 Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands.Two years later Franco, after initial reluctance, joined a military coup which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War.During the war, he commandeered Spain's colonial army in Africa and after the death of much of the rebel leadership became his faction's only leader, later appointed Generalissimo and Head of State in 1936.