Spanish Civil War labourers, and parts of the middle class. The conservative, strongly Catholic Basque country, along with Catholic Galicia and the more left-leaning Catalonia, sought autonomy or independence from the central government of Madrid. The Republican government allowed for the possibility of self-government for the two regions, whose forces were gathered under the People's Republican Army ("Ejército Popular Republicano", or EPR), which was reorganized into mixed brigades after October 1936. A few well-known people fought on the Republican side, such as English novelist George Orwell (who wrote "Homage to Catalonia" (1938), an account of his experiences in the war) and Canadian thoracic
Foreign involvement in the Spanish Civil War defenders of religion in the face of the godless, the anti-clerical, the anti-Islamic, and a common religious rival (the Jews) – and they were forced to ignore the previous Moroccan war propaganda that had presented Moors as brutal and savage. The presence of Italian and German troops on the rebels' side was hidden as much as possible. Foreign press coverage of the Spanish Civil War was extensive, with around a thousand foreign newspaper correspondents working from Spain. Foreign involvement in the Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War had large numbers of non-Spanish citizens participating in combat and advisory positions.