ers from more than 50 nations who fought for the left. And, despite the fact that the nation came to serve as a testing ground for the weapons and techniques the Nazi regime was preparing for a larger conflict, the great democracies remained detached from the war. The US banned arms shipments to either side and France and Britain adhered to noninterventionist stances. The Loyalists who, after all, were legally elected and represented the interests of Spanish democracy, expected assistance from these nations and the failure to receive it harmed their cause irreparably.
This was doubly true because the assistance of the Soviet Union gave the communists the upper hand in the Republican coalition and this increased strife among the left. The communists used their influence to suppress the radical Marxists and anarchists who had attempted to assume control of the Republican side in 1937. The left held out for some time--despite all the dissension and the lack of a strong, centrally organized military effort. In 1938, however, Soviet supplies dwindled away and the well-disciplined military forces of General Franco were given an unbeatable edge. From February 1938 to January 1939 the Nationalists progressed so steadily that the left was isolated in Valencia and Madrid and could not even agree on whether to continue to fight. When Madrid fell in March, 1939 the loss of prestige for the international left was considerable, but the loss of democratic government in Spain would last for decades. The gains, however, were all made by Franco's Nationalists who began their decades of authoritarian rule by promptly dissociating themselves from world fascism and providing little in the way of the raw materials that Hitler had counted on. Almost everyone lost in this war.
2. The most important result of World War I was World War II. Whether the claims of the Germans regarding the harshness of the Versailles treaty were entirely legitimat...