Major General James G. Blunt

Spanish Civil War was one of the Warfare good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones Date Process Result November 1, 2004 Peer review Reviewed March 4, 2006 Good article nominee Listed June 30, 2006 Good article reassessment Delisted September 10, 2011 Good article nominee Listed May 9, 2013 Good article reassessment Kept August 9, 2013 Good article reassessment Kept January 29, 2015 Good article reassessment Kept April 29, 2015 Good article reassessment Delisted May 26, 2020 Good article nominee Not listed Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 28, 2004, March 28, 2005, April 1, 2006, July 17, 2006, July 17, 2007, July 17, 2008, July 17, 2009, July 17, 2010, July 17, 2011, July 17, 2013, and July 18, 2020. Current status: Delisted good article

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Having read the discussion above I wonder whether there is any official WP “policy” or whatever (“guidelines”, “recommendations” etc) as to who should be listed among “leaders and commanders” in infoboxes of articles on wars and battles. Currently the assortment of people listed appears to be a fairly disputable selection to me (as to the point above, I believe Lister should be out). Please let me share my thoughts.

Republicans:

There are obvious must-be people:

• Azaña (president of the Republic)
• Largo Caballero (prime minister)
• Negrin (prime minister)
• Rojo (central military commander)
• Miaja (central military commander)

However, among the rest none appears a must-be:

Also, there are some individuals which might merit consideration as to their place in the infobox, though I would leave them out:

• Giral (prime minister July to Sep 1936)
• Garcia Oliver (Anarchist leader, with major impact, CNT-FAI is listed among "Belligerents")
• Diaz (Communist leader, with major impact)
• Matallana (chief of staff; if Martínez Cabrera is in, Matallano also should be)
• Buiza (commander of Republican navy)
• Hidalgo de Cisneros (commander of Republican air force)
• Castelló Pantoja (minister of war in Giral government)

Nationalists:

Undisputable candidates are few:

• Franco (since Oct 1936 supreme military commander and head of state, de facto leader)
• Queipo (leading southern troops throughout the entire war)
• Mola (leading northern troops from July 1936 till June 1937)
• Davila (leading northern troops from June 1937 till March 1939, minister of war from Jan 1938 onwards)

and now the doubtful ones:

As to individuals who might merit consideration as to their place in the infobox (again, I would leave all of them out):

• NN - chief of General Staff (Jefe de Estado Mayor del Cuartel General - but who was he? have never found out)
• Berti (CTV commander from late 1937 till end of the war, if Roatta and Bastico are in he should be in as well)
• Kindelan (head of Nationalist aviation)
• Moreno Fernandez (head of Nationalist navy)
• Serrano Súñer (key Franco political adviser and to some extent decision-maker, minister of interior Jan 1938 till the end)
• Volkmann (Condor commander, if Sperle is in he should be as well)
• Richthoffen (Condor commander, if Sperle is in he should be as well)
• Orgaz (head of Army of Levant)
• Saliquet (head of Army of Centre, member of Junta de Defensa)
• Ponte (member of Junta de Defensa)
• Gil (member of Junta de Defensa)

In case of both Republicans and Nationalists some names seem derived from "Belligerents" section of the infobox, i.e. the logic being that each "belligerent party" deserves its leader to be listed. First, I do not think so. Then, "belligerents" also contains a fairly nonsensical selection, e.g. there is "Army of Africa" among the Nationalists (what about all other armies, and navy, and airforce) and there is POUM among the Republicans (and PCE, far more important, is missing), let alone that "Germany" and "Italy" are listed among Nationalist belligerents, while the USSR is not listed among the Republican ones. But perhaps targeting the "Belligerents" section is the task to do once we are done with this.

Final general comment: I believe stuffing the infobox with 15 "commanders and leaders" on each side is an overkill. To my taste, 5-6 would be perfectly OK. rgds, --Hh1718 (talk) 13:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Hh1718: Figured this deserved a response, as you've clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it. I don't think having a lot of commanders in the infobox is overkill, as this war is incredibly multi-faceted; neither the Republicans nor the Nationalists were easily reduced to a few commanders, locales or factions. But I do agree that it should probably be trimmed back a bit and I broadly agree with most of the points made here. The only two removals I would disagree with are:

• Agirre: He was a pretty big figure in the Basque country's efforts and the northern front in the war. I think you need some representation of that effort in there, even if not necessarily Agirre himself.
• Durruti: While his scope of action was obviously limited to the beginning of the war, I'd argue his role was an absolutely vital commander in that phase of the war. This was during a period where the Republican state functionally didn't exist and Durruti was one who led the militia system during this time, not to mention his leading role in defeating the coup in Barcelona.

--Grnrchst (talk) 11:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Grnrchst, thanks for your thoughts.

It is perhaps funny, but following one month I got even more restrictive and am leaning towards leaving also Prieto, Casado and Companys out.

As to your comments.

• Aguirre: well, I am sort of incoherent when claiming that Companys should be in but Aguirre out, if we consider that technically, both were leading autonomous governments throughout the entire war (well, Aguirre almost, except the period Jul-Oct 1936). I agree that Aguirre was “a pretty big figure in the Basque country’s efforts”, but my point is that this “Basque country’s efforts” were of little relevance. During 24% of the war duration (8 months out of 33) he was governing public life in 2% of Spanish provinces (1 out of 50); during this period the autonomous political unit he led fielded some 9% of all Republican troops (45,000 men out of 500,000). And afterwards his role was mostly for the propaganda window-dressing: the Republicans needed him to demonstrate to western powers their own diversity and that they were not a wild, revolutionary bunch, as some in the West did believe.

• Durruti. All right, he might have been and probably was “absolutely vital” when it comes to thwarting the military coup in Barcelona, he “led the militia” and so son. This is why he is a must in an article on the July coup. But we are talking about the inbox, which should provide extremely brief basics about the 33-month-long period. If you say that a man who led some 3,000 people during 4 months needs a place in infobox because he was vital for military operations in Catalonia or Madrid, then we should have also Yague, the man who led even more troops during 3-month breakthrough operation across 5 provinces, which was realy vital for tides of the war, as it connected southern and northern parts and brought army of Africa from the Andalusian coastline to the gates of Madrid. And what about Alfonso Beorlegui, the man who during 2 months led few thousand men from Navarre to the Atlantic coast, seized Guipúscoa and cut off the entire Northern Enclave from France, not a minor thing given strategic perspective of war developments. Or Rudolf Freiherr von Moreau, the Nazi officer who was the brain behind German part of the 1936 airlift from Africa to Andalusia. Given Luftwaffe was the key component of the airforce involved and transported most troops, if there is a single man to be credited for this massive operation – which in opinion of the many turned a failed coup into a civil war – it is him. If someone really wants to go bold, he might claim that Yague, Beorlegui or Freiherr changed the course of the war. Also on the Republican side there are men who, in my humble opinion, had more impact than Durruti. What about Ildefonso Puigdendolas, the man who commanded troops which in July 1936 pushed the rebels out of the Guadalajara province, at some points from locations 30 kilometres away from Puerta del Sol in Madrid! And there is José Balibrea Vera, who commanded troops which in late July 1936 seized the entire Albacete province, controlled by the rebels, and this was the largest Republican territorial gain throughout the entire war (forhet the Ebro, Belchite or Brunete offensives, their territorial gains pale in comparison).

All right, I am aware that Aguirre and Durruti are sort of iconic figures for certain sections of the Spanish society. Apart from their actual contribution to the war, I believe this is mostly the result of decade-long Basque-nationalist and Anarchist propaganda.

Anyway, nice to talk to you. Let's see whether there is anyone else interested. Rgds, --Hh1718 (talk) 18:30, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On November 17, 2023, an anonymous user with IP (109.242.250.254) pointing to Greece edited the “Foreign Involvement” section. The edit consisted of moving the “Greece” sub-sub-section from the sub-section “Support for the Republicans” to the newly-created sub-section “Neutrality”. No rationale has been provided either in Comments or in talk page and not a single word has been added to the text.

• First, creating a sub-section “Neutrality” within a section “Foreign Involvement” seems rather dubious to me. If so, I would expect to find chapters about Britain and France, who actively pursued a neutralist policy, though I am still not sure this classifies as “involvement”; to me, it rather seems to be an effort not to get involved and prevent the others from getting involved. Finding just a section on Greece seems totally odd, as among other countries Greece seemed hardly active when pursuing the non-intervention policy.

• Second, the chapter on Greece – which I have written myself down to a single dot, and have placed in the “Support for the Republicans” sub-section – rather clearly demonstrates that in practical terms, the Greek support for the Republicans was far greater than assistance provided to the Nationalists. The data available is for 1937 only, and it is $10.9m worth of supplies to the Republicans and $2.7m to the Nationalists. Moreover, we know about other contracts, signed in 1938, which featured expected deliveries to the Republicans of some $10m (not sure what was actually delivered) and none such info for supplies to the Nationalists. To my reasoning, all this supports the opinion of Greece having been de facto the Republican supporter, even though formally the Athens government declared non-involvement. And if you prefer to take governmental declarations as the key criterion, probably we would have to classify also Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia as “neutrals”.

Placing Greece back in the “Support for the Republicans” sub-section.

rgds, --Hh1718 (talk) 09:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just went through the article and found that we have a fair amount of information cited to Franco: A Personal and Political Biography, a hagiography written by the American historian Stanley G. Payne and Spanish neo-Nazi Jesús Palacios Tapias. While I am not the biggest fan of Payne, I don't doubt the scholarly integrity of his earlier work and think it could contribute to a well-balanced article that gives due weight to different perspectives. But I don't extend the same assumption of good faith to his work with Palacios, which I think is a rather questionable source, to say the least.

The introduction of information from this source has brought in some very dubious claims: i.e. that the Republican Left tried to annul the 1933 election; that Mola had no role in the White Terror; and that Republicans "conducted more indiscriminate air raids on cities and civilian targets than the Nationalists". I have not seen such claims supported in any other source I have available to me, so I worry this amounts to flat-out historical revisionism. I can say for certain that Mola was a chief proponent of the White Terror (see Preston 2006); and I find the suggestion that the Republicans had the capacity to out-do the nationalists on air raids laughable, given the infamously terrible capabilities of the Spanish Republican Air Force (see Beevor 1982).

I have already provided in-text attribution to these claims, but I don't think this goes far enough. Given this would be a bold move, I wanted to bring it up in the talk page to seek consensus first: I think we should remove this source from the article altogether. I don't think it's a remotely reliable source and think this article actively suffers from its inclusion. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The claim that the Republican Left tried to annul the 1933 election is from Payne, not from Palacios, Payne has made this claim in several of his books. See for example "Alcala Zamora and the failure of the Spanish Republic, 1931-1936" [1]. There are other historians making the same claim. Example: Enrique Aguilar Gavilán says that the socialists went even further in their desire to change the election results. Juan Negrín, on behalf of his parliamentary group, urged Mr. Niceto Alcala Zamora, the President, to immediately cancel the election results and form a new government led by left-wing republicans, which would prepare a new electoral law. [2]. Aguilar Gavilan uses the book "Alcalá Zamora, Niceto: Memorias, Barcelona 1977, pp. 258-259" as the primary source. J Pratas (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking into that! I have now removed the dubious tag on that claim, but dubious tags are still in place for the other two claims I mentioned. I'm still inclined towards removing the Payne & Palacios source from the article. --Grnrchst (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Payne's books are major scholarly studies. You can disagree with his often-favorable views of Franco--but that comes from the political viewpoint of bias of the observer. SO let's not call a major book "questionable" because it takes sides in scholarly arguments. Rjensen (talk) 03:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm only questioning the reliability of one specific book, not his entire oeuvre (as I said in my original comment, I think most of his works are valuable). And I'm calling this book questionable because it has introduced some claims I think are dubious into the article. If someone can address these remaining claims, my mind may change. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:02, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I recently left the following note on the talk page of the “July 1936 military uprising in Seville” article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1936_military_uprising_in_Seville

Why "low importance?"

"Why is this article rated of “low importance”? Aside from being thorough and well-written (I made no contribution), as I pointed out years ago on the main Spanish Civil War article, the rebels taking Seville was of critical importance without which the coup might well have failed. Without Seville and its nearby air force base, Franco would have not been able to get his Moroccan army to the mainland as the sea routes were defended by elements of the Spanish Republican Navy which did not join the coup. Originally, the main article stated that at the outset of the coup attempt the rebels seized no major cities (Seville was within the five largest cities in Spain) and I corrected this by writing “with the critical exception of Seville...”

I find this article to be superb, both well written and researched and replete with relevant images. (As stated in my note above, I made no contribution to the article so I’m not patting myself on the back!) The rebels taking Seville was absolutely critical to their ultimate success in the civil war, yet this article is rated as of “low importance” and B-. The first is absurd and the latter unworthy of the effort by editors, to all of whom I would like to express my appreciation for your time and work.

The article gets few views and its talk page virtually none, which is why I am bringing this up here. I’d have to wait until Hades freezes over to expect a response there. Would editors interested in this tragic internecine conflict please consider gathering together to rectify what I consider to be and hope to be an oversight? If any disagree with my assessment of the article, please indicate why. Thanks to all for your consideration.HistoryBuff14 (talk) 15:28, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]