Francisco Franco as Warrior: Is It Time for a Reassessment of His Military Leadership?

Although he was the military leader of the winning Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco’s place in history has been largely defined by his subsequent long-term political role as head of the Spanish fascist state. Up to now, those historians who have assessed his military acumen have tended to give him low marks, particularly on the grounds that his poor grasp of strategy and tactics unnecessarily prolonged the Civil War and led to an inordinately high number of casualties. Recently, however, some historians have begun to reconsider Franco’s skills as a military leader, by viewing his performance within the context of his own cultural and political environment, rather than that of a later era or of other national military traditions.