It culminated in the Battle of Badajoz in August 1936, from which the troops of the Army of Africa under the command of Francisco Franco moved quickly to begin the march to Madrid.

[3] In August 1936 the Nationalists, with the aid of Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy, managed to transport to the Peninsula thousands of soldiers of the Spanish Army of Africa.

This force was organized in five motorized columns of some 1,500 men each (a bandera of the Legion and a Tabor of Regulares with one or two batteries of 75mm), led by the colonels José Asensio, Francisco Delgado Serrano, Fernando Barron and Heli Rolando Tella and the Major Antonio Castejón.

In most cases the leaders of the left-wing parties and anyone with a shoulder bruised from the recoil of a fired rifle would be shot.

[10] Furthermore, the colonial troops looted the houses of the Republican supporters and raped thousands of working-class women.

[18] According to Helen Graham: "...the Army strategically butchered and terrorized the pro-Republican population, especially the rural landless...It was a war of agrarian counter-reform...The large landowners who owned the vast estates which covered most of the southern half of Spain rode along with the Army of Africa to reclaim by force of arms the land on which the Republic had settled the landless poor.

Rural labourers were killed where they stood, the 'joke' being they had got their 'land reform' at last -in the form of a burial plot.

The Massacre of Badajoz saw Yagüe's troops kill between 500[23] and 4,000[24] republican soldiers and civilians[25] and looted the city, even the shops and houses of the Nationalist supporters.

[28] Furthermore, the Nationalists occupied the western half of the province of Badajoz and the Republican government lost control of the Portuguese frontier.