Italian Brothers

In spite of a non-intervention policy adopted by the League of Nations, foreign nationals flocked to Spain by the thousands. As a result, both the Nationalists and the Republicans used foreign troops to fight their war. On March 8, the Nationalists opened an offensive with the objective of …

1937-03-10

137

A072

In spite of a non-intervention policy adopted by the League of Nations, foreign nationals flocked to Spain by the thousands. As a result, both the Nationalists and the Republicans used foreign troops to fight their war. On March 8, the Nationalists opened an offensive with the objective of taking Guadalajara and surrounding Madrid. Near Brihuega, in one of the ironies that only a conflict as convoluted as this could produce, units of the same nationality clashed on the road to Guadalajara – the Garbaldi Battalion of the 13th International Brigade made up of Italian socialists, communists, and other anti-fascists clashed with the Black Flame Division of the regular Italian army.

Brihuega, Spain

The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, in alliance with anarchists, of the communist and syndicalist variety, fought against an insurrection by the Nationalists, an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists, led by a military group among whom General Francisco Franco soon achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

Republican

Nationalist

Scenario Type = Standard