On July, 1936, Spain suddenly captures the world stage when a group of generals rebels against the legitimate Republican government. The youngest, Francisco Franco, stands out among them. It might have been just another of the many military uprisings characterizing Spanish history, but this time the rebels receive the immediate support of Hitler and Mussolini. The world takes sides: Stalin and the Communist International line up alongside the Popular Front government, which receives only lukewarm support from France and England.

What could have been a failed coup this leads to a long war, in which thousands of volunteers fight and die. The world interprets the war as a struggle between fascism, communism and democracy. But the war is first of all a civil war, in which the two faces of Spain confront each the other, the metropolitan, secular, Republican one. The terrible fighting —as in every civil war— lovers the level of civilization on both sides. For three long years, Spain offers a scene that prefigures the future horrors of World War II, before the country finally sinks into dictatorship.