John Hopkins

The treaty permits the German annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, giving tacit British and French support to Hitler's expansionist agenda.

Demonstrating their commitment to their policy of appeasement, the move puts to bed any remaining hopes that these nations could help the Spanish Republicans to resist fascism.

As the Nazis move ever closer to executing plans to expand across Northern Europe, back down in Spain, February 1939 sees the fall of Catalonia and with it Barcelona.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees stream across the border into France, bombed by Franco's forces as they go.

Many who make it end up in French internment camps.

Once France is occupied by the Germans, a number of survivors are shipped to Nazi concentration camps, while great numbers of those who do return to Spain are killed by the Franco government.

By spring 1939, the destruction of the Second Spanish Republic is all but complete.

After Catalonia is lost, the remaining Republican leadership in Madrid is riven with indecision.

Some want to attempt to negotiate with Franco, though he has rebuffed all such efforts so far.

Others advocate for a full surrender.

Still more want to continue fighting.

There is an attempted internal coup, triggering a brief civil war within the civil war, with supporters of different Republican factions fighting in the streets.

Ultimately though, all it achieves is a hastening of the collapse.

And in late March 1939, with Franco's forces encircling the city, the commanding officers in Madrid surrender.

Though estimates for the death toll vary widely, it is thought that up to half a million people have lost their lives in the three years of the conflict.

The regime to which Franco will now subject his country is authoritarian and cruel, especially in its early years.

Regional identities and languages such as those in Catalonia and the Basque region are repressed, as are trade unions and opposition political parties.

The Catholic Church once again becomes the state religion.

Divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality are forbidden.

Women are expected to serve six months in the women's section of the state party to prepare for motherhood.