As a general, how good was he? At one point he was the youngest

>>1820820
Magnífico militar
>hizo pantanos

the republicans were so retarded at military stuff that any armchair general would have won

>>1820989
kek all he had to do was wait until commies and anarchists killed each other

>>1820820
As a general? Pretty bad. Not that anyone in the Spanish military was great, but Franco was an example of the peter principle at work.

Considering this
>>1820989
And this
>>1821009

AND the fact that he had German and Italian Divisions to use, it's really remarkable that there was much of a civil war at all.

File: Francisco_de_Goya_y_Lucientes_-_Duelo_a_garrotazos.jpg (610KB, 1526x703px) Image search: [Google]

610KB, 1526x703px

>>1821043
the division between republicanos and nacionalistas had been anticipated since, basically, Spanish enlightenment (pic related); it was exacerbated by the Napoleonic wars and subsequent rule in government, which alternated between periods of liberalism and hard-line conservative rule. the guerras carlistas were other civil wars after Napoleon that all spoke to the division between the two spains. Then, after all of this, spain developed a fourth estate that generally added more fuel to the liberal fire.

I mention all of this to basically say that, even though the republicanos were liable to in-fighting, they knew that there was a lot at stake. The communists in power in Madrid were willing to die with their stronghold; only by virtue of another coup did the city itself surrender. (I only discovered this after reading Stanley Payne's The Spanish Civil War.)

Which is to say, the civil war was almost even longer—which could have potentially had implications for the fascist belligerents in WWII. Probably not a huge impact, but who knows.

Some basic citations
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ser_de_Espa%C3%B1a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Madrid#Infighting.2C_Fall_of_Madrid_.281938.E2.80.93March_1939.29

>>1820820
He relied on regiments of Arab and African troops with the promise of sexual access to the entire female population of Madrid