…Following the unexpected rout and collapse of the Popular Front forces in the Southern Pocket the Nationalists moved up their plan to crush the remnants in Catalonia. This was not by as much as one would think, despite the conquest of the main Popular Front pocket being 3 months ahead Franco could only move up the offensive from August to July, given the need to garrison the liberated area and to replace expended munitions and fuel.
The military leadership of the Popular Front was well aware that once this happened the Nationalists would win by the end of August. By this point while they had a quarter of a million men, only half had rifles, they had 30 planes, 20 tanks and 50 artillery pieces and morale was poor. The Nationalists had three times as many men, all with proper weapons, 500 aircraft, 200 tanks and 700 artillery pieces, furthermore their morale was great. The military leaders of the Popular Front thus called for a negotiated surrender to the Nationalists, figuring that the Nationalist Junta would rather the war end in May than in August and with a smaller butchers bill.
This was vetoed by Prime Minister Juan Negrin, who had taken over from Manuel Azaña after the fall of Madrid. Negrin, or more precisely his Communist handlers was unwilling to consider peace. The exact reasons for this remain unknown but peace negotiations were explicitly off the table and the order of the day was to drag the war out as long as possible.
The Communist refusal to consider negotiations alienated the other parties that made up the Popular Front. In previous times this would not have been a problem, given that the Communists had used Soviet weapons deliveries and volunteers as leverage to marginalize the other parties. Combined with some well timed assassinations, thuggery and blackmail and the Communists had by fall of 1937 taken almost complete control of the Popular Front. However with the collapse of the southern pocket it was clear that the cause was lost and Soviet arms deliveries slowed to a trickle while their volunteers withdrew. Furthermore the Popular Front was now confined to Catalonia, which was strong anarchist territory and had a local political base that the communists had utterly infuriated.
This gave the Popular Front Military a base of support to prepare a coup. The Anarchists militias, such as they remained could seize control while the anti-communist military elements could neutralize the communist ones. The Communists could be removed from government and peace negotiations could occur while the Popular Front still had leverage. Planning for a coup took place during May with a planned launch date of June 6th.
Unfortunately the Communists got word of the coup on June 3rd and launched a major roundup on the 5th, capturing most of the senior plotters. Despite this the coup still went off the next day, but in an uncoordinated manner more like a popular uprising. Communist loyal forces moved to intercept and a civil war within a civil war broke out. The Communists were able to take control of the cities, but the countryside rapidly fell to Anarchist militias.
This miniature civil war had a deleterious effect on the front line which was quickly noticed by the Nationalists. On June 21st they launched their victory offensive. With the exception of certain hard core communist units the Popular Front Army evaporated. Most soldiers decided that they no longer cared who won and simply wanted to live to see the end of the war. By the 30th the Nationalists had reached the sea and only a handful of cities with Communist holdouts remained, and even those were few as many units shot their commissars and surrendered.
By July 14th the last holdout surrendered and the Spanish Civil War was over. General Sanjurjo however would not live to lead the postwar government as he died of a heart attack at a victory party that night…
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
…In terms of military dead the Popular Front suffered approximately 110,000 while the Nationalists suffered 80,000. A further 10,000 foreign volunteers were killed fighting for the Popular Front, while the Nationalists lost about 2,000. The military death toll however is the easy part of the equation.
Officially only about 100,000 civilians died during this period, of which the Spanish government attributes 90% to the Popular Front. This itself is a noted change from previous figures supported by the Spanish government that were both lower and further weighted against the Popular Front, but remains an underestimate according to most non-Spanish scholarly sources…
…Based on Demographic estimates Latin American scholars have concluded the true civilian death toll of the Spanish Civil War is in the range of 250,000-350,000, from both deliberate killing and from causes such as malnutrition and exposure. The typical attribution is 60% of civilian deaths were caused by the Popular Front while 40% are attributable to the Nationalists…
-Excerpt from The Butcher’s Bill: An Incomplete History of Wartime Casualties, New American Press, Chicago, 1996
…Work by modern scholars has conclusively disproved the 90% Republican caused death toll in the Spanish Civil War. Further analysis indicates that the 60:40 ratio, created in the late 80’s by a number of Latin American researchers is itself a flawed underestimate. Based on newly released scholarship from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Buenos Aires it is clear that at a minimum the commonly accepted ratio must be reversed and the Nationalists be given responsibility for at least 60% of the civilian casualties of the Spanish Civil War…
…Modern estimates are that in addition to wartime casualties a further 100,000-200,000 deaths are attributable to the Nationalist regime in the period immediately following the war of […]. Combined with the wartime civilian deaths attributed to them and the civilian death toll attributable to the nationalists Nationalist is as much as ten times as great as that attributed to the Republicans…
-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XXIX, University of California Press: Berkley, 2019