I Will Stage A Coup D’état - Chapter 5



Only Noblemtl

EP.5 Spanish Civil War (1)

The Spanish Civil War was triggered by a complex set of factors, but one of the most decisive was political turmoil.

From the founding of the First Spanish Republic in 1873 until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, there were over 40 coups and 60 political crises.

However, this did not mean that Spain’s economy was stable. While the country was spending a huge amount of money on military expenses due to the protracted Rif War, the country was suffering from an economic depression.

Although the Second Republic government, which drove out the Bourbon dynasty and the military in response to this chaos, was no less incompetent.

In this way, the republicans and royalists, secularists and the Catholic Church, landlords and land reformers, the left and the right, the republic was completely divided and only looked for an opportunity to destroy each other.

Neither the right nor the left had any intention of truly accepting the other’s victory.

In this situation, when the left wing won the majority of seats by less than 100,000 votes, the right wing called for boycott of the election.

To begin with, the Spanish military and the right had already planned a coup and staged rebellions in several regions in the 1931 general elections, in which the left had won.

In the 1936 general election, when the race was close and there were concerns about retaliation from the left wing, it was absurd for the right wing to concede victory.

The left-wing government also kept in mind the possibility of a coup by right-wing forces.

They tried to reduce the possibility of a coup by transferring right-wing military generals to remote areas far from the capital, Madrid.

The famous Francisco Franco was sent to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, Chief of Staff Manuel Goded to the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, Falange leader Duke José Antonio Rivera was sent to prison, and Emilio Mola was sent to command the garrison in Pamplonia.

Unfortunately, these measures were not enough to dampen the rebels’ enthusiasm.

On July 13, 1936, the kingpin of the Spanish royalist party, José Calvo Sotelo, was kidnapped and assassinated. Five days later, on July 18, nationalist forces rose up simultaneously in Spanish Morocco and throughout mainland Spain.

It was the beginning of the brutal Spanish Civil War, which was a bloody war.

The Spanish Nationalists and Republicans, realizing that they could not handle the situation on their own, appealed to all sides for support.

Pyongyang was also on that list.

Just a few days after the start of the Spanish Civil War, an editorial was published in the Korea Daily calling for Korea’s intervention.

“Does the Korean government also need to intervene and help in the Spanish Civil War?”

As the current South Korea approaches Germany and Italy and prepares an anti-communist pact, the tendency to diplomatically align with Berlin and Rome is growing stronger.

The more this happens, the more it is obvious that we will be labeled as an ‘axis of evil’ by the international community and become isolated.

You crazy kids.

But, regardless of these thoughts, I personally agreed that there was a need to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.

Not for the Korean Empire, but for ‘my own benefit’.

The reason is simple.

‘Oh, those idiots need to be killed, so that the incompetence of the military leaders will be highlighted.’

The Spanish Civil War was a war that was destined to end in disaster.

Neither the right-wing Spanish Nationalists nor the left-wing Spanish Republican government were prepared for a protracted civil war.

If the main players leading the civil war are like this, the war cannot help but be sluggish, regardless of the capabilities of the countries supporting it.

Especially, if the interventionist forces of the Korean Empire, which had difficulty communicating with European armies and had difficulty in supplying supplies, were to experience an arduous march, it was certain.

How on earth do you package such a stupid situation?

I kept my mouth shut about the Spanish Civil War, hoping the military would step in the shit.

When Nazi Germany intervened in the Spanish Civil War on July 26, 1936, and Italy on the 30th, Pyongyang followed their European friends.

The Japanese Empire maintained neutrality, hesitating between the anti-communist pact and the eyes of the great powers, but Korea showed no hesitation at all.

Marshal Park Han-jin, a manly man, packaged the intervention in the Spanish Civil War at a meeting of key military commanders as an important step toward preventing the spread of communism, and argued that this intervention would advance the formation of an alliance against the Soviet Union.

If a dictator says that, how can anyone say ‘no’?

On August 1, the South Korean cabinet unanimously decided to intervene and prepared to send intervention forces.

The scale was determined to be around 10,000 people, similar to Nazi Germany.

Even so, the burden of military expenses was considerable, as they were sending an expeditionary force to the other side of the globe.

On this day, the Berlin Olympics, known as the ‘Festival of Peace for Humanity’, were held.

Koreans were more interested in the Olympics than in news of the Spanish intervention in the Civil War.

Thanks to the Olympics issue overshadowing news of intervention in the civil war, Pyongyang was able to prepare for intervention without much noise.

On August 3, 150,000 workers demonstrated in Moscow’s Red Square to show solidarity with the Spanish Republic.

In the USSR, a proletarian peasant state, such mobilization of the masses soon meant intervention by the Soviet Union.

Even though the situation had reached this point, Britain and France, the permanent members of the League of Nations, did not lift a finger.

As the Rhineland incident proved, the British and French governments were utterly helpless.

Overall, Germany, Italy, and Korea stood in the nationalist camp, while the Soviet Union stood in the republican camp.

Although the number of donors varied, the Republican government had over 700 tons of gold.

That amount of money was enough to make up for the lack of external support to some extent.

Although the rebels, with support from Germany and Italy, made great advances during August, the situation changed dramatically in October.

Large-scale military supplies and international volunteers sent by the Soviet Union began to pour into the republic.

As the war situation became sluggish, the media that had been talking about the achievements of the ‘proud imperial army’ in the Spanish Civil War after the Olympics also became quiet.

I have now decided to open my sealed mouth.

Of course, I had no intention of directly attacking the government by using the name Lee Seong-jun.

I had other friends who would take up arms for me.

‘Internationalist left.’

To put it bluntly, they are communist friends.

I used some of the young officers who had become my followers to quietly inform my red friends on campus about the realities of the Imperial Army’s intervention in the ‘Spanish Civil War’.

“Why on earth are our sons dying in a foreign land, far away, in Spain, where they do not speak the language? Is the Spanish Republican government an enemy that threatens the security of the empire?”

As these posters began to circulate around university campuses, military authorities became extremely nervous.

Haha.

It’s just the beginning, so don’t be so excited.

In my editorial, I pointed out one by one the problems of the Imperial Army that were revealed in this war.

“The biggest problem is doctrine. The Imperial Army is using its soldiers with outdated doctrines that were only suitable for the last World War. The old and slow infantry-based tactics cannot keep up with the vehicle-based mobile warfare that is advancing day by day. It is time for us to change too.”

Of course, the story I was telling was nonsense that could not be realized in reality.

Would the Japanese Empire’s savages have raised a world war-style army centered on infantry and artillery with only udon noodles on their heads?

That’s because there’s no budget.

It was the same in Korea.

With a bloated navy that’s sucking up 60% of the budget, where would the money be to develop new tanks?

And developing a new tank was useless.

China, the empire’s ‘main enemy’, had poor road infrastructure and was not a good place to operate tanks.

Anyway, China is an opponent that can be defeated if the force is centered on infantry and artillery.

There was no need for a high-performance new tank for an army that was fighting the Chinese.

Assuming that we do not fight the communist empire to the north, the Soviet Union.

‘Then, this Lee Seong-jun needs to take command of Korea.’

I had no intention of fighting the Soviet Union.

Why fight a crazy Hydra that brings 200 divisions when you take out 100 divisions?

Anyway, the editorial I posted clearly hit the sore spot of the military leaders.

If my claim is not true, then I have to explain other reasons why the Korean military is fighting poorly in Spain, and if it is true, then I have to conclude that they are just idiots who cannot figure out a problem that even a general knows.

‘So, you want to intervene in someone else’s war?’

They are no different from Mussolini, who didn’t even know his own abilities and just kept poking around here and there until he ended up with a nosebleed.

I had intended to advertise the stupid state of the Imperial Army with editorials and rumors whenever the weather turned cold, but the high-ranking military leaders were not fools.

“Huh? You want me to command the Spanish intervention forces?”

“It’s a greeting order. Just know that.”

Suddenly, an order came down to take command of the Spanish intervention forces.

The military leaders’ logic was simple.

‘Don’t just talk, prove it with your skills. If you can’t do it, you know what I mean?’

Oh, shit.

If you think about it, this isn’t impossible.

The position of commander of the Spanish Civil War expeditionary force was a hell (limited to the Korean military) that ruined the careers of the generals dispatched.

Even if Genghis Khan, not Napoleon, were to lead the Korean army, it would be difficult to have fun.

Besides, trying to throw me in there is a move to keep my mouth shut and block my promotion.

Those military idiots are using their brains.

You fucking bastards.

‘This debt will be repaid at a high price.’

So I boarded an unexpected trip to Spain.