When Barcelona fell to Franco’s forces on 26 January 1939, it was not the last Republican stronghold to fall, as we said. It was the last stronghold in Catalonia. Republicans still held Madrid, Valencia and Alicante. Madrid fell on 28 March and the Spanish civil war ended on 1 April (“Eighty years on, Franco’s refugees recall the calamity of the Retirada”, World, 10 February, page 34).
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