The Last Crusade: The Twentieth Century's War for the Sake of the Cross

by Warren H. Carroll

Spain 1936...

"Crusade" means a war for the sake of the Cross, a war to protect Christian people from persecution and death on account of their faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone has heard of the crusades of the Middle Ages. But few know of the crusade fought for this same purpose in Spain during the early twentieth century.

In just six months of the year 1936, thirteen bishops and nearly seven thousand priests, seminarians, monks, and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0931888670
• ISBN13: 9780931888670
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Christendom Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Against the Conventional Wisdom

Dr. Carroll's book is particularly enlightening on the zeitgeist of Spanish culture that led to Franco Nationalism. This is quite in contrast to the conventional wisdom about Franco and the Catholic Church during this period. As recently as The New York Times A.P. report on the Pope's recent visit to Spain (related to the beatification of some of the 1936 martyrs), the revolution is ideologically rewritten to suit leftist revisionism. The order of events is, for instance, characteristically jumbled to suggest the Church was attacked BECAUSE of Franco; while Dr. Carroll's scrupulous work shows that, without question, the pogrom against the Catholic Church by a coalition of anarchists, socialists, communists and other indifferent leftists began long before the Carlists and other traditionalists struck back in defense of their faith. And, in Times fashion, Franco's "fascism" is questioned, without any mention of the Communist puppet regime Spain was becoming, even though the Spanish national treasury was looted and sent directly to Moscow, where Stalin bragged that the Spanish would have as much chance of seeing their gold again as a man has of seeing his own ears. This information is a fascinating rejoinder to histories that insist that on a simplistic view of a complex revolution.

the true story

Living in Spain, I learned more from this book than from any other book written about the Spanish Civil War. Simple and direct, this book tells the real story. Anyone trying to feel and understand the mood of those times in Spain will simply have to read it. Gripping and enlightning.

QUE VIVA EL CAUDILLO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never had thought highly of Francisco Franco until I read this book, along with Paul Preston's biography. I now realize that Franco was, indeed, a crusader; the last of his kind. Unlike the truly diabolical European dictators, such as Hitler or Stalin, General Franco was not fighting a perceived enemy, but a real and evil one. This book explains exactly why this enemy needed getting rid of.

I highly recommend this book.

The Last Crusade tells in compelling language an aspect of the Spanish Civil War ignored in too many other histories: the murderous persecution of the Catholic Church in Republican Spain. As this volume makes clear, the persecution of the Church in the Republic allowed the Nationalists to place about their cause the mantle of a Crusade. This was probably the decisive factor in the ultimate outcome of the War. Faithful Catholics, outside of the areas controlled by the Basques, had no choice but to flock to the Nationalist standard and to fight a Republican regime that had allowed their churches to be burned, and their priests, nuns and brothers to be slaughtered. While not whitewashing the atrocities committed by the Nationalists, the author shines a spotlight on the acts of barbarity committed in the name of the Republic which in too many other histories have been ignored or even excused. For anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, and especially for a searching analysis of why the Nationalists won, this book cannot be recommended too highly.

Viva Christo Rey!

An excellent history of the early days of the Spanish Civil War and the atrocities committed by the Republican forces. A must for any balanced history of the era.