Lead Up

• Rural Militancy


  • Extreme left was motivated to enact revenge against landlords and employers who used two years of right wing government to exploit them
  • FNTT encouraged evicted peasants to illegally occupy land to reclaim it
• 60,000 peasants in Extremadura seized 3,000 farms - Azana legalised this which enraged landlords


  25th March 1936
• Poor harvests


  • Increased militancy of the left
  • Constant rain between December 1935 and March 1936 severely damaged crops - lower standards of living for peasants and unemployment
  • Fueled right wing fears of a socialist revolution
• Government Weakness


  • Caballero and his supporters refused to participate in the cabinet: PSOE refused to enter government - said it would weaken social reform agenda
  • Animosity between two leading socialists: Caballero and Indalecio Prieto, caballeros supporters vetoed Prietos appointment as PM in May 1936
• Azana replaced Alcalá-Zamora as president, Santiago Casares Quiroga became new prime minister


  April 1936
• Urban Strikes

  • UGT and CNT continue to organise strikes to protest low wages - often led to violent clashes between Falange Militia and strikers
  • Right wing militants provoke left wing reprisals to add further credence to claims the left is lawless and PF government is powerless and has lost control
• Right Wing Agitation: Gil Robles


  • Right Wing propaganda: Marxist revolution cause breakup of Spain
  • Gil Robles talked up problem of disorder caused by the left
  • Used his position in the Cortes to make inflammatory speeches, right wing uprising the only way to serve spain
  • Claimed: 300 large scale strikes, 269 murders, 251 churches destroyed
  • Created panic in Spain's middle class + were used to call for military takeover (already being planned)
  • Gil Robles negotiating with leading figures of army and Falange to create alliance and support for new authoritarian government
  • May: publicly abandoned democracy argued it led to complete breakdown of law and order. Strong fascist regime with support of Falange
• Threat of Communism


  • Calvo Sotelo and Gil Robles frequently claimed PSOE and PCE were planning a revolution (they weren't)
  • PCE: followed Soviet policy (soviet government seeking alliances against facism) that discouraged revolution and to instead build trust with democratic governments
  • PSOE: also keen to avoid revolution. Wanted to present itself as a lawful party that backed democracy to win middle class support
• • Assassination gave General Emilio Mola (military commander of Pamplona in N. Spain) pretext to launch coup
  • Assassination reprisal for murder of José Castillo prominent left wing member of the Assault Guard
  • Assault Guard retaliated by targeting right wing figures
  • Gil Robles accused government of ordering assassination
  • It convinced many of the middle class that government had started murdering own citizens or lost control = end democracy
  • Mola used assassination to begin coup: claimed it was the first step of communist takeover (false but widely believed)
  • Convinced Franco to take part in coup


  Calvo Sotelo (assassination)
• Attempted coup d'état, July 1936


  • Mola assumed army would quickly crush resistance and overthrow government
  • Spanish Military Union (UME): secretive organisation of more than 3,500 officers that played key part in establishment of cells of conspirators throughout the country
• Alliances


  • Prior to attempted coup Mola arranged alliance with Carlists and Falange sought support of political groups to create illusion of public support
  • Frequent meeting between military conspirators and prominent CEDA members
  • Gil-Robles: donated 500,000 pesetas to the army and instructed provincial CEDA leaders to join military in case of an uprising
• Inspired uprisings of garrisons throughout spain

  Army garrison Morocco 17th July 1936