Peter Anderson

They make great advances.

So this was like the supreme effort of the Republic.

The problem for the Republic was they couldn't dominate the air and they didn't have enough forces overall.

Franco sends his German air force supporters, if you like, and many of his armed forces to the area.

They dominate the air, they use heavy artillery to smash the Republic and the Republic is defeated.

And this opens the way to Barcelona and eventually Madrid.

It's a famous report by a newspaper correspondent who's following the Franco forces.

And he simply goes to the metro station, buys a ticket, and travels into central Madrid unopposed, if you like, because everything's kind of melted away at that point.

And that's the point that Franco, when he takes Madrid late March 1939,

He says, the Civil War is won, the Republican forces have been disarmed, and this is going to be the start of the Franco dictatorship.

The year 2000, we kind of get the third generation.

See, they're the grandchildren, if you like, of the Civil War generation.

And they're saying, but why did nobody talk about the Spanish Civil War?

Why do I know nothing about the Spanish Civil War?

And there was a kind of huge, what's called in Spain, a historical memory movement as people tried to find out what had happened.

So it remains politically charged today in a way that divides people.

And as soon as you mention your outlook or your perspective on the Spanish Civil War, people are probably going to categorize you and pigeonhole you in terms of your entire politics.

Just to give you an example of his enduring value, in 2003, when there was a debate in the United Nations, Colin Powell went to the United Nations on behalf of the United States to make the case for the invasion of Iraq.

In that UN meeting hall, there is a replica of Picasso's Guernica, and they placed a curtain over Guernica when they had that debate.

So I think the symbolism of the Spanish Civil War and the symbolism of the horrors of war against civilians remains really important.