Security and Assault Corps

The Assault Guards, officially known as the Security and Assault Corps (Spanish; Cuerpo de Seguridad y Asalto), were a gendarmerie and reserve force of the blue-uniformed urban police force of Spain under the Second Spanish Republic. The Assault Guards were special paramilitary and gendarmerie units created by the Spanish Republic in 1931 to deal with urban and political violence. Most of the recruits in the Assault Guards were ex-military personnel, many of them veterans. They would later on be reformed and utilized in the Spanish Civil War as army infantry divisions.

At the onset of the Spanish Civil War, there were 18,000 Assault Guards. About 12,600 stayed loyal to the Republican government, while the other 5,400 defected to the rebel faction. Many of its units fought against Nationalist forces and their allies. Their loyalty to the former Republican government led to their disbandment at the end of the Civil War. The Assault Guards' remnants who had survived the war and the ensuing Francoist purges were made part of the Armed Police Corps, the corps that replaced it.

Origins
Following the overthrow of the Spanish monarchy in April 1931, the new Republican regime created the Assault Guards (Spanish: Guardia de Asalto) as a gendarmerie-style national armed police that could be used to suppress disorders in urban areas. Armed and trained for this purpose, the Assault Guards was intended to provide a more effective force for internal security duties than the ordinary police or the conscription-based army. Since its creation in 1844 the 25,000 strong Civil Guard had been available to be ordered into the larger cities in the event of unrest there, but this efficient rural force —its officers drawn from the regular army and with an oppressive image— was not seen as being in sympathy with the new Republic or particularly suited for urban operations.

The Ministro de la Gobernación Miguel Maura accordingly reorganized elements of the existing police into a more heavily armed republican security force for service in the cities, leaving the countryside to the Civil Guard. As an initial step Compañías de Vanguardia (Vanguard Companies) were created in the principal urban areas. These were subsequently redesignated as Sección de guardias de Asalto. As a part of the reformed force they provided an instrument for controlling mass demonstrations; similar in function to modern riot squads. In 1932, the Security Corps was renamed as the Security and Assault Corps.

The Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish Civil War, Assault Guards stayed largely loyal to the Republican government. Of all the reserve forces that had remained in the government zone, the Assault Guard was the most highly regarded by most of the population. This made a large number of serving soldiers decide to join this body; to avoid the misgivings and suspicions that military affiliation had created among the workers' militias. This fact reached the point that the President of the Ministry of War, Largo Caballero, had to prohibit Army officers from joining the Assault Guard without authorization from the Ministry of War. The Assault Guards distinguished themselves as a reliable and shock infantry to which the Republic always entrusted its most delicate operations, such as the battles of Madrid and Guadalajara, the securing of Belchite, and the suppression of the events in Barcelona during May. Later in the war, the Assault Corps became the elite of the Spanish Republican Army. The writer George Orwell reflected it in one of his most outstanding works:

"'They were splendid troops, much the best I had seen in Spain [...]. I was used to the ragged, scarcely-armed militia on the Aragón front, and I had not known that the Republic possessed troops like these. It was not only that they were picked men physically, it was their weapons that most astonished me...'"

The Carabineros (frontier guards) and the Assault Guards were the Spanish police and paramilitary corps where the 1936 coup found the least support. When the Civil War began, over 70% of the Assault Guards stayed loyal to the Spanish Republic. On the other hand, in the Civil Guard the breakup of loyalists and rebels was distributed evenly at around 50%, although the highest authority of the corps, Inspector General Sebastián Pozas, remained loyal to the republican government.

Ranks
Before the Civil War, eight-pointed and six-pointed silver stars were part of the officers' uniforms of the Assault Guards. Following the breakout of the Civil War, and the ensuing reorganization of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces some changes were introduced and ranks were simplified.

The silver 8-pointed and six-pointed stars that had been worn between 1931 and 1936 were replaced by the five pointed red star.