This article is part of the series The Road to World War II .

Foreign involvement

• Germany sent in planes (“Condor Legion”) and some 6,000 troops - these significantly helped Franco in shifting his troops onto Spanish mainland (the sea route had been blocked by the Republicans)
• Mussolini sent in some 70,000 troops (surprisingly not very effective, though)
• France and Britain decided on a policy of “non-intervention”
• Stalin sent in supplies and arms to the Republicans

Why did Hitler get involved? German motives

Hitler profited from Germany’s involvement in more than one way:

• it distracted international attention from his re-armament programme
• he hoped to gain valuable resources from Spain in return - possibly even be allowed to station submarines in Spain during war time
• it provided the opportunity to test his “Luftwaffe” (viz. the bombing of Guernica)
• it would commit Mussolini to mutual assistance, binding him closer to Germany.

Why did Mussolini get involved? Italian motives

Mussolini essentially aimed to find a new ally in Franco and Spain and to show Italian might and strengthen her international position.

Why did France and Britain not get involved?

For France and Britain, where the public was anyhow already polarised between left and right support, the policy of “non-intervention” was the only possibility to avoid domestic chaos.

Desperate to uphold the Versailles Treaty, they also feared that by intervening the war might spill over into the whole of Europe - a war they were not prepared for - and they did not want Mussolini to be further pushed into Hitler’s arms.

Consequences

Foreign (non-)involvement in the Spanish Civil War

• diverted attention from Hitler’s re-armament programme
• divided Europe into two camps - left and right
• convinced Stalin that the Western democracies were too weak to act (which was, amongst others, a reason why Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).