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.
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.
During the Spanish Civil War, several countries followed a principle of non-intervention, which would result in the signing of the Non-Intervention Agreement in August 1936 and the setting up of the Non-Intervention Committee, which first met in September.
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.
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.
