Francoist troops taking away Republican militiamen from a mountain, probably to take them to a firing block, in Somosierra, during the Battle of Guadarrama, July-August 1936. These people probably had not even hold a weapon before the war, and most likely were farmers or workers. As quoted by Bruno Mugnai, many left the front at night to sleep in their homes. The White Terror or Francoist Repression that followed the war was the series of political actions of violence, rape, and other crimes committed by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (1936 –1939), and during the first decade of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. For nine years, the official mass killings of the loyalists to the Second Spanish Republic included 150,000 - 400,000 members of the Popular Front, Protestant Christians, liberals, Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists, anarchists, freethinkers, intellectuals, Freemasons, and Catalan and Basque separatists. It has been proved by famous historian Paul Preston that Nationalists would commit atrocities to Republican and civilian forces during the war, such as dismemberment or beheading. Then, pictures were taken blaming Loyalist troops for these crimes, sending them to international media and causing a false opinion on the legitimate government.