Italian military intervention in Spain

The Italian military intervention in Spain took place during the Spanish Civil War in order to support the nationalist cause against the Second Spanish Republic. As the conquest of Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War made Italy confident in its power, Benito Mussolini joined the war to secure Fascist control of the Mediterranean.[1] The Royal Italian Navy (Italian: Regia Marina) played a substantial role in the Mediterranean blockade, and ultimately Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft, tankettes, the Aviazione Legionaria, and the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) to the Nationalist cause.[2] The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 70,000 men.[2] Italian warships took part in breaking the Republican navy's blockade of Nationalist-held Spanish Morocco and took part in naval bombardment of Republican-held Málaga, Valencia, and Barcelona.

Italian military intervention in Spain
Part of the Spanish Civil War
Republican poster, reading "The claw of the Italian invader intends to enslave us."
Location
Spain
ObjectiveAssist Nationalist forces
Date1936–39
Executed by Italy
OutcomeSuccessful operation:

In 1938 Italian planes carried out most of the large-scale bombing operations, striking the cities of Barcelona, Alicante, Granollers, and Valencia, as well as the railway stations of Sant Vicenç de Calders in 1938 and Xàtiva in 1939. With a total of 728 raids on Spanish Mediterranean cities, the Aviazione Legionaria dropped 16,558 bombs and inflicted numerous casualties.[3] By the end of the conflict the Aviazione Legionaria had logged a total of 135,265 hours' flying time on 5,318 operations, dropping 11,524 tons of bombs and destroying 943 enemy air units and 224 ships.[4] In total, Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles.[5]

See also

References
  1. Beevor (2006). pp. 135–6.
  2. Beevor (2006). p. 199.
  3. Heiberg, Morte (2004). Emperadores del Mediterráneo: Franco, Mussolini y la guerra civil española. Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN 8484324702; p. 133
  4. Balfour, Sebastian; Preston, Paul (2009). Spain and the great powers in the twentieth century. London, UK; New York, USA: Routledge. p. 172. ISBN 978-0-415-18078-8.
  5. Thomas (2001). pp. 938–939.
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