The Nationalist group was supported by a number of conservative groups, including CEDA, monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists, and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party. The government at the time was a coalition of Republicans, supported in the Cortes by communist and socialist parties, under the leadership of centre-left President Manuel Azaña.

The war began after a pronunciamiento (a declaration of military opposition, of revolt) against the Republican government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces, with General Emilio Mola as the primary planner and leader and having General José Sanjurjo as a figurehead. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the ' dress rehearsal' for World War II.

Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the unstable Second Spanish Republic, in alliance with anarchists of the communist and syndicalist variety, fought against an insurrection by the Nationalists, an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives and traditionalists, led by a military group among whom General Francisco Franco soon achieved a preponderant role. The Spanish Civil War ( Spanish: Guerra Civil Española) was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939.

Soviet–British–French Moscow negotiations Apr.–Aug.

Final offensive of the Spanish Civil War Mar.–Apr.

Hungarian invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine Mar.