Assassinations of Political Leaders and Beginning of The War
On July 12, 1936, Lieutenant José Castillo, an important member of the anti-fascist military organisation Unión Militar Republicana Antifascista (UMRA), was shot by Falangist gunmen. In retaliation the following day, July 13, UMRA members assassinated José Calvo Sotelo, leader of the right-wing opposition and the most prominent Spanish monarchist who, describing the government's actions as Bolshevist and Anarchist, had been exhorting the army to violence, declaring that Spanish soldiers would save the country from Communism if "there are no politicians capable of doing so".
The Right blamed the government for Calvo Sotelo's assassination. Although it is sometimes considered the catalyst for the further political polarisation that ensued, the Falange and other right-wing conspirators, including Juan de la Cierva, had already been conspiring to launch a military coup d'état against the government, to be led by senior army officers. When the antifascist Castillo and the pro-Fascist Calvo Sotelo were buried on the same day July 14 in the same Madrid cemetery, fighting between the Police Assault Guard and Fascist militias broke out in the surrounding streets, resulting in four more deaths.
Three days later (July 17), the coup d'état began more or less as it had been planned, with an army uprising in Spanish Morocco which then spread to several regions of the country. Franco's move was intended to seize power immediately, but his army uprising met with serious resistance and great swathes of Spain, including most of the main cities, remained loyal to the Republic of Spain. General Franco then, instead of declaring his coup a failure, initiated a slow and determined war of attrition against the Republican government in Madrid. As a result, an estimated total of approximately 500,000 people would lose their lives in the war that followed.
Read more about this topic: Second Spanish Republic
Famous quotes containing the words political, leaders, beginning and/or war:
“He is unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect,—what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America to-day with regard to slavery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.”
—Abba Eban (b. 1915)
“I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men’s beginning to redeem themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbours, causeth a war to follow between Princes.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)