The Battle for Spain Read online

  Meanwhile, the German minister of war gave instructions to General Volkmann to push Franco into carrying out the offensive towards Barcelona. But Franco obstinately refused to be shifted from his decision. Some suspect that he wanted a more drawn-out war so as to crush all opposition, bit by bit, in the conquered territories. According to Dionisio Ridruejo, a short war for him ‘inevitably signified negotiations and concessions to finish it. A long war meant total victory. Franco chose the crueller option which, from his point of view, was also more effective.’18

  Instead of deploying the Army of Manoeuvre in a swift offensive against the Catalan capital, Franco decided to widen the corridor to the sea and launch his troops south-westwards towards Valencia. This strategy lost all the momentum which they had achieved in the Aragón campaign and gave the defeated republican forces which had retreated into Catalonia, the opportunity to reorganize and rearm with the supplies just delivered across the reopened French frontier. Also, the heavy rain in March and April greatly reduced the effectiveness of his air force. But most important of all, his troops were now sent against fresh republican formations in good defensive positions.

  On 25 April, eight days after the Carlists reached the sea, the offensive towards Valencia began with Varela’s army corps of Castille, Aranda’s Galician Corps, and García Valiño’s formation. They first occupied Aliaga to create a salient for an advance into the sierras of El Pobo and La Garrocha. This initial push took four days and then the bad weather forced them to suspend operations. On 4 May the offensive recommenced. The corps of Castille attacked along two axes: from north to south towards Alcalá de la Selva and from Teruel towards Corbalán. Meanwhile, the Galician Corps advanced southwards down the coast road towards Benicassim and Castellón de la Plana. García Valiño’s attacked from Morella towards Mosqueruela. The plan was to form a line from Teruel to Viver, Segorbe and Sagunto, but the nationalist advance was hard, because of the breadth of the front and because the republicans had established a strong line of defence–the XYZ Line–anchored on the left in the Sierra de Javalambre and which extended across the Sierra de Toro to the heights of Almenara, next to the coast. The nationalists launched attack after attack, but not even with 1,000 field guns and air attacks could they break the front. The well-prepared defence line gave the republican troops confidence in their flanks.

  The painful experience of air and artillery bombardments had at last taught the republicans the necessity of solid trenches and bunkers. They had also learned to plan their fields of fire better to prevent infiltration of their positions via dead ground. Their artillery batteries prepared fire plans to bombard the most likely forming-up areas for enemy attacks. The nationalist advance prevailed slowly along the coast, taking Castellón on 13 June and Villarreal the next day. But the resistance of the republicans in the Sierra de Espadan prevented the nationalists from reaching their objective of the Segorbe–Sagunto line.

  Nationalist commanders were deeply disconcerted by the strength of the resistance and their casualties, especially after such a crushing victory as the Aragón campaign.19 Kindelán tried to persuade Franco of the difficulties of advancing further in the sector and begged him to abandon the operation in view of their heavy losses, but the Generalissimo ordered for the attacks to continue. The nationalists did not have any airfields within striking distance and the Condor Legion, withdrawn from the fighting until the mining law came into effect, played no part. Nevertheless, Franco had just received fresh support from Italy in the form of 6,000 more soldiers and new aircraft: 25 Savoia-Marchetti 81s, 12 Savoia-Marchetti 79s and 7 Br-20s.20 At the beginning of July Franco ordered the front to be reinforced with the Italian CTV, led by General Berti, and formed the new Turia Corps of four divisions commanded by Solchaga. The Generalissimo ordered that Valencia was to be taken by 25 July, the feast of Saint James the Apostle, patron saint of Spain. Opposing the five nationalist army corps, which totalled fourteen divisions in all (some 125,000 men) the republicans had six corps,21 but numbers were roughly equal on both sides, because the People’s Army’s formations were usually under strength.

  On 13 July, the fourth and final phase of the battle began with an attack down the Teruel–Sagunto road, with the CTV and the army corps of Turia and Castille. At the same time the Galician Corps and García Valiño’s formation tried to advance down the coast. Such concentrations of forces hindered the nationalists in this ‘absurd manoeuvre’.22 For ten days the nationalists tried in vain to break the republican defences under the blazing sun of the Levante, with waves of infantry and intense bombing raids.

  To their surprise, the nationalists found that these novice republican divisions were able to inflict severe damage on their attackers without the heavy losses, which the troops of Modesto were accustomed to suffering. As a result, this purely defensive operation proved to be a far greater victory for the Republic than that of Guadalajara. With 20,000 nationalist casualties against only 5,000 republican, the slogan ‘to resist is to win’ finally achieved some sense. The tragic fact, however, was that even at this late stage of the war the republican leadership still failed to learn the lesson and continued to give priority to political and propaganda motives over those of military effectiveness. The Battle of the Ebro, which was to begin soon afterwards, exceeded even that of Brunete in its disastrous attempts to create a spectacular success. It would lead directly to the final destruction of the republican army.

  The fierce fighting north of Valencia had not been the only action of the early summer. After many months of inactivity, General Queipo de Llano put an end to the comparative calm in the west of Spain. On 20 July he launched an offensive from Madrigalejo to cut off the republican salient which pointed at the Portuguese frontier from either side of the River Guadiana. Queipo’s five divisions and a cavalry brigade broke through the weakly held republican lines, manned by ill-armed and untrained troops. On 23 July the nationalists took Castuera, and Don Benito and Villanueva de la Serena on the next day. This cut off the republican salient in Estremadura. But Queipo de Llano’s operation was brought to a halt on 25 July, because the republican army in Catalonia launched its great offensive on the Ebro. Franco’s headquarters needed every battalion it could lay its hands on.

  Just one week before, on 18 July, the second anniversary of the coup d’état, the government in Burgos decided to ‘raise to the dignity of Captain-General of the Army and the Fleet, the Head of State and Generalissimo of the armed forces, and National Chief of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, the most Excellent Señor Don Francisco Franco Bahamonde’. In the military mind this appointment held great significance. Captain-general was the rank reserved for Spanish monarchs. Franco was on a path which would lead him not to the throne, but to the role of an all-powerful regent.

  On that day of march pasts through the streets of Burgos, hung with bunting and huge portraits of the Generalissimo, there was a ‘mixture of fascist and medieval elements’.23 In the ancient captain-generalcy of Burgos, the new captain-general made a speech, referring to the revolution of October 1934, paying homage to the ‘absent one’, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, denouncing the conspiracy of atheist Russia against Catholic Spain, recounting the crimes of the reds and announcing the final victory of his military crusade.24 ‘This imposes on every Spaniard the duty of cultivating remembrance. The harsh lesson must not be lost, and the benevolence of Christian generosity, which has no limits for those who have been led astray, and for the repentant who come in good faith to join us, must nevertheless be controlled by prudence to prevent infiltration by recalcitrant enemies of the Fatherland, whose health, like that of the body, needs to be quarantined from those coming from the camp of pestilence…In their name [those of the Nationalist dead] and that of sacred Spain, I sow today this seed in the deep furrow which our glorious army has ploughed. Spaniards all: ¡Arriba España! Viva España!’25

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  The Battle of the Ebro

  After the collapse in Aragón duri
ng the spring, the republican government had set out to reconstitute an army from the formations pushed back into the isolated eastern zone. They had the River Segre to the west and the Ebro to the south as reasonable defence lines behind which they could reorganize. They also had the 18,000 tons of war matériel which came over the French frontier between March and mid June. And they had more time to reorganize than they could have reasonably expected, thanks to Franco’s ill-judged offensive towards Valencia.

  During the late spring and early summer the call-up was extended to the classes of 1925–9 and 1940–1. Twelve new divisions were formed. The conscripts ranged from sixteen-year-olds (which veterans called the quinta del biberón, the baby’s bottle call-up) to middle-aged fathers. To these were added nationalist prisoners of war and many skilled technicians, who were now drafted because the loss of the hydroelectric plants in the Pyrenees had cut Catalonian production dramatically. Yet since there were insufficient rifles to go round, the government’s militarization decrees seem to have had more to do with creating an impression of resolute resistance than with military requirements. The new war matériel was of most use to the air force, special arms and machine-gun companies. The small arms did no more than replace those lost by front-line divisions at Teruel or in Aragón.

  After the failure of his peace overtures Negrín, supported by the communists, felt that international attention must be aroused by a great heroic action. If it were successful the Republic could negotiate from a position of greater strength. This reasoning, however, contained several basic flaws. European attention was much more preoccupied with events in the east, especially Hitler’s designs on Czechoslovakia. There was no prospect of Franco changing his refusal to compromise,1 nor of Chamberlain coming to the aid of the Republic.

  The military justification for the project consisted of a vain plan to recapture the nationalists’ corridor to the sea and link the two republican zones again. But this was wildly optimistic and demonstrated that the government and the communists still refused to learn from their own disastrous mistakes. The pattern was entirely predictable. Even if the republican attackers achieved surprise, the nationalist armies, with their American trucks, would redeploy rapidly to halt the offensive. And once again nationalist air and artillery superiority would crush them in the open. In addition, this attack across a major river, with all the problems of resupply that entailed, represented a far more dangerous risk than even the offensives of Brunete and Teruel. The loss of aircraft and equipment would also be far more catastrophic than before, since there was little chance of any further replacements arriving, now that the French border had closed again. Negrín also refused to see that another battle involving heavy casualties would damage republican morale irretrievably. Altogether it was a monumental gamble against very unfavourable odds and bizarrely incompatible with Negrín’s hope that the Republic would still be resisting strongly when a European war broke out.

  An Army of the Ebro was specially formed for this offensive. As at Brunete, it was communist dominated and received nearly all the armour, artillery and aircraft. Modesto was the army commander, with V Corps under Líster, and XV Corps under the 26-year-old communist physicist Manuel Tagüeña. His right flank was covered by XII Corps, which defended the bottom part of the River Segre from Lérida to where it joined the Ebro opposite Mequinenza.2

  The curve of the Ebro between Fayón and Cherta was the sector chosen for the main assault, with XV Corps on the right and V Corps on the left. Two subsidiary actions were added–the 42nd Division crossing to the north, between Fayón and Mequinenza in order to impede a counter-attack from the right flank, and the French XIV International Brigade crossing downriver at Amposta. The total strength of the assault force was about 80,000 men.3 The greatest weakness was in artillery as a result of losses in Aragón. The whole army had no more than 150 guns, some of which dated from the last century. In addition, the 76mm anti-aircraft ammunition was known to be defective, although the soldiers were not informed ‘for reasons of morale’.4

  The nationalist troops facing them from the right bank of the Ebro consisted of the 50th Division commanded by Colonel Luis Campos Guereta, who had his headquarters in Gandesa, Barrón’s 13th Division in reserve and the 105th Division, which covered the front from Cherta to the sea.5 These divisions of Yagüe’s Moroccan Corps consisted of about 40,000 men. Over the last few days before the republican attack, Colonel Campos passed back intelligence reports to Yagüe, warning that his men had observed troop movements and preparations on the opposite bank of the Ebro. These observations were confirmed by air reconnaissance, but the nationalist high command did not take the threat seriously. It seemed unthinkable to them that the republican army, which had been so severely mauled in Aragón, would be ready to undertake any sort of offensive, especially one across a broad river.

  On 24 June Colonel Franco-Salgado, the Generalissimo’s aide, had been informed that the republicans were preparing rafts to cross the river as well as pontoon bridges, and that the majority of the International Brigades were concentrated in Falset.6 This intelligence was confirmed by the interrogation of deserters and prisoners, but Franco did no more than tell Yagüe to maintain a state of alert.7

  The crossing of the Ebro was prepared in minute detail for a whole week, with the republican troops practising in ravines, rivers and on the coast. The engineer corps mocked up the crossing with bridges built in Barcelona or bought in France. Meanwhile, reconnaissance troops from the specialist XIV Corps of commandos slipped across the river at night. They made contact with peasants on the other side to obtain information on nationalist positions. The seventeen-year-old Rubén Ruiz, the son of La Pasionaria, was one of them. He was finally killed as a major in the Red Army in 1942 during the retreat into Stalingrad.

  In the very early hours of 25 July commandos went across silently and knifed the sentries on the far bank. They also fastened lines for the assault boats to follow. Six republican divisions then began to cross the Ebro, with the point units in assault boats, guided by local peasants who knew the river. The bulk of the forces followed using twelve different pontoon bridges set up by the engineers. Above Fayón, the 226th Brigade from the 42nd Division cut the road from Mequinenza, and the rest of XV Corps crossed the river at Ribarroja and Flix to establish a bridgehead along the line of Ascó–La Fatarella. At the same time V Corps crossed near Miravet to take Corbera d’Ebre on their line of advance to Gandesa, and also near Benissanet to attack Móra d’Ebre and link up with the flank units of XV Corps.

  Much further downriver, almost on the sea, XIV International Brigade tried to cross the river, but only a small number reached the other shore alive. The Riffian Rifles of the 105th Division inflicted heavy casualties. XIV International Brigade lost 1,200 men in 24 hours, shot or drowned. Pierre Landrieu of the Henri Barbusse Battalion, recorded that it was not possible to cross the river to help their comrades trapped on the far bank, who yelled for help in vain.8

  In the centre the republican troops advanced rapidly and captured some 4,000 men from the 50th Division. On the following day they approached Vilalba dels Arcs and Gandesa, after occupying Puig de L’A

  ` liga, between the sierras of Pàndols and Cavalls, the key to the Terra Alta, as this dry mountainous region was called. It included the infamous Point 481, which became known as ‘the heights of death’, or the ‘pimple’, as the International Brigades called it.9 In a little more than 24 hours, Modesto’s troops had seized 800 square kilometres. But Yagüe, who had not forgotten Modesto’s mistakes at Brunete and Belchite, ordered Barrón’s 13th Division to move at greatest speed to the defence of Gandesa. The forced march of 50 kilometres under the July sun killed a number of men through heat exhaustion. The feet of many others were in a pitiful, bloody mess after this feat.10 Nevertheless, by the early hours of 26 July, the 13th Division was deployed to defend the town. General Volkmann, the new commander of the Condor Legion, who visited Yaguë was at his headquarters at this point, observed how c
alm he was. Yagu undoubtedly the nationalists’ most capable field commander.

  Franco had heard of the offensive within hours of it beginning on 25 July, the anniversary of the end of the battle of Brunete and the festival of Saint James: the day on which he had hoped to take Valencia. His reaction was typical. He rejected any idea of allowing the republicans to hold any territory, whatever the cost of winning it back. Operations on the Levante front were halted immediately and eight divisions were turned round to march against the republican bridgehead. The Condor Legion, the Italian Legionary Air Force and the Brigada Aérea Hispana were tasked immediately for operations on the Ebro front. By the early afternoon of the first day nationalist planes were over the Terra Alta and attacking the crossing points over the river. The pontoon bridges were given the highest priority. Altogether, 40 Savoia 79s, 20 Savoia 81s, 9 Breda 20s, 30 Heinkel 111s, 8 Dornier 20s, 30 Junker 52s and 6 Junker 87 Stukas, as well as 100 fighters, went into action. The republican air force was nowhere to be seen.11

  Franco, having been assured by an engineer that no permanent damage would be done to industry in Barcelona,12 ordered the dams at Tremp and Camasara up in the Pyrenees to be opened. The flood water which resulted raised the river by two metres and swept away the pontoon bridges on which Modesto’s troops relied for supply and reinforcements. Republican engineers managed to repair them within two days, but the timing had been disastrous. Only a small number of tanks and guns had crossed the river. They were not enough to defeat Barrón’s troops in Gandesa.