3 thoughts on “Session 11: The Spanish Civil War and the European Cataclysm, c. 1936-1945.”
I found the Vincent chapter to be a dense read, the level of detail and complexities of the Spanish Republic are really evident in the fact I struggled to get my head round large sections of it! There seems to be a lot of common themes with other regime changes and conflict that happened earlier in the inter-war period, such as the way violence was cemented as part of Franco’s state fabric after how bloody the war had been. Although perhaps the ‘silence’ was worse. There appeared to be a great deal of idealism (maybe naivety) about the early years of the Republic, when clearly it didn’t represent everyone. The education reforms and quaintness of taking culture and art into villages to build up a civic idea of the Republic was quite a contrast to the later Church burnings and anarchists in government.
The anarcho-syndicalists being part of the government also shone a light on the pretty chaotic nature of the Republican movement, it seemed like a vast array of slightly differing leftist ideologies that could never quite come together.
The Payne chapter raised a lot of interesting points. It was easier to comprehend as a more familiar topic to me than the origins of the Spanish Civil War, although some of it was quite surprising. The idea of dissecting World War Two into many constituent parts is not something I would have previously considered, especially the blurred lines of what could or could not be represented as a parallel war. Also the idea of not thinking of Germany as fighting on two fronts, but rather two distinct wars, one regular in the west and one biological race based war to clear their new Aryan ‘living space’ in the East.
As with First World War readings we’ve done, Italy seems to come across again as the poor cousin among the bigger players in the war. The section on examining resistance was also quite interesting, there is probably a preconceived idea that everyone would naturally have been in a resistance to Nazi occupation, while really the majority would have been passive and some collaborative.
Thanks Reuben for these summaries. It’s difficult to convey the complexity of this time period and these readings in short summaries. A couple of things I’d like to draw out: you mention the tendency to treat WWII as a morality tale – I wonder if we think this is still the case?
Regarding Vincent, is the emergence of the Francoist movement during the civil war similar to Mussolini and Hitler? Is the fact that Francoism emerged through war not very different? As you note, Neil, there are similarities with the themes with the wider interwar period, but I wonder if there is something distinctive here about Spain.
I must admit that I’m not fully convinced by Payne’s rejection of the idea of a European civil war or of his notion of parallel wars. Certainly WWII was complicated, but I’m not sure such a straightforward separation of conflicts is helpful.
This week I found the readings to be rather complex, probably due to the Spanish Civil War being a new area to me.
From the Vincent reading I felt that there were commonalities between the Spanish War and other violent acts during the interwar period. Themes of religion and external events were clear throughout the article, which were used to highlight the fractured state that Spain was in. One comparison is made between the way Franco seized power in Spain to that of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, in the way in which violence is used to maintain authority and strike fear into opposition.
In the Payne article, the idea of Hitler fighting a war on two fronts was very surprising to me as it is not something I had thought of. The first war being ‘the western war’ was seen as one of territorial gain and to expand the German borders through conquest. While, the second war, ‘the eastern war’ was seen as a war based on race and religion. This war aimed to ethnically cleanse the world of those Hitler and the Nazi party deemed as inferior whilst also weakening Germany’s neighbouring countries to allow the Germans to take over easier.
I found the Vincent chapter to be a dense read, the level of detail and complexities of the Spanish Republic are really evident in the fact I struggled to get my head round large sections of it! There seems to be a lot of common themes with other regime changes and conflict that happened earlier in the inter-war period, such as the way violence was cemented as part of Franco’s state fabric after how bloody the war had been. Although perhaps the ‘silence’ was worse. There appeared to be a great deal of idealism (maybe naivety) about the early years of the Republic, when clearly it didn’t represent everyone. The education reforms and quaintness of taking culture and art into villages to build up a civic idea of the Republic was quite a contrast to the later Church burnings and anarchists in government.
The anarcho-syndicalists being part of the government also shone a light on the pretty chaotic nature of the Republican movement, it seemed like a vast array of slightly differing leftist ideologies that could never quite come together.
The Payne chapter raised a lot of interesting points. It was easier to comprehend as a more familiar topic to me than the origins of the Spanish Civil War, although some of it was quite surprising. The idea of dissecting World War Two into many constituent parts is not something I would have previously considered, especially the blurred lines of what could or could not be represented as a parallel war. Also the idea of not thinking of Germany as fighting on two fronts, but rather two distinct wars, one regular in the west and one biological race based war to clear their new Aryan ‘living space’ in the East.
As with First World War readings we’ve done, Italy seems to come across again as the poor cousin among the bigger players in the war. The section on examining resistance was also quite interesting, there is probably a preconceived idea that everyone would naturally have been in a resistance to Nazi occupation, while really the majority would have been passive and some collaborative.
Thanks Reuben for these summaries. It’s difficult to convey the complexity of this time period and these readings in short summaries. A couple of things I’d like to draw out: you mention the tendency to treat WWII as a morality tale – I wonder if we think this is still the case?
Regarding Vincent, is the emergence of the Francoist movement during the civil war similar to Mussolini and Hitler? Is the fact that Francoism emerged through war not very different? As you note, Neil, there are similarities with the themes with the wider interwar period, but I wonder if there is something distinctive here about Spain.
I must admit that I’m not fully convinced by Payne’s rejection of the idea of a European civil war or of his notion of parallel wars. Certainly WWII was complicated, but I’m not sure such a straightforward separation of conflicts is helpful.
This week I found the readings to be rather complex, probably due to the Spanish Civil War being a new area to me.
From the Vincent reading I felt that there were commonalities between the Spanish War and other violent acts during the interwar period. Themes of religion and external events were clear throughout the article, which were used to highlight the fractured state that Spain was in. One comparison is made between the way Franco seized power in Spain to that of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, in the way in which violence is used to maintain authority and strike fear into opposition.
In the Payne article, the idea of Hitler fighting a war on two fronts was very surprising to me as it is not something I had thought of. The first war being ‘the western war’ was seen as one of territorial gain and to expand the German borders through conquest. While, the second war, ‘the eastern war’ was seen as a war based on race and religion. This war aimed to ethnically cleanse the world of those Hitler and the Nazi party deemed as inferior whilst also weakening Germany’s neighbouring countries to allow the Germans to take over easier.
Rhys McGowan