Security and Assault Corps

Security and Assault Corps
Cuerpo de Seguridad y Asalto
Common nameAssault Guards
Agency overview
Formed30 January, 1932
Preceding agency
Dissolved1939
Superseding agencyPolicía Armada
Jurisdictional structure
National agencySpain
Operations jurisdictionSpain
Primary governing bodySpanish Republican Armed Forces
Secondary governing bodyMinistry of Governance
Operational structure
Overseen byDirectorate-General of Security
Parent agencyCuerpo de Seguridad y Asalto

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.[1] 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.[2]