What was the Bombing of Guernica?
The bombing of Guernica was an infamous military attack which occurred during the Spanish Civil War. Many people today use Guernica as a symbol of wartime atrocity and the cost of war, because hundreds of innocent civilians were killed in the vicious attack. The bombing also rang alarm bells throughout Europe because it involved the German government, which was theoretically barred from participating in military activity by terms of the treaty which ended the First World War. Guernica is at the cultural heart of Basque country, a region which extends across Northern Spain and parts of Southern France. During the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, the city was largely uninvolved in the war, although Basque troops certainly were housed nearby, along with the Republican forces which were trying to wrest control of Spain from Franco and his Nationalist troops.
