ABSTRACT
Historians and political scientists have viewed the civil war as a major turning point in Spanish history.2 It was not only a military con ict but also a political, social, ideological and religious confrontation. From its onset the Spanish con ict became an international a air. Hitler and Mussolini openly supported the military rebellion from its very beginning, while Stalin helped the Republicans a er several weeks of hesitation. France and Great Britain tried to keep the Spanish civil strife within the territorial limits of the Peninsula and so promoted a non-interventionist policy that blocked the sale of arms to the Republic, to the despair of democrats all over the world. In Washington the Roosevelt administration simply followed whatever policy London adopted.
