Peter Anderson

And that more or less happened unopposed.

Over the early 20th century, Spaniards have been joining political parties, trade unions, organizations.

They're becoming mobilized.

When the army and its civilian supporters rebelled against the elected government of the Second Republic in July 1936, they were opposed by people in trade unions, by people in political parties.

who went to military barracks and took arms and weapons and fought with the troops in the streets across Spain.

So what we've got in 1936 is a position of mass mobilization.

If you were to lay a bet at this point, so on the 19th of July, 20th of July 1936, you might say the Republic, the government, the democratically elected popular front government of the Second Republic, is going to win.

The crucial reason why that didn't happen, why the Republic didn't win, and why a botched coup turned into a civil war, is that Germany and Italy decide to intervene.

What the Germans or the Nazis and the Italian fascists do is they send planes to Morocco.

Some of them are bombers, but they convert them so they can carry troops from Morocco to southern Spain to just near Seville.

This is a decisive change.

It's the first airlift of troops in history and it brings professional, highly trained troops to the south of Spain.

As they progress, as the Army of Africa, they kind of show the background and experiences they've had.

They stop off at various towns.

A very famous one is Badajoz, which is not so far from the border with Portugal and southern Spain.

And famously, they're on the move.

They're moving quickly.

They don't have time to take prisoners.

So they capture lots of soldiers, take them to the bull ring and massacre them.

Toledo has a very famous castle called the Alcatar.