De la calle a la trinchera. El frente como escenario de lealtad y compromiso de la Guardia Civil en la Guerra Civil Española

Abstract

For broad sectors of Spaniards, fundamentally from the left and from the working world, the Civil Guard is considered, when the Spanish Civil War arrives, as a conservative institution with dubious loyalty to the republican cause. Probably an unfair impression, but it is what it is. In addition, in its more than ninety years of history, although it was a military body, its field of action had always been public order and security in the streets and squares of towns and cities. But as of 1936 it was incorporated as one more combat force at the battle front. And in republican Spain, this incorporation of the Civil Guard to the front becomes a means to accredit the commitment to the cause and dispel the doubts and misgivings that many civil guards aroused in the republican sphere. In this article we analyze the characteristics of this type of incorporation to the front and the consequences it has on the civil guards in the republican zone of the Civil War.