Spanish Civil War Air Forces

Купить бумажную книгу и читать

Spanish Civil War Air Forces (Airwar 3)

By Christopher Shores

Publisher: Osprey Publishing 1977 48 Pages

ISBN: 0850451353

PDF 50 MB

On 18 July 1936 Spain, after a long period of domestic upheaval, plunged into one of the most savage and protracted civil wars in modern history. Given the national tendency to passionate dog­matism rather than reasoned consensus, this was hardly surprising. Fratricidal warfare has been a feature of Spanish history for centuries.

On the one side was the elected Republican government. Basically of socialist persuasion, but well-leavened with mutually hostile extremist groups such as outright Communists and Anar­chists, it had sought to break the historical strangle­hold of church and aristocracy by the now familiar - but then radical - methods: support of trade unions, redistribution of wealth by taxation,

secularisation of schools, expropriation of land, and so forth. The impact of this programme on the more conservative elements of the population was rendered the more shocking by the undoubted excesses of unscrupulous fanatics who sheltered in the Republican camp, and for whom the means -murder, arson, and intimidation - seemed as desir­able as the proclaimed ends.

A natural fear of the destruction of all that they valued in society made the conservatives more receptive to the propaganda spread, in their turn, by the more extreme Rightist factions such as the fascist Falange movement and the royalist Carlists.