Montjuïc Castle and the Bombardments of Barcelona

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. As we've discussed recently, we
went to Barcelona, sure did. This is the seconds inspired

(00:25):
by a Barcelona episode the folks that went with us
on the strip band. Everybody was just so interesting and
gracious and fun to be around. Yeah, it was a
magnificent group. This episode, though, is inspired by a thing
that I did when none of those folks were around.
It was on our free day in Barcelona. My spouse
and I went up to the top of Monjuique, which

(00:45):
involved navigating Barcelona's public transportation system by ourselves, taking a
funicular railway and also an aerial cable car. Honestly, the
funicular railway and the aerial cable car. We're each on
our list of things we wanted to do, and so
it just went out on one thing. One outing. We

(01:07):
visited Manjui Castle, really a fortress dating back to the
seventeenth century that's now a museum, surrounded by lots of
paths and green space and a lot of stuff caught
my attention at this museum, one thing being an exhibit
that talked about the Forts artillery being used to bombard
the city of Barcelona in eighteen forty two. And all

(01:28):
of the signs in this exhibit were in multiple languages,
and if I'm remembering correctly, it was Catalan, Spanish, English,
and French. So I could read these explanations, but I
also really just felt like I was missing something. I
would like the text assumed that I knew things that
I did not already know. And this is not a
criticism of these museum signs. I'm sure it also happens

(01:50):
to folks who listen to our podcast and are not
from the United States when we just like name drop
something that has been steeped that we've been steeped in
our lives that people have not that live elsewhere. So
it turns out though this fort slash Castle has been
involved in both the defense of Barcelona and its repression

(02:11):
repeatedly over the course of centuries. This eighteen forty two
bombardment was one of several launched from the fort. So
we're going to talk about the fort's history and these
bombardments and how this is also interconnected with the greater
history of Catalonia and Spain, and Spain's many civil wars.

(02:32):
Montuique is a hill with an elevation of one hundred
and seventy three meters or about five hundred and sixty
seven feet. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea in the city
of Barcelona, so it's an ideal location for a fort
and other defenses, but its name has a different origin,
usually cited as one of two possibilities. It may be
from Latin words meaning mountain of Jupiter, coming from a

(02:55):
Roman era settlement there, or it may come from medieval
Catalan words meaning Jewish mountain, referencing a Jewish cemetery on
northeast side of the hill that may have been established
as early as the ninth century. This isn't the terraced
cemetery that you can see on the southeastern slope of
Montuik today. That one opened in eighteen eighty three. There

(03:17):
is not much visible evidence of the Jewish cemetery on
the surface of this hill today. Barcelona's Jewish community faced
repeated antisemitic violence in the fourteenth century, including a deadly
attack on the city's Jewish quarter known as El cal
in thirteen forty nine, and the Catholic kingdoms of Aragon
and Castile also expelled Spain's Jewish population under the Alhambra

(03:42):
Decree in fourteen ninety two. That's something that we have
covered on the show before. During and after all of this,
people stole a lot of the cemetery's headstones and then
used them as building materials, so today you can see
Hebrew inscriptions from some of these grit markers just as
part of buildings in Barcelona. Archaeological work also started in

(04:06):
this area beginning in the mid twentieth century, and that's
something that has been controversial because exhuoming bodies from their
grave sites is generally forbidden under Jewish law. Any exceptions
to that are generally focused on honoring the deceased, so
this has led to efforts to just protect this cemetery

(04:26):
and any remaining grave sites there. Manchuik's use as a
settlement and market area probably goes back to at least
the sixth or seventh century BCE. A beacon and tower
had been built on the hill by the early eleventh
century CE, one where lookouts could keep watch for incoming
enemy ships or armies, or light signal fires that could

(04:48):
be seen out at sea. And in the surrounding countryside.
The forts beginnings go back to the seventeenth century during
the Cattle and Revolt, also known as the Reaper's War.
For some context on that, going back to about the
twelfth century, Catalonia had been a principality with its capital
in Barcelona, and Catalonia and the Kingdom of Aragon had

(05:11):
both been ruled by the same monarch. That started to
shift when Ferdinand the Second of Aragon and Isabella the
First of Castile got married in fourteen sixty nine. That
marriage united multiple kingdoms into a lot of what we
now think of as Spain. Although Catalonia retained some of
its autonomy, it did not have as much prominence or

(05:34):
power as it had before these kingdoms were united, and
there were people and movements who wanted Catalonia to be
fully independent from the rest of the kingdoms. The Reaper's
War started in sixteen forty during the Franco Spanish War.
It was named for an uprising of reapers that started

(05:54):
on the Feast of Corpus Christi that year. Some of
this grew out of economic tensions between the poorer classes
and the aristocracy, as well as new taxes to support
the military and requirements that people quarter soldiers in their homes.
As Catalonia's peasant class rose up against Spanish monarch Philip
the Fourth, it sought the protection of Louis the thirteenth

(06:16):
of France. During this uprising, the people of Barcelona built
a small fort at the top of Monjuiq to try
to defend the city, and they built this fort over
the span of only about thirty days. The Battle of
Monjuiq took place on January twenty sixth, sixteen forty one,
when a Spanish force tried to capture this newly built fort.

(06:38):
But even though this was a pretty basic fortification that
had been built very quickly, it was a fort on
top of a hill. The defensible position the fort was
able to hold off the Spanish troops until Catalan reinforcements arrived.
The Franco Spanish War and the Reaper's War continued for
more than a decade, and Philip the Fort's forces eventually

(06:59):
captured Barcelona in sixteen fifty two. At that point, Spanish
forces took control of the fort and from there took
over much of Catalonia. The Treaty of the Pyrenees formally
ended both of these wars, and under its terms, the
parts of Catalonia that lay to the northeast of the
Pyrenees came under French control, while the rest of Catalonia

(07:19):
was controlled by Spain. The word for reapers is segadors
in Catalan and Catalonia's national anthem, El Segador's is about
the Reaper's War. Although France had supported Catalonia's uprising against
Spain during the Nine Years War, the two were on
opposite sides. The Spanish Empire had joined the Grand Alliance

(07:42):
that had united to resist French expansionism, and in sixteen
ninety seven French forces besieged and bombarded the city of Barcelona.
Then in seventeen hundred, just a few years after the
end of the Nine Years War, Charles the Second, the
last Habsburg Monarch of Spain, died without air. Under the
terms of his will, Philip, Duke of Anjou, would become

(08:04):
King of Spain. Philip was grandson of King Louis the
fourteenth of the House of Bourbon and was in the
line of succession for the French throne, so this would
put both France and Spain under the control of Bourbon. Monarchs,
and it meant that Philip could potentially become king of
both countries, so other nations saw this as a huge

(08:25):
threat to the balance of power in Europe. Those nations
included Austria, which instead backed Habsburg Archduke Charles of Austria
as heir to the Spanish throne. Charles would eventually become
Holy Roman Emperor Charles the sixth, and his claim to
the Spanish throne was backed by other nations, including England,
Holland and Prussia. This of course led to the War

(08:49):
of the Spanish Succession, which is such a big, messy
war that I didn't fully realize we were going to
have to talk about in this episode. This involved another
multi national grand alliance which backed the Habsburg claim to
the Spanish throne, fighting against Philip and those were loyal
to the Bourbons. By this point, there was a lot

(09:10):
of anti French sentiment in Catalonia, as well as concerns
about what would happened to Catalonia under Philip's rule. Catalonia
already had less power and autonomy than it did before
the Reaper's War, and it seemed likely that Philip would
try to further consolidate political power in Madrid and away
from Barcelona. It also seemed likely that if Philip won

(09:31):
the war, he would punish Catalonia for disloyalty. In spite
of that risk, Catalonia backed Charles's claim to the Spanish
throne with the hope of preserving its own autonomy. On
June twentyth seventeen oh five, representatives from Catalonia signed a
pact with Queen Anne of England in which England agreed

(09:52):
to provide Catalonia with soldiers, rifles and ammunition, and then,
under this packed, Catalonia also recognized Charles as the legitimate
king of Spain. This pact also specified that Charles would
respect the laws and traditions of Catalonia. This was not
as simple as Catalonia simply joining the Grand Alliance, though

(10:15):
Catalonia was still considered to be under the control of
Spain's central government in Madrid and in Barcelona, Philip's supporters
initially controlled the fort at Montjuiq, so Barcelona was once
again besieged from mid September to mid October of seventeen
oh five as the Grand Alliance tried to take control,
and it ultimately did. Charles formally entered Barcelona and was

(10:39):
recognized as the sovereign of Catalonia on October twenty second,
seventeen oh five. Charles's allies captured the fort over the
course of seventeen oh five and seventeen oh six. This
was not at all the end of it, though, Philip
got support from France to try to retake Barcelona and
the fort, and the fort was nearly destroyed by philips

(11:00):
allies in seventeen oh six. A Grand Alliance fleet arrived
with reinforcements in May, taking the fort back and starting
rebuilding efforts. When Bourbon troops lay siege to Barcelona again
in July of seventeen thirteen, they focused on the city
rather than the fort. The Duke of Berwick, who was
in command of this mission, recognized that trying to attack

(11:22):
the fort would come at an enormous costs, like it
had been demonstrated very well that it was hard to
take a fort that was up on top of the
hill in this way. By this point, much of the
War of the Spanish Succession was over, and many nations
of the Grand Alliance had recognized Philip the Fifth as
King of Spain under treaty terms that prevented him from

(11:43):
also becoming King of France. This included England, although Catalonia
had continued to try to secure England's aid and support,
yeah England didn't really follow through on all of the
terms of that pact. Fancy that Catalonia continued to support
Charles as monarch until September eleventh, seventeen fourteen, when the

(12:07):
Siege of Barcelona finally ended in defeat for Catalonia. Afterward,
Catalonia faced brutal repression for both its backing of the
Habsburg claim to the throne and having essentially acted like
its own independent republic during this war, including signing international
treaties without the oversight of Madrid. Philip also stripped Catalonia

(12:30):
of its autonomy after this and abolished its constitution, so
all of the things they were afraid of right This
defeat ultimately led to Catalonia's status as an autonomous community
within Spain, and today September eleventh is observed as the
National Day of Catalonia or the Diada. You can read
lots of articles about how Catalonia's national day is observing

(12:53):
a military defeat and why that is will have more
after a sponsor break The fort at Montuig was badly
damaged during the War the Spanish Succession, and in the

(13:14):
decades that followed, architect and military engineer Juan Martinez Sermeno renovated, modernized,
and expanded it. This was a project that stretched from
seventeen fifty three to seventeen seventy nine. Then in the
nineteenth century, the fort's armaments were repeatedly used to bombard Barcelona.
You may notice we are skipping entirely over the Napoleonic Wars,

(13:36):
which Holly talked about more in her episode on Barcelona.
I didn't find as much about the fort specifically related
to the Napoleonic Wars. I like how our stuff kind
of accidentally interlocked together to cover stuff the other one
did not. Yeah, these bombardments that Tracy just mentioned of

(13:57):
Barcelona began under General Baldomero as Bertro and we need
a bit of setup to explain who that was. In
eighteen thirty three, after the death of King Ferdinand, the
seventh Spain once again faced a dispute about who its
next monarch should be. Unlike Charles the second, Ferdinand did
have a direct air, but that heir was his daughter

(14:18):
Isabella the second, who was only three years old at
the time in addition to her age, The status of
women and girls in the Spanish line of succession was
kind of a tangle at this point. During the War
of the Spanish Succession, Philip the Fifth and the Spanish
Parliament had established that a woman could ascend to the
Spanish throne only if there were no remaining male heir

(14:42):
anywhere in the line of succession. Ferdinand's predecessor, Charles the Fourth,
had issued a decision revoking that change in seventeen eighty nine,
but that decision had never been implemented. So then in
eighteen thirty, Ferdinand issued a decree known as the Pragma Sanction,
which promulgated Charles the Fourth's seventeen eighty nine decision. When

(15:05):
Ferdinand did this, he was not well his wife, Queen
Maria Christina Debourban, was pregnant, so this decree was absolutely
meant to ensure that his child could inherit the throne,
regardless of that child's sex. If he died. Without the
Pragmatic Sanction, Isabella would not have been the next Spanish monarch. Instead,

(15:27):
Ferdinand's brother Carlos would have been next in line, and
after Ferdinand's death, Carlos proclaimed himself King Carlos or Charles
the Fifth. Carlos's supporters were known as the Carlists, and
overall the Carlists were more conservative and more aligned with
the Catholic Church than Queen Maria Christina, who was acting
as Isabella's regent, as well as Isabella's other supporters. Carlos

(15:51):
declared war on the newly crowned toddler queen, and that
started the First Carlist War, which went on for seven years.
There were three of these wars, which were as much
about conservatism versus liberalism as they were about Carlos and
his descendants claimed to the Spanish throne. The Carlist side

(16:11):
had a lot of support in Catalonia and Basque Country
in particular. The First Carlist War ended in a peace
treaty known as the Embrace of Ergara in eighteen thirty nine,
and that acknowledged Isabella the Second as the rightful Queen.
Just as a note Burgara is in Basque Country and
it's spelled with a B, but references to these historical

(16:32):
events and the treaty typically spell it with a V.
And a year after this treaty was signed, Isabella's mother
resigned from her regency. The reasons don't really have anything
to do with the war. Maria Christina had secretly married
a member of the royal bodyguard, a commoner named Augustin
Fernando Munozi Sanchez, and she had children with him. She

(16:54):
also faced a mutiny, a revolt, a coup, and an
increasing lack of confidence in her abilities during her time
as regent. While her marriage and children had been sort
of an open secret at court, when it became more
publicly known, she was widely condemned, and she eventually went
into exile. After her mother stepped down as regent, Isabella's

(17:15):
new regent was Baldomarro Espretero, Prince de Regara, General, who
had defended the Queen and her regent during the First
Carlos War. He had also been a key negotiator on
the Embrace of Regara. He had been pushing for a
number of reforms after returning to Madrid after the end
of this war, but while some of those reforms were

(17:36):
seen as progressive, they weren't necessarily successful. They weren't necessarily
things that parts of the population wanted. In particular, his
free trade policies led to uprisings in Barcelona because there
was a sudden influx of imported goods from Britain, especially textiles,
that threatened people's livelihoods. So by eighteen forty two there

(17:59):
were anti Espartero periodicals in Barcelona and various propaganda lampooning
him was being published around the city. Tensions in the
city were also high because of economic conflicts. Barcelona was
encircled by a wall, with people of all classes overcrowded
together inside, and there was a lot of strife between

(18:20):
the more affluent people and the working classes. The Carlists
had been associated with conservative Catholicism and the clergy, and
in part because of this, many monasteries and convents in
Barcelona had been burned or otherwise destroyed in eighteen thirty five.
So there were political and religious conflicts as well, and
there were lingering after effects from the War of the

(18:42):
Spanish Succession. Broadly speaking, the nobility and clergy had supported
the Bourbons, while the common people had supported the Austrian Habsburgs,
and no one had really forgotten that this eighteen thirty
five destruction of the monasteries was something that our guide
like just repeatedly, almost actually referenced as we were walking

(19:02):
through Barcelona on a walking tour, and I kept being like,
what why was this happening in eighteen thirty five, Like
it just seemed like an odd time to me to
have a sudden destruction of a lot of monasteries and
convents and things. I was connected to all of this.
A massive popular uprising started in Barcelona on November thirteenth,
eighteen forty two, and according to one account, some laborers

(19:25):
had taken wine with them to drink with their lunch
as they went to work in the fields outside the
city walls. November thirteenth was a Sunday, so there's also
a version that it was people who had left the
city to go on various outings on their day off,
and they had bought wine while they were away, and
they were bringing back what was left over home with them.

(19:47):
Either way, people were trying to enter the city at
the end of the day. They were ordered to pay
at tax on these wine leftovers, which they refused to do.
There are also some sources that say it wasn't like
this at all, that this was not left over lunchline,
it was wine that smugglers were trying to sneak into
the city, so regardless of that fuzziness, this was the

(20:09):
start of a huge popular uprising that was connected to
things like taxes and the cost of food. This led
to fighting between the National Militia and Barcelona's army garrison,
with the soldiers eventually retreating to the castle to the
Citadel of Barcelona. Hundreds of people were killed in this
conflict and stores were ransacked and looted. A provisional popular

(20:32):
court issued demands that Esparto be dismissed and that Catalonian
industries be protected, and that the queen marry someone Spanish.
After about three weeks of this unrest and violence, es
Bartaro arrived in Barcelona and responded to this ongoing crisis
by having the city bombarded from the fort. The bombardment

(20:54):
started in the middle of the day on December third,
eighteen forty two, and it continued for twelve hours until
a delegation representing the city's residence unconditionally surrendered. More than
a thousand projectiles were fired from the fort during this bombardment.
At least twenty people were killed and hundreds of buildings
were badly damaged. One eyewitness wrote that after the bombardment, quote,

(21:19):
the city had taken on a sepulchral aspect, doors and
shops closed, the streets almost deserted in some places, obstructed
by the ruins and rubble of devastated houses, and shrouded
by the smoke coming from the many still burning buildings.
As Bartero was quoted as saying, quote, for the good
of Spain, Barcelona must be bombarded once every fifty years.

(21:43):
In the wake of the uprising, thirteen people were tried
and sentenced to death, and another eighty were imprisoned. Less
than a year later, another uprising started in Barcelona, this
one known as Laha Mancia. This name came from a
word for food, was probably auraging reference to people who
joined volunteer battalions in order to get free meals, and

(22:05):
there was a lot going on with his uprising. Some
of Spain's generals had found Espartero's bombardment of Barcelona to
be really an appalling act, and so the military's more
liberal and moderate factions had banded together to try to
unseat him as regent. These factions were led by General
Ramlo Maria Navarez, a compos and some of his supporters

(22:28):
had backed him because of reforms they expected him to bring.
When those reforms didn't arrive right away, he lost their support.
This was also an uprising against the government of Spanish
Prime Minister Joaquin Maria Lopez, and an anti aristocratic uprising
that was calling for fairer distribution of wealth. There were

(22:49):
just a lot of factors going on with this. Their
response to this uprising involved another bombardment of the city
of Barcelona from the Fort at Montjuique, this time one
that last for two months. There were three hundred thirty
five deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, and at least
forty thousand people fled the city. In the wake of

(23:09):
all this, Baldemaro Espartero was ousted as regent and Isabella
the Second, now thirteen years old, was declared legally of
age to rule. She assumed the throne of Spain directly
on November tenth, eighteen forty three, and there was still
one more major bombardment of Barcelona from the Fort at Montuique.
In the nineteenth century, Baldomero Espartero had left Spain after

(23:34):
being ousted as regent, but eventually returned and in eighteen
fifty four, he and General Leopoldo O'Donnell were jointly put
in charge of the government in what was described as
the Biennio progressista, or the Progressive Biennium. This was intended
to be a period of progressive reform, but in July
of eighteen forty six, O'Donnell displaced Esparto, something that some

(23:58):
sources described as a coup. The people of Barcelona rose
up against this change in power and were once again
bombarded from the fort. Isabella the second was driven into
exile after an uprising in eighteen sixty eight, and she
abdicated the throne in eighteen seventy. During her reign, she
had weathered another Carlist War, and a third followed after

(24:21):
she had been deposed in eighteen seventy four. During the
third Carlist War, her oldest surviving son was declared King Alfonso.
This wealth. We'll talk about the history of this fort
later in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. After
a sponsor break in the late nineteenth century, the fourth

(24:49):
at Manchuique was largely used as a prison, particularly for radicals, revolutionaries,
and anarchists. This had some similarities to the First Red
Scare in the United States States, which we've talked about
on the show before. Authorities in Spain responded to anarchist
attacks and bombings with mass arrests and imprisonments, and there

(25:09):
were demonstrations in the city of Barcelona as people learned
that prisoners being held at the fort were also being
tortured and executed. But a key difference between what was
happening in Barcelona and what would happen in the US
a couple of decades later is that the labor movement
in Catalonia was deeply rooted in anarcho syndicalism. That's a

(25:32):
branch of anarchism that's focused on trade unionism and on
working class direct action meant to dismantle capitalism and the
wage system entirely and establish a new society that's democratically
managed by workers themselves. During this period, the Barcelona City Council,
understanding that atrocities were happening at the fort, argued that

(25:55):
the fort at Monjuique should be ceded to the city
so that it could be totally dismantled or maybe turned
into an anti war museum. The fort also played a
part in the events that led up to the Spanish
Civil War and the war itself. This once again requires
us to back up a little. We've already talked about
so many wars and coups that took place in Spain

(26:18):
over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and things became even
more divided in the early twentieth century. There was a
whole series of attempted military coups and multiple assassination attempts
against King Alfonso the thirteenth, son of Alfonso the twelfth,
and his wife, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. In nineteen
twenty three, Miguel Primo de Rivera was made Prime Minister

(26:41):
of Spain after one of these many military coups. He
ran Spain essentially as a dictator. And at this point
two different factions had been advocating for Catalonian autonomy or
even full independence from Spain for decades, and these two
factions had very points of view. One was primarily conservative

(27:04):
and Catholic, and it included a lot of people who
had backed the Carlist side in the Carlist Wars. Once
the last of the Carlist Wars had ended, a lot
of Carlists in Catalonia had gone from supporting one of
Carlos's descendants as monarch of Spain to instead supporting Catalonian independence.
The other faction was really largely secular and left leaning.

(27:27):
It included a lot of socialists and anarchists and anarcho syndicalists.
Catalonia had been given a degree of autonomy in nineteen thirteen,
but Primo de Rivera repealed that legislation in nineteen twenty five.
He was campaigning for national unity under the slogan country
religion monarchy, and his idea of unity did not include

(27:51):
any possibility for any Catalonian autonomy. Primo de Rivera's actions
toward Catalonia led its more left wing factions to form
a co coalition party called Escuere Republicana. This coalition won
a majority in a nineteen thirty one election, and soon
afterward the Generalita to Catalunya or Government of Catalogna, declared

(28:11):
Cataloonya a republic. King Alfonso the thirteenth was forced to
leave Spain that same year, although he did not formally
abdicate his throne. This started the period known as the
Second Spanish Republic, and faced with the possibility of Catalonia
declaring itself fully independent, the new central government in Madrid

(28:32):
negotiated a compromise. Legislation that granted some autonomy to Catalonia,
but not independence, was passed in September of nineteen thirty two. Initially,
the newly formed Republican government in Madrid had tried to
pass pretty overall progressive reforms, and Conservatives, Catholics, and the

(28:52):
military objected to a lot of these reforms. Then, in
nineteen thirty three, a coalition of right wing political factions
called the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights attained a majority
in the Spanish government. When the newly elected representatives took office,
they started rolling back those reforms, and then beyond that.

(29:13):
A lot of people on the left in Spain regarded
the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights as fascist. After the
newly formed Spanish government came into power in nineteen thirty four, socialists, unionists,
anti fascist groups, an arcosyndicalists and others on the left
started a wave of general strikes and uprisings. This is

(29:34):
sometimes called the Revolution of nineteen thirty four or the
October Revolution of nineteen thirty four. In Catalogna, President Luis
Compaos proclaimed the Catalan State within the Spanish Republic on
October sixth, nineteen thirty four, saying that monarchs and fascists
had attacked the Spanish government. In response, Spanish military authorities

(29:55):
declared martial law, and soon Companos was arrested. The statue
that had granted Catalonian autonomy was suspended, and Campagnos was
imprisoned until nineteen thirty six. Also in nineteen thirty six,
the Spanish government's political alignment shifted once again, with the
liberal Popular Front winning a majority in parliament. The Popular

(30:18):
Front was concerned about the spread of nationalism within Spain's
military and started removing people who were suspected of conspiring
against the Spanish government. Some of these were very high
ranking officers who had generally backed the conservative National Front.
One of these officers was Francisco Franco. Franco eventually joined

(30:38):
a group of military leaders who launched a coup in
July of nineteen thirty six and in Barcelona. The coup
involved most of the Spanish army officers who were stationed there,
but then the Civil Guard and other law enforcement in
Barcelona fought back against the military, along with civilians and
anarcosyndicalist militias, so the Spanish army's attempt to take over

(31:00):
Barcelona was unsuccessful, and for a few months after this,
the anarcho syndicalist militia were more numerous and better armed
than the regular law enforcement in Barcelona, and they essentially
had control of the city. This coup became the start
of the Spanish Civil War, which was broadly speaking again
between the Nationalists and the Republicans. The Nationalists were more conservative,

(31:24):
more likely to be Catholic and affluent, while the Republicans,
also known as Loyalists, included more middle class people, laborers, communists,
and other leftists. The Third Carlist War had ended decades
before this, but a lot of former Carlists were on
the Nationalists side. There were certainly people in Catalogna and

(31:46):
Barcelona who supported Franco and the nationalist side, but as
a region, Catalogna was loyal to the Second Spanish Republic
and its elected government. A lot of the international news
coverage at the beginning of the war was about Barcelona,
and many of the volunteers who joined the international brigades
from elsewhere in the world to fight on the Republican

(32:06):
side were inspired by dispatches from Barcelona, George Orwell traveled
to Spain and joined a militia, and his memoir Homage
to Catalonia detailed his training in Barcelona and his experiences
elsewhere in the war. On August twenty third, nineteen thirty six,
Catalonia's Committee of Anti Fascist Militias took control of the

(32:28):
Fort at Manjuik and used it as a recruitment center
and a place to imprison and try political prisoners. Republicans
in Barcelona cracked down on nationalists and members of the
Falange political party, which had become the official nationalist party
in nineteen thirty seven. Between nineteen thirty six and nineteen
thirty eight, one hundred and seventy three people were executed

(32:50):
at the fort. Leftists in Barcelona also took over theaters, clubs,
and homes belonging to people and organizations that were believed
to be aligned with Ranco or complicit in fascism. There
were also some really deep divisions within the Republican side
in Barcelona that led to a series of violent clashes

(33:12):
known as the Barcelona May Days in nineteen thirty seven.
By the end of the war, Catalonia was the last
remaining Republican stronghold in Spain aside from Madrid. Franco's troops
finally seized Barcelona on January twenty sixth, nineteen thirty nine,
and afterward also took control of the fort at Montuique.

(33:32):
From there, the Nationalists took the rest of Catalonia. This
was an enormous loss for the Republican side in terms
of both troop casualties and Catalonia's industrial resources. Madrid fell
a couple of months later. This was a truly, truly
horrifying war that involved a long series of mass atrocities.

(33:54):
At least five hundred thousand people died during the war
itself and afterward. Franco's regime executed and estimated one hundred
thousand Republican prisoners. After the war ended, Franco ruled Spain
as a dictator. He stripped Catalonia of all remaining political
autonomy and banned hallmarks of Catalonian heritage and independence, including

(34:16):
banning the Catalan language. During the Franco era, Monchuique Castle
was still used as a prison and a place to
hold trials for political dissidents, but this time for people
who opposed Francisco. Franco and his government. In nineteen forty,
exiled president of Catalonia, Luis Campaneus was arrested in France

(34:37):
and transferred to Barcelona at the request of Franco's government.
On October fourteenth, nineteen forty, he faced a summary court
martial at Monchuque Castle and was sentenced to death. Campagneus
was executed by firing squad at the fort on the
following day. In nineteen sixty the fort at Monjuique was

(34:58):
partially seated to the city of barcel although it still
retains some military functions, and Francisco Franco established a military
museum there in nineteen sixty three. After Franco's death in
nineteen seventy five, Spain became a democracy and Catalonia was
recognized as an autonomous community, with Catalan recognized as an

(35:19):
official language. The Catalan government declared the castle a cultural
asset of national interest in nineteen eighty eight. In two
thousand and seven, the castle was fully seeded to the
Barcelona City Council and it became property of the people
of Barcelona. The military museum was ordered to be closed
that year. It stopped operation in two thousand and nine,

(35:42):
with the last of its collection transferred to other institutions.
We've really only talked about the fort, but the fort
is obviously not the only thing located on Manjuiq. Among
other things, it was the site of the World Expo
in nineteen twenty nine and the nineteen ninety two Summer
Olympic Games in Barcelona. There are a lot of sports

(36:02):
facilities up there, including a stadium named for Luis Campagnes
and other museums besides the one that's housed in the
castle now. A lot of the archaeological finds that have
been unearthed on Monjuik were found during the preparations and
construction for the World Expo and the Olympic Games. There's
still an ongoing Catalan independence movement. A twenty seventeen independence

(36:25):
referendum made headlines around the world and was declared illegal
by Spain's Constitutional Court. The referendum itself was also contentious.
The votes that were cast were overwhelmingly in favor of independence,
but the turnout was low, in part because many unionists
boycotted the vote. At that point, separatists held a majority

(36:46):
in the Catalonian Parliament and voted for full independence, prompting
the Central Spanish government in Madrid to dissolve the Catalonian
Parliament and call for new elections. All of this happened
in the midst of widespread demonstrations and unrest, and a
police cracked down on demonstrators. More recently, pro independence parties

(37:07):
won more than half the vote in the twenty twenty
one regional elections. As a total outsider to this, I
feel like things have been quieter on this front than
in twenty seventeen when the yeah, when the referendum happened.
That again, that's based on my ignorant American perception of

(37:31):
international news and who knows what will happen, you know,
immediately after we record this episode based on our previous
track record, right, I feel like while we were there
in Barcelona, our wonderful tour guide I to this moment.
Do not know if she was trying to downplay it
to make everything palatable to tourists, or if this is

(37:53):
just the vibe and like it's hard for us to
grasp because like at one point we had walked by
like an apartment building where people had flags out that
we're still protesting and like, you know, calling for independence,
and she's like, oh, you know, people that are allowed
to voice their ideologies here and everyone just knows that.

(38:13):
You know, we listened to each other, and I'm like, wait,
is this just an undercurrent of conflict that you're so
used to you've learned to work around it, or are
you just making this very simplified and not scary to
people that are set In terms of what I personally
witnessed while we were in Barcelona, I saw signs related

(38:35):
to homes that will have to be destroyed if Sigratta
Familia is completed according to its current plan, right, Like,
there are people who would be displaced from their homes
and their homes would be destroyed, like if those plans
are followed. So I saw banners and signs and things
about that, and I also saw we were in Barcelona.

(39:00):
I don't this is an ongoing thing, so it's not
something we can say whether this was really early or not.
But like the Israel Hamas war, yes was happening while
we were there. And at one point I did see
a like a pro Palestinian demonstration nearby to where we were,

(39:22):
And like, those were two things that were more obvious
to me while we were there than things related to
independence or autonomy or independence, really, I guess would be
the more. Yeah, I would agree, there were other issues
that were way more at the forefront when we would
see any political or you know, socially oriented signage like

(39:45):
that's a good out a familiar thing, which is a
tricky one, right because that space where those apartments are
was supposed to never be built on, and then it was,
and now it's where people live. Yeah, and in some cases,
like people have been living there for years and year, right,
because the Gotta Familia has taken literally more than one
hundred right. Yeah, So I can understand where there was

(40:08):
a moment of we cannot wait forever. We need more
space for people in the city. Yeah, we got to
build here. That one's so tricky to envision, like how
that can play out in a way that is I
don't peaceful is not the right word, but that is
acceptable and doesn't ruin anyone's life, right yeah. Yeah. So anyway,

(40:29):
that was just our perception as non local people visiting
Barcelona in whatever month we were there, was it October?
Time has blurred. It's bad. Speaking of time, I have
listener mail. Listener mail is from Andrew. Andrew wrote and

(40:49):
the title of this email is Thursday next and the
Rebecca Riots. And Andrew wrote, Tracy and Holly, I got
a real kick out of the episode about the Rebecca Riots.
I just finished rereading Jazzds The Air Affair and was
wondering why in the book the People's Republic of Wales
was founded in eighteen thirty nine with the capital the
town of merthur Tidville. When I heard both mentioned in

(41:12):
your episode, I was quite tickled. Oh, and thanks for
the book news from the same episode. I have some
family friends who aren't Lingott and I know they would
be tickled to know that such a book exists. Just
dropping you a note to say how much I enjoy
the show, Andrew, thanks so much for this note. Andrew.
I read The Air Affair many years ago. I remember
its basic conceit, but no details, and so I had

(41:35):
no recollection at all that in the world of the
Air Affair, Wales is its own republic and its capital
is in mirth Tidvill, and I feel like that has
an un an accidental tangential relationship to what we have
been talking about in this episode in terms of autonomy

(41:55):
and independence for places that are considered part of another nation.
So anyway, thanks so much Andrew for sending this note.
If you would like to send us a note about
this or any other podcast, we're at History podcast atiheartradio
dot com. We're on social media Missed in History, and
you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app
and wherever else you'd like to listen to podcasts. Stuff

(42:22):
you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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