The Spanish Civil War (78 page)

The ensuing Aragon offensive was partly conceived to remove the bad impression created by these events, partly to ensure the continuance in the front line of the anarchist divisions and partly to justify a general reinforcement of that area with military units of the non-anarchist sections of the republican army. The main aim, however, was to draw away the main nationalist effort from the north.

On 24 August, the republican attack began at eight points without aerial or artillery preparation. Three attacks were made north of Saragossa, two between Belchite and Saragossa, and three to the south. The republic had 80,000 troops, 100 tanks and perhaps 200 aircraft. The two villages of Quinto and Codo, north of Belchite, were the first to fall. The Ebro was crossed near Fuentes del Ebro, and Mediana fell on 26 August.
¹
Nevertheless, the tenacity of the nationalist garrisons, with little air cover, astounded the attackers, who included the best troops in the republican army, and also surprised many prominent foreign and Russian military leaders, headed by General Stern (Grigorovich) and the new Russian air force commander, General ‘Montenegro’.
²
Belchite held out the longest.
³
When the republicans at last entered Codo, which had been defended by some 300 Carlists against the republicans’ 2,000, they found this slogan scrawled on the wall: ‘When you kill a “red”, you will spend a year less in purgatory’.
⁴

The small, well-fortified town of Belchite (its population had been 3,812 in 1935) had an extraordinary fascination for the republic, whose troops had been watching it for months. The siege was harsh but the defence vigorous. The defenders’ water supply was cut off. They could hardly have felt better for the knowledge that, according to military manuals, they were demonstrating ‘the use of the island of resistance, organized for all-round defence’. The heat was appalling. The nationalist mayor, Ramón Alfonso Trallero, was killed with a rifle in his hands on the walls of the city. But the defending command did not make the mistake that they had made at Brunete: they did not abandon their offensive in the north to save a small town in the centre. In the end, substantial air support was sent down; but, at the beginning, they had only fifteen aircraft (Heinkels). Soon 40 nationalist fighters, 20 bombers and 20 supply aircraft were to be seen in Aragon, of which the bombers were Savoia 79s, the fighters Fiats commanded by the air ace García Morato. The 13th and 150th Nationalist Divisions of Barrón and Sáenz de Buruaga were also dispatched from the Madrid front to meet in Aragon those same picked units led by Lister, Walter, and El Campesino, against whom they had fought in Castile. Barrón held up the republican advance north of Saragossa. Sáenz de Buruaga sought to relieve Belchite, now ten miles behind the republican front lines. But Belchite surrendered on 6 September. The republic now returned to the defensive. After one reckless dash by Lister, into Fuentes del Ebro, using new BT-5 Russian cruiser tanks gathered in a group, the campaign slowed to a standstill.
¹

The failure of the offensive gave rise to a furious interchange between Prieto and General Pozas: ‘So many troops to take four or five
pueblos
does not satisfy the ministry of defence’, cabled the former, who went on to attribute the failure to ‘political intrigues’ and ‘the enormous quantity of Russian officers who pullulate in Aragon, treating Spanish soldiers as if they were colonized natives’.
²
The truth was, however, that Belchite and the other little towns had been defended by their Carlist or falangist defenders most courageously, and republican
morale on this front had been severely damaged by the political upheavals which had preceded the battle.

27. The Aragon offensive, August–October 1937

Another campaign was begun on 1 September, by the nationalist Army of the North, with Dávila still supreme commander and with Aranda and Solchaga with field commands, against Asturias. This was Aranda’s first chance to show his great qualities as a commander in battle rather than in a siege. The Italians had been withdrawn but the six colonels who had been so successful at Santander were at the head of their old Navarrese brigades. Martínez de Campos was still in charge of artillery. They were backed by 250 aircraft and over 250 cannon. Opposing them were what remained of the old republican 14th Army Corps under Colonel Francisco Galán, with about 8,000–10,000 men only, 250 machine-guns and 30 cannon; and the 17th Army Corps, under Colonel Linares, with 35,000 men, 600 machine-guns and 150 cannon. There were also twenty-six Russian officers, under Goriev.
¹

The battle was preceded by what would in other circumstances have seemed an extraordinary innovation but in 1937 seemed a mere confirmation of the obvious. For on 28 August, the Council of Asturias established at the port of Gijón had declared itself an independent territory and dismissed the supreme commander of the northern army, General Gámir. The command passed then to Colonel Adolfo Prada, a regular officer who had commanded a column at Madrid and was now virtually a communist. He had done his best to reorganize his army of ten divisions. His chief of staff was the able Major Ciutat, a communist of the new wave, who had also served Llano de la Encomienda in that capacity. Asturias continued to accept the government in Valencia as the sovereign power; but it didn’t wish to accept orders. Political power was concentrated in the hands of the socialist miners’ leader Belarmino Tomás, who was vain, ambitious and extravagant. The politics of ‘the republic of Asturias’ was almost enough ‘to create fascists’, Colonel Prada himself later reported, adding that ‘even boys of ten were imprisoned, if their fathers were fascists, and even girls of sixteen, if they were pretty’.
²

The nationalist advance, to begin with, was slow. The mountains provided magnificent defence positions for this old heart of revolutionary Spain. Vertigo was a weapon of war in the hands of the defenders. Oviedo was, of course, already nationalist but it was still besieged, and the mining towns nearby were still radical. The absence of the Condor Legion, then on the Aragon front, prevented the swift victory of machine over nature that had characterized the battle for Santander.
¹
At all events, by 14 October, after a six-week battle, several of the high passes of the Leonese mountains remained with the republic, despite the low morale in their armies, where most soldiers knew that victory and escape were alike improbable. According to Colonel Prada, the province outside the mining towns was right-wing by inclination, and 85 per cent of the soldiers came as a result of conscription. The most practical hoped that winter would come early and delay the nationalists’ advance. But cold affected the republican soldiers first. Flight was difficult, since the nationalists commanded the sea; the mountains represented the only hope for many. Morale was further lowered by the escape of prominent men (the mayor of Gijón, for example) in such boats as they could find. Colonel Prada had to order three brigade commanders and six battalion commanders, with another dozen officers, to be shot in order to maintain discipline.
²

Suddenly, in the course of one week, Asturias was lost and won. The Condor Legion returned from Aragon and were established in an aerodome just outside Llanes. On 15 October, Aranda and Solchaga effected a junction at the mountain town of Infiesto. Panic spread among the Asturians. The Council for Asturias held an emergency meeting. A proposal was made that, in return for allowing the army to embark, the Asturians would not destroy the industry of Gijón. But there was no fleet to enable this proposal to be put into practice. Henceforward, in contrast with the earlier weeks of the campaign, resistance was feeble. The advance continued as swiftly as the nationalists could manage. The Condor Legion tested the idea of ‘carpet bombing’: the pilot Galland
and his friends flew in close formation, very low, up the valleys, approaching the enemy from the rear. All bombs were then simultaneously released on the Asturians’ trenches.
¹
The republican aerial response was negligible: most of the Russian pilots and most experienced Spanish ones had vanished.

28. The Asturias campaign, September–October 1937

At the next and last meeting of the Council, the orders of Negrín were found to be to resist to the end. The communists Juan Ambou and Avelino Roces were ready for this, but, in the Council of Asturias on 17 October, the military commanders were so pessimistic that the only course seemed to be that of flight by all means possible;
²
and leave all did who could—including, in an English boat, Belarmino Tomás; the most prominent local anarchist, Segundo Blanco; the commander, Colonel Prada, the able communist Major Ciutat and others. The Russian advisers left in the few available aeroplanes. Colonel
Galán escaped in a fishing boat. The armies disintegrated. Many were killed at sea. On 20 October, with Aranda still twenty-five miles from Gijón, the Fifth Column acted. One group demanded unconditional surrender. Another seized certain buildings by force. Twenty-two republican battalions surrendered. The head of the arms factory at Trubia, Colonel José Franco, handed over the town to the nationalist command, secured the safety of two hundred political prisoners, and gave himself up; though most unenthusiastic for the republican cause, he was later tried and shot with seven other officers at Trubia.
¹
At the last minute, Prieto gave orders for the last republican ship in the harbour of Gijón, the destroyer
Ciscar,
to leave. The head of the Russian mission complained. No agreement was reached. The next day, Prieto learned, to his surprise, that the
Ciscar
had been sunk: General Goriev and Colonel Prada had insisted on going back on his order.
²
On 21 October, Aranda and Solchaga’s forces entered Gijón. A ferocious proscription followed. Over 1,000 were shot in Oviedo alone. Though the whole northern front disappeared, several thousand men maintained themselves in the Leonese mountains until March, so delaying new offensives by the nationalist armies. Among those left behind in the hills was said to be General Goriev, allegedly saved by a Russian aeroplane later in the year.
³

The war in the north had been remarkable for the nationalist superiority of armaments. Yet neither in the Basque, the Santander, nor the Asturias campaigns did superior technology cause the nationalist victory. The existence of three semi-independent states on the republican side, with quite different theories of government, was the fatal source of weakness. General Llano de la Encomienda was never able to establish a unity of command. Nor was his successor, Gámir Ulibarri. There was also defeatism on the republican side, more than outright treachery (as can be seen from the poor information which
the nationalists had in respect of enemy movements). Republican aerial support was poor at the beginning in the Basque country, but in June a substantial number of aeroplanes were available: unfortunately, these were wasted, despite the valour of many young Spanish pilots who had been trained in Russia (actually in Armenia).
¹

29. Division of Spain, October 1937