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| 1939, Jan. 26 |
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| BARCELONA WAS TAKEN BY FRANCO'S TROOPS, with Italian aid. The Loyalist resistance now collapsed, and within a couple of weeks the Insurgents had overrun all of Catalonia, with some 200,000 Loyalist troops crossing the French frontier, where they were disarmed. | 1 |
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| Feb. 27 |
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| Britain and France finally recognized the government of Gen. Franco, without conditions. | 2 |
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| Feb. 28 |
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| President Azaña, who had taken refuge in Paris, thereupon resigned his position. Efforts of Britain and France to bring the civil war to an end met with the opposition of Premier Negrin, who enjoyed the support of the more radical elements in Republican Spain. | 3 |
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| March 6 |
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| A military coup in Madrid, led by Gen. Segismundo Casado, resulted in the removal of Negrin and his colleagues. They fled to France by air, while at Madrid a new National Defense Council was organized, with Gen. José Miaja (defender of Madrid in 1936–37) at the head. The Republican fleet escaped from Cartagena and took refuge in the Tunisian port of Bizerte, where it was interned by the French authorities. The new Madrid regime was committed to a policy of “peace with honor,” but this policy at once led to conflict with the Communists in the capital, producing a civil war within the larger civil war. The Communists were finally defeated, and Miaja then devoted himself to the task of reaching a compromise with Franco. Failing to secure assurances of leniency, the National Defense Council was finally obliged to accept unconditional surrender. | 4 |
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| March 28 |
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| END OF THE CIVIL WAR came with the SURRENDER OF MADRID and Valencia. Members of the defense council fled. The war had cost about 700,000 lives in battle, 30,000 executed or assassinated, 15,000 killed in air raids. Franco and his government at once set up special tribunals that convicted hundreds of Loyalist leaders, despite the efforts of Britain and France to ensure moderation. The United States recognized the new regime (April 1). | 5 |
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| April 7 |
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| Spain announced adhesion to the German-Italian-Japanese anti-Communist pact (See Oct. 25). | 6 |
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| May 20–June |
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| Withdrawal of Italian and German forces from Spain after an imposing victory parade in battered Madrid. As it turned out, the Germans had some 10,000 men in Spain, mostly in the aviation and tank services. Together with the Italian “volunteers” they had aided Franco greatly in transporting troops from Morocco in the early days of the war, and had played a major role in many later engagements. | 7 |
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| Sept. 3 |
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| Spain indicated its intention of remaining neutral in the great European conflict over Danzig and Poland. Spain remained neutral throughout the war. | 8 |
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