It was March 28th: ​​The Francoists entered Madrid

On March 28, 1939, Franco's troops entered Madrid without encountering any real resistance, sealing the defeat of the Spanish Republic after almost three years of a brutal civil war. Watching the victors parade around General Francisco Franco, Spain understood that a page had turned abruptly: that of the Republic born in 1931, replaced by a dictatorship destined to last until 1975. This military triumph ended the fighting, but it brought neither reconciliation nor peace.

The Francoist victory and the Republican collapse

Since the fall of Catalonia a few weeks earlier, the outcome of the war was almost certain. The exhausted Republican side lacked weapons, supplies, aircraft, and above all, political unity. In early March 1939, a coup led by Colonel Casado against Juan Negrín's government further exacerbated the chaos within the Republican camp. Franco took full advantage: refusing any real negotiations, he demanded unconditional surrender. When his final offensive began on March 26, the Nationalist army advanced rapidly. Two days later, Madrid fell.

The Spanish Civil War thus ended in immense human disaster. It is estimated that it claimed over 400,000 lives, through fighting, bombings, executions, and repression. The country served as a battleground for the major violent ideologies of the time: Italian fascism, German Nazism, Soviet Stalinism, revolutionary anarchism, and authoritarian counter-revolution. Spain emerged from this ordeal exhausted, divided, ruined, and soon subjected to a long dictatorship.

La Retirada, exodus and distress

As Franco's forces gained the upper hand, immense crowds of civilians and Republican fighters fled to France. This mass exodus, known as the Retirada, threw hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children onto the roads. Caught off guard, the French government opened the border but confined many refugees in makeshift camps in the southwest and along the Mediterranean coast, under very harsh conditions. Others went to Mexico or the Soviet Union, hoping to rebuild their lives there.

The fate of the Republicans stranded in the southern ports was even more tragic. In Alicante, in particular, thousands of people waited in vain for ships that never came. Surrounded by Franco's forces and their Italian allies, some committed suicide to avoid capture; others were interned, executed, or sent to camps. On April 1, 1939, Franco issued his brief communiqué: "The war is over." In reality, for Spain, only then did fear, prisons, and settling of scores begin.