So real.

This is inside baseball kinda stuff but tbh if you want a real deep dive then, in my opinion, Morocco is kinda the key to understanding the SCW; it’s where the forces that Franco would go on to lead were blooded, it’s where Franco himself cut his teeth and rose to prominence, the Rif War was where the Spanish military would deploy tactics that would then go on to be deployed against the Republican forces (and later across Europe in WWII), and it was also pivotal in the sense that Moroccan troops would enlist in the war (regulares) and served as shock troops and relief forces that made Franco’s forces much more numerous and effective.

It was also pivot point for this chapter of history - a Moroccan delegation sought independence under terms that were very favorable to the republic early in the SCW but the republic turned the offer down to maintain their colonial aspirations. If there was Moroccan independence from Spain at this point, it could have led to:

• An earlier wave of decolonization

• A second front in the SCW that Franco would have fought in order to try and maintain the Spanish colony

• Cutting off the supply of regulares to Franco’s forces (both of which would have significantly weakened Franco’s position)

• Potentially even having Moroccan troops supporting the Republican forces, which could have proved deadly since they actually knew what they were doing with war

Any or all of these could have turned the tide of the civil war. But the European radicals opted to cling to colonialism to their own detriment (a tale as old as time). The fate of the colonized and the fate of the colonizer are inextricably linked and it’s such a shame that this wasn’t recognized.

I understand that the Moroccans were vilified in Spain, both for the Umayyad Caliphate and for the more recent history where Moroccan troops were sent in to break miners’ strikes in the region that would later be incorporated into the republic (Alcora or the Asturias, I forget - geography isn’t my strong point) and the Moroccan troops were really brutal in this, but not on account of their skin color or their religion but instead on account of the demands of the then-Spanish government. I wish there was more solidarity amongst the Spanish people to recognize that their enemy wasn’t the Moroccan people.

Anyway, I’m yapping. Here’s a fascinating scholarly article on the role of Morocco in the SCW. If the SCW was the prelude to WWII then the Rif War was the prelude to the prelude.

You can connect this to Stalin’s attempts to appease Britain and France and his advice to the Republic to not accept the overtures for Moroccan independence, since those were the big players and both had a vested interest in maintaining their colonial empires. Then the through line connects Britain and France’s lack of enforcement of the SCW non-intervention pact to Stalin figuring out which side these two would be on with regard to the nascent fascist forces and him recognizing that the USSR was basically going it alone against Hitler soon. This then leads directly to decisions like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the earlier economic ties between the USSR and Nazi Germany because, imo, it was a strategic and temporary appeasement to buy time as well as a sort of canary in the coalmine to signal when war was coming down the pipeline to the USSR. Michael Jabara Carley is really good for this stuff. He’s written a few books on it including Stalin’s Gambit.

If you want to understand what was influencing the USSR’s perspective and actions in the lead up to WWII then understanding the SCW is foundational. (Personally, I don’t take anyone seriously if they have an opinion about the M-R Pact or similar stuff but they can’t connect it directly to the SCW.)