Talk:Spanish Civil War

GA reassessment, March 2015

Spanish Civil War

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Closing as delisted. IsThisUseful, you're complaints about comprehensiveness and relying on one source have been refuted. Keep in mind GA 3a is not on the same level as a featured article's comprehensiveness; I'm assuming the main points have already been touched. However the article is delisted by the points brought on by AnotherClown. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 09:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

The subject of this article is important - the Spanish Civil War - a subject which has been researched by a wide range of academics of varying nationalities. Bonafide copy editors, with the best of intentions, have attempted to extend the article in order to give it a similar length to the very well writen good article in Spanish Wiki. Unfortunately as a result of maintaining the unusually narrow range of sources, the article now appears as though it is the paraphrasing of one main source, Thomas, whose book was written in 1960, though re-published more recently. This article was previously subjected to community assessment for doubtful quality and the view that the article was not of good article class was unanimous on both occaisions. There was not one single view that the article was of good article class. I cannot see that a topic of such importance can have good article status when it relies to such an extent on one source which is out of date. I recommend that this article good article status be withdrawn until it can reflect a similarly broad range of sources as the Spanish wiki article. Translation from Spanish to English has been suggested and a notice has been posted on the Spanish article last year. Similarly the the English article has been tagged for improvement by could also be considered. An editor who has a fascination with war articles has unilaterally promoted the article to good article, though previous discussion indicated that although there were a small number of participants in the discussion, the view was unanaimous.Isthisuseful (talk) 10:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC) Also, I put the article forward for editing in order to bring it up to good article class. An experienced editor took on this task but found the number of sources far too limited and agreed that the article was paraphrasing Thomas. For information the discussion about the article's status took place twice by way of RFC and to be doubly sure that this article is not being unfairly demoted from good article category I will post a further RFC.

A machine translation of the Spanish article is already superior to the current version in English. A page for translation has been created and is being progresssed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Isthisuseful (talk • contribs) 21:00, 2 March 2015

• Comment: G'day, you state that the article was previously subjected to community assessment for doubtful quality and the view was that it was not of good article class. Can you please provide a link to this discussion? The last community GAR that I can find is this one: Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Spanish Civil War/1 from August 2013, where it seems the vote was in favour of keeping. Likewise, could you please specifically state which GA criteria you believe that the article fails? I had a quick look, and from what I can see there appears to be a reasonable number of citations to authors other than just Thomas, for instance Beevor, Alpert, Preston, Jackson, Bieter, Howson, Westwell, Payne, Santos, etc. So at least from my superficial look it appears like the article uses a reasonably broad range of sources (I'm not an expert on the topic, though, but at least from a lay perspective it seems ok to me). Which source from the Spanish article do you think should be added? Finally, please do not cast aspersions about other editors' motives, as it is not conducive to creating a collaborative editing environment. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

→I am sorry that your friend is upset that I have put the article which he promoted to good article forward for community assessment. My understanding is that page is to discuss the merit of the article rather than whether I have done the right thing by asking for community reassessment. I have put my comments on my talk page and I'm happy to have that discussion there. Isthisuseful (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

• Good Article Criteria:

Well-written:

the prose is clear and concise, it respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.[2]

Verifiable with no original research:[3]

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;[4]

all in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;[5] and

it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage:

it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[6] and

it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.[7]

Illustrated, if possible, by images:[8]

images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.[9]

• Reasoning that Good Article Criteria are not met:

Above are the good article criteria as requested. The article reflects an Anglo-Centric view of the Spanish Civil War at time of British raprochment with the dictatorship in Spain in the 1950s & 1960s. This view, which is the view in the two source books which are the primary source of the article, was accepted in Britain in the 1960s but it is no longer current. The article paraphrases Thomas and presents the Spanish Civil war in terms military battles and particular artists that were notable at the time. This creates a very oddly shaped article which is lacking in historical analysis and perspective, in particular the historical causes of the Spanish Civil War, something which is fundamental to historical understanding, are almost ignored. The majority of historical reasearch into the Spanish Civil War has taken place much more recently that the 1960s and 1970s when the dictatorship was still in place. This makes the article out of date and unsuitable for good article status. Isthisuseful (talk) 19:10, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, so to clarify, could you please confirm that you are saying that you believe this article does not pass the "broad in its coverage" and the "neutral" criteria? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time with the repeated assertions that the current article is largely based on Thomas' 1961 book: there are a mere 20 cites to the 1961 book, out of 264 book cites in the whole article. The general assertion that the sources are outdated doesn't seem to hold water either: a quick analysis of the book cites shows that 14% are pre-1990 and 86% post-1990 (by comparison, the Spanish article is 5% pre-1990 and 95% post-1990). I certainly don't see (1) an over-dependence on Thomas 1961 (in fact the Spanish article cites it 11 times), nor (2) a preponderance of aged sources. Can we drop the 'based on Thomas' and 'outdated sources' arguments which don't seem supported by the facts, and instead focus on the quality of the sources and any deficiencies in the content of the article, please? Maralia (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: @Isthisuseful: - you state: "the historical causes of the Spanish Civil War, something which is fundamental to historical understanding, are almost ignored..." The article has a background section which at approx. 800 words is admittedly fairly short; however, it appears summarise what is obviously a fairly broad topic, with more details available in the main article at Background of the Spanish Civil War (4,800 words and currently an GA/A class article). Given the length of the main article (already 130 kb) it seems appropriate to me that it would use summary style in this fashion. However, I am not an expert on this topic so I'm unsure if it is a good summary or not. Perhaps you might explain what is missing from this section that you feel is relevant? Equally, as you seem to be fairly knowledgeable on the topic, might it not just be easier and more productive for you to amend the article yourself and add the information you believe is missing (respecting of course the need to provide references per WP:V and in keeping with WP:UNDUE) rather than continually open GARs? Anotherclown (talk) 08:51, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Further to my last - while I disagree with many of the criticisms levelled at the article by the nominator (specifically coverage), and I agree with Maralia's points IRT sourcing, I do feel that there are a few issues with this article that do require rectification for it to retain its GA status, specifically:

• References - there is quite a large amount of unreferenced text (most of which seems to have recently been tagged by an IP). I've gone through and added citations where I could find them, and this has resulted in some rewording to fit the sources I have available; however, five "citation needed" tags remain and these will need to resolved IOT meet criteria 2b;
• In addition there are a number of inconsistencies evident in referencing style, as well as a few citations which are unclear (e.g. "Thomas. p. 628") which lacks the year of the work therefore making it unclear which long citation it corresponds with (if any); and
• There are some obvious MOS issues, specifically to do with overlinking per WP:REPEATLINK.

• There may be other issues but this is just what I have noticed so far. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be many editors around at the moment that are interested in working on this article I will continue to attempt to work through some of these issues myself, although if others are interested I would welcome their assistance. Unfortunately due to the limited sources I have available to me I would say it is likely I will not able to find all the citations necessary in particular, so unless these are added by someone else this article may indeed need to be delisted. Anotherclown (talk) 02:03, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: I agree that the Spanish version is much more complete, still as of today in November 2018. One of the main areas of concern to me was the lack of assessment of the consequences of the War. I have added a small section dedicated to some of these topics, adding more recent sources from both Spain and the United States. However, I feel the page needs much time and energy put into it to completely change its structure and content. Sections such as "evacuation of children" and "death toll" can surely be incorporated into other broader topics. The current page is very confusing. KGLAP (talk) 10:45, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Countries who supported Franco

They should be put in correct order. Portugal can't I speak for and remains in the middle of the flag-icons. But putting Germany in front of Italy is an historical lie (if it implies that Germany supported Franco more than Mussolini did.)

1. . Franco decalared rather early that he now regarded him self as a "Fascist" (not Nazist). Mussolini gave what I would like to describe true help to Franco (true as without ulterior motives) and it was massive in number of soldiers.
2. . Hitler sooner used the Spanish Civil War to test his own new Wehrmacht. France wanted help with Guernica, but strongly disliked the way the bombardement was carried out. And he never wanted to have anything to do with Hitler after that. (Except some diplomatic meeting, in which Franco told Hitler that he didn't want to join Hitler's war.
3. . In April 1945 did Hitler tell one of Albert Speer's architect collegues that he didn't mind the "Spanish rebels" (something like that) - but he was afraid that Spain would become a USSR Communist bastion if Franco had lost. But he did dislike him (Franco). The Nazi help was neither deciding for the outcome of the war. This is not more stange than Péron in Argentine admired Mussolini (and Franco as well) but disliked Hitler. The same applied for Charles de Gaulle who immidiatly after his resignation as French President, went to Spain in order to pay Franco a visit.

This was pretty much for moving a flag (The svastika is still there). Nazigermany contributed to Franco's war - yes, but not at all as much or as willingly as Mussolini did. I'm against the simplification which suggests "Nazism is a kind of Fascism". I rather see Nazism as the (well known and left-wing sooner than right-wing) British historical author Michael Burleigh writes in his work "The Racial State"

• "The Third Reich was intended to be a racial rather than a class society. This fact in itself makes existing theories, whether based upon modernisation, totalitarianism, or global theories of Fascism, poor heuristic devices for a greater understanding of what was a singular regime without precedent or parallel. (pages 306-307), ISBN 0521398029 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boeing720 (talk • contribs)

What rubbish. Claiming that the NSDAP was "leftist" is an absurd bit of revisionist non-history worthy of the IHR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.12.170 (talk) 21:17, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Which country gave Franco MOST support

The flag icons who supported Franco, should be put in correct order, with Italy in top of the Fascistic side. Portugal can't I speak for and remains in the middle of the flag-icons. But putting Germany in front of Italy is an historical lie (if it implies that Germany supported Franco more than Mussolini did.)

   . Franco decalared rather early that he now regarded him self as a "Fascist" (not Nazist). Mussolini gave what I would like to describe true help to Franco (true as without ulterior motives) and it was massive in number of soldiers.
   . Hitler sooner used the Spanish Civil War to test his own new Wehrmacht. France wanted help with Guernica, but strongly disliked the way the bombardement was carried out. And he never wanted to have anything to do with Hitler after that. (Except some diplomatic meeting, in which Franco told Hitler that he didn't want to join Hitler's war.
   . In April 1945 did Hitler tell one of Albert Speer's architect collegues that he didn't mind the "Spanish rebels" (something like that) - but he was afraid that Spain would become a USSR Communist bastion if Franco had lost. But he did dislike him (Franco). The Nazi help was neither deciding for the outcome of the war. This is not more stange than Péron in Argentine admired Mussolini (and Franco as well) but disliked Hitler. The same applied for Charles de Gaulle who immidiatly after his resignation as French President, went to Spain in order to pay Franco a visit.

This was pretty much for moving a flag (The svastika is still there). Nazigermany contributed to Franco's war - yes, but not at all as much or as willingly as Mussolini did. I'm against the simplification which suggests "Nazism is a kind of Fascism". I rather see Nazism as the (well known and left-wing sooner than right-wing) British historical author Michael Burleigh writes in his work "The Racial State"

   "The Third Reich was intended to be a racial rather than a class society. This fact in itself makes existing theories, whether based upon modernisation, totalitarianism, or global theories of Fascism, poor heuristic devices for a greater understanding of what was a singular regime without precedent or parallel. (pages 306-307), ISBN 0521398029 

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Boeing720 (talk • contribs)

More opinions than facts in some parts of main article 'Spanish Civil War'?

Hello: the groups that headed the army uprising had very little in common to 'Falangists', around February 1936, Falange Española had less than 20'000 affiliates all over Spain, in May 1939, it reached 300'000. Falange disappeared as an actual entity in November 20, 1936, when his founder, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, marquis of Estella (Navarre), born to the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera, who showed in some calls for activities from the then Nazi German embassy, was shot by the republicans in Alicante, where he was under arrest since spring 1936, under the accusation of being 'the intellectual author of the July 18, 1936 uprising'. The Falange and Jose Antonio, and of other victims of republican repression, image and names were later used by Franco for supporting his personal rule, that he had no problem in describing as 'totalitarian' in a public speech, where he compared also his hard exercise of authority to the way communists acted. He found himself with an absolute power when no authority was left, and the state that resulted from 1939 to 1975 was just an scenery and a 'legal clean-up' of this basic fact. The term 'fascism' applied to Spain 1936-1939 may be just a 'leit motiv' from extremists of left, as the fight was between a regular professional army, backed by conservative politicians and bankers, a BP man told after 1976: 'Our man in Spain was Franco', trained during the African war, and loose battalions of fierce radicals with no army training, who sometimes decided in assemblies if they entered or entered not fights.

When the provocations from radical republicans, as burning temples, some coordinated from Madrid's 'Ateneo', increased in number, affiliation to FE raised its pace. The 'Dragon Rapide', hired in GB, started the flight to transport general Franco from the Canary Islands to northern Africa before the conservative politician José Calvo-Sotelo was kidnapped by the government armed police from his home and shot, murder that some pointed decided Franco to join the uprising, a thing he was previously reluctant to do.

The 1936 uprising was organized by generals Sanjurjo and Mola, both died in aviation accidents, no room for thinking that it were sabotages (see: Cronica de la Aviacion Española, Pecker et al), Sanjurjo early in summer 1936, and Mola in 1937. General Franco was elected head of the state and of nationalist armies in October first, 1936, at Burgos. Historians related to the UCM (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) reported having reviewed the 1936 ballot acts, indicated the 'Popular Front' didn't win the election, and fraud was present (source not indicated for safety reasons). It was said also that the deaths of anarchists around July 18 in Zaragoza, were the republican government responsibility or order.

Largo Caballero, who when visiting a Madrid jail and becoming aware of the prisoners who were took to Paracuellos del Jarama and shot, was reported angrily accusing: 'Beasts, savages!: after what you've done here, we've lost the war!', Largo Caballero repeated the same type of action in Barcelona, by killing hundreds of anarchists, later in the course of war. According to col Marimon, historian of aviation, the event that hardened war was the arrival of: 'International Brigades', to which the US government discouraged his people from joining.

The book by Julian Gorkin: 'Spain, first attempt of a popular democracy', reports about the aviation and other weaponry supplies from European nations and USSR to the republican government, and also about the interventions of Stalin to seize the gold of bank of Spain in benefit of his cause. The initial request of general Franco to Hitler, described in the book by Pecker mentioned above, was for transport airplanes, in order to move troops from Africa to the Iberian peninsula, Ju-52 were sent. Even if it's a huge number of deaths, the Gernika bombings didn't reach 400 casualties (Jose Salas-Larrazabal, aeronautical engineer and historian). Most bombings in Gernika took place in the afternoon, when people who attended the market had abandoned the site for the trading activity having concluded. Buenaventura Durruti, who was shot in Madrid a few hours after being interviewed by the USSR filmed news' journalists, (with whose columns Simone Weil stayed for a while, until she burned with a pot of boiling water, and her family arrived to take her back home), was reported ordering in Aragón (see documentary film: 'Aguiluchos de la FAI en tierras de Aragón') the shooting of a 15 year old boy who was caught wearing a Falange identity document. (see: 'Le libertaire', weekly publication printed in Paris). When I have more time and more envy, I'll add more facts, not 'verba'. Does it make sense making agitprop about a war concluded more than 75 years ago, and that from those who saw it, probably none is alive today?. Thanks, regards, + Salut--Caula (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Truth - complexity or honesty?

Now people think complexity is truth, but really it is simple. Desde1931 (talk) 00:34, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Espaina may look madhouse from outside, but it is not (was not) Desde1931 (talk) 00:35, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Hitler lost ONLY IN THE END. Desde1931 (talk) 00:17, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Spanish Civil War Spain did not understand and World did not want to understand. Franco was STAR. Desde1931 (talk) 00:39, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Separate issues, 1. on the article 2. reply on Franco 3. some kind of ideological balance

I think parts of this article appear to be build on some modern "historic" author. I have had a good look in various encyclopedias (all written after this war, from the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1980's and 2000), and the idea of a four month planned coup, is simply not worth anything. But I can certainly imagine there were some hundred plans from various right wing people, of which this author has chosen one. But none of these 100-200 plans or more, had much to to with the actual and final reason for why this war broke out. It was a military coup yes, but not a specific planned coup. Many had reasons to dislike the Second Republic and others had reasons to believe that some kind of Socialism could bring them a better future (just as Leon Blum in France). The entire epoch between the 1929 financial crash (or soon afterwards), and the summer of 1936 was very complicated, turbulent, with a gradual increasing of violence, and just as the left tended to look at the Bolshevist Soviet Union (unknowing of what Stalin was doing, even against his own comrades, at this time), the right looked more and more at Italy and Mussolini's Fascism. (Strongly doubt many looked at Hitler though) And as Calvo Sotelo was assassinated by people close to the government, in order to avenge the (equally mad) murder of a police officer, known for his loyalty towards the Second Republic, did many military high officers arrange a coup. There might have been some preparations done by some of the involved generals, but this "four months of planning" 1. Totally ignores these two murders and 2. Are build on very shaky and new and spectacular "evidences". I think that part ought to be labeled as "a theory or hypothesis" , and our main track should be inline with the well known history.

But about Franco - yes he was indeed a hero for some, but also the total opposite for many others. Through censorship, Fascist propaganda the infamous Guardia Civil (Police) and by not becoming so overwhelmingly impressed by Hitler as Mussolini eventually became - plus time and tourism, could he (presumably) feel pleased with his work, in the end. But the better times would have arrived to Spain also without his outspoken Fascism !

Fascism is different from Nazism. Actually very different. But this wrongful equality (Fascism=Nazism) was supported both officially by Stalin (with exception of the period between August 1939 and June 1941 of course) and this did later perhaps confuse some American soldiers and journalists: "As we are fighting both Germany and Italy, must both be Fascists" (at occasions was a common term kind of called for, I think). But this does most certainly not equal that I mean Fascism was good. I don't. Boeing720 (talk) 00:56, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Franco star means Hitler manager... Desde1931 (talk) 21:21, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

... nobody knows or knew about managers in 1930s Desde1931 (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2017 (UTC)