The gas industry in Madrid during the Civil War (1936–1939)

Abstract

The chapter seeks to explain the history of Madrid’s gas factory over the years of the Spanish Civil War, an overlooked topic in the historiography of the state capital during the Spanish conflict. Throughout the war the gas factory, a critical infrastructure, remained under the control of the Republican authorities. The chapter analyses both the production and consumption of gas, variables which performed considerably worse in Madrid when compared with the country as a whole and with other Spanish gas factories and also with Rome, the capital of Italy. We have confirmed the hypothesis that the lack of coal was decisive in the collapse of gas production. The research is primarily based on the archival files from the Town Archive of Madrid, records consulted at the Historical Memory Documentary Centre as well as records and statistics from the Gas Madrid Company.