The Military Uprising, Social Revolution, and Repression in Both Zones

The military uprising began in the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco on 17 July 1936 and spread to the Iberian Peninsula the following day. General Emilio Mola led the conspiracy as its coordinating 'Director,' while General José Sanjurjo, its designated symbolic leader, died in a plane crash on 20 July; Francisco Franco was transferred from the Canary Islands to Morocco to take command of the Army of Africa. The coup succeeded across much of Castile, Navarre, Galicia, and western Andalusia, but failed in the major industrial cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia, where armed popular resistance proved decisive — in Madrid, militiamen besieged and captured the Montaña barracks, while in Barcelona the CNT-FAI and loyal law-enforcement forces mounted a successful defense. From late July, a German and Italian 'air bridge' ferried the Army of Africa across to the peninsula, transforming a failed coup into a prolonged civil war.