More mustard seeds please

Originally posted by alonso ↑

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/battle-of-covadonga-king-pelagius-spanish-christians/

Snips:

Exactly 1,300 years ago, in the year 718, a little-remembered kingdom was born in Spain. It soon led to the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic occupation. To appreciate the significance of that development, we must travel back seven years earlier, to 711, when Arabs and Africans, both under the banner of Islam, “godlessly invaded Spain to destroy it,” to quote from the Chronicle of 754. Once on European soil, they “ruined beautiful cities, burning them with fire; condemned lords and powerful men to the cross; and butchered youths and infants with the sword.”

. .
In the end, native Spaniards had two choices: acquiesce to Muslim rule or “flee to the mountains, where they risked hunger and various forms of death,” according to an early Christian chronicler.

Pelagius, better known as Pelayo (685–737), a relative of and “sword-bearer” to King Roderick, who survived Guadalete, followed both strategies. After the battle, he retreated north, where Muslim rule was still tenuous, but eventually consented to become a vassal of Munnuza, a local Muslim chief. . . .Unable to fight the oncoming throng of Arabs and Africans “because they were so numerous,” Pelayo “climbed a mountain” and “joined himself to as many people as he found hastening to assemble.”
There, in the deepest recesses of the Asturian mountains — the only free spot left in the Iberian Peninsula — the assembled Christian fugitives declared Pelayo to be their new king. Thus the Kingdom of Asturias was born in 718.
. . (Here, in the Chronicle of Alfonso III, we have possibly the oldest record of the two sorts of Christians that developed under Muslim-occupied Spain: those who defied Islam and fled to the Asturian wilds, and those who accepted their lot and maneuvered within the system as subjugated dhimmis — and grumbled against their northern coreligionists for bringing Islam’s ire against them. The two will meet and compete again in centuries to come.)
. .
To keep the [northern] Christians in their place it did not suffice to surround them with a zone of famine and destruction. It was necessary also to go and sow terror and massacre among them. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, an army sallied forth from Córdoba to go and raid the Christians, destroy their villages, their fortified posts, their monasteries and their churches, except when it was a question of expeditions of larger scope, involving sieges and pitched battles. In cases of simply punitive expeditions, the soldiers of the Caliph confined themselves to destroying harvests and cutting down trees. . . . If one bears in mind that this brigandage was almost continual, and that this fury of destruction and extermination was regarded as a work of piety — it was a holy war against infidels — it is not surprising that whole regions of Spain should have been made irremediably sterile. This was one of the capital causes of the deforestation from which the Peninsula still suffers.
. .
Over the next three centuries, a number of Christian kingdoms — Galicia, Leon, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia, whose significance and names morphed and changed with the vicissitudes of history — evolved from or alongside the Asturian mustard seed. They made slow but steady progress against the forces of Islam.
Finally, in 1085, and after nearly 400 years of Muslim occupation, the Christians recaptured the ancient Visigothic capital, Toledo.

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When are the Europeans going to learn that is far safer & easier to keep these people out than to turn around and drive them out when they have established a foothold?

Fortunately we have already some "mustard seeds" in Hungary, Poland, Chech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Italy.

Expand

http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/spanish_civil_war

Nationalists

The Nationalists (nacionales)—also called "insurgents", "rebels", or, by opponents, "Franquists" or "fascists"—feared national fragmentation and opposed the separatist movements. They were chiefly defined by their anti-communism, which galvanized diverse or opposed movements like falangists and monarchists. Their leaders had a generally wealthier, more conservative, monarchist, landowning background.^[78]
The Nationalist side included the Carlists and Alfonsist monarchists, Spanish nationalists, the fascist Falange, and most conservatives and monarchist liberals. Virtually all Nationalist groups had strong Catholic convictions and supported the native Spanish clergy.^[78] The Nationals included the majority of the Catholic clergy and practitioners (outside of the Basque region), important elements of the army, most large landowners, and many businessmen.^[72]
One of the rightists' principal motives was to confront the anti-clericalism of the Republican regime and to defend the Church,^[78] which had been targeted by opponents, including Republicans, who blamed the institution for the country's ills. On the other hand, the Church was against the Republicans' liberal principles, which were fortified by the Spanish Constitution of 1931.^[79] Prior to the war, in the Asturias uprising of 1934, religious buildings were burnt and at least 100 clergy, religious civilians, and police were killed by revolutionaries.^[80]^[81]
Franco had brought in the mercenaries of Spain's colonial Army of Africa and reduced the miners to submission by heavy artillery attacks and bombing raids. The Spanish Foreign Legion committed atrocities—many women and children were killed, and the army carried out summary execution of leftists. The repression in the aftermath was brutal. In Asturias, prisoners were tortured.^[82] Franco believed that he was justified in the brutal use of troops against Spanish civilians. Historian Paul Preston said, "Unmoved by the fact that the central symbol of rightist values was the reconquest of Spain from the Moors, Franco did not hesitate to ship Moorish mercenaries to fight in Asturias, the only part of Spain where the crescent had never flown. He saw no contradiction about using the Moors, because he regarded left-wing workers with the same racialist contempt he possessed towards the tribesmen of the Rif".^[83]
Articles 24 and 26 of the 1931 constitution had banned the Jesuits. This proscription deeply offended many within the conservative fold. The revolution in the Republican zone at the outset of the war, in which 7,000 clergy and thousands of lay people were killed, deepened Catholic support for the Nationalists.^[84]^[85]
The Moroccan Regulares joined the rebellion and played a significant role in the civil war. In a 2009 news story, Reuters reported, "About 136,000 Moroccan fighters fought for the Generalissimo's Army of Africa, the feared vanguard of a force that, ironically, Franco portrayed as a Christian crusade against godless communists".^[86]

Support for the Nationalists

Germany

German involvement began days after fighting broke out in July 1936. Adolf Hitler quickly sent in powerful air and armored units to assist the Nationalists. The war provided combat experience with the latest technology for the German military. However, the intervention also posed the risk of escalating into a world war for which Hitler was not ready. He therefore limited his aid, and instead encouraged Benito Mussolini to send in large Italian units.^[95]
Nazi actions included the formation of the multitasking Condor Legion, a unit composed of volunteers from the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and from the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) from July 1936 to March 1939. German efforts to move the Army of Africa to mainland Spain proved successful in the war's early stages.^[96] German operations slowly expanded to include strike targets, most notably – and controversially – the bombing of Guernica which, on 26 April 1937, killed 200 to 300 civilians.^[97]
German involvement was further manifested through undertakings such as Operation Ursula, a U-boat undertaking, and contributions from the Kriegsmarine. The Legion spearheaded many Nationalist victories, particularly in aerial combat,^[98] while Spain further provided a proving ground for German tank tactics. The training German units provided to Nationalist forces would prove valuable. By the War's end, perhaps 56,000 Nationalist soldiers, encompassing infantry, artillery, aerial and naval forces, had been trained by German detachments.^[96]
A total of approximately 16,000 German citizens fought in the war, including approximately 300 killed,^[99] though no more than 10,000 participated at any one time. German aid to the Nationalists amounted to approximately £43,000,000 ($215,000,000) in 1939 prices,^[99]^{[nb 6]} 15.5 percent of which was used for salaries and expenses and 21.9 percent for direct delivery of supplies to Spain, while 62.6 percent was expended on the Condor Legion.^[99] In total, Germany provided the Nationalists with 600 planes and 200 tanks.^[100]
Italy

After Francisco Franco's request and encouragement by Hitler, Benito Mussolini joined the war. While the conquest of Ethiopia made Italy confident in its power, a Spanish ally would nonetheless help secure Italian control of the Mediterranean.^[101] The Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) played a substantial role in the Mediterranean blockade, and ultimately Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft, tankettes, the Legionary Air Force (Italian: Aviazione Legionaria), and the Corps of Volunteer Troops (Italian: Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV) to the Nationalist cause.^[102] The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 50,000 men.^[102] Italian warships took part in breaking the Republican navy's blockade of Nationalist-held Spanish Morocco and took part in naval bombardment of Republican-held Malaga, Valencia, and Barcelona.^[103] In total, Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles.^[104]
Portugal

The [108]
Others

The Conservative government of Great Britain maintained a position of strong neutrality and was supported by elites and the mainstream media, while the far left mobilized aid to the Republic.^[109] The government refused to allow arms shipments and sent warships to try to stop shipments. It became a crime to volunteer to fight in Spain, but about 4,000 went anyway. Intellectuals strongly favoured the Republicans. Many visited Spain, hoping to find authentic anti-fascism. They had little impact on the government, and could not shake the strong public mood for peace.^[110] The Labour Party was split, with its Catholic element favouring the Nationalists. It officially endorsed the boycott and expelled a faction that demanded support for the Republican cause; but itfinally voiced some support to Loyalists.^[111]
Romanian volunteers were led by Ion I Moţa, deputy-leader of the Legion of the Archangel Michael (or Iron Guard), whose group of seven Legionaries visited Spain in December 1936 to ally their movement with the Nationalists.^[112]
Despite the Irish government's prohibition against participating in the war, around 600 Irishmen, followers of Irish political activist and Irish Republican Army leader Eoin O'Duffy, known as the "Irish Brigade", went to Spain to fight alongside Franco.^[106] O'Duffy was a staunch anti-communist, which made him attracted to the various authoritarian nationalist movements on the Continent. He raised the Irish Brigade as an act of Catholic solidarity with Franco.