Coup
17 July: Melilla
The leader of the plot, Emilio Mola, had ordered the Army of Africa to revolt at 5 a.m. on 18 July, but the plan was discovered by Republican officers of Melilla on 17 July, and the leader of the plot in the city, Colonel Segui, decided to start the rising on Melilla and arrested General Romerales. The rebels seized the radio station and proclaimed the estado de guerra. The Legionnaries, the Regulares, and the Assault Guards in Melilla joined to the rising. Seizing key buildings, they crushed the resistance in the working class quarters. General Romerales, the major of Melilla, the government delegate, the aerodrome commander, Virgilio Leret Ruiz, and all those who resisted the rebellion were shot. When General Morato discovered the rising, he took an airplane to Melilla, but he was arrested by the rebels as soon as he landed.
17 July: Ceuta and Tetuán
Seguí then telephoned Ceuta and Tetuán and sent a telegraph to Franco at Las Palmas. Colonel Juan Yagüe Blanco, with the II Battalion of the Spanish Legion, seized Ceuta while Colonel Saenz de Buruaga, with the V Bandera of the Spanish Legion, took Tetuán.
The rebel troops in Ceuta occupied the working class districts and killed prominent unionists and the major of the city, and in Tetuán, the Foreign Legion seized the Casa del pueblo and executed the union officers and all persons found with arms. Furthermore, Colonel Jan Luis Beigbeder gained the support of the Grand Vizier of Tetuán, Mulay Hassan, and Moroccan volunteers started to join the rebellion.
18 July
In Larache the coup started at two o'clock in the morning of 18 July. Several engagements followed in which five assault guards and two rebel officers were killed, but by dawn the town was in the hands of the rebels. By mid-morning the only remaining centres of resistance were the High Commissioner's residence and the air force base at Tetuán.
The rebels threatened to bomb both and after a few hours the defenders surrendered to the Nationalists; all of them were executed, among them the high commissioner and the Major de la Puente Bahamonde – Francisco Franco's cousin. The same day, the workers of Tetúan and Melilla attempted a general strike, but were crushed by the insurgent troops.
Nationalist repression
On his secret instructions of 30 June for the coup in Morocco, Mola ordered: "to eliminate left-wing elements, communists, anarchists, union members, etc". The same day as the rising all the members of trade unions, left-wing parties, Masonic lodges and anyone known to have voted for the Popular Front were arrested. On the first night, the Nationalists executed 189 civilians and soldiers. On 20 July, the Nationalists opened their first Francoist concentration camp in Melilla.
The Battle of the Ebro was the longest and largest battle of the Spanish Civil War and the greatest, in terms of manpower, logistics and material ever fought on Spanish soil. It took place between July and November 1938, with fighting mainly concentrated in two areas on the lower course of the Ebro River, the Terra Alta comarca of Catalonia, and the Auts area close to Fayón (Faió) in the lower Matarranya, Eastern Lower Aragon. These sparsely populated areas saw the largest array of armies in the war. The battle was disastrous for the Second Spanish Republic, with tens of thousands left dead or wounded and little effect on the advance of the Nationalists.
The Spanish protectorate in Morocco was established on 27 November 1912 by a treaty between France and Spain that converted the Spanish sphere of influence in Morocco into a formal protectorate.
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) broke out with a military uprising in Morocco on July 17, triggered by events in Madrid. Within days, Spain was divided in two: a "Republican" or "Loyalist" Spain consisting of the Second Spanish Republic, and a "Nationalist" Spain under the insurgent generals, and, eventually, under the leadership of General Francisco Franco.
The Army of Africa or Moroccan Army Corps was a field army of the Spanish Army that garrisoned the Spanish protectorate in Morocco from the late 19th century until Morocco's independence in 1956.
The Battle of Badajoz was one of the first major engagements of the Spanish Civil War, resulting in a tactical and strategic Nationalist victory, however at a significant cost in time and troops. After several days of shelling and bombardment, Nationalists stormed the fortified border city of Badajoz on August 14, 1936, cutting off the Spanish Republic from neighbouring Portugal and linking the northern and southern zones of Nationalist control.
The Fuerzas Regulares Indígenas, known simply as the Regulares (Regulars), are volunteer infantry units of the Spanish Army, largely recruited in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Consisting of indigenous infantry and cavalry recruited in Spanish Morocco, forming part of the Army of Africa and officered by Spaniards, these troops played a significant role in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
The siege of Madrid was a two-and-a-half-year siege of the Republican-controlled Spanish capital city of Madrid by the Nationalist armies, under General Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The city, besieged from October 1936, fell to the Nationalist armies on 28 March 1939. The Battle of Madrid in November 1936 saw the most intense fighting in and around the city when the Nationalists made their most determined attempt to take the Republican capital.
Sania Ramel Airport is an airport serving Tétouan, a city in the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region in Morocco. It is also the closest airport to the Spanish city of Ceuta. The airport served over 15,000 passengers in the year 2008.
Jaime I was a Spanish dreadnought battleship, the third and final member of the España class, which included two other ships: España and Alfonso XIII. Named after King James I of Aragon, Jaime I was built in the early 1910s, though her completion was delayed until 1921 owing to a shortage of materials that resulted from the start of World War I the previous year. The class was ordered as part of a naval construction program to rebuild the fleet after the losses of the Spanish–American War in the context of closer Spanish relations with Britain and France. The ships were armed with a main battery of eight 305 mm (12 in) guns and were intended to support the French Navy in the event of a major European war.
The Spanish coup of July 1936 was a nationalist and military uprising that was designed to overthrow the Spanish Second Republic but precipitated the Spanish Civil War; Nationalists fought against Republicans for control of Spain. The coup itself was organised for 18 July 1936, although it started the previous day in Spanish Morocco, and would result in a split of the Spanish military and territorial control, rather than a prompt transfer of power. Although drawn out, the resulting war would ultimately lead to one of its leaders, Francisco Franco, becoming ruler of Spain as a dictator.
The Asturias Offensive was an offensive in Asturias during the Spanish Civil War which lasted from 1 September to 21 October 1937. 45,000 men of the Spanish Republican Army met 90,000 men of the Nationalist forces.
The July 1936 military uprising in Seville was a military uprising in Seville, Spain on 18 July 1936, which contributed to the start of the Spanish Civil War. The 17–18 July coup failed in the Andalusian cities of Malaga, Jaen and Huelva, but succeeded in Cordoba, Granada, Cadiz and in the capital city, Seville. The city's garrison, led by Queipo de Llano, occupied the city and carried out a bloody repression. In August 1936, the Nationalists started their advance towards Madrid from Seville.
The July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona was a military uprising in Barcelona, the capital and largest city of Catalonia, Spain on 19 July 1936 which contributed to the start of the Spanish Civil War. Most of the Spanish Army officers in the city supported the coup, but the Civil Guard, the Assault Guard and the Mossos d'Esquadra remained loyal to the Republican government. Furthermore, Barcelona was one of the strongholds of the anarchist union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). The rebel troops were defeated after one day of bloody combat.
The siege of the Montaña barracks was the two-day siege which marked the initial failure of the July 1936 uprising against the Second Spanish Republic in Madrid, on 18–20 July 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War. The bulk of the security forces in Madrid remained loyal to the government, and supported by workers' militias, crushed the uprising.
The Cartagena uprising took place 4–7 March 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. The troop transport SS Castillo de Olite was sunk during the revolt.
The final offensive of the Spanish Civil War took place between 26 March and 1 April 1939, towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. On 5 March 1939, the Republican Army, led by Colonel Segismundo Casado and the politician Julián Besteiro, rose against the socialist prime minister Juan Negrín, and formed a military junta, the National Defence Council to negotiate a peace deal. Negrín fled to France but the communist troops around Madrid rose against the junta, starting a civil war within the civil war. Casado defeated them and started peace negotiations with the Nationalists. Francisco Franco, however, was prepared to accept only an unconditional surrender. On 26 March, the Nationalists started a general offensive and by 31 March, they controlled all of Spanish territory. Hundreds of thousands of Republicans were arrested and interned in concentration camps.
Antonio Escobar Huerta was a Spanish military officer.
The Levante Offensive, launched near the end of March 1938, was an attempt by Nationalist forces under Francisco Franco to capture the Republican held city of Valencia during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalists occupied the province of Castellón, but the offensive failed due to bad weather and the dogged resistance of the Republican troops at the XYZ defensive line.
The Alhucemas landing was a landing operation which took place on 8 September 1925 at Alhucemas by the Spanish Army and Navy and, in lesser numbers, an allied French naval and aerial contingent, that would put an end to the Rif War. It is considered the first amphibious landing in history involving the use of tanks and massive seaborne air support. Alhucemas is seen as a precursor of the Allied amphibious landings in World War II, and the first successful combined operation of the 20th century.
The Spanish airlift of 1936 was a military operation, carried out by the Nationalists during the early phase of the Spanish Civil War. It did not have any specific code name. Its objective was to bypass the Republican naval blockade of the Strait of Gibraltar and transport by air the soldiers stationed in the Spanish Morocco to the rebel-controlled part of Andalusia. The undertaking was hugely successful; during 85 days between July 19 and October 11 the Nationalists transported at least 14,000 men and at least 270 tons of war materiel. The success was possible thanks to German and Italian assistance, as aircraft sent by Hitler and Mussolini carried most of the troops and equipment. The operation is viewed as innovative, as it was the first ever large-scale military transport by air. Since there was no major Republican counter-action, the airlift was a challenge in terms of logistics and technology rather than combat. The opinion prevailing in historiography is that the airlift was vital for the Nationalists and helped to turn the failed coup into a long-lasting civil war.
Spanish Republic 
