The non-intervention agreement of 1936 was not the last elaborate system of official humbug the British government devised.
Although the British and French notes, calling for a more far-reaching non-intervention agreement than that now in existence, were addressed to Rome, Moscow and Lisbon, as well as to Berlin, a finger has been pointed officially at Hitler with the implication: "Thou art the man".
It became clear the Non-Intervention Agreement was not preventing German aid to the Nationalists.
It began once it was clear the Non-Intervention Agreement was not preventing Italian and German aid to the Nationalists.
Non-intervention, and with it the Non-Intervention Agreement, had been proposed in a joint diplomatic initiative by the governments of France and the United Kingdom.
The ostensible purpose of the Non-Intervention Committee (1936 1939) was to prevent personnel and matériel reaching the warring parties of the Spanish Civil War, as with the Non-Intervention Agreement.
Álvarez del Vayo spoke out against the Non-Intervention Agreement, claiming it put the rebel Nationalists on the same footing as the Republican government; that as the official government, the Republic had the right to buy arms.
Overtly, the Kriegsmarine was part of the force enforcing the non-intervention agreement signed on 28 September 1936, which barred its signatory countries from interfering in the Civil War.
Non-intervention, and with it the Non-Intervention Agreement, had been proposed in a joint diplomatic initiative by the governments of France and the United Kingdom, in order to prevent the war from escalating into a major pan-European conflict.
Though General Secretary Joseph Stalin had signed the Non-Intervention Agreement, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics contravened the League of Nations embargo by providing material assistance to the Republican forces, becoming their only source of major weapons.
On 23 August 1936, it agreed to the Non-Intervention Agreement, and this was followed by a decree from Stalin banning exports of war material to Spain, thereby bringing the USSR into line with the Western Powers.
