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Hi All,
And hi, wireandpaper, southwestforests and Don Boose. Wire, I’m sorry to say I don’t know the year of publication or the numbers produced of the Baleares model. Published by Construcciones Goliat, the Baleares is the only model of theirs I have seen. There may have been a cover to the model’s three pages that gave more information, but if so, it is no longer available.
And southwestforests, a quarter of a million dollars for a torpedo these days sound like a steal.
Don, thanks so much for your kind comments. No, I haven’t archived this material, but you have me thinking that maybe I should. After all, the internet is the ephemera of our time. And thanks for your comments about my writing. It’s the history of these bits of paper that make them so fascinating to me. I try to describe them in the context their time, and I hope this adds to their interest. Thanks.
The following set of four dioramas was published in 1936 by Industrias Gráficas Offset of Barcelona. The first two in the set will be discussed in this post, with the remaining two next week. Thanks to Francesc ďA López Sala and Tom Greensfelder for sending me the needed scenes to complete my collection.
These interesting and colorful dioramas show soldiers fighting under the flag of Spain’s anarchist union, the CNT, fending off attacks by the rebel Nationalists in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. On the 17th and 18th of July in 1936, the Nationalist coup ďétat began in the Spanish Army under the direction of Francisco Franco and other members of the general staff. Their first objective was to take control of Spain’s major cities before subduing the rest of the country. Barcelona, the Catalan capitol, was at the top of the list.
The first diorama shows the Port Vell, or Old Harbor, in Barcelona. In the center background is the 200 foot tall Monument de Colom, or Columbus Monument. Here, on July 19th, 1936, members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, or CNT, are shown firing on an unseen enemy while an airplane circles overhead. The 5,000 attacking Nationalist forces were ultimately routed in the battle by overwhelming numbers of government loyalists, and the coup, at least for the time being, had failed.
The color of the diorama comes as a surprise, as most battle scenes of the Guerra Civil are in black and white. Upon close examination of the drawings, the soldiers appear quite young…boys, really. This and the other dioramas in the set are pure propaganda, showing clean, upright, uninjured fighting youth defending against an enemy so cowardly that they dare not show their face.
The second diorama depicts the Battle of Guadarrama, also known as the Battle of Somosierra, on July 24th, 1936. Nationalist planners had hoped to take Madrid in a swift end-around by quickly striking through the Somosierra Pass in the Guadarrama Range. In the diorama, CNT soldiers again fight with rifles and cannon against an unseen foe. And again, the men in the red hats were victorious against the professional army. All these early victories were reversed later in the war, but these dioramas brought hope to young and old alike that a quick victory for the government forces was at hand.
Only published in 1936, and the only paper models currently known to have been produced by this publisher, these four dioramas offer an idyllic view of war…more like a day’s outing than a fierce struggle against a determined enemy.
Score and fold,
Thumb Dog
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