The Players-The Nationalists

For the sake of clarity I will refer to the forces opposing the Republic as Nationalists. This is because this seems to be the generally accepted term for them.

The eventual winners of the war were the Nationalists. The Nationalists were a motley group of regime opponents. The first major group was the rebel units and members of the Spanish Republican military who kicked off the war. Those Spaniards who supported the rebellion tended to be conservative upper class, liberal professionals, religious individuals and groups, and landed farmers. Not unlike other places and times and not unlike the good ol’ U.S.A. The largest geographical area of support for the uprising was in Spain’s rural areas such as “ almost all of Old Castile, as well as La Rioja, Navarra, Alava, the area near Zaragoza in Aragon, most of Galicia, parts of Cáceres in Extremadura and many dispersed pockets in rural Andalucía where the local society still followed ancient traditional patterns and was yet untouched by "modern" thought”.

The Nationalists consisted of the actual fascist Falange, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups (CEDA)

, Alfonsists who supported putting Alfonse the XIII back on the throne, the Carlists who clung to their dream of reinstating their branch of the royal family

, and the Army of Africa’s Moroccan troops. The Catholic Church was a strong supporter of the Nationalists especially because of the anti-clericalism of some factions of the Republic. There were others who supported the Nationalists who were moderated but opposed the Republic, as there were moderates who supported the Republic.

In 1937 Franco announced the unification of all factions of the movement in to a single unified force.