Paper 2: Interrogating 'Determine' in the Spanish Civil War
Paper 2, 50 minutes. Question: 'To what extent did foreign intervention determine the outcome of the Spanish Civil War?' Your notes: Germany sent the Condor Legion (about 5,000 personnel) and aircraft; Italy sent roughly 75,000 troops plus aircraft; the USSR sent advisers, tanks, aircraft and NKVD personnel; Britain and France pursued Non-Intervention; Mexico sold rifles; the International Brigades numbered about 35,000. Your plan lists the aid and concludes: 'Foreign intervention was very important.' The examiner wants you to interrogate 'determine' and to consider internal factors: Nationalist unity under Franco, Republican fragmentation, economic collapse, and geography. You also remember that Soviet aid began in 1936 while Italian and German aid arrived earlier.
1. Deconstruct the word 'determine' and construct a thesis that weighs foreign intervention against internal factors.
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Deconstruct 'determine': to determine means to be the decisive cause, such that without it the outcome would probably differ. Foreign intervention can be shown to be necessary in the sense that the Nationalists could not have won at the same speed without German and Italian airlift and firepower, and the Republic could not have resisted without Soviet tanks and aircraft. But necessity is not sufficiency: foreign aid had to be converted into victory by internal factors. Thesis: foreign intervention was a necessary condition, but not a sufficient explanation; the decisive variable was the Nationalists' greater political unity and command, which allowed them to use aid effectively, while Republican fragmentation and economic collapse prevented Soviet aid from being used coherently. Judgement: intervention determined the duration and scale of the war more than its fundamental outcome.
2. Use one counterfactual to test the claim that Soviet aid 'saved' the Republic in 1936-37.
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Counterfactual: if Soviet aid had not arrived in 1936, the Republic might have collapsed earlier, because the Nationalists had air superiority and the Army of Africa had been airlifted by Germany and Italy. This tests the claim that Soviet aid 'saved' the Republic. The reasoning: without Soviet tanks and aircraft, the defence of Madrid might have failed; but Soviet aid also brought political costs - NKVD involvement, dependence on Stalin, and the alienation of moderate Republicans and some socialists. Therefore Soviet aid was both a material necessity and a political constraint. The counterfactual supports the view that intervention mattered, but it also shows that 'determine' is too strong: aid created the conditions for survival, while Republican political divisions determined how poorly that survival was used.
3. Explain why the Non-Intervention policy of Britain and France mattered for the outcome.
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Non-Intervention mattered not because it was neutral in effect, but because it was asymmetrical. Britain and France restricted the Republic's access to arms while Germany and Italy could violate the agreement and supply the Nationalists. This disadvantaged the Republic materially and diplomatically, making it dependent on Soviet aid. At the same time, Non-Intervention reflected fear of a wider European war, so it was a causal factor through constraint rather than through direct fighting. The judgement is that it shaped the conditions of the war, but it did not by itself decide the outcome; it interacted with Republican fragmentation and Nationalist unity.