Fighting for God, for Franco and (most of all) for Themselves: Right-Wing Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

Outside the Iberian Peninsula, many observers saw the Spanish Civil War as the first round in a looming Europe-wide civil war. The belief that the outcome in Spain would influence the larger conflict prompted a number of foreigners to cross the Pyrenees and lend their support either to General Franco and the Nationalists or to the Spanish Republican government. Best-known among these foreign volunteers, and by far the largest in number, were the International Brigades who fought with the Spanish Republic and whose exploits have been studied in great detail.1By contrast, whether in their roles as individuals, ideologues or soldiers, and in relation to their reception within Nationalist Spain, very little has been written about the foreigners who became volunteers for Franco.2 It is these individuals with whom this chapter is concerned.