Annotated Outline Form

Name: ___Kevin Ward___________________________

Name of Project: ___Spanish Civil War__________________

Introduction

Explain the scope of your project.

This project will focus on the Spanish Civil War as it was represented by Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and by Pablo Picasso’s mural Guernica. This involves a study of American Modernism (for Hemingway) and Picasso’s style (Cubism). In addition, I plan to look at what caused the Spanish Civil War and how it led to World War II (if indeed there is a cause-effect relationship).

Category One: Ernest Hemingway and For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Scribner, c1940.

I have just begun reading this novel. It is set during the Spanish Civil War, and an American named Robert Jordan has come to a remote location to blow up a bridge. Right now, Jordan seems like a John Wayne sort of hero, and the book wants me to admire him. I don’t know enough about which side he is on and what is happening during the war to know if I like him yet.

Category Two: Pablo Picasso and Guernica

Source: Martin, Russell. Picasso’s War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece that Changed the World. New York: Dutton, 2002.

I read this book during reading time last Spring. It clearly outlines why the village of Guernika was destroyed and how Picasso painted his mural as a response to it. What was even more interesting was how people around the world responded to the mural over time. At first, it was not a big deal, but the longer time passed, the more people who saw it, and the more that came out about the bombing of Guernika, the more powerful the mural became.

Category Three: The Spanish Civil War and World War II

Source: Simkin, John. “The Spanish Civil War.” Spartacus International. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Spanish-Civil -War.htm [7/3/09]

There are many links on this site. I decided to look first at the biography of Wolfram Richthofen, the eventual leader of the Condor Legion: a group of German plans that supported General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. It does not say too much about what he did as a member of the Condor Legion. However, when I went to the Condor Legion link, it explained that the legion was formed in 1936 when, despite Franco’s claims that he was on the verge of victory, it became clear to the Germans in Spain that the Condor Legion needed to be formed to assist in the war. The legion included 100 aircraft and over 5000 men.

Here is a key quotation from the site noting what William Shirer said in his book about the Nazi involvement in Spain: “From the very beginning the Fuehrer's Spanish policy was shrewd, calculated and far-seeing. A perusal of the captured German documents makes plain that one of Hitler's purposes was to prolong the Spanish Civil War in order to keep the Western democracies and Italy at loggerheads and draw Mussolini toward him.” This seems to be a good place to start to learn more about the German involvement in Spain during the Civil War.

Source: Rosemont, Franklin. “The Spanish Revolution of 1936.” http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/spain-overview.html [7/3/09]

This site talks about the beginning of the Spanish Civil War with the invasion of Franco and its Fascist troops, supported by Italy and Germany in the process. Spanish citizens responded with a counter-revolution in response. Rosemont writes,

“When Franco's fascist troops invaded Spain in July 1936 with the purpose of overthrowing the young and unstable Republic, the Spanish working class responded by making a revolution that went much further toward realizing the classless and stateless ideal of proletarian socialism than any preceding popular revolt. Spontaneously and almost overnight, workers seized factories and other workplaces; land was collectivized; workers' militias were formed throughout the country; the church--age-old enemy of all workingclass radicalism and indeed, openly profascist--was dismantled, and its property confiscated; established political institutions disintegrated or were taken over by workers' committees.”

With this website, I am seeing more clearly how socialists and anarchists (more so than communists) at the beginning were trying to create this workers’ nation in response to the fascists and even in response to their own fragile republic. They wanted to go farther. The communists, on the other hand, were a smaller force until the Soviet Union decided to get involved in the war and send resources. I think this is mentioned in Hemingway’s novel.