Franco's disabled veterans: the BCMGP and the politics of welfare in Nationalist Spain

By 1943 the Nationalist disabled veterans' association - the Honourable Corps of Disabled in the War for the Fatherland (BCMPG) - reportedly counted upon 50,000 members. Exploring the personnel files of disabled veterans, as well as the organisational records of the government body responsible for the war disabled, the following paper provides a preliminary exploration of the aims and limitations of this Corps. More specifically, it will analyse the BCMGP's entry criteria, the ability of the association to guarantee a certain standard of living for its members, and its effectiveness in terms of encouraging social support for the Francoist dictatorship.