13 of April 1931:
The king fled the country because of the people voting the socialist, republican and communist party in Spain instead of the monarquic party (note that republican is not the same here as in the US, spanish republicans wanted a country where the king had no power nor privilegies over the rest of the people).
The Second Republic started
Here you can see the people in a public square and the republican (the one with the three stripes) and communist flag.
The republic established a constitution:
This is an advertisement of said constitution in which it can be read:
Spain is a democratic republic of workers of any kind in which it is established a regime of freedom and justice.
All the Spaniards are equal under the law.
Family, sex, social class, wealth, political ideology or religious ideas can't grant anyone any privilegies over the rest of Spaniards.
Women were allowed to take part in the political life, to join the military and to study.
The war started when the army in the north of Africa decided to revolt and they were given reinforces by Italy (Mussolini) and Germany (Hitler).
German and Italian aviation bombed the south coast and the biggest cities.
Guernica after being bombed (it was bombed just to try new models of german bombs that required to be tested before being used in the WWII). This city inspired Picasso painting "The Guernica".
Another city (probably Madrid or Barcelona) being bombed.
Bombs were dropped every day, the cities that were still under the control of the Republican government installed giant bells that were used to warn people of an upcoming plane.
People hearing the warning and watching the sky while running to the underground shelter.
Most of the cities build underground shelters.
Underground shelter in Sevilla, Andalusia.
Another underground shelter
People exting a shelter after the bombs exploded.
Every underground building was used as a shelter.
Cities were destroyed and a lot of people died during the explosions.
City after the bombing
Kids playing outside their house.
The republican army was nonexistent so a group of voluntary people defended their cities (without earning a salary). Madrid was still under the control of the Republicans and asked for help to the Communist International, the call was heard and voluntaries from all the countries came to Spain.
Hemingway went to Spain in order to write about how the war was developing (it had been ignored by every country because of geopolitical interests).
George Orwell (holding a dog) was also on the war, he wrote a book about Catalonia and some people think that the war inspired him to write his most famous work, "1984".
Hospitals were always full of injured people.
Nurses and doctors were needed. ("Help the blood hospitals" can be read in this advertisement).
After the war was over people fled from the country.
People who fought for the Republic were caught and killed.
Republicans prisoners caught by "the Nationals" (as they liked to be called) and being lead to the "pelotón de fusilamiento" (pelotón means a lot of people and fusilamiento means to shoot with a rifle).
Freedom was forbidden, certain books were forbidden, women lost their right to vote and to study and christianity was the only allowed religion in Spain. Political parties were also forbidden.
Kids from francoist families performing the nazi salute behind a broken statue representing the Republic.
A lot of people who fled fought in the WWII hoping for an intervention in Spain.
Spanish women reached Paris by foot and enrolled in the French army to fight fascism.
Another Spanish woman in France.
Spain was not helped during the WWII because of geopolitical reasons (US were given military bases in Spain by Franco and UK had a lot of Spanish mines and Gibraltar).
Country was destroyed after the civil war and slave work was used to rebuild the country (using republicans as slaves).
They also build Franco's tomb before his death, it is know as "Valle de los caídos" (Valley of the fallen). There are buried the slaves who built the tomb and Franco. Inside the buildings there republicans hid paper notes with prhases like "Viva la República" (long life to the republic) but those papers are still inside the concrete. People who built that was only given a little food for their work.
Some facts about the war:
- Republicans had to reuse bullet shells because they ran out of bullets and there were no more money nor materials to craft more.
- Franco was given an expensive car by Hitler after he won the war.
- Republicans were buried in mass graves.
- In some places republicans buried their deads in quicklime (often after bombings) to quickly destroy the corpses and avoid rats and illnesses caused by rotting meat.
- After Franco's death a law was created in which it was said that anything that hapenned during Franco's regimen could be punished (by a democratic government).
- Communist party was still forbidden after Franco's death and was legalised some time after the rest of the parties, when they made a call for a successful demonstration in Madrid that brought lots of people to the streets claiming for the legality of the communist party and recognising the help that they lend to the democratic republican government during the war.
I hope you liked the post, if this gets popular I can write more posts about Spanish or South American history.