Picasso's War · the Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece That Changed the World

The leading historian on the Spanish Civil War reveals the truth about one of the most horrifying events of the twentieth century – the destruction of Guernica.

Guernica, a quiet market town in the Basque region of northern Spain. On Monday 26 April 1937, as the Spanish Civil War raged, the market square was busy with farmers and townspeople. Just before five o’clock in the afternoon the sky darkened as the Luftwaffe swarmed overhead and began an unrelentingly vicious assault, the first ever on an undefended civilian target in Europe.

The savage attack on Guernica marked the birth of a horrific new kind of warfare. In this searing account of the tragedy, Paul Preston, the foremost historian of 20th century Spain, tells the whole story of the attack, from Franco’s tactics to how events unfolded on the day and how the world responded.

Published to tie in with the 75th anniversary of the bombing this short ebook is a deeply moving account of what happened on that day in Guernica.