The Soviet Union interfered on the Republican side, although it encouraged factional conflict to the benefit of the Soviet foreign policy, and its actions may have been harmful to the Republican War effort. The United States government offered no official support for the Republican side. American businesses such as Texaco, General Motors, Ford Motors, and The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company greatly helped the Nationalist army with their steady supply of trucks, tires, machine tools, and fuel.
The war inflamed international tension in Europe in the lead-up to World War II, and was largely seen as another war between the Communist Soviet Union and Fascist states Italy and Germany. Tank warfare tactics and the terror bombing of cities from the air were features of the Spanish Civil War which played a significant part in the later general European war.
“The Spanish Civil War has been called "the first media war", with quite a few writers and journalists covering it wanting their work "to support the …show more content…
On April 26 Hitler's Condor Legions firebombed the ancient Basque town of Guernica, a place of no military importance, and reduced it to rubble. It was the single most telling indication of fascist ruthlessness toward civilians to date, a lesson residents of cities in Europe and England would themselves learn in time. It led Picasso to produce his massive painting "Guernica," perhaps the most famous work of graphic art to come out of the war. Meanwhile, the Spanish government attempted to take pressure off the north with a major offensive west of Madrid in the summer of 1937. It was called the battle of Brunete. Though Franco's northern campaign was delayed, it did not stop. After eighty days of fighting, Bilbao was taken on June 19th, Santander on August 26th.”