Spanish Civil War Memorial in Bilbao Andy Hay, CC BY 2.0
In July 1936, Nationalist groups staged an armed coup against Spain’s democratically elected government. The country descended into civil war, with the conflict turning into a proxy struggle between the European powers, as Germany and Italy supported the Nationalists, and the Soviet Union helped the Republicans.
Britain’s official policy towards the war was one of ‘non-intervention’, with the aim of avoiding a European-wide conflict. The war, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of military and civilian deaths, ended in 1939 with victory for the Nationalists. Their leader, General Franco, ruled Spain in a brutal dictatorship until 1975.
Britain's role the war is the focus of a new study by Professor Paul Preston of the Department of International History, who is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts on the Spanish civil war.
Professor Preston says Britain’s Conservative government’s neutral stance concealed a deeper truth; their hostility towards the Soviet Union and ‘residual sympathy’ for fascism was a barrier to any military action that may have aided the Republican cause. Also weighing in on British policymakers was the risk that Britain’s commercial interests would be threatened by Spanish revolutionaries seizing British assets.
“The government was turning a blind eye to what was happening in Spain, with a view to the larger struggle with Stalin’s Soviet Union,” he says.
Britain’s policy of neutrality came to a head when the Nationalist army blocked the delivery of food supplies to Bilbao in northern Spain, in an attempt to starve the Basque region of supplies.
The British government initially failed to guarantee the passage of British ships to Bilbao, leading to pressure from parts of the British media and the opposition Labour party, who were outraged by the failure to protect British seafarers.
Professor Preston says: “It was one of the Labour party’s better moments; they kept the pressure on the government and drew attention to how their inaction was assisting Franco’s army.”
The combined influence of the media and the Labour party had a significant impact on public opinion, and in April 1937, the government pledged to use the Royal Navy to protect British ships. While the policy change meant vital supplies would reach the Basque country, it did not prevent Franco’s forces from taking Bilbao two months later.
Professor Preston’s account of the British government’s actions during a crucial period of the civil war shines a light on parts of the conflict that may have escaped public attention. This theme, bringing truth to some of the darkest moments of Europe’s interwar period, has been a constant throughout his 40 year career.
Professor Preston says: “Over my career, my goal has been to get to the truth of what happened.” This is exemplified by his 2012 book The Spanish Holocaust, an account of the atrocities carried out by Franco’s Nationalists, which he describes as having “the biggest impact of all the books I’ve written.”
His work remains an important corrective, due to the uneven nature of media coverage during the conflict, and, as Professor Preston has written, how many people’s knowledge of the Spanish Civil War is restricted to a single account, George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.
Professor Preston says: “The press in the Republican zones were more or less free to report on events, whereas Nationalist areas were tightly controlled. This coloured international perceptions.”
“But terrible crimes were committed in the Francoist areas, where the atrocities were many times worse. Overall, there was universal ignorance about was going on in those zones,” Professor Preston adds.
This unbalanced reporting of the conflict probably had an impact on the British government, driving its policy of non-intervention, despite the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Spain.
The main justification for Britain’s stance, anti-communism, has not weathered well. Professor Preston says: “How did the government of Juan Negrín, the alleged puppet of Moscow, fall in two days if Stalin had a plan to control Spain? The truth was that he had lots of competing priorities to distract him.”
“The British government did not want to get involved in Spain, largely for ideological reasons, and let its political prejudices overcome strategic necessity."
"The consequences were both international; the strengthening of the position of Hitler and Mussolini, and national; the humiliation of the government because of its appalling handling of the siege of Bilbao in 1937.”