Causes of the Spanish Civil War ｜ Guest： Panama Hat ｜ 8⧸17⧸23
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 8 minutes
Words per Minute
179.52245
Summary
In this episode of Mythology, host Ryan Turnipseed chats with YouTuber PanamaHot about the Spanish Civil War and how it shaped the way we think about the events that led up to it, and what it says about our own current political situations.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
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So, I think a lot of us are aware that, you know, the Spanish Civil War happened.
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We know it's historically significant, but, you know, we don't know as much about it as we do, say, something like World War II.
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Especially in America, where it's something we know was a precursor.
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We know that it, you know, it had certain parties involved that eventually had a wider impact on the world stage.
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But I think the conflict is really important because I think it tells us a lot about kind of the events that shaped and led up to World War II and the event that really changed kind of the status of the globe.
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And it also tells us something, I think, about some of the situations we might be seeing emerge in current Western Republican governments.
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So, I think it's a really fascinating period to study.
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And joining me today to discuss the causes of the Spanish Civil War is the YouTuber Panama Hot.
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And as always, it's an opportunity to talk about Spain, which is fantastic.
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Yeah, you're somebody who has a great knowledge of this.
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I know you've got like an epic, you know, five-hour something stream with Ryan Turnipseed.
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I don't think we're going to go quite that long.
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But I wanted to put together a nice kind of hour-long piece so we could give people an idea of what happened in the Spanish Civil War or really how we got there.
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We don't have time to go through the whole war today.
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Maybe one day we'll get to a longer, you know, podcast series.
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But today we want to focus on kind of those causes, how they got there, and kind of what that tells us about maybe a situation that we might be in today.
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Now, Mr. Hat, I know we're going to mostly be focusing on the Second Republic, its problems in the 1930s,
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and how that kind of led to the ascendancy of kind of the military coup.
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But before we get to that, what was the situation in Spain before this?
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I get the feeling that we weren't really dealing with a country that had a whole lot of stability in the preceding 50 to 100 years before we got to this point.
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I mean, if you wanted to do a summation of Spanish history for the 1800s, you would say it had every single thing happening in it but stability.
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I mean, I'm going to have to simplify and kind of run over an awful lot here.
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But essentially, we'll begin with the invasion of Spain undertaken by Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s,
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which kind of – it's an interesting case because he didn't – it wasn't like with other countries where he just sort of, you know,
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It was almost like a sort of internal coup because Spain and France had been allies for quite a long period.
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And Napoleon's armies were in Spain to invade Portugal, which they did.
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And then they basically overthrew the Spanish monarchy and replaced it with Napoleon's brother, Joseph.
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And this sets off a huge internal low-level civil war in Spain, which if anybody – I mean, there's lots and lots of books about it,
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It is one of the most vicious wars of modern times.
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It is also where the term guerrilla war comes from or guerrilla war in Spanish, which literally means little war because that's what it was.
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So they were waging war kind of against an invader on home soil, you know, and there's all kinds of stories about, you know,
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horrible, horrible mutilations of French troops.
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It's kind of like, you know, like how these days you see all these Vietnam films where it shows kind of like, you know,
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American troops and they're out in the jungle and then they come across like a platoon that's been, you know,
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Sort of, you know, you're reading about scenes like that, but in 1800s Spain, basically.
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And eventually, of course, the French are forced out, the Duke of Wellington and the English – well,
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the British armies fight a campaign through Portugal into Spain.
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And the monarchy is restored under – this should come to me by memory.
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I've got many pages of notes here, so I apologize if I take a moment.
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But, yes, so Joseph is forced to abdicate and flee, and Ferdinand VII is restored to the throne.
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And the problem that Spain now has – I mean, they've been going under a sort of long, slow phase of decline up to this point.
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But what's happened now is that their empire in the Americas has more or less collapsed.
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Basically, they – large parts of it in what is now Argentina, Paraguay, what is Bolivia and Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, et cetera, et cetera.
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These have – and, of course, Mexico – have all declared or are in the process of declaring independence.
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And there are attempts to retake these colonies.
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There are armies that are sent after Napoleon leaves.
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But it doesn't – it comes to nothing, and the big bulk of Spain's empire in the Americas is now gone.
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So Spain is now kind of stuck in this position where it's no longer a major European power,
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and all of its prestige in the new world is also basically vanished.
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They, of course, still have Cuba, and they still have the Philippines and various things like that.
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But we'll get on to what happens to those colonies as well.
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And so going on through the 1800s, Spain is affected by all kinds of internal struggles to do with the church,
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the power of the Catholic Church, which is, of course – you know, there isn't really a comparison between anywhere else
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and the Catholic Church in Spain just in terms of how much political power and influence it has.
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And various politicians – I believe, in fact, during the Napoleonic invasion,
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there is a law passed which partially disestablishes the church and takes away a lot of its formal power.
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But nevertheless, it remains a kind of monolithic force in Spain,
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and there's all kinds of arguments between liberals who are influenced by all the kind of new reformist ideas
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that are floating around Europe post-Napoleon, and there are kind of – there are uprisings by peasants
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But there is – kind of the dominant monarchical figure in this century is Isabella II,
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who is proclaimed – she is the daughter of Ferdinand VII, who is restored under Napoleon.
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And this is – now this is the beginning of what we call Karlism.
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So the Karlists rally around the figure of Don Carlos, hence the name.
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And the initial kind of – the initial problem for the Karlists is that, well,
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is they refer to Salic law, which people may have heard of,
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But in very simple terms, one of the defining features of Salic law,
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as it was traditionally practiced, is that women cannot inherit thrones.
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And so – now it's somewhat ironic because I don't think Salic law was ever actually practiced in Spain.
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But nevertheless, this is the initial causus belli for the Karlists,
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And there are three major wars between the government of Isabella II,
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which is seen as kind of more liberal and reformist,
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versus the uprisings in the name of Don Carlos and his descendants throughout the century.
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Very, very costly, very bloody, a great kind of – these kinds of constant swirlings of revolution and disorder
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kind of mean that Spain is never really free of its internal divisions and problems.
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Of course, over time, the Karlists become a kind of all-encompassing traditionalist movement.
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The word Karlists becomes synonymous with kind of Catholic traditionalism.
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And as the decades go on, Karlism becomes a kind of – almost kind of medieval-style reactionary force, in a sense.
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It's what I would call nowadays something approaching authentic reaction,
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where they begin to – they begin to – they oppose themselves entirely to parliamentarianism,
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to any kind of liberal or even kind of central government.
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They want a kind of very – they want Spain to be united, but to be a united whole.
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But with each kind of municipality, each county, each province having its own unique forms of government,
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its own autonomy, you know, again, in a more kind of feudalistic way, if that makes sense.
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So in a way, the revolutionaries are the reactionaries in this case.
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They're pushing against a liberalizing monarchy,
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and they're wanting to return to something that is a much more traditional and even more feudal structure.
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Yes, they are reactionary rebels, I think would be the way to put it.
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They desire to overthrow or remove the government and return to an older form.
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It's worth pointing out that Spain is industrializing, as other countries in Europe are,
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So, you know, this is – they do have an industrial revolution,
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and there are kind of – the railways and the factories and all this kind of happen,
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and you get peasants moving into the cities to become workers and all this kind of thing.
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But it's a very, very far cry from what's happening in, say, Britain or even in France or Germany or America.
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And it should also be noted that even right up until the Republic of the 30s,
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the traditional landed power in Spain remains very, very strong.
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Spain, especially in the south, is dominated by these huge agricultural estates called Latifundia,
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which is what they were called in ancient Rome, of course.
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And what's interesting is a lot of these estates, I mean,
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they were literally first set up during the Roman rule in Spain,
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And, you know, so there is this kind of unbroken, archaic factor
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in kind of Spanish political and economic life,
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where, you know, the power is very much still in the hands of aristocrats and landowners
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and, of course, the new growing industrial class,
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some of whom, of course, begin to adapt liberal and reformist ideas.
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she proves to be something of a rather weak and ineffectual monarch,
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and she is eventually overthrown and forced to abdicate
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under the auspices of a general and aristocrat called Juan Prim.
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So, yeah, so they actually have military kind of dictatorship
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before we even get to the Second Republic for a while there.
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I should mention that though Spain is nominally a parliamentary monarchy,
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there are a whole load of coup d'etats by generals and aristocrats,
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These very often take the form of what are called pronunciamentos,
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which is kind of unique to the Spanish-speaking world,
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where some great general in all his regalia will ride up on a horse
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in front of assembled troops and they will read a long speech
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detailing the grievances and the problems that are going on in the government.
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And if we need to overthrow the administration and solve these problems
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then the general will be, will kind of accede to office,
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because it will be taken that, well, he has the support of the army, you know,
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as opposed to a kind of bloody struggle for power.
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But this is a very common form of how governments change in Spain at the time.
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So Isabella leaves and the First Republic is declared,
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which I believe lasts about six or seven years.
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If I can find the, yeah, so the First Spanish Republic lasted from 1873 to 18,
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well, sorry, I should, not even years, sorry, 1873, 1874.
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I always, I was confusing it with a different event.
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Um, uh, that's after the abdication of King Amadeo, my mistake, who, um, who,
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who followed, uh, uh, if I'm just, sorry, I believe, I believe I'm confusing.
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It was, uh, it was barely a blip when I saw it on there.
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I was like, when was there even a First Republic?
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Uh, yeah, she, uh, Isabella is followed by King Amadeo, who is actually an Italian prince,
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who is, who is brought in as almost kind of like outside help.
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Um, because it, I think it's, it's an attempt to circumvent the dynastic problems of Spain.
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So they kind of take a third option, but, um, Amadeo arrives in Spain and, um, is pretty
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Um, he, he can't, he can't seem to make anything happen.
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He's frustrated with the, the constant uprisings and rebellions and disorder.
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Um, so I believe he actually, um, uh, he, he abdicates, um, and declares Spain to be
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And then you have the Republic, um, which lasts very, very briefly, um, before it is ended
00:16:49.520
by, um, uh, well, so it's, it's, it's somewhat complicated, um, because isn't,
00:17:01.900
so Isabella is succeeded by, um, Amadeo, who is of course, uh, he is, he is a prince of
00:17:11.840
Um, and the, when the Republic ends, um, a Spanish politician called Antonio Camel Basto
00:17:19.780
Castillo kind of, um, he's a, he's a conservative, um, what, what we might call a conservative liberal
00:17:26.280
who rallies all the kind of forces, the political forces of the Republic around him.
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He's a, he's a very astute, um, political player.
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And, um, he, he, he restores the monarchy under Isabel II's son, Alfonso, who is, who
00:17:42.400
Um, and what is set up is a kind of, so, so he wants, he wants to build this sort of British
00:17:50.700
style constitutional monarchy where you have the monarchy, you have the parliament and you
00:17:54.800
have regular elections, but it's a kind of, uh, balanced, stable, stable kind of system.
00:17:59.940
And the, the only, the only problem is, is that in Spain, they, they mimic the British
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system, but without any of the actual hard factors that make that system work.
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If you see what I mean, so they kind of, they, they, they imitate the dress of it, but, but
00:18:13.520
they don't have any of the, the actual underpinnings.
00:18:16.500
So there is a parliament, um, but this parliament is, and this parliament has regular elections
00:18:21.820
between a conservative party and a liberal party, but it's a complete sham election.
00:18:25.940
You see, so, so what, what happens is it's, it's, it's a system called the turno where
00:18:30.600
the King of Spain meets with all the political leaders and the elite and the oligarchy.
00:18:35.080
And, um, between them, they, they decide whose turn it is to win the election.
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And when the King decides it's going to be the conservatives, conservatives or the liberals
00:18:43.640
that this time, the King says, right, that's who's that's that.
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So that in a sense, the elections don't happen in Spain at this time, they are made, the elections
00:18:53.180
Um, and what happens is on a local level, you have political bosses who are, who are known
00:18:58.940
as, um, caciques, which is the Spanish term for like a sort of native chief.
00:19:03.460
If that makes sense, or like a tribal chief who will decide the election in advance in
00:19:08.540
They will make sure that the votes come in as they're supposed to, if that makes sense.
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Um, uh, I believe, um, Alfonso the 12th, um, eventually, uh, he, I'm trying to think
00:19:28.100
I know there's a, there's a lot of abdication and reshuffling there.
00:19:31.980
Where, where do we see the emergence of the second Republic?
00:19:34.560
That's, you know, uh, where, where our actions really going to be at with, when do we see
00:19:39.720
Um, I believe Alfonso, Alfonso, uh, dies and his, um, and his infant son, um, Alfonso
00:19:46.680
the 13th, um, is King, I believe from the moment of his birth due to the political circumstances.
00:19:52.100
I think, um, uh, it was decided that Alfonso the 12th would abdicate if he gave, if his
00:19:58.600
wife gave birth to a boy, which she did, he abdicates.
00:20:01.820
You then have a regency, um, where Alfonso the 13th is, so he's an infant King guided by
00:20:09.920
Um, and Alfonso the 13th rules, um, uh, from, he is born in, check my notes, uh, 1886.
00:20:20.860
Um, and he will be King immediately before the second Republic of the 1930s.
00:20:25.900
Um, so Alfonso, um, the, the, the, the reign of Alfonso covers a lot of things that the most,
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the first and most important thing is the Spanish American war of 1898, um, which I'm sure many
00:20:39.340
This is, this is the war in which, um, America, um, captures Cuba and the Philippines, um, and
00:20:45.100
I believe Puerto Rico, um, and a few other things as well from Spain.
00:20:50.420
Um, we can, the, the, the, the exact causes and the, uh, possible American machinations
00:20:57.820
That's a whole nother topic, but suffice to say America goes to war with Spain and Spain
00:21:03.700
Um, their Navy is, is completely defeated and the last of their Imperial, um, colonies
00:21:10.720
are swallowed up by America, which is the kind of new emerging power in the world.
00:21:14.500
Um, and this basically sets off the, the major political background to the, to the next kind
00:21:24.880
It has been revealed as weak and incompetent and riven with corruption.
00:21:28.300
And it is, it has ceased to be this kind of great conquering power that it's, that it
00:21:33.840
was, you know, um, in the, you know, in the kind of, uh, from, from the 1500s onwards.
00:21:40.100
Um, so, um, there's this kind of, again, as I said, this kind of feeling of emasculation
00:21:45.980
and humiliation, which, which passes through Spain.
00:21:48.420
And this is the catalyst for a load of very radical ideas, both on the right and the left,
00:21:53.540
where you have the kind of, um, more reactionary style conservatives who say that,
00:21:58.300
well, Spain has been made weak by liberalism and socialism and all these, all these radical
00:22:03.020
And there's a big anarchist movement in Spain as well, which assassinates several prime
00:22:09.080
And so they kind of blame all this kind of thing.
00:22:10.680
And there's, there's, there's, there's kind of, um, centrists and liberals who, who blame
00:22:15.840
kind of, um, instability and corruption in general.
00:22:19.240
And there's the leftists who say, you know, um, it's, it's the elite and the military and
00:22:25.020
We need to overthrow them and establish a new regime, you know, to carry us forward.
00:22:28.480
And so the, the political, this political center begins to kind of tear at the edges.
00:22:33.900
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00:23:09.780
This sounds a little bit like there's maybe, you know, some parallel with kind of Russia
00:23:13.840
where you have a, a backward, you know, a backwards lagging, uh, you know, uh, system
00:23:21.060
Loses an embarrassing war to a foreign power and this kind of creates instability with monarchies.
00:23:35.020
Um, and in, in fact, um, a lot of Marxists at the time were certain that, um, that Spain
00:23:44.160
Uh, well, I should say not orthodox Marxists because they, they tended to focus on more
00:23:48.500
industrialized places, but because Spain was seen as so, so backward and so riven with
00:23:52.940
instability, there was quite a big chance that, that leftists were going to be able to catch
00:23:56.960
onto power there because of the mass popular discontent.
00:23:59.240
Um, and it should be said there was, I mean, um, Spanish workers and peasants, uh, were,
00:24:06.300
and indeed still are, uh, particularly militant, um, in, in, in their attitude.
00:24:09.960
They, they do not have much respect for the organized, um, capitalistic, um, systems or
00:24:18.200
They, they're, they're quite happy to, um, to kind of, you know, seize, seize the moment
00:24:24.480
Um, so anyway, yes, Spain stays, uh, neutral in, in World War one, um, which is in the
00:24:30.780
short term is great because it means that both sides of the war are buying goods from
00:24:37.680
So there's this big boom in industry all of a sudden in Spain, um, uh, which is then followed
00:24:43.100
after the war by a big crash because, you know, um, that's what, that's what happens,
00:24:47.920
Your war, you know, you got the war sets everything on a boom and then immediately the demand stops
00:24:56.280
Um, and this is compounded by, um, a military defeat, um, in 1923 in North Africa.
00:25:05.200
Uh, Spain has a tiny strip of territory in North Africa called the Riff, which they're
00:25:09.820
desperately trying to pacify with their hopelessly corrupt, underfunded, ill-trained conscript
00:25:15.700
Um, and they suffer this massive defeat at the Battle of Anwal where I think almost 20,000
00:25:20.960
Spaniards all in all are killed or captured by a few thousand, um, Moroccan horsemen.
00:25:26.980
Basically, it's a gigantic embarrassment, um, for the Spanish and it seriously discredits
00:25:32.240
the regime, um, which is swiftly ended, uh, not long after, um, by Miguel Primo de Rivera,
00:25:38.780
who is a military officer and aristocrat who, um, takes power in September, 1923 in a coup,
00:25:44.820
um, ousts the liberal government, ends the restoration kind of, uh, bourgeois parliamentary
00:25:51.460
And I think he wants to be a kind of Spanish Mussolini, you know, where he kind of comes
00:25:55.960
in under the monarchy and sort of turns this, turns the situation around.
00:25:58.700
He isn't because he's, um, somewhat, he has quite a bit of support at first from, um,
00:26:04.280
reformists, even on the left who see him as a kind of, um, possible force for change in
00:26:09.620
And he is in some ways quite, quite radical in what he wants to do, but he is a hopelessly
00:26:13.860
inept politician because he's an army officer and a very sort of macho one who's used to
00:26:23.480
Um, so he's, he's very limited in his actual scope and, um, he's also, uh, uh, an alcoholic,
00:26:31.100
a very severe alcoholic who, uh, is constantly embarrassing himself, um, and having to then
00:26:37.140
rescind embarrassing actions that almost every single day.
00:26:41.040
Um, and this regime survives until 1930 when, uh, Miguel Primo de Rivera is out.
00:26:49.300
Um, and there is an attempt to return to the, uh, semi-democratic constitutional system
00:27:00.900
Um, and the Republican movement has gathered in strength and Alfonso the 13th is seen as,
00:27:06.500
um, having been a part of that dictatorship and, uh, for a number of other reasons as well.
00:27:12.600
Um, he's increasingly losing his grip on the situation.
00:27:17.460
Uh, there is an election in 1931, um, which is taken as a de facto referendum on the monarchy.
00:27:23.220
Basically the, the Republican parties group into a big, big coalition as do the monarchist
00:27:28.880
parties and the monarchists actually win by a tiny, tiny majority.
00:27:33.340
Um, but in Spain elections, um, uh, let, let's just say that even if you win by a tiny majority,
00:27:43.740
The, the Republican forces are intent on declaring a Republic.
00:27:47.820
The, um, senior military officers inform the King that the military will probably not back
00:27:53.880
So Alfonso, uh, flees the next morning after the election to France, um, but does not formally
00:28:01.400
Um, and so that is how we get to the second Spanish Republic.
00:28:06.660
Well, let's go ahead and pick up with the second Spanish Republic right after we hear from
00:28:15.200
The Supreme court recently overturned a 50 year old legal precedent that permitted open
00:28:19.340
hostility to public expression of faith to get the word out.
00:28:22.520
This calls for more public expressions of faith.
00:28:25.680
The overturning precedent was cited when high school coach Joe Kennedy was fired from his
00:28:33.760
It took seven years of court battles to get the precedent overturned and his job back to
00:28:38.820
celebrate the people over at First Liberty Institute created the first freedom challenge.
00:28:43.620
They want people to fill local stadiums and pray after the game, just like coach Kennedy
00:28:51.780
So what can you do to promote the first freedom challenge one sign up at RFIA.org and commit
00:28:58.600
to praying on September 1st to record a short video message, challenging people to take a
00:29:04.120
knee in prayer with coach Kennedy and three share your video on social media.
00:29:09.160
It's been decades since Americans enjoyed this level of freedom.
00:29:27.580
Now, obviously, this is not going to be a stable government either.
00:29:31.440
I don't think it starts out with a lot of promise.
00:29:34.700
But but what was our situation once the Republicans have kind of finally gotten their way?
00:29:40.120
Um, well, so immediately there's there's almost a kind of it's odd because Spain almost seems
00:29:49.940
to sort of sleep its way into a republic where a lot of the monarchists and conservatives are
00:29:57.020
kind of ambivalent about the fate of the monarchy.
00:29:59.940
I mean, ideally, they would perhaps prefer a monarchy to a republic, but their more immediate
00:30:04.140
concern is how do we keep the institutions in Spain in our hands and not in the hands of
00:30:11.340
the leftists, which is the kind of that is the the the main kind of objective of the right
00:30:21.000
for the first half of the republic, after which just becomes, you know, how do we get rid of
00:30:25.000
this thing when they realize that it may be harder than they thought?
00:30:27.720
Um, so there is a new constitution, which is ratified in 1931.
00:30:36.500
Um, and this sets up a whole a whole load of quite interesting laws, including the kind
00:30:46.900
of the the electoral law, which which, again, it's quite Byzantine, I don't fully understand
00:30:52.720
But it seems to be that you have kind of more than one representative for each
00:31:00.200
And rather than it just being one winner, you get like the top three or four or two, depending
00:31:06.180
on the size of the of the district of the candidates win seats.
00:31:09.800
Um, or I think that there's some kind of modifier where if you win over a certain amount of the
00:31:16.260
votes, if one party wins a certain amount of votes, you get all the seats, I think, even
00:31:21.220
if you don't win the majority, it's it's quite complicated.
00:31:23.320
But the main the main thing for us to take away from it is that it encourages alliances and
00:31:31.940
sort of electoral concordances between parties, because Spain is is riven with all these kinds
00:31:41.900
So the main party for the for the right is the is that or the C.A.D.A., which is the
00:31:50.660
see if I can do it from memory, the Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, which which
00:31:56.820
basically means confederation of right wing parties.
00:31:59.460
Um, and on the left, there's all I mean, the left is a lot more riven with with division
00:32:06.060
So there's the main Socialist Party, the PSOE and various kind of liberal, more liberal,
00:32:16.220
And there's Orthodox Marxist parties and Trotskyist parties and anarchist parties.
00:32:21.060
And initially, the Republic is ruled by President Niceto Alcala Zamora, who is the who
00:32:34.120
And what's very strange about the well, I should say not strange is quite predictable,
00:32:40.120
But the the initial government is fairly left wing.
00:32:44.300
And one of the politicians in it is a man called Manuela Fania, who is a very, very intelligent
00:32:52.400
Um, and also something of, um, something of, uh, he's very anti-clerical, very anti-menarchical,
00:33:03.700
And he pushes for, um, two laws, one on the church and one on education, both of which,
00:33:10.480
uh, massively, um, curtail Catholic education in Spain.
00:33:15.580
So it basically confiscates by force all, um, all church schools or all kind of, um, all
00:33:25.280
any kind of ecclesiastical property that is seen to be in some way related to education.
00:33:30.060
Sometimes it just outright confiscates Monterees and convents and such, um, to repurpose for
00:33:35.460
But needless to say, this law massively antagonizes the Catholic right in Spain.
00:33:40.320
Um, this is the beginning of the kind of political division, I think, which will eventually bring
00:33:46.400
Um, and it really, it, it galvanizes right-wing opposition.
00:33:51.320
Um, and there, there are all these kinds of, uh, moments where the, the Republic seems
00:33:59.900
Any, anything that smacks of Spanish nationalism, Spanish traditionalism is just kind of torn away,
00:34:05.860
you know, or just attacked by, by the, um, powers of the Republic, which are of course meant
00:34:13.500
Um, and there are all kinds of other restrictions on the church.
00:34:17.580
Um, and, uh, in 1933, they legalized divorce, um, which is another big kind of, um, sticking
00:34:30.060
Um, and this is actually condemned personally by, uh, Pope Pius the 11th.
00:34:36.420
Um, because he sees, he says this is an attack on civil liberty.
00:34:41.920
Um, and it should be pointed out as well that the, that there's a lot of thuggery, um, on
00:34:47.100
both the right and the left on the, on the kind of street level where, you know, there
00:34:50.640
are, there are gangs of leftists who go around attacking churches, killing priests, uh, you
00:34:58.860
Um, there are, there are various incidences of attacks on convents and the rapes and killings
00:35:04.120
of nuns, um, which happen kind of on, on and off instances.
00:35:08.380
Um, there's a, there's a massive outbreak of anti-clerical rioting, um, not long after
00:35:14.720
And, um, Athania is asked to comment or to intervene in some way.
00:35:18.920
And he simply says that, um, uh, the Republic and the, the integrity of its laws, uh, at
00:35:26.920
least from where he's sitting matter more to him than, than the church does.
00:35:30.100
Um, which is, which is, is, is taken to mean I simply don't care.
00:35:33.560
Yeah, this is something that I, that really, I was shocked by when I first started learning
00:35:39.040
about this subject is just, it's, um, it seemed like the murder of, you know, uh, church, uh,
00:35:45.300
officials or nuns or, you know, the burning of churches was just a, a regular affair when,
00:35:50.660
when, you know, if you won an election, if you lost an election, if you had a rainy Tuesday,
00:35:55.420
it was time to go out and, and, and can we continue the shocking level of violence?
00:35:59.940
And, uh, you know, the, even though clearly anybody hoping to, to kind of glue a country
00:36:05.700
together, can't just let roaming bands of people go out and attack churches and burn
00:36:13.100
It seemed like there was just no effort, uh, or very little effort to keep any kind of
00:36:19.520
There's constant breakdowns of, of civil order, um, throughout this period, the, the, the
00:36:24.340
Republic, um, so it, it, it should be worth mentioning that, that aside from the
00:36:29.440
army, you have this very big police force in Spain called the civil guard, uh, the
00:36:33.920
Guardia Faville, who are one of the oldest police forces in the world.
00:36:37.260
They're, they're, they're more a kind of gendarmerie than a traditional Western style
00:36:42.040
Um, but they are charged with keeping order and they are, they're known to be more on
00:36:47.180
the kind of traditionalist side, but they are, they say a lot, a lot of them are more
00:36:51.820
or less, um, in favor of the, of what the Republic's doing, or at least they're,
00:36:55.500
they're, they're, they're too ambivalent to, uh, protest or in any meaningful way.
00:36:59.940
And a lot of them are quite corrupt as well, but the, the Republic actually founds a third
00:37:03.980
police force called the assault guards, um, who are a blue uniformed, um, basically heavy
00:37:10.800
You know, they're armed, they, they've got riot gear, you know, well, what, what was
00:37:15.920
And they're kind of an urban protection force for the Republic.
00:37:18.940
They are a force founded specifically to protect the, the, the integrity of the, of the Republic
00:37:25.440
as opposed to the civil guard and the army who of course are, you know, they, they, most
00:37:30.900
of their history is serving under Kings, right?
00:37:33.120
They're not used to, um, Republican constitutionalism.
00:37:36.260
So this force is designed to be explicitly loyal to the Republic.
00:37:39.520
Um, and, um, uh, uh, during a Fania's time as, as prime minister, he also, um, uh, expels
00:37:48.600
the, the, the Jesuits from Spain, um, which seems like something out of kind of the 1700s,
00:37:54.140
you know, the, the, the expulsion of the Jesuits again, but yes, he, he, he does that
00:37:58.000
because the, the, the Jesuits control, um, a lot of the best, absolutely number one independent
00:38:05.380
Um, you know, they have, they have the monopoly on kind of good education and obviously a kind
00:38:12.620
So they expel the Jesuits and confiscate the schools for themselves.
00:38:16.200
Um, and, uh, the, um, the Fania government also passes several land reform laws, which
00:38:25.780
are designed to break up or to antagonize the big landowners.
00:38:30.220
Um, and this causes, you know, all kinds of upset.
00:38:33.060
The landowners begin to fund, uh, right-wing parties and such.
00:38:36.860
Um, and a Fania also reforms the army and, uh, massively cuts down the size of the officer
00:38:44.460
He, he actually shuts, um, uh, I think it's, there's the, uh, Zaragoza military academy,
00:38:52.360
um, or the general military academy, which is a new kind of big flashy military academy to
00:38:57.440
train officers in all branches of the, of the Spanish armed forces.
00:39:03.780
Um, and the superintendent of the college of the time was a young, um, colonel called
00:39:11.340
Um, and for, because, and Francisco Franco adored being head of this college.
00:39:17.740
He, he, he, he, he absolutely loved being, um, a trainer of young officers.
00:39:23.500
He, he loved, he, he adored kind of running all the, the different parts of this place.
00:39:28.240
And, and it was a great point of pride for him.
00:39:30.440
And it was, it was a very great personal antagonism on him when this place was arbitrarily shut
00:39:36.100
down and it earned, uh, Fania Franco's personal enmity, which, you know, um, I'm sure I don't
00:39:46.140
Um, now there's an election, the first big election since the beginning of the Republic
00:39:53.140
And interestingly, these elections are won in a landslide by the right wing Theda, the
00:40:00.300
Um, this is partially because the left is completely disorganized and can't form a coalition.
00:40:07.740
Um, the anarchist parties, for example, abstain completely.
00:40:11.180
Um, but also just because there's quite a lot of general, um, grumbling about the actions
00:40:18.900
So the right kind of sweeps, sweeps, sweeps, sweeps the, um, sweeps the election and are
00:40:25.260
However, um, Alcala Zamora, the president is hesitant to actually make Theda the ruling
00:40:33.780
party, even though they have the largest number of seats by far.
00:40:36.180
Um, and instead he appoints Alejandro LaRue, who is a kind of centrist liberal, uh, party
00:40:46.100
Now, this would basically be, um, the same as if here in the UK, let's, let's say that
00:40:53.960
the, the, the Tories win like a hundred seat majority and the king appointed the head of
00:41:02.620
like the liberal Democrat party with like 20 seats as prime minister.
00:41:06.580
You see, it's not, it's not how parliamentary government is supposed to work.
00:41:09.920
As an American, I'm not allowed to understand parliamentary government, but I, I can, I
00:41:14.260
can, I can the very least grasp the fact that, uh, you know, that this is not how that's
00:41:18.180
This is, this is basically a stolen election, right?
00:41:20.540
Um, yeah, um, it's, it's, and this, this is of course a, this is a problem on two levels
00:41:27.200
is because one, it proves how the Republic is, is, is, well, it's not a real, it's not
00:41:32.420
a real Republic because the leaders of it or the president are too afraid to give power
00:41:39.660
to the, to the party that won the elections because the Republican establishment are terrified
00:41:45.000
of the right in general, um, and are unwilling to let them have any power, even when they win
00:41:52.360
Um, and, uh, the, the immediate, uh, consequence of this is that the, the FEDA tacitly agreed
00:42:02.560
to form a coalition with the radicals, but they are very, very savvy at playing politics
00:42:10.900
So because Alejandro Leroux is so personally corrupt and incompetent and admits himself that
00:42:17.100
he doesn't really understand how to, how to fix Spain in any, in any way at all.
00:42:24.300
Um, he constantly gets into, um, political deadlocks.
00:42:28.800
And every time he does the right wing confederation just goes, we'll get you out of this.
00:42:34.820
We'll, we'll, we'll help you if you give us another minister in the, uh, in the government.
00:42:39.680
So eventually the FEDA control, um, the agricultural ministry, the war ministry, and one other,
00:42:47.320
which I can't remember now, but we'll, we'll move on from that.
00:42:49.420
But it's, I, it may, I think it was the labor ministry actually, which is very significant
00:42:54.040
because, um, Gil, Gil Robles, who is the leader of the FEDA and, um, had, if it wasn't
00:43:00.840
for what happened, probably would have ended up as a prime minister or leader of Spain at
00:43:04.480
some point, um, he uses a, he has this very clever strategy where he kind of divides and
00:43:11.000
conquers the Spanish trade unions, where he, he, he will provoke one union into a strike,
00:43:16.940
make sure the others don't come out in favor of it.
00:43:18.960
Then use, um, the, then use an anti-strike law to crush that union basically.
00:43:23.440
And he does this one by one quite successfully breaking up a lot of quite significant Spanish
00:43:29.080
Um, and, uh, this goes on until 1936 and in 1936, um, the Republic is beginning to reach
00:43:39.120
a breaking point where, um, civil disorder in the streets has reached an apogee and there
00:43:46.240
are just, there are, there are all, there are just murders every single week in the, you
00:43:49.600
know, sometimes in the hundreds from political disputes, people being stabbed and shot and having
00:43:54.740
houses robbed, churches are still being attacked and burned and monks and nuns and priests are
00:43:59.640
being beaten and all sorts of atrocities are happening.
00:44:02.780
Um, and very significantly, uh, a right-wing politician is, uh, shot, um, a very prominent
00:44:09.680
right-wing politician is shot by members of the assault guards while they're in uniform.
00:44:13.860
Um, which is just basically to everyone that just looks like it's the Republic killing its
00:44:18.320
They're just assassinating political opposition.
00:44:20.560
I mean, um, the, I drew a parallel with, with turnip, um, just after the, uh, Mar-a-Lago
00:44:26.680
raid in America, where I said, look, you have, you have a Republic just doing everything short
00:44:31.520
of outright, just, you know, murdering its opposition to stop them from, from being a
00:44:36.360
And it's interesting because we fast forward now, uh, what is it a year and a half, nearly
00:44:43.040
Uh, and, um, we've got now what it, it wasn't, wasn't, wasn't, um, a certain right-wing politician
00:44:50.260
in America arrested, uh, well, it's, it's only his fourth indictment, uh, Georgia here
00:44:55.840
recently, he's only got the federal run, the New York one, the Georgia, like is, they're
00:44:59.860
just stacking up, uh, he would need to live to, I think about 212 to serve all of the
00:45:05.780
possible present time, he, he could at the moment.
00:45:09.180
I mean, it's, it's just, um, it's, it's just, this is always when republics begin to totter
00:45:16.660
is when the establishment is just openly prescribing its, its, its, its electoral rivals.
00:45:23.180
Um, and Spain is certainly not the only time when this is, this has happened right before
00:45:27.800
some serious political turmoil has been unleashed.
00:45:30.240
Um, so it does, it does rather, it does rather, does rather worry one, I think, uh, for what's
00:45:35.040
going to happen, but we, we can only see, um, so yes, uh, so come the 1936 elections,
00:45:42.380
the left openly rigs them, um, this for, for a long time, for, for many years after the
00:45:48.120
civil war, up to, up to, up to including recent years, you, you, you have leftists and pro-republicans
00:45:53.200
going, oh, the military overthrew the democratically elected workers republic, oh, look, look, look
00:45:58.720
at these evil, you know, right-wingers, you know, overthrowing our republic, and, and
00:46:03.460
then you actually, you, you look at the facts and it's very clear from the electoral data
00:46:09.520
You know, the, the ballot boxes were stuffed all over the country by leftist political adjutants.
00:46:15.820
There were, there are all these weird stories where in some districts known to be heavily
00:46:21.160
leftist, anybody wearing a, uh, a, a suit and tie or a collar and tie were prevented from
00:46:29.940
Like any, anybody who looked even slightly well-dressed was, was prevented from going
00:46:34.620
in to vote because they might be a right-wing, right?
00:46:38.460
Um, and, uh, priests were forbidden from voting and anybody wearing clerical dress was prohibited
00:46:44.660
In some districts, uh, women were, were, were barred from, from, from voting.
00:46:49.080
Because they voted for center-right parties too much, right?
00:46:51.980
Spanish women were overwhelmingly Catholic and, and conservative.
00:46:54.780
And what's interesting is they, they had been given the right to vote right before the
00:46:59.120
1933 election, which the right had swept in a landslide.
00:47:05.380
They said, all these women are too, too traditionalist, too right-wing.
00:47:10.540
They all went out and voted for the Catholic parties.
00:47:13.060
So we had, so in some districts, women were told by leftist militants to stay home or they
00:47:20.180
This is the, this is the inversion of the American suffragette, uh, suffragette, uh, scenario
00:47:26.860
The right is winning through the empowerment of the female vote.
00:47:31.180
Um, and, uh, the left, um, did, despite all the ballot stuffing and corruption, the left
00:47:41.480
Um, the popular front only wins by a tiny margin.
00:47:43.660
Um, and they immediately take this as, oh, well, the, the, the revolution is here.
00:47:51.720
We've done it where, you know, to, to, to, to, to, to hell with all this Republican
00:47:55.300
laughing, this is Spain is a leftist country now.
00:47:58.360
And they, they parade around, you know, there's even more burning of churches and killing of
00:48:03.740
Prisons are opened and all the inmates are let out onto the streets.
00:48:06.500
Um, right-wing politicians are like assaulted and barricaded into their homes.
00:48:10.460
And there's, you know, assaults on property, on landowners, on factories, you know, chaos
00:48:17.980
Um, and in July, 1936, a group of military officers decide that things have gone too far
00:48:25.340
And the coup, uh, is unsuccessful, um, partially because in a lot of areas, the military units
00:48:32.300
are overwhelmed by, uh, leftist mobs before they can leave the barracks, but they do manage
00:48:37.700
to capture the large chunk of Western Spain and the African protectorates.
00:48:44.660
Um, so that very briefly is the rundown of, of, of the timeline of events, but should we
00:48:49.580
perhaps sort of talk about the, the, the parallels between some things we've seen in modern times
00:48:55.760
I mean, what, what, what are, what are your kind of, um, broad thoughts on, on this, this
00:49:05.040
Like you said, there's, there's, you know, we've already hit on some of these, but it's
00:49:08.720
very clear that, uh, the escalation of, uh, mob violence allowed in the streets, uh, after
00:49:16.500
we look at the, the, you know, what's been allowed in the, was allowed in the United States,
00:49:21.140
uh, during the lockdowns and, uh, you know, COVID, uh, mass rioting allowed while the, you
00:49:27.980
know, one right wing response immediately becomes, uh, you know, the next 9-11.
00:49:33.260
And the, the state starts locking up anybody who happened to be standing, you know, 200
00:49:40.680
Um, so, so we obviously see that that is a huge, uh, issue, uh, the, the, not even allowed
00:49:46.760
to question electoral efficacy at this point, obviously they're, they're attempting to, uh,
00:49:52.420
arrest and imprison, uh, you know, uh, uh, the majority, uh, or the, the major, uh, political
00:49:58.860
opposition, uh, by, you know, just for saying, you know, maybe these things didn't go down
00:50:03.460
the way they're supposed to, uh, these are things that I think are, are pretty obviously,
00:50:08.320
uh, testing the limits of, uh, kind of the durability of the, the democratic myth, the
00:50:14.040
Republican, uh, the idea that you can hold the Republic together.
00:50:18.580
Um, I think it's especially worth, um, pointing out the, uh, the, uh, summer of fentanyl, as
00:50:26.180
I call it, um, without wanting to get straight too far from acceptable language.
00:50:30.440
But, um, that struck me, um, particularly when it happened, because of course, as you
00:50:35.160
say, it was, it was during the supposed, um, uh, pandemic in which everyone was supposed
00:50:42.620
And if you went outside, your, your grandma would die, you know, type thing.
00:50:45.820
And, um, and of course, you know, that, that went on for, for however long it did.
00:50:50.080
And, and, uh, very few people were punished for it.
00:50:53.000
Whereas, as you say, the, the January 6th incident, you know, people are quite literally
00:50:57.160
being hounded and, you know, they're going to be stuck in court for, you know, decade.
00:51:01.400
A lot of those people's lives are basically just ruined, don't they?
00:51:03.920
I mean, you know, they're not, there's no easy way out of that.
00:51:06.700
Well, I mean, the, the, the most amazing part of this now is, uh, they're going after Trump's
00:51:11.640
So people like Jenna Ellis are being named in these indictments.
00:51:15.160
And so now you, you can't even as a opposing political, uh, opposing politician in the
00:51:21.020
United States, probably even get legal representation anymore because anybody who, uh, is, uh, anybody
00:51:26.380
who is foolish enough to give you legal advice could be a co-conspirator.
00:51:30.780
Uh, you know, and again, whether these people get, uh, convicted or not, they're going to spend
00:51:35.460
hundreds of thousands of dollars, uh, you know, in their own, in their own legal defense.
00:51:42.080
And there'll be destroyed professionally, even if they don't actually serve time.
00:51:48.020
And we all know that the, the, the, the legalist reasoning that they give is not the real reasoning
00:51:53.240
They're, they're not going after Trump's lawyers just because, oh, well, you know, it, it could
00:52:01.400
They're going after them because they want to make it impossible for him to have legal
00:52:05.120
Or anybody in that sort of that stripe to have legal defense.
00:52:07.700
And it's, it's, it's, it's, again, we, we have to highlight the danger of when republics
00:52:12.840
begin to act like this, because it is the end of them as formal republics, as, as respectable
00:52:19.320
They, that, that, that, that is when they, because how do you go back from this?
00:52:23.860
If the, the, the, the, the oligarchy that is, that is currently sat atop American politics,
00:52:31.140
They don't, they don't care about, they don't care about America or the constitution or any
00:52:37.040
of these things that, that are often brought up in American political discussion.
00:52:42.140
It's just about power and how they maintain it.
00:52:44.860
They don't care what happens to the country or, or what it, or, or, or what it looks like.
00:52:48.780
And this, and if you want to see a, a scarily, um, approximate blueprint of, of how these people
00:52:56.400
operate and the things they will do, um, the, the book I record people have been asking
00:53:00.220
me in the chat about books to recommend the absolute number one best source for the collapse
00:53:04.360
of the Republic is, um, Stanley G Payne's, the collapse of the second Spanish Republic.
00:53:13.580
Um, there, there are PDFs of it out there as well.
00:53:16.720
Um, if you, if you do want to get hold of, I don't know if it's an academic book, so hard
00:53:20.580
copies might be a bit expensive, but there are, there are copies, um, out, uh, around.
00:53:24.820
Like I obviously can't, um, I can't be out on, on stream, uh, promoting free copy,
00:53:32.160
I might, I may be able to find it if I dig around.
00:53:34.000
Um, but yeah, that, that is the number one source for this.
00:53:36.980
And as well, just, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the infighting leading up to the civil
00:53:44.860
I mean, I don't know if you heard, um, AA, uh, recently on a stream mentioned that he went
00:53:49.720
on a cruise and there were a lot of Americans on the boat and there were like some, uh, some
00:53:55.540
like African Americans and there was some like, uh, sort of, um, I think he said like, uh,
00:54:02.600
And, and he said that what was remarkable is the absolute just open hatred these two groups
00:54:06.780
had for each other, where they just, they wouldn't talk to each other.
00:54:09.300
They were just openly insulting each other and like just screaming insults.
00:54:13.020
And it, it, it reminds me a little bit of, um, like, especially when, whenever I hear
00:54:17.620
about like some, uh, like some, like this, there'll always be some screenshot or some
00:54:25.340
news report or recording or of like some American, like pro Democrat or leftist or whatever, just
00:54:32.520
openly talking about like, you know, how, um, well, all these, all these, you know, American,
00:54:37.440
uh, Republican voting Christians, they just need to die.
00:54:41.100
You know, we just need to get rid of them, you know, all this kind of talk, you know,
00:54:44.000
and just, just sort of openly genocidal talk and this kind of thing.
00:54:46.880
And I mean, once every two months, at least Joe Biden goes out and talks about how easy
00:54:51.960
it would be to like murder anybody who disagreed with it.
00:54:55.400
Like, don't worry, I've got, uh, I've, you know, I've got jets.
00:55:00.620
Like, or, or, or like when, uh, after that terrible, um, shooting in that school committed
00:55:06.440
by, uh, uh, uh, a deranged, um, a deranged individual who thought that they were the
00:55:12.300
opposite sex, um, that like, I believe he started the press conference with a joke.
00:55:17.500
Um, clearly this wasn't, uh, this wasn't really any sort of serious issue for him.
00:55:22.440
I gotta say, yeah, I, I, I, I knew that the left hated us, but it was, uh, it was an amazing
00:55:32.080
thing to watch them just stand up and basically say like, well, man, those Christian kids,
00:55:37.240
You know, at the end of the day, they were really asking for it and, uh, they, they got
00:55:45.420
If you read any history of Spain leading up to the civil war, this kind of talk happens
00:55:51.580
I mean, and just, just like in Spain, in America now, there are, there are high level
00:55:57.120
politicians, even the president who use this kind of rhetoric, just openly, openly
00:56:01.500
hating, openly, ah, we don't just, uh, it would be so much better if they just weren't
00:56:07.000
Um, and in fact, there was, um, there was a, a BBC documentary on the civil war from the
00:56:15.800
I think it's, it's annoyingly pro pro leftist, but there's a very interesting interview in
00:56:20.020
it where they're interviewing, um, uh, an old ex, um, phalangist, which was the kind
00:56:25.540
of, um, I want to say it was the fascist party, but it, you, uh, Spanish fascism cannot
00:56:31.460
be compared to Italian fascism or to national socialism in Germany.
00:56:35.040
They're very, very different thing and thing entirely, but, but it turns out that these
00:56:38.840
nationalist movements were specific to the nation.
00:56:42.160
It was, it was much, much more heavily Catholic.
00:56:44.280
It was much more kind of radically conservative, if that makes sense.
00:56:47.700
It was, it was, it was, it was kind of, um, just the radical approach to, to Spanish
00:56:53.080
Um, and they were interviewing a man who was very old by then, but in his teen years, he
00:56:58.540
had been a member of the, um, phalangist party, um, that he had been to all the youth
00:57:03.560
I mean, back, back, back then the Spanish equivalent of being sort of a boy scout was
00:57:09.460
just being a member of the local political youth.
00:57:11.200
You know, you'd either be a, a young Marxist or a, or a young conservative or a young fascist,
00:57:17.040
And he said that, um, he remembers in 1936, he was walking down the street one day in his
00:57:22.000
And, um, he said that in those days, when I saw a man who I knew to be a socialist or
00:57:28.560
a communist, he said, I wasn't looking at a person who was a socialist.
00:57:32.420
I was looking at the devil himself, like that you didn't see, you didn't see a person.
00:57:36.820
You just saw pure, just the, the enemy, just all you saw was an enemy.
00:57:42.000
And he said that that's how we all felt about each other.
00:57:44.660
He said, there was no, there was no regard for the kind of normal, uh, sort of peaceful
00:57:51.680
sort of political social connections people have.
00:57:54.440
It was just, it was just this constant feeling that something was going to have to be done
00:57:58.740
soon to destroy the other side, or it was all going to just be over, you know?
00:58:02.340
And that, that is what strikes me is particularly analogous to America now is the way people talk
00:58:09.360
It's a, it's a unsettling, uh, parallel to draw obviously for, for many reasons, but
00:58:15.300
I think that these periods in history are incredibly important.
00:58:18.760
I think this is one that again, most, especially Americans don't know almost anything about.
00:58:23.920
And when they do, it's only in its, it's vague connections to a world war, uh, to it, it doesn't
00:58:32.600
Cause like you said, I think there, there are a lot of unfortunate, uh, you know, connections
00:58:39.060
And I think, uh, you know, his history is important for that reason that it can always
00:58:42.720
give us context and understanding for how these things have gone in the past and the
00:58:47.120
hopes that, uh, they, they can go somewhat better in the future, but, uh, we are coming
00:58:50.960
up for our hour now and we do have some questions from the people.
00:58:55.020
So, uh, before we pivot over to, uh, audience questions, can you let people know, uh, where
00:59:00.680
they can find your work and, uh, you know, do you have anything coming up that they should
00:59:04.700
Um, I, you can see my, uh, channel, which is just, uh, Panama hat.
00:59:10.560
Um, and there's my Twitter, which is at verse by hat.
00:59:13.140
Um, again, I've, I've been very, very, uh, busy in my personal life of late.
00:59:17.620
So I haven't been putting out as much online stuff, but there, but there will be more,
00:59:21.540
Um, my friend, uh, and I are working on an authoritative English translation of the aphorisms
00:59:28.780
of Nicholas Gomez Davila, um, which, uh, is not going to be out for quite a long time
00:59:33.720
yet, obviously, but, uh, uh, we're making some quite good progress in that regard and
00:59:42.280
Um, I will have some quite big things to promote soon as I keep saying to people, but,
00:59:48.460
Well, once you're ready for that, maybe we'll have you on for another, uh, history episode
00:59:56.340
So to our questions here, uh, based, uh, Joe for one 99, uh, I'm just here to give you
01:00:09.480
Uh, the Carlos were the real organizers of the civil war.
01:00:12.940
Uh, generals Sanjuri, uh, I'm not going to pronounce any of this right.
01:00:21.700
Uh, and Molo with Manuel Falcande and Don Javert, uh, organized the uprising.
01:00:29.880
Um, I don't know if I completely agree with that statement.
01:00:33.020
The Carlos were very instrumental because once the uprising got going and the nationalists
01:00:38.440
needed manpower, the very first people to volunteer en masse for the cause were the
01:00:45.000
Um, they, you have to remember that there were, there were young men whose grandfathers
01:00:49.100
had fought in the actual Carlos laws, um, who's, who's, you know, they still had their
01:00:53.040
old muskets and rifles hanging on the wall above the fireplace, you know?
01:00:56.080
And as soon as the coup started, these young men all came out with their, with their red
01:01:00.760
berets to come and fight for the cause, you know, to make Spain Catholic again, make straight,
01:01:06.180
Um, so I wouldn't say that the Carlos were the big organizers.
01:01:08.580
I think that was mainly Molo and, um, a lot of the really more intelligent members of the
01:01:13.060
high command, but yes, the Carlos were a gigantic, um, help and aid in the civil war.
01:01:18.440
And I'll not, I agree that not enough credit is, um, is, is, is given to them.
01:01:23.100
Uh, textbacks again for $5, by the way, the Carlos are still active and have circles in
01:01:29.880
There is, uh, the Camino Real Day Tejas Carlos circle, uh, check us out.
01:01:38.640
Um, still kind of a fraternal type, uh, order over there.
01:01:42.140
The Carlos are still going in Spain, but they're not as, uh, based as they used to be.
01:01:46.380
Unfortunately, they have, uh, they have wetted a bit over the years.
01:01:49.340
I think the O'Sullivan's law comes for everybody.
01:01:53.480
Um, even the Carlos, uh, Prince of Parma for $10.
01:01:56.380
Carlos, please continue the series where the Ryan turnip seed.
01:01:59.380
I've heard Epic things about the, the, uh, the Ryan.
01:02:03.940
I, I really, well, the thing is that that was meant to be like the sort of, uh, like the
01:02:08.560
sort of soft warmup for the, for a big multi-stream series on Spain.
01:02:13.560
I think the problem is I, I would be free to do that, but he is currently, I believe
01:02:17.500
embroiled in, um, uh, struggle with his church.
01:02:24.640
I'm like, I don't think he currently has the time, which is a great shame, but I'm
01:02:27.300
sure once, you know, I, I, I do, I do pray for him quite a lot because he is really putting
01:02:33.180
Um, and I hope once he's in the clear from that, um, we're able to continue, but yes,
01:02:36.880
I, I greatly enjoyed, uh, those regular streams.
01:02:41.940
Obviously he's very knowledgeable, uh, and, uh, he's a great, uh, conversation partner.
01:02:47.700
If nothing else, perhaps we will, we will continue some, some streams along this line.
01:02:51.920
Uh, and, uh, Tex-Mex again here for $2, Carlos Motto, uh, the Carlos Motto, God, Fatherland,
01:03:02.500
Which means kind of, it's, there's no direct translation, but it means kind of like local
01:03:09.680
Because like, obviously in a, in a medieval feudal society, each, each town, each, each
01:03:16.020
province, each people tend to have their own legal codes and their own laws.
01:03:20.280
This, this, this whole idea of one country with one constitution and, and, and sort of
01:03:25.000
set of laws is quite new, um, for most of human history, each, each area and each, each
01:03:31.080
kind of group had its own privileges and its own, its own understandings, its own customs,
01:03:34.980
which the, which the king would respect, right?
01:03:36.920
That's, that's what, that's what they mean by Fueros is, um, kind of a type of legal,
01:03:47.300
We're going to go ahead and wrap this up, but I want to, of course, thank Panama Hat, uh,
01:03:54.700
Please make sure to check out his YouTube channel, follow him on, him on Twitter, and
01:03:58.900
hopefully we'll, uh, have him back on here soon for some more history.
01:04:03.160
Do you, do you mind if I just say two more things?
01:04:05.760
I've, a few people have been asking me, um, so yes, as I said, the best book on the
01:04:09.900
collapse of the Republic is Stanley Paine's The Collapse of the Second Spanish Republic.
01:04:14.180
Um, Duke Valentino, um, the movie While at War is worth a watch.
01:04:18.260
Um, it's very interesting and gives quite an interesting insight into how the coup unfolded
01:04:24.620
Um, and, uh, uh, Voltaire Dento a Tallinn Krieg, uh, that we, we, we, we have, um, we have
01:04:32.280
some academic funding, um, for that project, so it should be, it should be a good one.
01:04:36.420
Um, in, in introspection about the international brigades, um, the best book to read about that
01:04:42.200
is, uh, George Orwell's, um, book, On March to Catalonia, which, uh, even though he was
01:04:47.260
a leftist, that tells you all about how, how riven with factionalism the leftists were.
01:04:51.460
But, and also part of the reason that the Republicans lost is because the, um, leftists
01:04:57.980
were too busy fighting between themselves, um, to fight Franco.
01:05:02.700
And by the end of the war, they hated each other so much, they would rather live in Franco's
01:05:06.380
Spain than in, uh, the opposing leftist faction, Spain.
01:05:09.640
It was so wild, again, when I, like, I remember when I first learned about the Spanish, uh, the
01:05:14.620
Spanish Civil War, and just, like, these communists boast, like, they, they ended up losing
01:05:19.160
because, uh, you know, fights because, like, these communist boats would just refuse to
01:05:23.380
go and fight, like, they would just, they would take a boat and not go.
01:05:27.340
And, like, it's just comical, like, it's, it's, it's if you were gonna make some kind
01:05:31.020
of, uh, farce about communists trying to go to war, like, that would be it.
01:05:35.500
Um, also, I, I recommend the book, um, The Victorious Counter-Revolution, um, which is
01:05:40.520
all about how the nationalists won through economic factors.
01:05:44.620
It's almost like an economics book about the war, which basically says that in the, in the,
01:05:48.840
in the nationalist area, there was absolute order.
01:05:51.940
The nationalists was very good at keeping law and order wherever they were, right?
01:05:56.220
They, that you would, if, if you were, like, if you lived in a, in a town that was captured
01:06:01.420
on day one of the coup and wasn't ever on the front line, you would barely even know there
01:06:18.840
Um, I know we're running out of time, but I wanted to tell one of my favorite anecdotes
01:06:22.320
about, uh, about the civil war, which is, um, up in, up in Navarre, Navarre, which is a
01:06:27.820
region up in the North of Spain, um, quite heavily carless.
01:06:31.340
Um, in fact, uh, in, in, in, in the famous city of, uh, Pamplona, where they have the bull
01:06:35.820
run every year, when they heard that the coup was happening, they celebrated it as a festival.
01:06:40.040
Um, they brought out all the music and bands and everything.
01:06:43.080
Um, it was up there where the, where the front line was, um, during one particularly harsh winter.
01:06:48.200
The nationalist troops there had access to a very large local food supply and they ate
01:06:53.480
these very sumptuous dinners every night with, you know, rice and, and all these, you know,
01:06:58.040
multiple courses and wine and, and, and, and, and sweets and things.
01:07:02.060
And it was a very, very, very sumptuous dinner to get you through the winter.
01:07:05.220
Whereas the Republican troops on the other side were, were freezing to death on, you know,
01:07:09.600
the most meager rations, if they had any at all.
01:07:12.240
Um, and the nationalists in that sector came up with a tactic where they, they set up these
01:07:16.780
big loudspeakers all down the front line and every night they would broadcast their dinner
01:07:21.100
menu across the front line to the Republican troops.
01:07:25.640
And Republican troops were defecting in the hundreds basically when they heard this, because
01:07:31.060
it doesn't matter how much of a motivated fighter you are of any ideology.
01:07:34.900
Once, once your stomach's empty and it's freezing and you're, you know, you haven't eaten in
01:07:39.460
three days and everything's rubbish, it's becomes very tempting to the fact that if you know
01:07:43.520
the enemy has all these rich reserves of, uh, food and supplies and everything is much better
01:07:51.400
Also, I want to say hi to, I can never, I don't know how to say his name because I'd never
01:07:54.280
learned any Greek, but, uh, the chap with the Greek name in the chat who, who is a regular
01:08:01.500
Well, let's go ahead and wrap it up then again.
01:08:05.540
Uh, if it's your first time here on the channel, make sure that you go ahead and subscribe.
01:08:08.860
And if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you can of course, listen to the
01:08:13.040
Orrin McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform.
01:08:16.020
All right, guys, we'll see you all, uh, later and I will talk to you next time.