Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War (Guerra Civil Española) was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role.
White émigréWhite Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik communist Russian political climate. Many White Russian émigrés participated in the White movement or supported it. The term is often broadly applied to anyone who may have left the country due to the change in regimes.
Bombing of GuernicaOn 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica (Gernika in Basque) was aerial bombed during the Spanish Civil War. It was carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco's rebel Nationalist faction by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name "Operation Rügen". The town was being used as a communications centre by Republican forces just behind the front line, and the raid was intended to destroy bridges and roads.
Spanish LegionFor centuries, Spain recruited foreign soldiers to its army, forming the foreign regiments (Infantería de línea extranjera) such as the Regiment of Hibernia (formed in 1709 from Irishmen who fled their own country in the wake of the Flight of the Earls and the penal laws). However, the specific unit of the Spanish Army and Spain's Rapid Reaction Force, now known as the Spanish Legion (Legión Española, La Legión), and informally known as the Tercio or the Tercios, is a 20th-century creation.
CarlismCarlism (Karlismo; Carlisme; Carlismo; Carlismo) is a Traditionalist and Legitimist political movement in Spain aimed at establishing an alternative branch of the Bourbon dynasty – one descended from Don Carlos, Count of Molina (1788–1855) – on the Spanish throne. The movement was founded as a consequence of an early nineteenth century dispute over the succession of the Spanish monarchy and widespread dissatisfaction with the Alfonsine line of the House of Bourbon, and subsequently found itself becoming a notable element of Spanish conservatism in its nineteenth century struggle against liberalism, which repeatedly broke out into military conflicts known as the Carlist Wars.