However, arms and other materials would not be supplied purely altruistically: in October 1936, transfer of the bulk Spain’s gold reserves, valued at $500 million, to Moscow would cement Republican primary reliance on Soviet aid, Bolloten, 145–58. In the interest of securing arms and other military materials, the Republic’s appeal to the Soviet Union was a logical one - aligned political ideologies and the Soviet Union’s interest in unified international communist movements seemed ripe for the potential of direct material support for the beleaguered Republic. Rifles from Soviet Sources: Spanish gold for the Czar’s broken toys
The Republic would be largely dependent on foreign weapons and supplies. Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 330. Consequently, the reorganization and consolidation of Republican militia forces and scattered loyal military units into the Ejército de la República Española in 1937 helped to mitigate some organizational issues, but did little in the way of easing logistical strains or standardizing small arms. Robert Ball, Mauser Military Rifles of the World (Iola, WI: F + W Media, 2011), 353.įrom a Republican instructional series, this image demonstrates proper cleaning of a Mauser rifle.Īs the initial coup ushering in the conflict originated from within the national army, the logistical chaos of the Civil War left Republican forces desperate for small arms though domestic 18-pattern Mauser rifles were common, their numbers were not sufficient to arm either the remaining troops nor the ones recruited by political or regional militias. Production of the 1916 short rifle was undertaken at Fabrica de Armas Oviedo up to and through the Civil War as that arsenal remained under Nationalist control, a number of 1916 short rifles bearing a dated “INDUSTRIAS DE GUERRA DE CATALUNYA” or “SUBSECRETARIA DE ARMAMENTOS” rollmark on the receiver ring are evident of limited Republican production during the conflict. Early variants were equipped with lange vizier-style rear sight, though most are encountered with standard, flat tangent sights. The development of a short rifle variant in 1916 produced a rifle based on the 1893 action, but incorporating a turned-down bolt handle and a pair of front sight protector wings. In the intervening period, the 7mm 1893 pattern Mauser rifle remained the standard rifle of the Spanish army, continuing service through the Rif War and up through the Civil War. Ludwig Olson, Mauser Bolt Rifles (Montezuma, IA: Brownell & Son, 2002), 65-7. Initial production of the 1893 pattern rifle was undertaken at Mauser Oberndorf and Ludwig Loewe & Co., as well as domestically at Fabrica de Armas Oviedo - these early production rifles bore the Spanish national crest and their stripper-clip fed, five-round staggered internal box magazine distinguished them from American Krag-Jorgensen rifles during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The most prevalent rifles in use during the Spanish Civil War among both armies were that of the 1893 pattern Mauser and its 1916 short rifle variant both standard arms of the prewar army chambered in 7x57mm.
Republican troops armed with domestic 1893 pattern and 1916 Mauser rifles.
Standard Rifles of the Spanish Army: Domestic Mausers As the effects of the Spanish Civil War are still internationally felt decades later, this article is presented from a politically neutral perspective, with respect to the complexity, nuance, and tragedy of the conflict and its aftermath. This article focuses on the nonstandard, foreign-supplied rifles in use by the Republican Spanish in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, drawing on a number of primary and secondary texts and period photographs, with the aim of providing a comprehensive analysis of their direct international sources, front-line use, and postwar collection and surplus. In the scramble to acquire small arms in the midst of a chaotic civil war and with the backdrop of a largely noninterventionist international political sphere, the Spanish Republic’s difficulty of securing modern or at least relatively-modern weapons was such that only a few, disparate international sources were able to be reliably brokered - mainly originating from the Soviet Union, Poland, and Mexico, though other nations also committed material support to lesser extents.