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In the summer of 1938, the Spanish Republic launched a desperate attack across the Ebro River. The goal was not just military—it was diplomatic. Prime Minister Juan Negrín hoped that by proving the Republic still had fight in it, he could convince Britain and France to lift their arms embargo and stand up to the fascist powers backing Franco. For the soldiers on the ground, particularly the volunteers of the International Brigades, this meant enduring hell. As Adam Hochschild describes in Spain in Our Hearts, men fought for weeks without sleep, under a sun that reached 134°F, while German and Italian…
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The Spanish Civil War – Prelude to a Global Struggle In July 1936, a military coup against Spain’s democratically elected Second Republic sparked a brutal civil war that became a microcosm of Europe’s ideological battles. On one side stood the Spanish Republic’s defenders – an uneasy coalition of liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists and regionalists determined to uphold democratic reform. On the other side rallied General Francisco Franco’s Nationalists – conservative army officers, monarchists, fascist Falangists and the Catholic hierarchy, intent on crushing the Republic and rolling back its liberal reforms. The conflict soon drew international intervention: Nazi Germany and Fascist…