The International Non-Intervention Agreement and the Spanish Civil War

In: American journal of international law: AJIL, Band 31, Heft 4, S. 578-603

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the present Spanish civil war has been the evolution, and devolution, of the international accord for non-intervention in Spain, and the observation and patrol system set up in connection therewith. The purpose motivating the accord was the desire to prevent Europe from becoming so bound up with and so divided over the ideological aspects of the conflict that the fighting would lead to a general European war. If the devices have not succeeded altogether in stopping the entrance of supplies and men into Spain; if they have glossed over or provided a screen behind which violations of pledged undertakings have occurred; if they have become popular laughing-stock, and have allowed unfortunate Spain to become a military laboratory for the testing of weapons and strategy, they have, nevertheless, been instrumental, along with other things perhaps, in averting for at least the first year of the Spanish war an extension of hostilities to other territories. Care need well be exercised lest the entire scheme be dropped, for Spanish civil wars have always been long drawn-out affairs lasting several years, and it should not be supposed that the general crisis is over, or that the mere granting of belligerent rights to the contestants will diminish the dangers.