I'm reading about this, someone here at one point considered themselves an expert (bart maybe?). Sounds pretty epic, I wonder why it isn't as prominent in discussions of 20th century history as other conflicts. Can I get some book recommendations?

Orwell has a series of Essays, and several deal with his time there. I believe its called "Letters from Patagonia". What a strange time and a strange war when legions of foreign intellectuals headed for the trenches in a foreign land. That could be why the socialists lost, you can't expect near sighted authors to shoot worth a damn.

It came just ahead of World War II?

One thing I've always wondered is if this war had happened earlier or Franco solidified power quicker, whether or not Spain would have been an active Axis ally. That could have complicated things further.

I don't know if I'm an expert, but I'm really into the Spanish Civil War. The best book about it is definitely The Battle for Spain by Anthony Beevor, although be prepared for a shitload of acronyms. There's a key in the back of the book, though, so it's not too bad. Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is also a great account of the war, or portions of it anyway. You can see him developing ideas about Stalinism that later found their way into 1984.

I think the reason it isn't remembered by people in the US is that it's not an easy war to understand. It also became politically inconvenient for the establishment in this country to remember it. Most of the people who had bravely volunteered to fight the Fascists were themselves leftists, and the half-assed neutrality of the US, England and France had the effect of ensuring Franco's victory. During WWII it wasn't pleasant to be reminded that we allowed a country to fall to fascism, and during the Cold War we allied with Franco.

I don't think they would have. Franco really didn't cooperate very much with Hitler, even on things that wouldn't have involved him having to use Spain's resources. He would pay lip service to helping out, but I don't think he particular liked Hitler, and he certainly wasn't willing to risk his newfound power by making the freshly "united" nation fight an offensive war. I've read multiple books that touch on the topic, but I've yet to read something that concretely defines why Franco didn't allow Germany to arm Gibralter and cut off the Meditteranean from the Allies. I also don't understand why Hitler accepted the answer of "no" and didn't take Gibralter anyway. Anyone have any insight on this?

What's always surprising me is that France, at that time was governed by a left-wing governement (really lefty) and that it did support the republicans really luke-warmly.
A good complementary information on the Civil war is to watch Ken Loach's Land And Freedom, very moving film and you get to understand what orwell is talking about with stalinism.

Hitler had enough shit to worry about without pissing off Franco and pushing Spain into the Allies' camp. Franco amassed his troops at the French border after Hitler invaded that country (and hinted at invading Spain if Franco didn't give in to his demands), so the Nazis knew taking Spain wouldn't be an easy thing.

The problem in France was that the Popular Front was always perilously-close to losing it's control over the legislature, so they had to cowtow to conservatives who were repulsed by the idea of helping "Communists," and many (if not most) of whom were downright symathetic to Franco. This was also the case in England. Chamberlain and his people were pretty much openly favoring the Nationalists for most of the war.

This thread has inspired me to reread The Battle for Spain.

I think I'm definitely going to have to add that book into my list of books to read. My only real knowledge of the Spanish Civil War comes from the contexts of Nazi/Italian/Soviet dealings and from biographies of the leaders of those 3.

bart's knowledge of european history is quite excellent, and seems unmatched on the board.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

There's a great doumentary about women in the Spanish Civil War as well. Can't remember the name right now and google isn't helping me.

Thanks for the help (and wit, simple schoolboy). I'm going to be checking out some books this weekend.

This shit be staged, yo.