When the First World War ended, so did Spain’s period of economic growth. (The Law of Jurisdictions was annulled in 1931 with the creation of the short-lived Second Spanish Republic.) Although the Spanish armed forces, weakened by defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, were not strong enough to significantly contribute to the First World War, they had gained control over Spanish freedom of speech and assembly in 1906 under the Law of Jurisdictions. When a revolutionary general strike took place in August 1917, the army brutally repressed it. Both of these unions supported the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War.ĬNT-UGT propaganda from the Spanish Civil War, via El Viejo Topo The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) was a socialist trade union, while the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (CNT) was anarchist-syndicalist. In 1916, the two main organizations of the still-immature workers’ movement in Spain demanded an efficient political response to the rising cost of living and the scarcity of foodstuffs for the average Spanish worker. The more heavily agricultural regions in the center and south suffered from a profound economic crisis.
However, these profits were largely concentrated in the hands of a few social groups in the north and northeast of Spain. During the war, Spain also saw sudden and unexpected economic growth due to higher demand for Spanish exports and fewer manufactured goods available to import.
This was partly because of the weaker constitutional character of the Spanish government. Those who supported the Allies tended to be middle-class professionals and the petty bourgeoisie, anti-clerical groups, republicans, liberals, Catalan nationalists, and most intellectuals.ĭuring the First World War, Spain’s King Alfonso XIII intervened in foreign and domestic policy much more than occurred in other European constitutional monarchies. Many of those who supported Germany were defenders of the traditional order: the aristocracy, the Roman Catholic Church, the military, and right-wing political parties. While Spain remained officially neutral during the First World War, many in Spanish society favored one side over the other. Themes of the Spanish Civil War Evident During the First World War “In the Face of the European War: Spain’s Neutrality” poster, via
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