I did some research in response to your comments and the original Walzer article. US neutrality in the Spanish Civil war was inevitable. Of course, FDR was president and enjoyed massive majorities. However, the Democratic party (back then) was the “Catholic” party. Given that American Catholics were very pro-Franco, US neutrality was ine…
I did some research in response to your comments and the original Walzer article. US neutrality in the Spanish Civil war was inevitable. Of course, FDR was president and enjoyed massive majorities. However, the Democratic party (back then) was the “Catholic” party. Given that American Catholics were very pro-Franco, US neutrality was inevitable. To put this is perspective, the first Republican to get a majority of the Catholic votes was Eisenhower.
Say (very hypothetically) American Protestants made killing Catholic priests a priority. A very violent reaction from American Catholics could be quite reasonably be expected. Fortunately, American history does not include that particular misery. The Ursuline convent was burned (by Protestants) in 1834. No deaths resulted. Much later, JFK won the West Virginia primary in 1960. His victory (de facto) ended the Protestant/Catholic schism in American life.
The US Republicans (back then) had little or no influence (this was the 1930s) and might have supported Franco. However, because of the Depression they were very much out of office.
To put this in perspective. I am not Catholic, but have lived most of my life in very Catholic parts of the US. I tried to marry some number of Catholic girls, they (wisely) turned me down. I have a funny story along these lines. Until I moved to a southern state, a had never met a single US Protestant. This in a country with more Protestants than Catholics
I very much agree with this, as it shines more light for me on ulterior specific reasons for US neutrality in the Spanish Civil War, which make a lot of sense. Beyond the general reasons that I think were the main /moral/ reasons for the neutrality of the democratic European states (aside from the practical reasons, which were manyfold and included both self interest, fear of the socialist/communist elements among the Republicans, fear of igniting a larger conflict, and unsolved contradictions -- like Catholic Poland that sold arms to the Republicans for lots of gold, while the Polish population, following the Pope, sided with the Nationalists).
The moral reasons were that the violence on both sides was very shocking and, even where the desire to defend democracy might have been high, the inability of the Spanish government to prevent murderous violence by members of the parties that supported it and its own militarised organisations, including the police, and especially to prevent this before the coup, put democratic liberals in a conundrum.
Members of the Republican forces (mostly without direct organisation on the part of the central command) committed atrocities. The Nationalists committed two times as much and on a deliberate program of cleansing out of all socialist-communist-anarchist-liberal elements.
This is the tragedy of a civil war exacerbated by the interference of the USSR on one side and Nazi Germany and the Vatican (for somewhat different reasons) on the other. It has been hard for me, after having studied the research of other historians on the conflict, to see the Spanish Civil War in black and white and to consider the neutrality of the European democracies and the US a crime. Maybe there were ways in which actual democracy in Spain could have been saved. But is hard to take assessments of 'what ifs".
My guess is that FDR had little sympathy for the Nationalists. However, he also did want to start a war in the Democratic party. Some history here is quite relevant. Wilson allied with the UK in WWI. Irish Democrats and German Democrats never forgave him. In the subsequent elections, Republicans easily won, in part because of profound disunity in the Democratic party (the Great Depression sent the Republicans into the wilderness later). Were there other reasons for Republican ascendancy in the 1920s? Of course, there were.
Back then, upscale urban liberals were only a small force in the Democratic party (for example, Elanor Roosevelt). Of course, they would have supported the Republicans to the hilt. Conversely, relatively downscale Catholics were a huge force and they had an opposite view.
Another factor was that the US was still quite isolationist. US isolationism was strongly reinforced by the debacle of WWI (political and economic debacle, not military). No less that FDR held off on getting the US involved before Pearl Harbor. Even after Pearl Harbor, FDR called for declaration of war only against Japan (not Japan and Germany). Germany solved that problem by declaring war on the US.
I did some research in response to your comments and the original Walzer article. US neutrality in the Spanish Civil war was inevitable. Of course, FDR was president and enjoyed massive majorities. However, the Democratic party (back then) was the “Catholic” party. Given that American Catholics were very pro-Franco, US neutrality was inevitable. To put this is perspective, the first Republican to get a majority of the Catholic votes was Eisenhower.
Say (very hypothetically) American Protestants made killing Catholic priests a priority. A very violent reaction from American Catholics could be quite reasonably be expected. Fortunately, American history does not include that particular misery. The Ursuline convent was burned (by Protestants) in 1834. No deaths resulted. Much later, JFK won the West Virginia primary in 1960. His victory (de facto) ended the Protestant/Catholic schism in American life.
The US Republicans (back then) had little or no influence (this was the 1930s) and might have supported Franco. However, because of the Depression they were very much out of office.
To put this in perspective. I am not Catholic, but have lived most of my life in very Catholic parts of the US. I tried to marry some number of Catholic girls, they (wisely) turned me down. I have a funny story along these lines. Until I moved to a southern state, a had never met a single US Protestant. This in a country with more Protestants than Catholics
I very much agree with this, as it shines more light for me on ulterior specific reasons for US neutrality in the Spanish Civil War, which make a lot of sense. Beyond the general reasons that I think were the main /moral/ reasons for the neutrality of the democratic European states (aside from the practical reasons, which were manyfold and included both self interest, fear of the socialist/communist elements among the Republicans, fear of igniting a larger conflict, and unsolved contradictions -- like Catholic Poland that sold arms to the Republicans for lots of gold, while the Polish population, following the Pope, sided with the Nationalists).
The moral reasons were that the violence on both sides was very shocking and, even where the desire to defend democracy might have been high, the inability of the Spanish government to prevent murderous violence by members of the parties that supported it and its own militarised organisations, including the police, and especially to prevent this before the coup, put democratic liberals in a conundrum.
Members of the Republican forces (mostly without direct organisation on the part of the central command) committed atrocities. The Nationalists committed two times as much and on a deliberate program of cleansing out of all socialist-communist-anarchist-liberal elements.
This is the tragedy of a civil war exacerbated by the interference of the USSR on one side and Nazi Germany and the Vatican (for somewhat different reasons) on the other. It has been hard for me, after having studied the research of other historians on the conflict, to see the Spanish Civil War in black and white and to consider the neutrality of the European democracies and the US a crime. Maybe there were ways in which actual democracy in Spain could have been saved. But is hard to take assessments of 'what ifs".
My guess is that FDR had little sympathy for the Nationalists. However, he also did want to start a war in the Democratic party. Some history here is quite relevant. Wilson allied with the UK in WWI. Irish Democrats and German Democrats never forgave him. In the subsequent elections, Republicans easily won, in part because of profound disunity in the Democratic party (the Great Depression sent the Republicans into the wilderness later). Were there other reasons for Republican ascendancy in the 1920s? Of course, there were.
Back then, upscale urban liberals were only a small force in the Democratic party (for example, Elanor Roosevelt). Of course, they would have supported the Republicans to the hilt. Conversely, relatively downscale Catholics were a huge force and they had an opposite view.
Another factor was that the US was still quite isolationist. US isolationism was strongly reinforced by the debacle of WWI (political and economic debacle, not military). No less that FDR held off on getting the US involved before Pearl Harbor. Even after Pearl Harbor, FDR called for declaration of war only against Japan (not Japan and Germany). Germany solved that problem by declaring war on the US.
Being well aware of the US position and FDR's dilemmas at the start of WWII, your take on the previous situation makes a lot of sense to me.