Barcelona and Wuhan, 1938

In China as in Spain, aerial bombing of cities and civilian populations became widespread during 1938. In the first half of the year, Barcelona and Wuhan, two cities thousands of miles apart, appeared in the international media side by side as a result of the massive bombings they sustained. The news about such bombings were usually accompanied by photographs that showed destroyed buildings and suffering civilians. This page from a Chinese daily newspaper used a photo montage to show the daily reality of Chinese and Spanish citizens. On the top, are photos of the destruction caused by a bomb that fell on Barcelona’s Gran Via in March 1938; on the bottom are images of residents of the Chinese city of Wuhan looking skyward, seeking out bomb-laden Japanese planes.

The generalized, intensive aerial bombing of civilian populations marked a quantitative leap between these two wars and preceding conflicts. Pablo Picasso immortalized the bombing of Guernica by German planes in a famous painting that was exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in the summer of 1937. In June 1938, an international conference organized by a network of pacifist and governmental organizations was held in Paris to discuss the aerial bombing of cities and civilians. The conference heard comparisons between the experiences of Chinese and Spanish cities and a called for a ban on this military tactic, whose goal was to wear down the civilian population in the rearguard.

Newspaper and magazine articles, photography, and the campaigns for the end to aerial bombings had a significant impact on public opinion. But demands to ban them went nowhere so long as governments, which saw a new world war on the horizon, took measures to protect their populations as well as to strengthen their air forces and prepare them to bomb cities. As a result, the movement to prohibit this military tactic that began in China and Spain was soon forgotten.