Talk:International response to the Spanish Civil War

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"various forms of aid and military support were given to BOTH sides by Nazi Germany" [emphasis added] -- I suspect that is true, but I'd really like to see it expanded upon and footnoted with regard to aid to the Republicans. Can the author of that sentence (or anybody) provide more information? 24.96.210.230 (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2017 (UTC) Skeptic[reply]

I dropped the unsourced and unlikely claim that RS have not reported. Rjensen (talk) 19:20, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

". . . claim that RS have not reported." Grammar is not just for picky, pedantic wimps. It is an important component of clear, unambiguous communication. Would you like to try again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.96.210.230 (talk) 21:11, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

even a picky, pedantic wimp should be able to understand a simple statement. Rjensen (talk) 17:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I've researched this a bit more & found that the "both" claim is correct, although the support to the Republicans was covert and much less extensive. Goring was behind it and it went through Hamburg & Greece. You can even find some expansion on the subject in other articles in Wikipedia. If I get around to it I may come back & edit that in.24.96.210.230 (talk) 05:43, 27 September 2017 (UTC)Skeptic[reply]

Removed quotation marks from the General of General Eoin O'Duffy. He held the rank of General in both the IRA and the Irish Free State. Don't know why his title was in quotations.

Perhaps I was wrong in doing so, and I am open to criticism on this, but I deleted a number of the references to the Jewish brigades in the civil war. Not only are the numbers woefully inflated, they also lack reference and are in complete opposition with already sourced data. I would say, anyone wishing to establish those numbers ( I believe 6500-8000 ) as fact should find a respectable citation to back up such a claim. Following those statistics was also a troubling, and entirely subjective interpretation of the Jewish importance in the war. While I have nothing against the Jewish people, an article on the Spanish Civil War is certainly no place to advance ethnic or national causes. Any attempt to levy one single groups importance over the rest is downright disrespectful to all those who died fighting. I would also like to add that I had to remove some sentences regarding the supposed brutality of both the POUM and the anarchists. None of these claims are cited and the wording was frankly unintelligible. I would challenge anybody to find a reference that states either of these groups were overtly more brutal in their methods than the nationalists, or the Stalinist affiliated popular front parties. --Indiefilm45 08:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the number of 6500-8000 Jews in the International Brigades is vastly inflated. I have never seen a number that high. Hugh Thomas puts the number of Jews at about 3,000 and that would be a little less than 10% of all the people who fought in that military formation. What is the source for such an inflated number? I checked out the citation of The Naftali Botwin Company, By Mitch Abidor and it is an internet source without citation. I have read several books on this Confict and none mentions such a high proportion of Jews.

Ethnically such would be almost impossible. The French, Italians and Germans furnished about 50% of the membership of the International Brigades and few Jews lived there as a proportion of the population. The most heavily Jewish countries that furnished large numbers to the International Brigades would be Poland and the United States. That would be a total of about 8,000 volunteers from both countries. The American volunteers were heavily Jewish, about 1/3 of the total, I would say. Polish volunteers were probably heavily Jewish also, but probably about the same proportion 1/3. That would be about 2700 Jews from those two countries. The rest of the countries had few Jews in the population except perhaps Hungary.

I would hope that proof be submitted or the new materials withdrawn.

GenghisTheHun 01:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)GenghisTheHun[reply]

Under the 'American' heading is this 'The United States furnished 2,800 men of whom 900 were killed' then is proceeds to talk about European fighters?

"2,000 British served with 500 being killed. There were also 1,500 Czechs, 1,500 Yugoslavs, 1,200 Canadians, 1,000 Hungarians and 1,000 Scandinavians about half of whom were Swedes. The rest came from 53 countries.[14] Perhaps 3,000 of the volunteers were Jewish.[15]"

i moved it to under european but the article could do with more on american fighters. --Neon white 19:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The main article of Spanish Civil War was criticized as being too bulky. I moved the foreign intervention part of that article here and broke it down into general headings. It will continue to need re-working to harmonize and reorganize the article. —The preceding

GenghisTheHun 14:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)GenghisTheHun[reply]

I checked Hugh Thomas's book. To arrive at his Axis figures he cites sources such as the NYTimes,

But dont know how to make them appear inline removing the need for comma use. Fluffy999 14:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Thomas is no longer the best source at least for materials to the Republic. Since the Iron Curtain archives have opened, much work was been done in that area. I think Gerald Howson is better than Thomas. I am working on his book right now. I am appalled at how much the Republic was swindled by the arms dealers and by Stalin. The problem that the Republic had, in one resepect at least, was that it had the cash. The Nationalists went on credit. I will work with you to get the proper figures. It appears that the Republican figures will go down. —The preceding

GenghisTheHun 17:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)GenghisTheHun[reply]

Its all good. I will add this to Project Spain, Germany now to get a rating. After making a lot of additions to the Legion article it got a start rating, which is strange but thats seems to be how the game works- get your rating before additions, then after making additions seek a higher rating. Noticed a lot of piss-poor B rated military articles so that must be how they gamed the system. Fluffy999 15:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Requested reviews from projects where I know Governments were involved, adding for international brigades would be too much. Fluffy999 15:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this material is very relevant to the question of aid to the Republic and should be reinserted. Most countries of the world backed away from the Republic, in a large number of cases because of the atrocities and this was extremely harmful to the Republican cause. Here is the part that was removed.

"Many in these countries were also shocked by the violence practiced by anarchist and POUM militias - and reported by a relatively free press in the Republican zone - and feared Stalinist influence over the Republican government. Reprisals, assassinations and other atrocities in the rebel zone were, of course, not reported nearly as widely."

GenghisTheHun 15:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)GenghisTheHun[reply]

• Standardised references and footnotes.
• Updated some statistics from Thomas (2001)
• Consolidated American and European volunteer sections. (Many Americans and Canadians were exiles and fought with nation-of-origin battalions)
• Changed Lincoln BRIGADE to battalion throughout (once :)
• "Use of the Spanish Civil War as weapons testing ground" - edited for brevity.
• There remains a fair amount of duplication. (For instance, stuff on the Irish Blueshirts and the Portuguese appearing into two places}.
• Best, I think, to consolidate into two sections: Nationlist and Republican, which is what I've started to do.
• No Conclusions section. Was anyone planning one?

All the best, Roger 05:30, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

British involvement had a focus on maintaining British economic interests in Spain alive, including Rio Tinto mine. Clearly Anthony Beevor, a first grade hack, was unaware of that, otherwise whoever was brain dumping from his book would have inserted it to the article. By the way, where did the idea of a "League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee" come from? LONations had nothing to do with it. Oh look, its cited to Anthony Beevor 8|

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 03:18, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 21:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you post references, footnotes, and quotes about Soviet Union aid in material... To the exact number which is written:

These arms included 1,000 aircraft, 900 tanks, 1,500 artillery pieces, 300 armored cars, hundreds of thousands of small arms, and 30,000 tons of ammunition (some of which was defective)

And until then, could you remove that fact from the public's eyes.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.46.171.113 (talk) 23:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have greatly reduced the weight of article (wikilinks and inline citations) by setting up the following: List of foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War--Technopat (talk) 07:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is very messy the Patriot/Christian assistance and the International Bolshevik/Antichristic support are all mixed together, in a seemingly random order. There should be two clear and distinct sections for each. - Yorkshirian (talk) 14:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's one way to do it. Off you go then...Mdw0 (talk) 11:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about the reference to volunteers for Franco from Spanish Guinea. I assume this refers to Spanish Equatorial Guinea, which understand supported Franco, as the Republic had sent all the troublesome officers as far away from Madrid, so that the revolt started in Morocco and the Canaries. So the volunteers from Spanish Guinea would have been Spanish citizens fighting for Franco, unless you have records a African volunteers. I understand that the first dictator of independent Equatorial Guinea was influenced by Spanish fascism. --Noel Ellis (talk) 10:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Failed for WPPOLAND. Concur with prior MILHIST review: too much unreferenced content. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Historians for the 1930s greatly prefer Britain/Great Britain instead of United Kingdom. Of course all these versions are abbreviations of the formal name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is very rarely used by historians except for quoting official documents like treaties. Here are representative major books: Addison, A Companion to Contemporary Britain: 1939–2000 (2005); Arnstein, Walter L. Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 To the Present (2000); Cannon, John, ed. The Oxford Companion to British History (2003); Childs, David. Britain since 1945: A Political History (2012); Clarke, Peter. Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–2000 (2nd ed. 2004); Cook, Chris and John Stevenson, eds. Longman Companion to Britain Since 1945 (1995); Daunton, M.J. Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1851–1951 (2007); Gardiner, Juliet. Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (2004) etc etc Rjensen (talk) 21:47, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The use of "United Kingdom" mirrors the articles United Kingdom, where the article is located, as compared to Britain (a disambiguation) and Great Britain (the island). The use of the term "United Kingdom" avoids confusion as to the involvement or status of Northern Ireland, which is relevant here. These are essentially the same reasons as why the term "United Kingdom" is preferred in articles such as United States, France, NATO (save for one 'Britain') and, until you changed it, World War I. The history element only adds to the potential for confusion which is avoided by the use of United Kingdom. I cannot see a good reason to retain 'Britain', since to do so means adopting a different name to the name used for the 'home' article. There has been no change in official usage since 1922 and therefore the use of 'Britain' would amount to suggesting the article should be at 'Britain' and not the 'United Kingdom'. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:37, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Grandiose I fear is out of touch with scholarship and seems to rely instead on Wikipedia (our first rule here is not to rely on Wikipedia but to get a reliable secondary source). Few if any historians of the 1930s use "United Kingdom." The way to confuse students trying to learn history is to impose oddball conventions that will draw a smirk, or maybe a snarl, from teachers assigning papers on the topic. That UK usage will alas be copied by kids and will immediately tell the teacher the student has not been reading any Reliable books or articles but is just echoing wikipedia. As for the United Kingdom article its opening words are that the country is "commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) and Britain" -- and it's Britain for the RS on the 1930s. (UK is used for much more recent topics). Rjensen (talk) 00:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Historians for the 1930s greatly prefer Britain/Great Britain instead of United Kingdom." – Just to query here, are you actually saying that so long as the period being discussed includes the 1930s only the term "Britain" should be used, and that for any other period, upto and including 1929 and from 1940 onwards the term "United Kingdom" should be acceptable? I ask this because you specifically say "for the 1930s" which is one particular decade, yet there are titles in your selective range that fall outside that decade: Britain since 1945: A Political History, and are we really to assume that a title such as A Companion to Contemporary Britain: 1939–2000 where but 1 year falls within the 1930s and the remaining 60 outside that decade, that because of that solitary year, he uses the term "Britain" throughout the book and never "United Kingdom" or other variations? Bearing in mind that the various usages of the terms "Britain", "Great Britain", "United Kingdom" and "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" can relate specifically to the way the country was organised with no relevance to the 1930s, nor historian's preferred convention. Simply claiming "'Britain' applies for the 1930s" isn't looking at the bigger picture, politically or geographically, it's just following how some historians who might be simply using a short and recognisable name to sell a product. I don't think book titles alone can be considered a reliable source, when the actual wording within the books may use other conventions relating the periods of history they cover. I think the idea of using specific terms for specific countries and periods is far too complex to prove and to enforce, and would simply lead to more trouble that it's worth. I mean, this is not as simple as Czechoslovakia becoming Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and using those terms from a set date. This is a proposal that is fairly rough around the edges, and I don't feel that a few select books titles are suitable references to support the argument. Also, Lloyd T.O. Empire, Welfare State, Europe: History of the United Kingdom 1906–2001 (Short Oxford History of the Modern World) (2002); Harrison, Brian Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951–1970 (New Oxford History of England) (2011); Floud, Roderick Height, Health and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time) (1990) — it's easy enough to find titles that use the term "United Kingdom" and question the prevalence of "Britain" in scholarly circles. You may call those title you listed "major books", but they could be very general books, covering broad topics, rather than specialised books focusing on smaller periods with greater objectivity. AFAIK we don't simply reject titles on Wiki just because one editor sees their source as "major" and another as "minor", as that would be biased. So we have to go back to me main question whether historians really do only use the term "Britain" for the 1930s, or whether it is just your point of view drawn from the selection of titles you gave that makes it only appear that way? Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 01:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a job for the Google N-Gram viewer which will search a lot more books. As you can seer, the term "United Kingdom" seems to have appeared circa 1700, but it has never been as popular as "Britain". Somewhere between 1940 and 1955 there was an upsurge in "United Kingdom" and it doubled in popularity to the level of today, but "Britain" remains four times as popular. Whereas "Great Britain" is now less popular than "United Kingdom". Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Whereas 'Great Britain' is now less popular than 'United Kingdom'." – This can be explained. The Conservatives took the "Great" out of Britain by being elected, and the Scots (SNP) destroyed the "United" image by seeking independence. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 03:45, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't suggested that Britain is not well used among academics, I merely believe that there are compelling reasons to ensure continuity as an encyclopedia between articles. The sufggestion is made above that we might call the country "Britain" in the 1930s and the "United Kingdom" later on, which is not a line I think can be drawn without implying any sort of event in between. The fact is that in the 1930s, as now, the Irish element to the UK that is lacking in "Britain" and "Great Britain" is important: it would, I think, be odd to speak of "Great Britain" suffering X casualties, when Northern Irish men served, or a "blockade of Britain" where there is a difference between the two possible meanings. Discussions of the introduction of conscription during WWI to Great Britain but not Ireland would be confused by calling the whole country Britain.

Further to the confusion point, the use of Britain means things like [[United Kingdom|Britain]] or [[United Kingdom|Great Britain]] when [[Britain]] and [[Great Britain]] go elsewhere. Ultimately we attempt to run a coherent encyclopedia that is open to people not well versed in these countries and their relationship with each other and I feel this is best served without creating a more confused relationship between terminology and articles.

The encyclopedia has already come to the conclusion that the name of the country in short form is the "United Kingdom" (hence United Kingdom) and has recognised the possible differences in meaning for Britain. I think above that this has been conceded in relation to articles on 'modern' topics, but the last official name change was in 1922 and the last change in the formula of the name in 1803. The question is how far it is reasonable to project 'modern' back. Those dates I would accept, to my mind preferably the latter but even 1922 would be a reasonable line to draw.Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:06, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's policy is to follow the reliable secondary sources. Few if any of these use UK, so it's a guarantee of confusion is we head off in new directions. People reading history need to understand the standard terminology used by scholars, professors, editors, journals and publishers. There is no alternative to using "British" which clearly means the government ("the British did not send in warplanes") and also the people ("British public opinion favoured the Republicans"). British = pertains to Britain. (not pertain to UK). The UK article in Wikipedia clearly says the country = UK or Britain so no one will be confused. The Britain article is likewise clear: it starts off, "Britain may refer to: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in western Europe" Hawkeye7 has it right. Look at JSTOR with several hundred thousand articles from 1,900 scholarly journals in more than 50 disciplines. A search of titles of articles shows a 4:1 ratio in favour of "Britain" over "UK/United Kingdom" specifically 26,674 journal articles use "Britain" in their tile compared to 6403 that use UK/United Kingdom. Grandiose seems not to have found any reliable books or articles dealing with the Spanish Civil War that use the UK version. (I have not seen any either). Rjensen (talk) 14:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

British is the adjective for people from the UK, there's nothing illogical about that and the usage is fine. Actually JSTOR results do not favour "Britain" – ((Britain) NOT (Great Britain)) yields 146,578 results, whereas (United Kingdom) yields 359,594 results. I didn't want to focus on this aspect, however, because the term "Great Britain" would legitimately refer to 1707-1802; we could also adopt a "leave it as you find it approach" save for the fact you purposely changed it over.

The Britain article is likewise clear: it starts off, "Britain may refer to: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in western Europe" This is, in fact, the clearest possible indication that Wikipedia editors (including, as I recall, ArbCom) believe "Britain" to be phrase capable of carrying different meanings, one of which is to refer to the post-1803 country, but which has others. The "United Kingdom" has no such ambiguity. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We're talking history here. so let's look at the history journals in JSTOR. Look at the titles of articles. we have 10,762 (6109 for "Britain" & 4653 for "Great Britain") versus a mere 600 -- (516 for "United Kingdom" and 84 for UK), that is 94% = 17:1 ratio among historians and editors of history journals. How overwhelming do you want? As for any Wikipedia "consensus" for UK -- that's entirely imaginary. Even the Wiki articles using "UK" in the titles prefer "Britain" in their text. (look at

Queen Elizabeth II

for example, a FA). 21:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Article says "The German chargé d'affaires reported that the British were supplying ammunition to the Republicans, as well as passing on information about Russian arms shipments to the Germans."

Shouldn't it say they were sending ammo to the Nationalists? Historian932 (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think what that wording was supposed to mean, is that the German chargé d'affaires passed on, to the Germans, information about Russian arms shipments. On the assumption that is what it means, I have removed the mention of Russians and Germans, as neither are relevant to the section's topic, which is English and French involvement. Thank you for spotting this very misleading wording. MPS1992 (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do also wonder about the meaning and significance of the sentence "Both the British and French governments were aware of the First World War." ...... MPS1992 (talk) 18:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From the Wikedia main article on

Another significant Soviet involvement was the activity of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (

Andrés Nin, the socialist journalist Mark Rein, and the independent left-wing activist José Robles.^[1] Another NKVD-led operation was the shooting down (in December 1936) of the French aircraft in which the delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Georges Henny, carried extensive documentation on the Paracuellos massacres to France.^[2]

Should not this be added to this article? --85.52.243.230 (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will include it. --47.61.119.51 (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The formatting of references in this article is a bit hit-and-miss: mostly plain-text short footnotes with a couple of uses of {{

Since nobody has commented in the last month I intend to do this. Wham2001 (talk) 16:46, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Now complete. There are two citations I was unable to track down:

• Viñas, A. (1976) "The Gold, the Soviet Union": pp.233
• Werstein (1969). p. 139

I've left both as plain-text references for somebody else to fix. Another minor point is that the 1937 article in the Bulletin of International News was authored by "S. A. H." – I've been unable to expand those initials so have left the title of the publication somewhat clumsily in the list of citations. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 20:43, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]