The Spanish civil war was one of, if not, the most social fracturing and blood thirsty wars ever fought. Therefore, it interests many historians such as Jill Edwards, who claimed: “By turning a blind eye, the British aided Franco as decisively as if he had sent arms to him.” It is also of great interest to many historians because it was a precursor and role player in the outbreak of World War two. Perhaps most obviously, one of the largest questions made by historians nowadays is “Why did Franco win.” Which is what I will be talking about. We usually expect that if one side has more troops it is more likely to win the war. This was not the case with the Spanish civil war. In the Spanish civil war it was quality over quantity and, most importantly, unity over disunity. The Left was one huge group made up of different parties who were all on the same side and all sought to beat one enemy. It consisted of Republicans, Communists, Anarchists and Socialists. However, the problem was that the only factor which unified them was one, same enemy. They all despised Franco but wanted to pursue different paths should he be defeated. The Republicans wanted Democracy, the Anarchists abolishment of government and …show more content…
The different groups which formed the left would never fight as one united and organised force which naturally made it extremely difficult to beat Franco. So even though you could say the Left had the numbers, they would firstly not fight as one organised and unified front and secondly they were mostly unprepared militarily. So the advantage they could have potentially had against the right was discarded due to political discordancy. The disunity of the Left was crucial in the outcome of the Spanish civil war although, some historians who commented on this are Solstein and Meditz, who claim “Internal divisions on [the] Republican side [were] crucial [and] prevented them from sustaining a successful