Though most of the more well-known fighting in the Spanish Civil War took place on land or in the air, the conflict was in fact the largest naval war in European waters in the 20th century with the exception of the two world wars. This episode discusses the state of the Spanish Navy in 1936, on the eve of the military revolt that toppled the Second Republic. The fleet had been largely wiped out in the Spanish-American War of 1898, but by the early 30s had rebuilt into a relatively modern force, though small by great power standards.
My major sources are three articles by by Willard C. Frank, Jr, found in different issues of the Naval War College Review. These are:
“Naval Operations in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39” Volume 37, no.1 "Misperception and Incidents at Sea: The Deutschland and Leipzig crises, 1937” from number 2 of volume 43, no. 2
“Multinational Naval Cooperation in the Spanish Civil War, 1936” volume 47, no.2.
For information about the technical aspects and history of the ships involved, I use the excellent online resource, Navypedia.
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17 июн 2021
