It was the first time for nearly sixty years that free elections had been allowed in Spain. An overwhelming amount of people voted, and the Popular Front, or the political left came away with the plurality. The Spanish people voted overwhelmingly for a republic, and Alfonso XIII was advised that the only way to avoid large-scale violence was to go into exile. Alfonso left Spain for France on the 14th of April, 1931. .
The newly elected government failed to suffice the poor who were still hungry and landless, and a large economic crisis developed in Spain scaring people of all political sides. A significant amount of conservatives still remained powerful because of their socio-economic status. They included the supporters of the monarchy, the Catholic church and the military led by four or five conservative generals such as Franco. The rejection of the monarchy and the Catholic church added to the dissatisfaction of the elected Popular Front by the politically conservative. In 1933 the recently developed political party of the right, CEDA (Confederacion Espanola de Derechas Autonomas) and Spain's military, under the leadership of Francisco Franco, began to plot an ousting of the elected government. In 1936 Franco, who had been transferred out of the country to Morocco by the left-wing government, and three other generals rebelled against the young and unstable government of the Republic of Spain. .
A small revolt, beginning with Franco in Morocco quickly turned into a large scale civil war. These rebels called themselves the Council of National Defense, or Nationalist. At first the republican government was able to maintain its strength and hold down the rebellion. Due to foreign support from Hitler's Nazis Germany and Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini the rebel army rapidly grew strength. Fascist Italy sent 70,000 soldiers to fight for the Nationalists and Germany supplied modern weaponry such as planes, tanks, and submarines.
