The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Simply put this is the best written history book I have ever read. Knowing only "For Whom the Bell Tolls" when I started, by the end I felt like I had attended a graduate seminar on the subject. Beevor asks hard questions of all involved, never sympathizing with any side, but always showing sympathy for all who suffered. The explanations of the different parties is clear, the action gripping and the analysis is thought provoking. Buy it.

In "The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939", respected British historian Anthony Beevor gives an even-handed description of the turmoil, political machinations, and tragedy that was the Spanish Civil War. He begins with several chapters setting the stage and introducing the many characters and political parties, giving their motives, fears, and aspirations. He then gives a chronological narrative of the war, mainly from a political perspective, and the war's aftermath.

The Spanish Civil War was a complex war, even for a civil war, and each of the two sides ... Nationalist and Republican ... were in reality made up of many smaller parties. The groups comprising the Nationalists were better able to find common ground, while the Republican side, due to the major schisms between the Anarchists and Communists, was almost doomed to failure from the beginning, although that wasn't immediately obvious. Add in the foreign intervention (or lack of it) and the motivations of other countries to support or not support the war, and this is a conflict that is not easy to explain or analyze.

I was surprised at how bloody and vicious the war was, and how many atrocities were committed by both sides. Unlike, say, the American Civil War, where most of the blood was shed on the battlefield, in the Spanish Civil War, summary executions and cold blooded murders before, during, and after the battles was responsible for a significant percentage of the deaths during (and after) the conflict, more often committed by the Nationalists, but also in great numbers by the Republicans.

Mr Beevor does not have an ax to grind, and presents as fair and balanced a view as is possible, sparing neither side. But at the risk of reviewing the book I wanted to read versus the book that was written, I would have liked to have seen a deeper analysis of the military battles and technical innovations and a little less emphasis on the political aspects. The book is dry at times, and reads longer than its 560 pages (in the paperback version), although this is perhaps forgivable given the complexity of the war. However, it's not as easy or intriguing a read as some of his other fine works that I own.

I recommend this book, although it's probably not the best book for an introduction to the Spanish Civil War to a novice. But it is probably the best book on the market that explains it's political aspects.

The Battle for Spain is a thorough review of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict about which I knew the basics but wanted to know more. Beevor's work is thorough, and will improve most readers' knowledge of the conflict, but its workmanlike prose style rapidly dissolves into a "this happened then that happened" history. I thought that the period probably could have produced a more interesting account than that presented by Beevor.

I also found that the maps were insufficient. Clearly, Beevor knows Spain better than I; regions of Spain are referred to constantly, but no map of the regions of Spain is included. So, if you're not sure where Estremadura is, don't expect any help from Beevor or his maps. Also, battles which constituted entire chapters of the book lacked maps, so the reader is left to guess where the action happened unless they know Spain's geography relatively well.

The description of the political scene at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War was also difficult to follow. While Spanish politics in 1936 were clearly chaotic, Beevor doesn't do a good job of making sense of the players. Large numbers of names we don't see again and Spanish acronymns abound.

Finally, personalities come in second place in a big way in The Battle for Spain. People who might be fascinating, such as Franco, Azana, Negrin, Companys, and La Pasionaria, are treated as one-dimensional. The reader is left with little insight into their points of view and Beevor rarely lets us know much about what happens to the key players after the war. Beevor sometimes relates the circumstances of their deaths, but generally only if they were executed by Franco.

All in all, The Battle for Spain is an adequate, if boring history of the 20th century's first proxy war.

Antony Beevor's excellent 1982 "The Spanish Civil War" has been updated and revised for a 2006 edition to mark the 70th anniversary of the conflict. Beevor has taken advantage of improved access to former Soviet archives and recent scholarship to add depth and detail to his original book.

The Spanish Civil War, widely seen as a precursor to the Second World War, was a highly complex struggle with deep roots in Spanish history and politics. Author Beevor rejects a simplistic Republican versus Nationalist characterization of the conflict. In a brisk and generally readable account, Beevor finds and explores three different axes of conflict: Left-Right, centralist-regionalist, and authoritarian-libertarian. The Republican and Nationalist sides were actually coalitions that experienced significant internal turbulence during the 1936-1939 fighting.

Beevor also examines the impact of foreign assistance on the coalitions and on the battlefield. German and Italian manpower, equipment and expertise were highly valuable to the cause of General Franco, who early established his dominance over the Nationalist cause. In contrast, Soviet support was a decidedly mixed blessing for the Republican side. After Britain and France chose non-intervention, the Republicans had few alternatives to aid from Moscow, but that aid came with a price tag. Beevor finds the increasing Communization of the Republican war effort was a significant factor in its ultimate defeat.

"The Spanish Civil War" does a highly creditable job of casting light on a complex, bitter civil war, although in places the density of detail on political discourse can be exhausting. The overall effort is however worthwhile and highly recommended to the general reader and to the student looking for a concise account.

My initial foray into the Spanish civil War was Hugh Thomas' excellent book from the 1960s. Beevor, in my view takes a fresh view on the conflict, moving beyond recent revisionism by Stanley Payne and Robert Radosh, especially, as other reviewers have noted, in his treatment of the Anarchists. This is not to say that Beevor is a partisan of the anarchist narrative, he does not flinch from describing the atrocities committed by the militias. One interesting point, echoing Thomas, was how the Stalinist communist party steadily gained influence over the Republic by being a conservative counterweight to the Anarchists and the POUM, even to the point of reversing collectivisation efforts in Catalonia, cementing the support of the middle class in Republican areas. This is probably the only time in history where the communist party represented conservative business owners.

I was especially interested in how Beevor incorporated the opening of the Soviet Archives on the SCW, and how that compared to Hugh Thomas' book which was written at the height of the cold war. One surprise was Beevor's evidence of how uninterested Stalin appeared to be in Spain, and how he was almost forced into intervention by political concerns -- he was afraid that not intervening would hurt the Soviet's image among the foreign communist parties. He demonstrates that Stalin was committed to the popular front strategy in Spain, and at no time instructed his cadres to start revolutionary activity. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which, in the last twenty years, chiefly due to revisionist historians like Stanley Payne, has the Soviets as the puppet masters from the beginning.

Beevor's description of the military campaign was clear without becoming ponderous. He describes how the the Republic almost defeated itself by engaging in set piece offensives for propaganda purposes, that decimated the Republican army while achieving little of military value. He also contradicts conventional wisdom as to the ineffectiveness of the Anarchist columns, showing that they were just as effective in urban warfare as the more disciplined Republican units like the International Brigades.

Another interesting theme was his detailed description of the actions of other democracies, especially the members of the so-called non-intervention committee, led by Britain and including France, the Soviets, Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. He describes the ludicrous hypocrisy of Britain, who turned a blind eye to massive Italian and German aid to Franco, while using the Royal navy to prevent arms going to the Republic. He demonstrates that British concern about Soviet influence on the Republic was vastly conflated, pointing out that by denying the Republic arms, Britain, and later France created a self fulfilling prophecy -- by forcing the Republic to go to the Soviets to buy arms they greatly enhanced communist influence in the Republican government. But more importantly, Beevor frames British/French policy in the context of appeasement -- placing Spain in the same category as Czechoslovakia, a sacrifice to the fascist maw, hoping to sate it. History obviously shows the result.

Beevor also puts to rest the suggestion that Franco was apolitical and not a "real" fascist. He provides evidence that Franco was eager to enter WW2 on the side of the Axis, holding out only to convince Hitler to cede French North Africa to him. Also, Franco provided 50,000 "volunteers" to the SS to fight on the Russian front -- an enormous contribution considering that the pre civil war Spanish army was only 100,000 soldiers. He also points out that Franco allowing Hitler to use Spanish ports to launch U-Boat raids on American and British shipping in the North Atlantic.

All in all, Beevor's book is an excellent read, scholarly, but aimed at the general reader. I recommend it highly.