This book is a great source book for the aviation aspect of the Spanish Civil War. It has everything: intrique, conflict, and betrayal.The stories are told with the aircraft type as the reference to the story, and covers aircraft of both sides. By telling the story in this format, the reader gets a good feel for the technical problems involved, the heroism of the pilots, and the political extremism of both sides,and how the Spanish Civil War become a testing ground for the Russian Front of WWII.

Howson's book is clearly well researched and documented. He does give the reader a good idea of the machinations behind the supplying of arms to both sides during the civil war. His thesis posits that the Republicans were denied and cheated out of arming themselves against the Nationalists. The Nationalists however faired far better with the support of Mussolini and Hitler. Europes reluctance to funnel military aide, under the pretext of nonintervention, to the Spainish government is presented as both nearsighted and duplicitous. That being said, Howson's book is a tough and "crowded" read. His attention to detail, in this case weaponry, is beyond a laymens appreciation or tolerance. His entire premise can be obtained from his conclusion, far more readily than traversing the 200 plus pages. For anyone knowledgable in the area of "Janes" weapons catalog, this is a must read. Beyond that, however look elsewhere. Try Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" as an interesting into to the Spanish Civil War.

The book treats about how the Republican Government managed to get weapons during the Spanish Civil War, and though very interesting is a little disappointing.

It's undeniable that it contains very interesting data, but it isn't exhaustive (really neither it seeks it). Basically is centred in the incredible fraud made to the Spanish Republic by the Governments of the USSR, Poland and some Baltic countries, together with a plethora of arm's smugglers.

It shows with detail (though it was already known) the difficulties of the Republic to purchase weapons and equipment from foreign countries already from the beginning of the war and the strange paths that were followed for the delivery of the material. The real or supposed danger of social revolution affected in a very negative way, contributing largely to its international isolation of Spanish Republic.

All equipment should be paid in cash and upon contract's signature, in spite of being the Spanish legitimate government (so recognised internationally), while the Rebel Government was served with all type of supplies to credit (not only by Germany and Italy but also by USA's corporations, which served fuel and trucks with a promise of payment after the war).

Its main defect is that it is a thesis book, so not completely objective. It tries to demonstrate that the imported equipment was insufficient to arm the Republican Army, refuting numbers traditionally accepted by military historians in the past (vg. 900 tanks supposedly sent by the USSR). But now it's commonly accepted that these figures are exaggerated and have been already revised by modern historians.

The author also insists a lot in the bad quality of a part of supplies, especially small arms and artillery, sometimes with reason but others without it.

It's true that "only" 330 tanks were delivered, but they carried a potent 45 mm gun, so they were infinitely superior to the 150 Italian CV-3/33 tankettes or the 150 German Pzkw I tiny tanks, armed with two machine guns.

Something similar happens with aircraft, where the Soviet Polikarpov fighters (I-15 & 16) were neatly superior to Italian and German ones in 1936 and a good part of 1937.

It's also true that the prices were very high and that artillery pieces weren't delivered with all their accessories and that many of them were worn, but they aren't so bad and obsolete as it's repeatedly said.

About artillery the book exemplified it with British QF 4.5-in. (114 mm) howitzer, purchased in great numbers from USSR (who had bought them in WW 1). Really it wasn't notably inferior to the pre-war regulation Spanish 105 mm Model 1922 howitzer. It still served with British divisional artillery in the first campaigns of WW 2 and was comparable to the very much used by Nationalist Army's artillery, Italian 100 mm Model 1914 howitzer. In fact most guns imported by both sides were worn-out WW 1 surpluses.

About small arms it centred in the obsolescence of model 1891 Mosin Nagant rifle (really the most modern model 1891/30 wasn't much better), forgetting that the Spanish regulation 7 mm Mauser rifle dated from 1893 or that the Nationalist Army's second rifle in numbers was Italian model 1891 Carcano.

Howson also says that the number of rifles purchased was not so high as had been said. But, according to the book, a total of 414.000 rifles were supplied by the USSR (including 250.000 Mosin Nagant model 1891 & 1891/30, thousands of foreign made rifles bought by Russia in WW1 and 50.000 7.92 mm Mauser Model 24 acquired in Czechoslovakia).

Great quantities of rifles were also bought in Poland (30.000 modern 7.92 mm Mauser rifles and many thousands of Polish Army's surpluses: 8 mm Austro-Hungarian Mannlicher, 8 mm French Lebel and Berthier rifles...). Curiously, the Republican Government also bought thousands of Mausers from Germany, with assistance of Greece (with some nazi leaders involved in the business). There were also other smaller sources as Paraguay, Mexico, etc.

To the near 3/4 of million rifles imported we must add 200.000 Spanish rifles that were in the republican side at the beginning of the war. If Republic Army had about 600.000 men, about 1/2 million rifles were enough to arm them (as only riflemen carried it). The main problem is that the great diversity of cartridges (mainly 7 and 7.92 mm Mauser, 7.62 mm Mosin Nagant, 8 mm Lebel, 8 mm Mannlicher and .303 British) and the shortage of imports of some types troubled ammunition supplying.

Although it is undeniable that the Republic had numerous problems to purchase war material and that only Soviet "help" (always paid in cash with Spanish gold reserves moved to Moscow) avoided its total lack of supplies, I believe that the reasons of Republican defeat didn't lay in the lack of arms, as the author treat to establish. It was owed mainly to the fact that leftist political parties (mainly socialist PSOE and anarchist CNT) began a revolutionary movement after the coup that destroyed the republican institutions, disbanding the operative elements of the eight pre-war Army's Divisions that had remained loyal to the Republic.

So in the first months of the conflict (so important for their future development) Republican combat forces were the ineffective parties' militias, with an incredible waste of military resources and its dispersion in the rearguard. There was also a lack of professional officers, together with continuous political interventions in operations development (including a fatal lack of co-operation of Basque and Catalan Nationalists Regional Governments).

Because of arms' buyers were civilian politicians influenced by the sensationalist theories of air power, there was a excessive interest in acquiring aeroplanes of all type, many of them useless, instead of worrying about less attractive, but indispensable materials. Dohuet and Mitchell theories must wait until the Gulf War, when the intelligent weapons have allowed an unimaginable precision

Therefore I believe that we don't have yet a complete study of weapons acquisition during the Spanish Civil War.

I won't dispute Carlos Villaroel's comments, but I think that Howson's book is still indispensable to the serious SCW scholar because of the Soviet archival material. No one book will satisfy everyone on the question of who is most to blame for the Republic's defeat. There are just too many factors to weigh, and politics will always color people's judgment. While one can make a strong case to blame the Non-Intervention Committee and USSR, the first and biggest nail in the Republic's coffin had to be German and Italian support of Franco. To me, this book was engaging and enlightening because I haven't yet read the mountains of SCW books published in Spain. Everyone studying the SCW must continually read and assemble a composite picture to gain a better understanding.