in the cities Nationalists captured,[202Sony 141780221 Keyboard
] along with the execution of unwanted individuals. These included non-combatants such as trade-unionists, Popular Front politicians, suspected Freemasons, Basque, Catalan, Andalusian and Galician Nationalists, Republican intellectuals, relatives of known Republicans and those suspected of voting for the Popular Front.[200][203][204][205][206] Sony 148084521 Keyboard
Nationalist forces massacred civilians in Seville, where some 8,000 people were shot; ten thousand were killed in Cordoba. 6–12,000 were killed in Badajoz.[207] In Granada, at least 2000 people were murdered.[201
Sony 148968911 Keyboard] In February 1937, over seven thousand were killed after the capture of Málaga.[208] When Bilbao was conquered thousands of people were sent to prison; there were fewer executions than usual, however, because of the effect Guernica left on Nationalists' reputations internationally.[
Sony 148969411 Keyboard209] The numbers killed as the columns of the Army of Africa devastated and pillaged their way between Seville and Madrid are particularly difficult to calculate.[210]
Nationalists also murdered Catholic clerics. In one particular incident, following the capture of Bilbao, they took hundreds of people, including 16 priests who had served as chaplains for the Republican forces, to the countryside or graveyards and murdered them.[211][212] Sony 148084721 Keyboard
Franco's forces also persecuted Protestants, including murdering twenty Protestant ministers.[213] Franco's forces were determined to remove the "Protestant heresy" from Spain.[214] Sony 148084811 Keyboard
Sony 148084212 Keyboard The Nationalists also persecuted Basques, as they strove to eradicate Basque culture.[164] According to Basque sources, some 22,000 Basques were murdered by Nationalists immediately after the Civil War.[215] Sony 148088811 keyboard
The Nationalist side also conducted aerial bombing of cities in Republican territory, carried out mainly by the Luftwaffe volunteers of the Condor Legion and the Italian air force volunteers of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Guernica, Durango and other cities were attacked; the Bombing of Guernica was among the most controversial.[216] Sony 148088721 keyboard
Republicans [edit]
See also: Red Terror (Spain)
"Execution" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen. The photograph in the London Daily Mail had the caption the "Spanish Reds' war on religion."[217]
The Puente Nuevo bridge. Both Nationalists and Republicans are claimed to have thrown prisoners from the bridge to their deaths in the canyon.[218] Sony 148738011 keyboard
According to the Nationalists, an estimated 55,000 civilians died in Republican-held territories. This is considered excessive by Antony Beevor; however, it was much less than the half a million claimed during the war.[219] The deaths would form the prevailing outside opinion of the Republic up until the bombing of Guernica.[219] Sony 141780221 keyboard
The Republican government was anticlerical, and supporters attacked and murdered Roman Catholic clergy in reaction to news of military revolt.[21Sony 148778711 keyboard
2] In his 1961 book, Spanish archbishop Antonio Montero Moreno, who at the time was director of the journal Ecclesia, wrote that 6,832 were killed during the war, including 4,184 priests, 2,365 monks and friars, and 283 nuns, in addition to 13 bishops, a figure accepted by historians including Beevor.[213][220][
Sony 148915721 Keyboard221] Some sources claim that by the conflict's end 20 percent of the nation's clergy had been killed,[222] though some argue the totals were lower.[nb 7] The "Execution" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, on 7 August 1936, was the most infamous of widespread desecration of religious property.[223]
Like clergy, civilians were executed in Republican territories. Some civilians were executed as suspected Falangists.[224] Others died in acts of revenge after Republicans heard of massacres carried out in the Nationalist zone.[22
Sony 148793071 Keyboard 5] Air raids committed against Republican cities were another driving factor.[226] Republican authorities did not order such measures taken.[227] Shopkeepers and industrialists were shot if they didn't sympathize with the Republicans and usually spared if they did.[228] Fake justice was sought through a commission, known by its name in Russia as checas.[224] Sony A1766433A Keyboard
As pressure mounted with increasing success of the Nationalists, many civilians were executed by councils and tribunals controlled by competing Communist and Anarchist groups.[224] Some members of the latter were executed by Soviet-advised communist functionaries in Catalonia,[218HP 592871-031 Keyboard
HP 431414-031 Keyboard ] as described by George Orwell's description of the purges in Barcelona in 1937 in Homage to Catalonia, which followed a period of increasing tension between competing elements of the Catalan political scene. Some individuals fled to friendly embassies, which would house up to 8,500 people during the war.[225] HP 504611-031 Keyboard
In the Andalusian town of Ronda, 512 suspected Nationalists were executed in the first month of the war.[218] Communist Santiago Carrillo Solares has been accused of the killing of Nationalists in the Paracuellos massacre near Paracuellos del Jarama.[229] Pro-Soviet Communists committed numerous atrocities against fellow Republicans, HP 578364-031 Keyboard
HP 441427-031 Keyboard including other Marxists: André Marty, known as the Butcher of Albacete, was responsible for the deaths of some 500 members of the International Brigades.[230] Andreu Nin, leader of the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification), and many other prominent POUM members, were murdered by the Communists, with the help of the USSR's NKVD.[23
HP 452636-031 Keyboard 1]
Thirty-eight thousand people were killed in the Republican zone during the war, 17,000 of whom were killed in Madrid or Catalonia within a month of the coup. Whilst the Communists were forthright in their support of extrajudicial killings, much of the Republican side was appalled by the murders.[232]
HP 441541-031 Keyboard Azaña came close to resigning.[225] He, alongside other members of parliament and a great number of other local officials, attempted to prevent Nationalist supporters being lynched. Some of those in positions of power intervened personally to stop the killings.[232]
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Social revolution [edit]
Main article: Spanish Revolution
In the anarchist-controlled areas, Aragón and Catalonia, in addition to the temporary military success, there was a vast social revolution in which the workers and peasants collectivised land and industry, and set up councils parallel to the paralyzed Republican government.[233] This revolution was opposed by the Soviet-supported communists who, perhaps surprisingly, campaigned against the loss of civil property rights.[233] HP 578364-B31 Keyboard
As the war progressed, the government and the communists were able to exploit their access to Soviet arms to restore government control over the war effort, through diplomacy and force.[231] Anarchists and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM) were integrated into the regular army, albeit with resistance; the POUM was outlawed and falsely denounced as an instrument of the fascists.[231HP 482280-031 Keyboard
HP 606743-031 Keyboard ] In the May Days of 1937, many thousands of anarchist and communist Republican soldiers fought for control of strategic points in Barcelona.[159]
The pre-war Falange was a small party of some 30–40,000 members.[234] HP 486279-031 Keyboard
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It also called for a social revolution that would have seen Spanish society transformed by National Syndicalism.[235] Following the execution of its leader, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, by the Republicans, the party swelled in size to several hundred thousand members.[236HP 613386-031 Keyboard
HP 496771-031 Keyboard ] The leadership of the Falange suffered 60% casualties in the early days of the civil war and the party was transformed by new members and rising new leaders, called camisas nuevas ("new shirts"), who were less interested in the revolutionary aspects of National Syndicalism.[2
HP 633183-031 Keyboard 37] Subsequently, Franco united all rightist parties into the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the National Syndicalist Offensive Juntas (Spanish: Falange Española Tradicionalista de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, FET y de las JONS).[238] HP 613384-031 Keyboard
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The 1930s also saw Spain become a focus for pacifist organizations including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters League and the War Resisters' International. Many people including, as they are now called, the 'insumisos' ('defiant ones', conscientious objectors) argued and worked for non-violent strategies. HP 613385-031 Keyboard
HP 537953-031 Keyboard Prominent Spanish pacifists such as Amparo Poch y Gascón and José Brocca supported the Republicans. Brocca argued that Spanish pacifists had no alternative but to make a stand against fascism. He put this stand into practice by various means including organizing agricultural workers to maintain food supplies and through humanitarian work with war refugees.[nb 8] HP 613332-031 Keyboard
HP 613332-B31 Keyboard