Spain - Second Republic (1932-1939): Order of the Spanish Republic, the Collective Badge for the Civil Guard. Breast badge in gilded-bronze, of sun ray form, the rays and wreath are enamelled, the centre with the enamel surround date for ’11 Febrero 1932’ the day of the formation of the Second Republic, the centre surmounted by a moral crown. The reverse correctly fitted with a vertical needle pin, and complete with both retaining hooks. A superb example of type and extremely rare.
Condition: light verdigris marks to reverse, gilding also now faded, other the enamel work is very good with only slight loss to the leaves, generally Good Very Fine.
The Order of the Spanish Republic (Spanish: "Orden de la República Española") was founded on 21 July 1932 in the Second Spanish Republic for civil and military merit to the state. It replaced the orders of merit of the former Spanish Monarchy and had the mural crown instead of the royal one.
The order had the usual five degrees. There was a special collar for heads of state together with breast star, a grand cross with sash badge and breast star, a commanders neck insignia, officers and knights breast insignia, and two medals, one in silver and the other in bronze were attached to this order of merit. The ribbon or the order was red with a white border. In addition to this, and attached to the Order of the Spanish Republic, there was the Collective Badge for the Civil Guard, this was instituted in 1934. After the military defeat of the Spanish Republic in 1939, General Francisco Franco abolished all Republican Orders and instituted new ones.
The Collective Badge for the Civil Guard was specially created as as badge of honour within the Civil Guard. The Civil Guard, Spain’s paramilitary constabulary and largest police force, played an influential role in many of the pivotal events of the Second Republic (1931-1939). or example, many have noted that the reluctance of the Director-General of the Civil Guard, Lieutenant General Jose Sanjujro, to maintain the monarchy through force after the Republican victory in the April 1931 elections was instrumental in the peaceful change of regime, indeed, the uncertainty of gaining the support of the Civil Guard for any potential coup against the Republic would prove a deterrent for many would-be military conspirators for the next five years. Their concerns over the attitudes of the Civil Guard were well-founded. When the Army rebelled in July 1936, several scholars have noted that the division of Spain in those first few days roughly corresponded to the split of loyalties among the Civil Guard in favour of either the government or the insurgents. Indeed, one historian even suggests that this fact was partially responsible for turning a coup d’etat into a civil war.
The Civil Guard, much like the Roman Catholic Church, was an institution of great symbolic importance in Spanish society. The Civil Guard’s role as the daily defender of the state and the social order under the monarchy, and its veneer of uncompromising military discipline, had shaped popular perceptions of that very state and society. For those of more humble origins, the Civil Guard was the living symbol of an unjust, occasionally brutal, social order. Given that the Civil Guard was a representative of the central state, this perception was thus transferred towards the state itself, a state whose laws and representatives were viewed in a still largely rural society as foreign impositions, as opposed to being the will of the “people” (usually understood in local terms). It was the principal task of the new Republican government to reformulate this relationship between state and society. The repeated heavy-handedness of civil guards in dealing with protests and disorders throughout the Republican period contributed to the alienation of sectors of the working-classes from the new regime. Because of and in addition to this, the employment of the corps by the governments of the Republic was an immediate and continual source of friction between the pro-republican groups, especially those of the Left. They felt that the continued utilisation of the Civil Guard was at best an anachronism, at worst a betrayal of the ideals of the Republic. Within a month of the new regime’s proclamation, the controversy over the employment of the Civil Guard provoked the first governmental crisis of the Republic, and instances of civil guard brutality or violent clashes with the public over the next five years only served to heighten these tensions.
