Nationalist rebels attempted a coup against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War.

The Nationalist faction, also called the Rebel faction and Francoist faction, was a major faction in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939. It was composed of a variety of right-wing political groups that supported the Spanish Coup of July 1936 against the Second Spanish Republic and Republican faction and sought to depose Manuel Azaña. It included the Falange, the CEDA, and two rival monarchist claimants: the Alfonsist Renovación Española and the Carlist Traditionalist Communion. In 1937, all the groups were merged into the FET y de las JONS. In the course of the war, the Nationalist groups, which exhibited certain "fascisant" and "pre-fascist" tendencies, became unified around a new emerging ideological project marked by modern ultranationalism and the goal of purifying and reviving the nation in the "bonfire" of the war to achieve a Spanish "New Man" similarly to Fascism. After the death of the faction's early leaders, General Francisco Franco, one of the members of the 1936 coup, headed the Nationalists throughout most of the war, and emerged as the dictator of Spain until his death in 1975.