The Spanish Republicans, divided into Socialists, Anarchists and Communists, often fight among themselves as Franco’s army advances slowly into the industrial provinces of the east.

Hitler and Mussolini send planes in aid of the Nationalists; Stalin sends military equipment to the Loyalists.

Britain and France, fearing a general war and largely unsympathetic to the republican cause, forbid the shipments of war materiel to the republic while the US maintains strict neutrality.

Thousands of anti-Fascist volunteers, organized in Britain and the US with help from the Soviet Comintern, fight in Spain on the Republican side.

Italy, in 1937, joins Germany and Japan in the anti-Comintern Pact signed the previous year.