History Essay Spanish Civil War free essay sample

On the other hand, the war on land took the biggest number of lives, and that was one of the important consequences of the war. Spanish Civil War had consequences not only on Spain but on the other countries too. Among foreign powers USSR, Germany and Italy were hit by effects the most. The Civil War brought huge complications to Spain in social, economic and political aspects. Therefore Spain suffered huge consequences. Around 100,000 Republicans and 70,000 Nationalists lost their lives in the war. The war was something new for them, because they weren’t involved in World War II and the fact that civilians were targets was surprising. But these killings continued even after the war, when Franco decided to purge his regime from the opponents, and that was called the â€Å"White Terror†. This war led to division into the Spanish society, which lasted for decades. Spain’s economy was devastated after the war and almost all workers were killed. We will write a custom essay sample on History Essay Spanish Civil War or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Therefore, Spain couldn’t recover for a long time. But the lack of skilled workers wasn’t the only reason of its slow recovery, there was also the fact that infrastructure was hardly destroyed and that the Franco’s policy of autarky stopped any future economy development. The Civil War led to the high inflation, because of the cost of fighting war, and the method to pay that was printing money. Franco’s dictatorship was one of the consequences of the war, and that caused a lot of problems in country. All land reforms made by republicans were cancelled; therefore Spain’s agricultural economy remained inefficient and ineffective. With outbreak of World War II Spain’s economy started improving, because Franco decided to be neutral in this war, but this also brought the continuity of Spain’s isolation. This isolation was result of the Civil War and it lasted until Franco’s death in 1975. Due to the Franco’s regime and his decision of cleaning the country from Republicans, half a million Spaniards went to exile. They included most of the Spanish intellectuals. The main Franco’s aim was to make as biggest division between victors and vanquished ad he could. So, after the war he forbade use of Catalan, Basque and Galician languages and centralised all power in Madrid. Then, Republicans who escaped imprisonment couldn’t find jobs, and were highly discriminated. Division of Spanish society was introduced into the whole segments of living. Therefore no one dared to stand against the Franco’s policy. Based on Spanish isolation and the fact that there was no modernization for 36 years, we can say that Spain was â€Å"frozen in time† during the Franco’s dictatorship. Spanish Civil War had effects on the international level, too. It influenced on some countries and their relations. USSR was one of the countries which were on the republican side, and the Franco’s win had effects on them. The fact that communism was defeated undermined their national credibility. Therefore they lost big number their supporters on the West. USSR came into this war in order to spread communism and to ally with Britain and France against the Nationalism. However, both of these aims were not successful. So Stalin decided to change his policy. He realised that neither the British nor the French were not willing to join against Germany. Because of that, the war pushed him to make a deal with Nazi Germany. The war contributed to the polarization of Europe. Italy drew closer to Germany as a result of the conflict, and Britain and France drew closer together, as well. Italy suffered several military setbacks in a war to which they were committed. This commitment made Italy even more dependent on its one ally, Germany. The cooperation between Germany and Italy destroyed the â€Å"Stresa Front† and reduced chances of stopping Hitler on minimum. Britain and France drew together as a result of their common desire to maintain non-intervention and also through their joint naval program to stop Mediterranean piracy. British and French non-intervention gave courage to Hitler to continue with his plans. Before 1938 he planned to avoid a war and to ally himself with British, but by the time he lost his respect to Britain because of its isolation policy and it made him more aggressive. This war was very useful to Hitler. He reckoned what he shouldn’t and should do and what kind of mistakes he should avoid. Also he learned how importan t air power was and that bombing of civilians was, in some extent, was effective. Hence, it gave him a lot of freedom and self-confidence since Nazi party won the war. The result of the Spanish Civil War was that Britain and France, by drawing closer together, moved further away from Italy and the Soviet Union. Both Italy and to a lesser extent the USSR were subsequently drawn toward Germany. Furthermore, the Spanish Civil War and Britain and Frances Non-Intervention policy led Hitler to begin to believe that he could manipulate the weak democracies to achieve his foreign policy ends. Now it is a question to what extent was the Spanish Civil War a cause of World War II.