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-Ethiopian War made Italy confident in its power, Benito Mussolini joined the war to expand the Fascist sphere of influence in the Mediterranean.[1] Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft, tankettes, the Aviazione Legionaria, and the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) to the Nationalist cause.[2] The Royal Italian Navy (Italian: Regia Marina) played a substantial role in the conflict and 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.
The Italians were initially more welcomed by the Nationalists than the Germans due to greater cultural and religious similarity, while Mussolini's regime was seen as a more viable model for Spain than Germany's heavily race-based Nazi dictatorship.[3] However the Italian fascists were critical of what they regarded as the Nationalists more reactionary and clerical character, in contrast to their own ideology which they viewed as modernist and progressive. Italy encouraged Franco to adopt a united, one-party state and offered advice on the Nationalists' potential political structure.[4]
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 and Xàtiva. With a total of 728 raids on Spanish Mediterranean cities, the Aviazione Legionaria dropped 16,558 bombs and inflicted numerous casualties.[5]
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.[6]
In total, Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles. The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 70,000 men and played a decisive role in the conflict; according to the historian Rodrigo Javier "the Italians were crucial to the success of the Rebel army in occupying Málaga, Bermeo, Santander, in breaking through and stabilizing the Aragon front, in the occupation of Barcelona and Girona and in concluding the Levantine campaign".[7][8][2] Mussolini also provided $355 million out of the approximately $645 million of foreign financial aid the Nationalists received, most of which was provided on credit (in contrast, Germany demanded more hard currency and raw materials in exchange for $215 million).[9] A quarter of this was later written off by Mussolini, with the rest of the debt being fully paid in instalments to Italy from 1942 to 1962.[10]
Stanley Payne argues that Mussolini was Franco's strongest foreign supporter and was more committed to achieving a victory for the Nationalists than Hitler; Mussolini invested proportionately more of his national resources into the war compared to Hitler or even compared to Stalin's support for the Republicans. He offered both a greater quantity of soldiers and material, while also not demanding strong economic concessions. Conversely, Hitler viewed Spain largely in practical terms that benefitted Germany, attaching strong economic terms to any aid provisions and was even willing to sell weapons to the Republicans (via Greek intermediaries) to raise additional funds.[11]
^Payne, Stanley G. The Spanish civil war. Cambridge University Press, 2012, pg 134
^Payne, Stanley G. The Spanish civil war. Cambridge University Press, 2012, pg 137
^Heiberg, Morte (2004). Emperadores del Mediterráneo: Franco, Mussolini y la guerra civil española. Barcelona: Crítica. ISBN8484324702; p. 133
^Balfour, Sebastian; Preston, Paul (2009). Spain and the great powers in the twentieth century. London, UK; New York, USA: Routledge. p. 172. ISBN978-0-415-18078-8.
