Why did the Spanish Civil War start?

One of the most turbulent periods within the Contemporary Age in Spain will be the Spanish Civil War, which was the accumulation of a series of circumstances that occurred from the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about one of the most important issues in the whole process, Why did the Spanish civil war start?, therefore seeing the main causes that caused it.

Index

1. The unsolved Spanish problems
2. The elections of 1936
3. The military uprising

We have to bear in mind that Spanish society dragged a series of quite strong problems from the end of the 19th century, to the which the authorities, both left-wing and right-wing or moderate thoughts, had not given a solution at any time. In this way we can see a series of quite important hot spots:

• First we will find a quite backward economy, which did not accommodate all the Spanish people, which only supported a powerful oligarchy of merchants and nobles, among other businessmen who owned most of the land and who only sought their own benefit.
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• In the social sphere and closely related to the previous point, we will find a great inequality, between a very prosperous upper class and a very poor social stratum in which most of the Spanish people were immersed. Remaining only a tiny middle class that lived decently but without luxury, which was not the powerful enough to be able to enter the spheres of power to change the rules of the game political.
• In the political and ideological issue we will find the great problem of Spain, the radicalization of thoughts, because we will find two extreme sides that will gradually gain strength, that is, the left and the right, these Groups gradually went from political fights to pitched confrontations, causing great tension in the society of the epoch.

In this video of a PROFESSOR we discover how he was Spain before the Civil War so that you understand the historical context in which the country was plunged.

To know why did the spanish civil war start we have to talk about the 1936 elections. These elections gave the popular front the winner at the polls, which resulted in a change towards the most radical Spanish left. One of the strengths that had led him to victory at the polls was a policy of agrarian reform by which the government was going to divide the large plots of the Spanish landowners to distribute them among the proletariat.

This put those people who saw a possibility of losing all their possessions on guard, which caused them to join the bourgeoisie (which also owned a large part of the land of the national territory) causing them to stop at once the investment of money in the country. In this way, they paralyzed the government for a time, which saw its economic capacities diminished.

In the same way we will find that this group would be joined by the Spanish Church, which felt threatened by the anti-clerical ideology that has always highlighted the Spanish extreme left, causing a large block.

On the other hand we will find that during the months of February to July of the year 1936 social tension was growing because of the two extremist groupsOn the one hand, the UGT and the CNT had created a series of armed militias that were causing riots everywhere, carrying out 200 attacks between the years 1935-1936 (much less than in the year 1921).

In response to this the Spanish Falange also began clashes With this group and one of them they assassinated the lieutenant of the Civil Guard, José Castillo. This fact was one of the hot spots for the Civil War to break out in Spain, because as a reaction to said murder the extreme left gave a hard blow to the right assassinating one of its political leaders, José Calvo Sotelo.

In this video we discover some basic concepts to understand the Spanish Civil War.

Image: great battles of history

Continuing with the theme that concerns us why did the spanish civil war startWe must mention a quite important group within this being the military, we have not mentioned them previously due to their importance, since they deserved a section for them.

We have to bear in mind that the military must be loyal to the government of Spain, as long as it defends the interests of the nation. But from the 19th century to the last third of the 20th century we will find that the Spanish army was always very present in the nation's politics. In this way we will see that the army, although unhappy with the way the country is carried through it government of the Republic, had remained on the sidelines (although there had been some movements sporadic).

But it was in July 1936 when an event occurred that would end with the start of the civil war. This was because the government decided to close one of the barracks over the Moroccan protectorate, as it happened that the barracks were Francisco Franco.

On July 17, 1936 there was the uprising of the garrison of Melilla, which quickly triumphed throughout Morocco, so between July 17-21 we will find how the The country was completely divided in two, beginning an overwhelming period for our history, such as the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

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