Spanish coup of July 1936 The Spanish coup of July 1936 fractured the Spanish Republican Armed Forces and marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War . Following a period of troubles in the Second Spanish Republic , a group of officers attempted to overthrow the democratic government in a military coup . Planning started in early 1936 , and the coup was launched on 17 and 18 July . The coup failed to take complete control of the country and civil war ensued . Control of the Spanish government switched radically over the three elections of 1931 , 1933 , and 1936 . Rightists considered the leftist government elected in 1931 disastrous , and rolled back many of its changes after their electoral victory in 1933 . Both left - wing parties like the Socialist Party and right - wing groups like Carlists , Alfonsist monarchist s , and the Fascist Falange Española became more extreme , and open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities . Elections in 1936 were narrowly won by the leftist Popular Front . The rightist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right ( CEDA ) turned its campaign chest over to army plotter Emilio Mola , and the Falange expanded massively . Several rightist generals began plotting a coup in the spring of 1936 . General José Sanjurjo became the coup ' s figurehead , supported by Generals Francisco Franco , Manuel Goded , and Emilio Mola . The republican government attempted to remove generals of suspect loyalties and some were sent to less important areas ; this did not prove as effective as hoped by the Republic . Prime Minister Casares Quiroga refused to believe warnings of an upcoming coup . On 12 July , members of the Falange murdered the Socialist Lieutenant José Castillo . Assault Guards arrested José Calvo Sotelo , a leading Spanish monarchist , who was shot by the Guards without trial . The event provided a catalyst and convenient public justification for the coup . The men in Spanish Morocco were to rise up early on 18 July , and those in Spain itself starting a day later . The rebels termed themselves " Nacionales " ( normally translated " Nationalists " ) . After Prime Minister Quiroga refused offers of help from the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( CNT ) and Unión General de Trabajadores ( UGT ) , the groups proclaimed a general strike , in effect mobilising . The rising was intended to be swift , but the government retained control of most of the country including Málaga , Jaén and Almería . Cadiz was taken for the rebels and General Queipo de Llano managed to secure Seville . In Madrid , the rebels were hemmed into the Montaña barracks , which fell with much bloodshed . Prime Minister José Giral ordered the distribution of weapons among the population , helping to defeat the rebels in Madrid , Barcelona , and Valencia ; however , it allowed the anarchists to take control of large parts of Aragon and Catalonia . Rebel General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death . The rebels had secured the support of around half of Spain ' s Peninsular army , some 60 , 000 men , and all of the 35 , 000 - strong Army of Africa . The Army of Africa was Spain ' s most professional and effective military force . The government retained less than half the supply of rifles , heavy and light machine guns and artillery pieces . Both sides had few tanks and outdated aircraft , and naval capacity was fairly even . Officers ' defections weakened Republican units of all types . Background . Following the elections of November 1933 , Spain entered a period called the " black two years " ( ) . Both Carlists and Alfonsist monarchist s continued to prepare , receiving the backing of Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini . José - María Gil - Robles struggled to control the CEDA ' s youth wing , which copied Germany ' s and Italy ' s youth movements . Monarchists , however , turned their attention to the Fascist Falange Española , under the leadership of José Antonio Primo de Rivera . Open violence occurred in the streets of Spanish cities . Gil - Robles ' CEDA continued to mimic the German Nazi Party , staging a rally in March 1934 . Gil Robles used an anti - strike law to successfully provoke and break up unions one at a time . Efforts to remove local councils from socialist control prompted a general strike , which was brutally put down , with the arrest of four deputies and other significant breaches of articles 55 and 56 of the constitution . On 26 September , the CEDA announced it would no longer support the Radical Republican Party ' s minority government ; it was replaced by an RRP cabinet that included three members of the CEDA . A UGT general strike was unsuccessful in most of Spain . General Francisco Franco was put in informal command of the military effort against the revolt in Asturias , the only place it had succeeded . Around 30 , 000 workers had been called to arms in ten days . Franco ' s men , some brought in from Spain ' s Army of Africa , acted horrifically , killing men , women and children , and carrying out summary executions when the main cities of Asturias had been retaken . About 1 , 000 workers were killed , and about 250 government soldiers . In aligning the political right with the military , and the left with purely legal means , it marked the effective end of the republic . Months of retaliation and repression followed ; torture was used on political prisoners . The two generals in charge of the campaign , Franco and Manuel Goded Llopis , were seen as heroes . Gil - Robles once again prompted a cabinet collapse , and five members of Lerroux ' s new government were conceded to CEDA . The military was purged of Republicanist members and reformed ; those loyal to Gil - Robles were promoted – Franco was made Chief of Staff . Elections in 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front . The right began to conspire as to how to best overthrow the republic , rather than taking control of it . The government was weak , and Azaña led a minority government . Pacification and reconciliation would have been a huge task . Acts of violence and reprisals spiralled . In April , parliament replaced Zamora with Azaña as president . However , Azaña was increasingly isolated from everyday politics ; his replacement , Casares Quiroga , was weak . This was a watershed event which inspired conservatives to give up on parliamentary politics . CEDA turned its campaign chest over to army plotter Emilio Mola . Monarchist José Calvo Sotelo replaced CEDA ' s Gil - Robles as the right ' s leading spokesman in Parliament . Prieto did his best to avoid revolution , promoting a series of public works and civil order reforms , including parts of the military and civil guard . Communists quickly took over the ranks of socialist organisations , scaring the middle classes . Several generals decided that the government had to be replaced if the dissolution of Spain was to be prevented . They held a contempt for professional politicians . Preparations . The republican government had been attempting to remove suspect generals from their posts , and so Franco was sacked as chief of staff and transferred to command of the Canary islands . Goded was sacked as Inspector General and made general of the Balearic islands ; Emilio Mola was moved from head of the Army of Africa to be military commander of Pamplona in Navarre . However , this allowed Mola to direct the mainland uprising , although the relationship between him and Carlist leaders was problematic . General José Sanjurjo became the figurehead of the operation , and helped to come to an agreement with the Carlists . Mola was chief planner and second in command . José Antonio Primo de Rivera was put in prison in mid - March in order to restrict the Falange . However , government actions were not as thorough as they might have been : warnings by the Director of Security and other figures were not acted upon . On 12 June , Prime Minister Casares Quiroga met General Juan Yagüe , who was rightly accused of masterminding the growing conspiracy in North Africa , but Yagüe managed to convince Casares of his loyalty to the republic . Mola held a meeting between garrison commanders in the north of Spain on 15 June , and local authorities , on hearing of the meeting , surrounded it with Civil Guards . However , Casares ordered their removal , saying he trusted Mola . Mola began serious planning in the spring , but General Francisco Franco hesitated until early July , inspiring other plotters to refer to him as " Miss Canary Islands 1936 " . Franco was a key player because of his prestige as a former director of the military academy and as the man who suppressed the Socialist uprising of 1934 . He was well respected in the Spanish Moroccan Army , Spain ' s strongest military force . He wrote a cryptic letter to Casares on 23 June , suggesting that the military was disloyal , but could be restrained if he were put in charge . Casares did nothing , failing to arrest or buy off Franco , even if placing him in overall command was impossible . Franco was to be assigned control of Morocco in the new regime , and largely sidelined . On July 5 , an aircraft was chartered to take Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco . It arrived on July 14 . Murder of Calvo Sotelo . On 12 July 1936 , in Madrid , members of the Falange murdered Lieutenant José Castillo of the Assault Guards police force . Castillo was a member of the Socialist party . The next day , members of the Assault Guards arrested José Calvo Sotelo , a leading Spanish monarchist and a prominent parliamentary conservative ; the original target was Gil Robles but he could not be found . Calvo Sotelo had protested against agricultural reforms , expropriations , and restrictions on the authority of the Catholic Church , which he considered Bolshevist and anarchist . He instead advocated the creation of a corporative state . Calvo Sotelo was shot by the Guards without trial . The killing of Sotelo , a prominent member of Parliament , with involvement of the police , aroused suspicions and strong reactions among the government ' s opponents on the right . Massive reprisals followed . Although the conservative Nationalist generals were already in advanced stages of a planned uprising , the event provided a catalyst and convenient public justification for their coup , and in particular that Spain would have to be saved from anarchy by military rather than democratic means . The Socialists and Communists ( lead by Prieto ) demanded that arms be distributed to the people , before the military took over . The Prime Minister was hesitant . Franco ' s plane landed in Gran Canaria on July 14 , but , based in Tenerife , he would have been unable to make the plane without the death of General Amado Balmes , military commander in Gran Canaria , who was killed in a shooting accident on July 16 . Whether his death was an accident , suicide , or murder is unknown . Beginning of the coup . The uprising ' s timing was fixed at 17 July , at 5 : 00 p . m . ; this was agreed to by the leader of the Carlists , Manuel Fal Conde . However , the timing was changed : the men in Spanish Morocco were to rise up at 5 : 00 a . m . and those in Spain itself starting exactly a day later , so control of Spanish Morocco could be achieved and forces sent to Iberia from Morocco to coincide with the risings there . The rising was intended to be a swift coup d ' état , but the government retained control of most of the country . Control in Spanish Morocco was all but certain ; many of the soldiers acted as mercenaries and the vast majority of officers backed the rebel cause . Those recruited from the local populace were predominantly Muslim and were told that the Republic wished to abolish Allah . The plan was discovered in Morocco during 17 July , which prompted it to be enacted immediately . By the scheduled time , Spanish Morocco had already been secured as legionnaires moved in working - class areas and shot unionists and loyalist generals . Little resistance was encountered ; in total , 189 people were shot by the rebels . Goded and Franco immediately took control of the islands to which they were assigned . Warned that a coup was imminent , leftists barricaded the roads on 17 July , but Franco avoided capture by taking a tugboat to the airport . On 18 July , Casares Quiroga refused an offer of help from the CNT and UGT , proclaiming that nowhere outside Spanish Morocco had joined the rebels and that the populace should trust legal methods to deal with the uprising . Handing out weapons would be illegal . The CNT and UGT proclaimed a general strike , in effect mobilising . They opened weapons caches , some buried since the 1934 risings . The paramilitary forces , better trained than the army , often waited to see the outcome of militia action before either joining or suppressing the rebellion . Quick action by either the rebels or anarchist militias was often enough to decide the fate of a town . General Queipo de Llano managed to secure Seville for the rebels , arresting a number of other officers . Outcome . The rebels failed to take any major cities with the critical exception of Seville which provided a landing point for Franco ’ s African troops . The primarily conservative and Catholic areas of Old Castile and León fell quickly , and in Pamplona they celebrated the uprising as if it were a festival . The government retained control of Málaga , Jaén and Almería . Cadiz was taken for the rebels with the help of the first troops from the Army of Africa . In Madrid they were hemmed into the Montaña barracks . The barracks fell the next day , with much bloodshed . Republican leader Santiago Casares Quiroga was replaced by José Giral who ordered the distribution of weapons among the civilian population . This facilitated the defeat of the army insurrection in the main industrial centres , including Madrid , Barcelona , Valencia and other main cities in the Mediterranean area , but it allowed the anarchists to arm themselves and take control of Barcelona and large swathes of Aragon and Catalonia . In Barcelona , the official government lost control of security , essential services and welfare . However , the anarchists held back from demanding too much political power , which could have had even more serious consequences . General Goded surrendered in Barcelona and was later condemned to death , despite broadcasting a message explaining his captivity over the radio at the request of the authorities . Meanwhile the Army of Africa crossed the Gibraltar Strait and met General Queipo de Llano ' s forces in Seville . Their quick movement allowed them to meet General Mola ' s Northern Army and secure most of northern and northwestern Spain , as well as central and western Andalusia . The Republican Government ended up with controlling almost all of the Eastern Spanish coast and central area around Madrid , as well as Asturias , Cantabria and part of the Basque Country in the north . Mola was keen to create a sense of fear within Nationalist - controlled areas . There was a massive purge of freemasons , and a wide part of the left , including some moderate socialists . The rebels termed themselves " Nacionales " , normally translated as " Nationalists " , although the former implies " true Spaniards " rather than a pure nationalistic cause . The result of the coup was a Nationalist area of control containing 11 million of Spain ' s population of 25 million . The Nationalists had secured the support of around half of Spain ' s territorial army , some 60 , 000 men . In Republican units , however , as much as 90 % of officers either rebelled , defected or merely disappeared ; some would later turn up in Nationalist ranks . This considerably reduced the units ' effectiveness as a new command structure had to be fashioned . No such problem occurred in Nationalist units . The Army of Africa , however , was entirely under Nationalist control , and was made of 35 , 000 men considered Spain ' s top fighting force . The rebels were also joined by 30 , 000 members of Spain ' s militarized police forces , the Assault Guards , the Civil Guards , and the Carabineers . 50 , 000 members of the latter stayed loyal to the government . Of 500 , 000 rifles , around 200 , 000 were retained by the government . 65 , 000 were issued to the Madrid populace in the days following the uprising – of these , only 7 , 000 were usable . 70 , 000 or so were lost following early Nationalist advances in the war . Republicans controlled about a third of both heavy and light machine guns ; of 1 , 007 artillery pieces , 387 were in Republican hands . The Spanish Army had , before the coup , just 18 tanks of a sufficiently modern design , and the Republicans retained 10 . In terms of numbers , the Nationalists had seized control of 17 warships , leaving the Republicans with 27 . However , the two most modern ( both cruiser s of the " Canarias " class ) were in Nationalist hands ; although not ready for service when the war broke out , when launched they compensated for the lack in numbers . The Spanish Republican Navy suffered from the same problems as the army : many officers had defected or had been killed after trying to do so . Due to the concerns of a Republican officer that such a coup was imminent , two - thirds of air capability were retained by the government – however , the whole of the air service was very outdated and vulnerable both during flight and to mechanical problems .