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Last Crusade: Spain 1936

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Living in Spain, I learned more from this book than from any other book written about the Spanish Civil War. Simple and direct, this book tells the real story. Anyone trying to feel and understand the mood of those times in Spain will simply have to read it. Gripping and enlightning.

Dr. Carroll's book is particularly enlightening on the zeitgeist of Spanish culture that led to Franco Nationalism. This is quite in contrast to the conventional wisdom about Franco and the Catholic Church during this period. As recently as The New York Times A.P. report on the Pope's recent visit to Spain (related to the beatification of some of the 1936 martyrs), the revolution is ideologically rewritten to suit leftist revisionism. The order of events is, for instance, characteristically jumbled to suggest the Church was attacked BECAUSE of Franco; while Dr. Carroll's scrupulous work shows that, without question, the pogrom against the Catholic Church by a coalition of anarchists, socialists, communists and other indifferent leftists began long before the Carlists and other traditionalists struck back in defense of their faith. And, in Times fashion, Franco's "fascism" is questioned, without any mention of the Communist puppet regime Spain was becoming, even though the Spanish national treasury was looted and sent directly to Moscow, where Stalin bragged that the Spanish would have as much chance of seeing their gold again as a man has of seeing his own ears. This information is a fascinating rejoinder to histories that insist that on a simplistic view of a complex revolution.

Initially, I must alert that this book is not a detailed analisys of the spanish civil war, but a sum of the main events occured during the first half year of that same war - July to December 1936 - from the traditionalist roman catholic point of view shared by the author - Warren Carroll. Telling no falsities, the book sometimes falls in excessive simplifications like overemphasizing the role of the Carlist Militia, a traditionalist catholic guerrilla group that roots his origins in the 19th century, or ridiculously presenting José António's Falange almost as a group of modern hooligans. Really, Falange was an antimarxist, antiliberal and antiparty system political association, deeply influenced by Catholic Church's Social Doctrine, but not possessing the old fashioned "patine" typical of the Carlist Militia.

Nevertheless, Warren Carroll's book has two great and essential points:

1º) Remembers that the second Spanish Republic drove Spain to the chaos, leaving the real political power fall in the streets to be exercised, summarily, by communist and anarchist mobs (by the end of 1936, communists took complete control over the republic, now totally dependent on Stalin's U.S.S.R. economic and military aid, President Manuel Azaña being no more than a Moscow's puppet;

2º) Very especially, relates the brutal religious persecution moved in that same period by those communists and anarchists against the Catholic Church, one of the major causes to understand the 18th July 1936 nationalist sublevation (13 bishops and 10.000 priests were cold bloodly murdered in one of the worst 20th century's religious persecutions).

I never had thought highly of Francisco Franco until I read this book, along with Paul Preston's biography. I now realize that Franco was, indeed, a crusader; the last of his kind. Unlike the truly diabolical European dictators, such as Hitler or Stalin, General Franco was not fighting a perceived enemy, but a real and evil one. This book explains exactly why this enemy needed getting rid of.

The Last Crusade tells in compelling language an aspect of the Spanish Civil War ignored in too many other histories: the murderous persecution of the Catholic Church in Republican Spain. As this volume makes clear, the persecution of the Church in the Republic allowed the Nationalists to place about their cause the mantle of a Crusade. This was probably the decisive factor in the ultimate outcome of the War. Faithful Catholics, outside of the areas controlled by the Basques, had no choice but to flock to the Nationalist standard and to fight a Republican regime that had allowed their churches to be burned, and their priests, nuns and brothers to be slaughtered. While not whitewashing the atrocities committed by the Nationalists, the author shines a spotlight on the acts of barbarity committed in the name of the Republic which in too many other histories have been ignored or even excused. For anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, and especially for a searching analysis of why the Nationalists won, this book cannot be recommended too highly.

The Spanish Civil War seems to be one of the best kept secrets of the 20th century. This book is excellently written and quite easy to read and understand. Most Americans don't have a clue as to what happened in this war. They don't know about Stalin's participation and International Communism's role in sending volunteers to Spain. The one thing absent from the book was the fact about the United States participation by sending young student Communists in the Abraham Lincoln Batallion to Spain-2800 were sent and 900 died. (from Encyclopedia Britannica CD)

We now hear about "ethnic cleansing" but we haven't heard about the slaughter of over 6000 priests and nuns in Spain in 1936. We have heard about Franco as a dictator but we haven't heard about how he saved Spain from the Bolsheviks.

George W. Merkle, M.D.

An excellent book. You did not learn any of these facts in your history class. However, this is truly history. I am still searching for something that ties the whole attack on the Church during the last 500 years in philosophical terms. The closest has been Belloc. Enjoy the book, it is worth every cent.

A rare work. Few indeed are the serious historians who are willing to take a truly fair approach to this topic, as Dr. Carroll has done here. Provides interesting insights and views which are inexplicably ignored in the vast majority of works on the Spanish Civil War. This conflict has been so twisted in modern research that it is difficult to get a clear picture of what actually occurred in 1930s Spain. Dr. Carroll's work lifts some of the fog. I recommend this book to anyone who is a serious student of Spain or the time period. Essential for getting a balanced picture of the conflict and Franco.

An excellent history of the early days of the Spanish Civil War and the atrocities committed by the Republican forces. A must for any balanced history of the era.

What legitimacy does a government have when it does not protect its citizens? The Spanish governments looked the other way while the socialist hordes destroyed churches and killed members of the clergy freely since 1931.

"July 24 1936, three Discalced Carmelite sisters (the order founded by St. Teresa of Ávila) were recognized by militia in a Madrid street ... 'Nuns! Shoot them!' one of the militiamen cried. They opened fire at once on the helpless women, killing one instantly and severely wounding another." Then an Assault Guard appeared and stopped a bus to take the wounded nun to the hospital... "Give her here and I'll finish her off!" cried the bus driver. "The third nun escaped for the moment ... and was eventually accosted by a man who pretended to want to help her, but turned her over to another group of militia who shot her also before the day was done."

The book is filled with well documented and horrifying stories like this one. These are common street people, not SS nazi officers. It leaves one speechless wondering what kind of evil must have possessed these people to hate innocent nuns and priests (Christ) so much.

This book is very important because these facts are not as well known as they should. Here the crimes committed against Christians by the hound dogs of the Left since 1931 are condensed and made self-evident. There are no excuses, no attempts to underscore the barbarity committed by the hordes of the self-righteous Left. A must read, specially for those who say they like to read both sides of the story. Well, here's the side you couldn't find (or could you?).

Mr. Carroll does well in finding the first symptoms of the Spanish malady in the 20th century in the effects of 98: the ignominious way we lost the remnants of the Spanish empire. After 1898 "large segments of Spanish society were alienated from the national heritage." `98 was not the cause of our (still present) malady, this must be clear, it was the signal to start shooting, that things couldn't go any worse, and that it was time for the wackiest Spaniards to take control. Exacerbated local nationalisms, loss of prestige of a national identity, political extremism (influence of foreign fascism & communism), all colluded to get us into the Civil War and beyond.

This is a succinct study, from a Catholic (or religious if you may) perspective, focusing on the victims of anti-religious hatred, martyrs of the Cross, people who still in 2007 haven't been honored or recognized, but are kept aside of most leftist history books.

Facts and figures. Nobody can deny them. Here they are exposed in a clear and succinct way for everyone to check out, if they want to look into it. There are two points that need updating on this book, though. One is that the death of anarchist Durruti is mostly agreed today to have been ordered by Stalin and committed by one his loyal henchman. The second is that Negrín was indeed a undercover Stalinist agent, a fact that nobody can deny today. His theft of the Spanish gold reserves, and their subsequent delivery to Moscow, plus his replacement of Largo Caballero as Prime Minister, ordered by Stalin as well had, indeed, no other explanation. Largo, fanatic as he was, would not murder his anarchist allies, but Negrín would prove a more obedient employee.

"Socialists and anarchists never tired of painting the clergy as hirelings of the rich "upper classes", though in fact most priests received little more money than their parishioners and most religious lived in near poverty ... many people still believed the socialist and anarchist charges." It's sad that one has to try to convince people that the accusations of the Left were not true. If they were, would the burning of churches and the killing of priests and nuns be more tolerable? The official break of the Civil War was in July 36, but for the victims of the Left it had started in May 1931: "About a hundred churches and other religious buildings were destroyed or damaged throughout Spain." The president of the government was opposed to stop these actions: "all the conventos in Spain are not worth the life of a single republican", he said. The socialists, anarchists and communists did not hide their totalitarian aspirations of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. They publicly vowed they would do it. They had already started in 31. The government never impeded their revolutionary actions. The strategy was to create chaos, destroy, and use the democratic system to gain control and destroy Spain from within. Today it's the same. We have illegal political parties: A republican and pro-independence Catalan party allied with the socialist government -in a constitutionally Monarchical nation; again, the socialist government negotiating with another illegal (& pro-terrorist Basque) party. Why? To hurt the Right's chances to ever win any more elections (like the PRI did in Mexico for 75 years). Spain's allies in foreign policy are, oh my!, countries well known for their love of democracy and freedom, and incorruptibility: Cuba, Venezuela, Morocco... Spain is the laughing stock of the West. No wonder.

Today's Socialist government wants to erase all memory of the crimes committed by their fanatical hordes from our text books and media. They try, and have succeded, to appear as innocent victims. But hatred gives them up. They are the children of Satan.