page_title: Spanish Republican Army
section_title: The first years of the Republic (1931–1936)
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish Republican Army / History / The first years of the Republic (1931–1936)
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. This description has been identified as biased or incorrect: Error in caption: This pictures shows a tram in Barcelona, not Madrid. The flag wrapped around the tram is Catalonia's senyera.Revolutionstaumel in der neuen Republik Spanien! Republikanische Studenten und Arbeiter durchfahren auf einer mit den Farben der Republik geschmückten Strassenbahn die Hauptstadt Madrid.
context_page_description: The Spanish Republican Army was the main branch of the Armed Forces of the Second Spanish Republic between 1931 and 1939.
  It became known as People's Army of the Republic after it was reorganized, following the disbandment of the voluntary militias that were formed in July 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
context_section_description: In 1931, following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, the armed forces of the Spanish Kingdom became the Spanish Republican Armed Forces. Admiral Aznar's casual comment: "Do you think it was a little thing what happened yesterday, that Spain went to bed as a monarchy and rose as a republic" became instantly famous, going quickly around Madrid and around Spain, making people accept the fact and setting a more relaxed mood. Republicans within the Spanish Armed forces were then a minority, but so were pro-monarchist reactionaries; the majority within the military were at first indifferent.
  What began to antagonize the Spanish Military against the new government were the reforms of the armed forces introduced by newly nominated Republican Minister of War Manuel Azaña within the first months of the newly installed republic. The officers of the Armed Forces resented that a man without a military background had been appointed to lead the War Ministry.
  Later in October the same year Azaña became Prime Minister and continued the reform of the bloated and old-fashioned military the Republic had inherited. This was seen as a necessary step with the goal to modernize the Spanish Military and cut down the expenses of the state in the aftermath of the Great Depression. In order to implement its reforms the Republican Government promoted to high posts military men that it perceived as loyal. As a result, it tended to display favoritism towards the branches of the Armed Forces more amenable to its reforms, the Air Force and, in a lesser degree, the Navy. Officers such as Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and Ramón Franco with a background in the pro-republican Jaca and Cuatro Vientos-Getafe uprisings during the monarchy rose to high posts for which they were not the most competent. In the same manner Spanish Republican Navy officers who displayed pro-republican fervor were rewarded with political posts.
  On 10 August 1932 a pro-monarchist general, José Sanjurjo, staged a rebellion in Seville against the Republican Government. He led a group of officers opposed to the military reforms, as well as to the policy of granting autonomy to Catalonia and the Basque Country which they resented as an "affront to the unity of Spain". The rebellion failed and became popularly known as La Sanjurjada. General Sanjurjo was subsequently arrested and court-martialed. Initially he was condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment in Dueso. In March 1934 Sanjurjo was granted amnesty by the Lerroux government and went into exile in Estoril, Portugal.
  In July 1936, five years after the proclamation of the republic, a section of the Spanish Republican Army in Spanish Morocco rebelled under the orders of General Franco. Although relatively more successful than the 1932 Sanjurjada, this rebellion succeeded only in fractioning Spain, with roughly half of the territory still loyal to the Republic. Instead of giving up or calling for a compromise, Franco went ahead and began a bloody war of attrition, the Spanish Civil War.
  During the Civil War the part of the army loyal the Spanish republican government was forced to fight against the better equipped fraction of the army in revolt and their powerful Third Reich and Italian Fascist supporters.
caption: 14 April 1931, proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in Barcelona
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