There was this new theory at the dawn of air warfare called "Strategic Bombing", one of its main advocates was Giulio Dohet. The idea was that aircrafts could get behind the frontlines and bomb vital centers (civilians and production) freely. Hypothetically the morale would collapse, and lead quickly to surrendering. He even calculated that 300 tons of bombs per city over the most important cities would be enough to end a war in less than a month.

This theory couldn't be tested until late 1930's, when everyone was trying variations on the "technique", adding things like explosives, incendiary, gas... and escalating the amount of bombs needed to cause the mythical collapse. I think the record was 5 million tons of bombs over Vietnam (170 kg of bombs per capita), still the collapse didn't happen.

I am spanish and I know the details better than you I presume.

Guernica was in many ways something both the british and republicans made stand out for propaganda.

There have been far worse things in the spanish civil wars.

For example Cabra was bombed in a day of market with the intention of killing and without being any kind of strategic strategic objective, way further than Guernica from other objectives and with more dead civilians actually.

It is just less well known bc of who did it.

> It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians

It had already started way before, right when armed forces started using planes, in WW1. (I was thinking even earlier, in Libya during the Italo-Turkish war of 1911, but I haven't found confirmation in a quick search)

>It was the start of aerial bombardment of civilians

Mine owners hired planes to bomb striking miners at the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921