• Huelva

Click here for part one of the Huelva takeover

The Cuenca Minera contained tens of thousands of inhabitants, with approximately 16,700 in Nerva, 11,400 in the municipality of Zalamea la Real, and 10,300 in Minas de Riotinto, with thousands more in Salvochea (El Campillo) and the smaller mining settlements. Population, however, did not translate directly into military strength. Only a fraction of those people were armed, and weapons suitable for stopping organised troops were particularly scarce. A district containing more than 40,000 people could therefore field several hundred men for an attack while possessing only a handful of automatic weapons between them. The failure at El Empalme contributed to a growing debate among the armed organisations in the mining basin over whether their men were more useful remaining in Huelva or attempting to reach larger Republican forces elsewhere. During the following days, groups began preparing to leave. Antonio Molina Vázquez, the twenty-six-year-old CNT secretary in Nerva, was among those who concluded that the district could not be defended indefinitely with the weapons available. His group subsequently left Nerva around the middle of August. Another contingent, predominantly socialist and communist, also departed. Some of these men eventually reached Republican territory around Madrid. But their departure weakened the mining basin at precisely the point when its geographical isolation was becoming more dangerous. Those who remained still had the ability to mobilise hundreds of men, as later fighting at Zalamea la Real would demonstrate, but the pool of experienced armed activists was shrinking.

At the same time, the territory separating the mining towns from the rest of Republican Spain was disappearing. From 14 August, Nationalist forces began moving again through the Sierra north and northeast of the basin. Zufre, a municipality of approximately 3,000 inhabitants, was occupied on 14 August by the Army of Africa who were spreading outwards along their trail of destruction north towards Seville. Higuera de la Sierra, with a population of around 4,000, 11km from Zufre, managed to without forces for about 90 minutes. The Nationalist attackers were reinforced, bringing their strength to more than 600 men. They had a mixture of regulares troops and armed Falangist volunteers as well as machine guns and access to air support.

Aracena 14km northwest was occupied on 18 August. Its municipality contained approximately 7,300 inhabitants and was one of the principal towns of northern Huelva. Fuenteheridos, another 11 km west, was a much smaller community of roughly 1,700, was occupied on the same day. As these towns passed into Nationalist hands, the northern approaches to the mining district became increasingly exposed. The movement produced refugees before the troops themselves reached the Cuenca Minera. Political activists, union members, local officials, and people who feared arrest left communities lying in the path of the advance. Some travelled towards villages that remained Republican; others disappeared into the wooded and mountainous country of the Sierra. Families could become separated as men believed to be in particular danger left first, while wives, children, and elderly relatives remained behind or followed later. Moving north out of the province and into Extremadura would no longer provide safety, as Army of Africa units and locals fascist supporters were shooting refugees on sight.

The fear was based on events already occurring in occupied Huelva too. On 13 August, 30 residents of Palos de la Frontera had been killed together at La Goleta, near La Rábida. Among them was Eduardo Molina Martos, the 38-year-old Republican mayor of Palos. Three days later, on 16 August, another group of prisoners was removed from the neighbouring district around Beas and Trigueros. Beas, with approximately 4,800 inhabitants, had been using its church as a prison. Sixteen men were loaded onto a lorry and taken towards Trigueros just outside Gibraleon, a town of around 7,000 people. The vehicle stopped beside the cemetery, where all sixteen were shot. Among them was Florentino Pérez Caballero, a 47-year-old mill worker and father of three. Later that afternoon, another 19 prisoners were removed and transported towards San Juan del Puerto. They too were executed. The grave at Trigueros would eventually contain at least 42 victims from several communities.

In Rociana del Condado just outside Almonte, José Joaquín Rivera Ramos, 58, a former municipal and rural guard who had served as a socialist councillor, had taken refuge on his property at Las Clavellinas near Almonte. He was discovered there on 16 August and beaten during the roughly 6km journey back towards Rociana, where he was imprisoned in a school being used as a detention centre. He was killed on 19 or 20 August and his body left beside a road. These events were taking place more than 50km from some of the communities now threatened in the Sierra and mining district. Refugees carried accounts with them along with worried railway workers, miners and their relatives, drivers, and families moving between neighbouring communities. By the time Nationalist forces approached the Cuenca Minera, inhabitants had already had weeks in which to hear what had followed occupation elsewhere in the province.

On 20 August, Republican miners made another attempt to stop the Nationalist forces advance in the Sierra, this time in the country between Santa Ana la Real and Almonaster la Real, less than 40km from the Huelva-Extremadura border. It was one of the last substantial efforts to prevent the northern Nationalists force from moving into positions from which it could approach the mining basin. At about 8:30am, an aircraft also attacked the mining town  Salvochea (El Campillo). The municipality had only existed independently since 1931, when it separated from Zalamea la Real, and had taken the name Salvochea in honour of the Cádiz anarchist Fermín Salvochea. Its population was several thousand, many of them dependent directly or indirectly on the surrounding mines. Five people were killed in the bombing, among them was Dolores González Domínguez, a six-month-old baby.

The aircraft then continued the short distance towards Nerva. With approximately 16,700 inhabitants, Nerva was one of the largest towns in Huelva province outside the capital and the largest population centre in the Cuenca Minera. Eight bombs were dropped and twelve people were killed. Women and children formed a substantial proportion of the casualties. Fourteen wounded people were admitted to the hospital operated by the Rio Tinto Company. Families sought places that offered better protection than ordinary houses and mining infrastructure provided an obvious solution. Women and children crowded into tunnels and underground workings, including Tunnel No. 5, while others sheltered in company buildings or left the populated areas.

The following day, La Atalaya, one of the principal mining settlements around Riotinto (La Atalaya, La Naya, Río Tinto-Estación, and  La Mina have since been swallowed by the Riotino mine), was attacked from the air alongside further attacks followed against Salvochea and La Dehesa. Aircraft also machine-gunned people caught outside the towns. The attacks continued while Nationalist forces were moving closer on the ground, more than 600 men were moving through the Sierra north of the mining basin. Another force remained around Valverde del Camino to the south, while armed groups approaching through the neighbouring part of Seville province threatened Nerva from the east. The Republican-controlled district was being compressed from three directions. The mining communities still contained hundreds of armed men, but the situation was very different from the beginning of August. Roads that had previously connected the mining towns with other Republican communities were increasingly passing into Nationalist hands.

The fear was reinforced by events at La Zarza, in the municipality of Calañas, where 36-year-old Domingo Aparicio Sánchez had been hiding in the countryside with two of his brothers. After receiving assurances that they could return safely, the brothers came back and presented themselves to the authorities. Domingo was detained. He spent the night imprisoned in the church at La Zarza and at dawn on 22 August he was taken outside and shot in front of people passing the church. Calañas municipality, which included important mining communities and had a population approaching 12,000, would eventually lose close to 200 people to Nationalist repression over the broader period of the war and its aftermath.

• Seville

On the morning of 20 August 1936, readers of right-wing La Unión in Seville opened their newspaper to find a Spain that appeared to be on the verge of complete Nationalist victory. Six days after the massacre of Badajoz, the paper presented the uprising as an unstoppable movement that had already won the loyalty of most of the country. Government and Republican resistance was portrayed as the desperate work of a tiny criminal minority, while General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano emerged not only as the military commander of Andalucía and the would-be political and moral voice of the Nationalist cause.

Throughout the issue, military reports, speeches, editorials and Queipo’s own radio broadcasts combined to create a single narrative. Nationalist troops were ‘liberators’ rather than an army killing civilians, Republican forces were ‘Marxist hordes’ rather than legitimate soldiers, organisations and everyday people, and every victory was presented as another step in the rebirth of Catholic Spain. At the same time, reports of executions, repression and civilian casualties caused by Nationalist forces in recently occupied territory were absent. Instead, readers encountered a carefully constructed vision of order, faith and inevitable triumph.

Readers opening La Unión on 20 August 1936 were immediately presented with a picture of a war that was all but over. Only a month after the military uprising began, the newspaper insisted that Nationalist victory was no longer a question of possibility but of time. The rebellion had become the legitimate expression of the Spanish nation, while the Republican government was reduced to a desperate regime surviving only through violence and deception.

According to the newspaper, four-fifths of Spain already belonged to the Nationalist movement. Only a fifth of the country remained under what it described as the ‘Soviet tyranny’ of the Azaña government, and even there the overwhelming majority of the population supposedly supported the rebellion in secret. Republican authority was portrayed as resting on a ‘gang of criminals’ who terrorised ordinary Spaniards into submission. The advance of the Army of Africa was presented as the physical proof of this argument. Rather than describing towns as overpowered bv force, the newspaper insisted they had been liberated. Every community reached by Nationalist troops was said to greet them with scenes of overwhelming joy. Men and women embraced soldiers in the streets, church bells rang once more, and people openly celebrated what the paper described as their deliverance from Marxist rule. One of the issue’s most memorable passages declared that occupied towns welcomed the Nationalist forces ‘as a dying man receives life, as a blind man receives light.’ The comparison elevated the military advance beyond an ordinary campaign, presenting it instead as a national and almost spiritual salvation.

Workers occupied a particularly important place within this narrative. Republicans (correctly) portrayed the Nationalists as defenders of landowners, monarchists and the wealthy, yet La Unión now repeatedly referred to ‘honest workers’ and ‘independent workers,’ the everyday people who supposedly rejected Marxism and welcomed the Army. According to the newspaper, labourers did not fear the arrival of Nationalist columns; they celebrated them because they promised work, stability and an end to revolutionary violence. By separating ordinary workers from Marxist leaders, the paper attempted to undermine the Republic’s claim to represent Spain’s working class, the same working class that was being rounded and executed every day by locals right-wing supporters and the army.

The newspaper argued that only one obstacle remained before Spain could finally be reunite; a tiny revolutionary minority that continued to resist. Its language towards this group became increasingly uncompromising, characterised as tyrants who had imposed themselves upon the rest of the nation. The speech declared that this ‘small minority’ had to be eliminated completely so that ‘not a single one of those tyrants survives.’ The conflict was not as a civil war between two competing visions of Spain, but as the final removal of an alien force standing between the Spanish people and national renewal.

Having ‘convinced’ readers that victory was inevitable, La Unión turned its attention to the man who had become the public face of the Nationalist cause in southern Spain. Throughout the issue, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano was presented as far more than the commander of the Army of the South. His nightly broadcasts from Radio Sevilla, reproduced in the newspaper alongside speeches praising his leadership, portrayed him as the political spokesman of the rebellion and one of the architects of the Spain that would emerge after the war.

One of the most revealing articles came from a supporter who admitted that he had once distrusted the general’s politics. Before the uprising, he wrote, ‘Queipo had appeared to be a valuable military officer, but not necessarily someone whose political judgement inspired confidence. Listening to his broadcasts over the previous month had completely changed that opinion. The author openly confessed that he had been mistaken and now regarded Queipo as one of the movement’s clearest political thinkers.’ The article deliberately separated Queipo’s military achievements from his public speeches. It argued that while soldiers could judge his abilities on the battlefield, every Spaniard could judge the ideas expressed over Radio Sevilla. Those broadcasts, it declared, contained ‘the soundest political guidance for tomorrow,’ elevating Queipo from a regional commander into a national figure whose vision should help shape post-war Spain. Religion occupied a central place in this portrayal. The writer praised Queipo for speaking openly about Catholicism, describing his broadcasts as those of a man whose faith was sincere rather than merely political. His defence of the Church, his appeals to religious values, and his repeated references to Spain’s Christian traditions were presented as evidence that the rebellion was more than a military revolt. It was, according to the newspaper, a moral and spiritual crusade to restore the country’s true identity.

The article also highlighted the extraordinary influence Radio Sevilla had acquired during the first month of the war. In areas cut off from Nationalist territory, Queipo’s broadcasts became one of the few regular sources of information. The newspaper claimed they were listened to across Spain, rebroadcast by Portuguese stations, and followed by soldiers and civilians alike. They were credited with maintaining morale, encouraging volunteers, and uniting supporters of the rebellion behind a common purpose. In this account, Queipo was defining how those events should be understood.

His military colleagues received similar praise. Franco, Mola, Varela, Yagüe, Castejón and other senior commanders were celebrated as the generation that had rescued Spain from collapse, ignoring the intense brutality under their command. Yet even among these figures, Queipo occupied a distinctive position. While Franco led armies and Mola directed operations in the north, Queipo was portrayed as the movement’s public voice. Through his broadcasts, readers were told, he explained the meaning of the war, reassured supporters, answered Republican propaganda and outlined the principles upon which the new Spain would be built.

Having established Queipo de Llano as one of the movement’s leading voices, La Unión next sought to define the nature of the war itself. The conflict was not a struggle between two rival governments or competing political visions, as only one side possessed a legitimate army, while the other consisted of violent mobs whose existence threatened the very survival of Spain. The newspaper repeatedly argued that the Nationalists alone represented the true Spanish Army. Professional officers, experienced commanders and the veterans of Morocco were described as having rallied to the rebellion, bringing with them discipline, organisation and military skill. Franco, Mola, Varela, Yagüe, Castejón and numerous other commanders were celebrated as men whose experience guaranteed victory. Their campaigns in North Africa were held up as proof that they possessed the leadership necessary to restore Spain, while their troops were portrayed as disciplined professionals fighting for a national cause rather than personal ambition.

General Emilio Mola’s forces in the north received particular praise. According to the newspaper, he had assembled an army whose organisation, training and equipment rivalled that of the great European armies of the First World War. The implication was that the Republic faced not an isolated military revolt but a unified, modern and highly professional force whose superiority made defeat inevitable. ‘With such commanders, one always triumphs.’

The Republic, by contrast, was denied any military legitimacy, despite being Spain’s official military, run by the Government voted in by the people. Republican soldiers were rarely described as soldiers at all, reduced by use of language intended to strip them of political and moral standing. They became ‘Marxist hordes,’ savages, criminals, gangs of ruffians,’ motivated by hatred and violence. Even where Republican units resisted effectively, La Unión refused to acknowledge them as a professional fighting force. Their successes were dismissed as inventions of Madrid propaganda, while their defeats were presented as proof that armed mobs could never stand against disciplined soldiers. If the Nationalists alone constituted the legitimate Army of Spain, then the Republic ceased to be a lawful government defending itself against rebellion. Instead, it became an illegal regime protected only by armed extremists. Every Nationalist advance could then be portrayed as the restoration of lawful authority rather than the conquest of Spanish territory. It also reinforced one of the newspaper’s recurring arguments that ordinary Spaniards living under Republican rule were captives, waiting to be freed from the control of a violent minority.

The article strengthened this image by praising the contributions of Navarre, whose Carlist volunteers were held up as the ideal example of patriotic sacrifice. The author argued that every province had contributed to the Nationalist cause but claimed that Navarre’s mobilisation had been so extraordinary that, had every other province failed, Navarre alone would have fought to save Spain. The statement reflected the almost mythical status that Navarre had already acquired within Nationalist propaganda only a month after the uprising. The reality was much different; the people of Navarre were living in a state of fear, and within months, thousands would be murdered by the Carlists the article sought to praise.

Another proclamation, directed specifically at workers still living in Republican territory, appealed to them to abandon the Republic before it was too late. The newspaper insisted that they had been deceived by Marxist leaders and that the Nationalist advance had already made further resistance hopeless. Madrid’s broadcasts, readers were told, were nothing more than lies intended to prolong a war that had already been decided. ‘Resistance can never triumph,’ the proclamation declared, urging workers to reject those who had led them into revolution. The invitation to surrender was immediately followed by a warning. Those described as ‘Marxists’ would receive no mercy. ‘We shall have no compassion for the Marxists, because they are enemies of Spain.’ Ordinary workers were presented as misguided Spaniards who could still redeem themselves by abandoning the Republic, while committed Marxists were ‘excluded’ from the national community. Once defined as enemies of Spain, they no longer deserved pity or understanding. The newspaper insisted that civil war demanded exceptional measures, declaring that ‘war is war; even more so a civil war, and above all a class war.’ Republican homes ceased to be homes, becoming ‘lairs’ that had to be entered and destroyed. The repeated injunction to act ‘without pity’ transformed military necessity into moral obligation. Readers were encouraged to believe that compassion itself endangered Spain by allowing its enemies to survive.

To justify this position, the newspaper returned once again to descriptions of Republican violence. It referred to murdered women and children, attacks upon the clergy, torture, desecration of churches and other atrocities that, according to its reports, demonstrated the true nature of Marxism. Whether discussing individual incidents or broader claims about Republican-controlled territory, the conclusion remained the same, that a movement capable of such crimes could not be negotiated with or tolerated. It had to be defeated completely so that Spain might live. The reality of the day, known by people throughout the country, was that Republican violence and damage had been limited, while the systemic murders, rape, seizures, tortures, public humiliation parades and even killing babies had happened in every single location, committed by right-wing forces.

Religion reinforced the message that conflict was portrayed as a battle between Christian civilisation and forces of evil. References to God, the Fatherland and the restoration of Catholic Spain appeared alongside warnings against ‘Russian hordes’ and revolutionary conspiracies. In this moral universe, the Nationalist Army became an instrument of justice, carrying out a necessary task rather than an act of vengeance. Harshness was not presented as cruelty, but as the unavoidable price of national salvation. By linking patriotism, religion and military victory so closely together, La Unión gave its readers a framework through which repression could be understood and accepted. Victory required more than defeating Republican armies. It required the removal of those whom the newspaper repeatedly defined as the enemies of Spain, a goal that justified severity, rejected compromise and left little room for mercy.

No theme occupied more space in La Unión than accounts of alleged Republican atrocities. Page after page, readers were presented with stories of murder, torture, religious persecution and destruction, each reinforcing the newspaper’s central argument that the Nationalist uprising was a necessary response to unprecedented barbarity. Individual reports varied in detail, but together they formed a single, coherent narrative in which Republican-controlled Spain had descended into lawlessness and only the Nationalist Army could restore civilisation.

The newspaper frequently returned to attacks upon the Catholic Church. Priests, bishops and nuns were portrayed as the principal victims of Republican violence, while churches, monasteries and religious images were said to have been deliberately desecrated. One report described the destruction of the Cristo de la Cárcel at Mairena del Alcor, claiming that the painting of Christ had been consumed by flames while its destroyers celebrated with what the paper described as ‘satanic joy.’ The burning of the crucifix was presented not merely as vandalism but as proof of an organised hatred of Christianity itself. Elsewhere, anonymous letters and eyewitness accounts described towns supposedly terrorised by Republican committees. Respectable citizens were said to have been imprisoned without cause, homes looted, businesses plundered and families threatened with execution. The language employed throughout these reports was highly emotional. Republicans were rarely identified by political affiliation alone; instead they became ‘Marxist hordes, criminals,  the Caribs of Marxism,’ expressions intended to portray them as savage outsiders rather than fellow Spaniards. Queipo’s own broadcast expanded these accusations with reports from Málaga claimed that dozens of executions were taking place every day under Republican authority, while stories from Alicante described nuns stripped, paraded through the streets and murdered before churches were desecrated. Particularly graphic was an account from Guadalcanal alleging that fifty-three prisoners had been locked inside the local jail and burned alive as Republican forces retreated. No supporting evidence accompanied these claims; they were presented as established fact and woven into a wider picture of systematic revolutionary terror. In fact, while churches were being stripped of assets, the violence committed was largely confined to local parish priests being imprisoned, and some killed. Crimes against nuns was rare to non-existent, and nowhere in Republic territory were there ever reports of rape, including to independent journalists and visitors to regions.

News from Gibraltar claimed that refugees arriving from Almería described chained prisoners thrown into the sea with stones tied around their necks after being executed by Republican militias. These stories appeared alongside reports from other provinces, creating the impression that similar atrocities were occurring throughout Republican Spain. Every region seemed to provide fresh examples of murder, torture and sacrilege, reinforcing the newspaper’s assertion that Marxism inevitably produced violence wherever it gained power. Military victories were immediately followed by atrocity stories, then by speeches demanding firmness and the restoration of order. The sequence encouraged readers to draw a simple conclusion; if this was what Republican rule looked like, then the advance of the Nationalist Army became morally necessary. Every allegation of murder or desecration strengthened the argument that compromise was impossible and that Spain could only be saved through complete military victory. The only problem was that these horrific tales were not true.

Particular attention was given to the Army of Africa following its capture of Badajoz on 14 August. Commander Antonio Castejón’s column received repeated praise, with the newspaper describing its advance through Extremadura as one of the most remarkable operations of the war. Rather than emphasising individual battles, it celebrated the extraordinary pace of the campaign, claiming that the column’s motorised transport allowed it to cover distances impossible for conventional infantry. According to the report, even foreign military specialists had recognised the speed and efficiency of its advance. Readers were informed that, since the junction of the Nationalist columns at Mérida, the advance had continued rapidly eastwards. Every new position was presented as another indication that organised Republican resistance was collapsing. Little attention was paid to the Republican defensive preparations then taking place around Navalmoral de la Mata and Talavera de la Reina. Instead, the emphasis remained firmly on Nationalist initiative, with the Army choosing when and where to attack while the Republic merely reacted. Though most of Extremadura, the army had encountered militia in small towns that consisted of sometimes no more than a handful of people with ancient handguns. One town had a single defender, drunk and hiding in a tree. These were no crusading military victories, only jumping down on presents. But Queipo continued the impression of his powerful forces during his broadcast. Responding to Republican claims of victories around Navalmoral de la Mata, he mocked Madrid radio for announcing battles in places the Nationalists had not yet reached. ‘We have not arrived there yet,’ he remarked sarcastically, adding that they would do so ‘when we consider it opportune.’ The remark was intended to ridicule Republican communiqués while portraying the Nationalist command as entirely in control of operations.

Reports from the south declared that columns advancing from Seville, Córdoba and Granada had effectively linked together, leaving Málaga isolated as the next major objective. The city was described not as a Republican stronghold but as another centre of ‘Marxist rebellion’ awaiting liberation. Elsewhere, General Emilio Mola’s inspection of Legion units in Zaragoza was reported in ceremonial rather than military terms, with Legionnaires marching through the city while crowds applauded and military bands played. The article celebrated the Legion banner carried from Mérida as a symbol of the growing unity between the Nationalist forces advancing from north and south. Throughout these reports, defeats, delays and casualties were almost entirely absent. Republican resistance appeared fragmented and ineffective, while Nationalist setbacks received little or no attention. Instead, the Army of Africa emerged as a disciplined, modern force moving relentlessly towards Madrid, welcomed wherever it arrived and commanded by experienced officers whose success seemed assured.

The centrepiece of the newspaper remained Queipo de Llano’s nightly broadcast from Radio Sevilla, reproduced almost in full for readers across Andalucía. Unlike the military communiqués published elsewhere in the issue, the broadcast was conversational, sarcastic and often theatrical. Queipo spoke directly to his audience, mocking Republican announcements, ridiculing enemy commanders and presenting himself as the only trustworthy source of information about the war. His broadcasts were intended not merely to report events but to dominate the narrative, encouraging listeners to dismiss everything coming from Madrid as deliberate falsehood. This mixture of attempted humour and certainty became one of Queipo’s most effective propaganda techniques. Instead of angrily denying Republican reports, he frequently treated them as absurd stories unworthy of serious consideration. Republican victories, he insisted, existed only on paper, while Nationalist advances continued uninterrupted. The implication was that listeners no longer needed to compare competing accounts of the war because only one side remained capable of telling the truth.

Queipo also attempted to answer accusations directed against the Army of Africa. Republican sources had reported looting by Moroccan troops and the discovery of valuables on the bodies of dead soldiers. He dismissed these allegations with characteristic confidence, ridiculing claims that rosaries, medals and jewellery supposedly taken from churches or civilians had been found among the fallen. If such evidence existed, he declared, the Republican government should display it publicly. Instead, he argued, the accusations were fabricated as so few Moroccan soldiers had actually been killed.

His discussion of San Sebastián revealed a far more uncompromising side of his rhetoric. Responding to reports that Republican authorities had threatened to execute prisoners if Nationalist naval bombardments continued, Queipo declared that relatives of Republican naval personnel living in San Fernando could themselves be held as hostages. Should prisoners be executed in San Sebastián, he warned, those hostages would answer for it. The statement presented collective reprisals as a legitimate response to Republican actions and demonstrated how quickly the language of retaliation entered his broadcasts.

By the conclusion of the broadcast, Queipo returned once more to the future. Thirty-two of Spain’s fifty provinces, he claimed, were already under Nationalist control. Cartagena was supposedly preparing to abandon the Republic, San Sebastián was nearing capture, and Madrid itself could not hold out much longer. The war, he assured his audience, was rapidly approaching its end. His listeners were left with a simple choice: believe the broadcasts from Madrid or trust the commander whose nightly voice promised that victory was only days away.

The newspaper did not limit itself to describing the destruction of the Republic. Running alongside reports of military victories and denunciations of ‘Marxism’ was an attempt to define the society that would emerge once the war had been won. Readers were told that the Nationalist uprising was restoring the Spain that had existed before July 1936, and creating a stronger, more orderly nation founded upon religion, discipline and social harmony. Agriculture occupied a central place in this vision, the countryside presented as the true heart of Spain, neglected by Republican politicians and exploited by an unjust economic system. According to the newspaper, the farmer carried the burden of feeding the nation while receiving little protection in return. The solution was not revolution or land collectivisation, but the new Nationalist state would provide agricultural credit, public investment and practical assistance to rural communities while preserving social order and private property. Reform would come from the state rather than from political parties or trade unions, meaning the actual workers.

The family received similar attention, with the newspaper focused on stability, moral education and social responsibility. Strong families, obedient children and respect for authority were presented as the foundations of national recovery. Political conflict, readers were told, had fractured Spain because it had undermined these traditional values. Peace could only return once those values had been restored. Women needed to remember their place. Children were given particular prominence, with the future state protecting poor and abandoned children by providing food, medicines and welfare without charge. It declared that ‘the child must be the flower that deserves the greatest protection from the Fatherland.’

Class conflict, one of the defining features of Republican politics in the newspaper’s portrayal, was rejected entirely. The article argued that workers and employers should no longer see themselves as opponents but as members of a single national community united by common interests (with all profits only going to employers). Marxism was described not as a legitimate political movement but as a foreign ideology that had deliberately set Spaniard against Spaniard. Once removed, the natural harmony of Spanish society would supposedly re-emerge, as long as workers and labourers stopped asking for liveable wages and safe conditions, women stopped wanting equal rights, and schools stopped giving children a full education beyond religious instruction.

One of the most striking images published during this period showed Queipo receiving a delegation of women in Seville who presented flowers and gifts in recognition of his leadership. Similar reports appeared throughout August, describing women donating jewellery, gold coins and other valuables ‘for the Army,’ often handing them directly to Queipo himself. The newspaper portrayed these gestures as spontaneous acts of gratitude rather than organised displays, suggesting that the population willingly sacrificed personal possessions to support the Nationalist cause. Donations were accepted by Queipo ‘on behalf of the Army,’ reinforcing his position as both military commander and public representative of the movement. The posed image of these happenings tells a readers just how artificial the story appears.

Queipo de Llano (centre) receiving gifts of ‘adoring’ women, via Galan, La UnionThe war, like divisive politics today, had stripped away any façade of civility. There was  war on, and it was neighbour against neighbour. The class struggle, which had been developing for decades and exploded with the abdication of the monarchy in 1931, meant there was no need for the wealthy, the landowners, the ruling classes to simply abide the population. Now, they had an army that could openly shoot people in the street for being left-wing and poor, and systemic ways of eliminating trade unionists, teachers, factory employees, peasants and agricultural workers and many more from every community. And sadly, the system of death was winning.