The Spanish Civil War (79 page)

The long campaign since March had brought to the nationalists the Asturian coal fields and the industries of Bilbao, particularly the arms industries. From now on, the nationalists could make their own ammunition. The campaign gave the nationalists 11,600 square miles of land; 1½ million people—including many war prisoners who were put to work in concentration camps; 36 per cent of national production, 60 per cent of national coal production, and nearly all the steel of Spain. The victory also enabled the nationalist navy to be concentrated in the Mediterranean. Finally, it freed 65,000 men of the Army of the North, and its armaments, to fight in the south.

The republican army in the north had, since May 1937, lost probably 33,000 dead, some 100,000 prisoners, and over 100,000 wounded. The nationalist losses included 10,000 dead and 100,000 casualties in all. Asturian prisoners of war were given the choice of going to a labour camp or joining the Foreign Legion: some availed themselves of the latter opportunity and, one of their officers testified, fought very bravely.
²

The Spanish Civil War remained throughout 1937 the main international crisis, an irritant to the democracies, an opportunity to the dictators. During the summer and autumn, however, the diplomatic side of the conflict followed a specially tortuous path. As usual, a critical role was played by Britain who continued to seek, above all, an agreement with Germany. Her Spanish policy was at all times subordinate to this vain, but comprehensible, aim. The policy was pursued with even greater energy after May 1937, when Stanley Baldwin gave way as Prime Minister to Neville Chamberlain.

After the German bombardment of Almería, the British and French foreign secretaries, Eden and Delbos, procured the return of Italy and Germany to naval patrol. The two Spanish contestants were asked to refrain from attacking foreign warships and to name safety zones for refuelling patrol ships. The republic, however, condemned the control system for treating them on the same level as the nationalists, and demanded the freedom to carry out ‘legitimate acts of war’, such as air attacks on Palma, without ‘Almería incidents’. Russia, fearing an international coalition against her, announced that patrol should be a matter for all powers on the Non-Intervention Committee. Ciano, fearing a German
rapprochement
with England, complained to Berlin (as did Ribbentrop in London) at being told, at the last minute, of a projected
visit to Britain by the German foreign minister, Neurath.
¹
Mussolini, meanwhile, boasted to the German ambassador in Rome on the 12th that in any war between him and England, the leopard (Italy) might be defeated in the end, but the lion (England) would be severely wounded in the process.

No sooner had the Germans, with the Italians, agreed to return to non-intervention, than the captain of their cruiser
Leipzig
reported that, on 15 June, three torpedoes had been fired at his ship off Oran. They did not register hits. Then, on 18 June, the same captain alleged that either another torpedo had glanced the ship’s side or that the cruiser had come into contact with part of the submarine. This news reached Hitler at a bad moment. He had just returned from a memorial service to the sailors killed on the
Deutschland.
He demanded, first, that Neurath cancel his proposed visit to London; secondly, he wanted a demonstration of protest by the fleets of all the naval patrol powers.
²
The republic denied responsibility for the attack. Prieto offered to give Eden all facilities for an inquiry into the incident: Eden, who had believed Germany’s story over the
Deutschland,
accepted Prieto’s denial. Germany and Italy refused an inquiry. Eden, reported Azcárate to Valencia, ‘could not hide his shame and disgust at Germany’s behaviour’.
³
Nevertheless, nothing could make the Non-Intervention Committee agree. Germany and Italy withdrew from the naval patrol, though remaining in the committee.
⁴
It seems unlikely in fact that the
Leipzig
had been attacked.

Negrín and Giral, his foreign minister, visited Paris.
⁵
There Blum had been defeated, to be succeeded as Prime Minister by Chautemps, the radical socialist. Blum, however, was vice-premier and Delbos still at the foreign ministry. The two Spaniards set out to try to persuade this government to end non-intervention. Russian help to the republicans, they said, had been reduced, firstly because of the nationalist blockade in the
Mediterranean, secondly because of the closing of the French frontier, and thirdly, from the start of July, because of the war between China and Japan, in which Stalin had decided to help the former. The idea that, by buying arms from the democracies, he could detach himself from Russia and from the communists naturally played its part in Negrín’s mind.

The republican position had been rendered worse still by the Portuguese abandonment of control, until the naval patrol was restored. Britain and France, after Germany and Italy had left the naval patrol, offered to carry out all of it themselves, with neutral observers on board their ships. Grandi and Ribbentrop alleged that that would be excessively partial. They proposed that belligerent rights, including the right of search on the high seas, should be granted to both Spanish parties, as a substitute for naval patrol.
¹
This favoured the nationalists. So far from it being acceptable to the French, Chautemps and Delbos were considering following Portugal’s example, and abolishing all frontier control. Negrín and Giral thought that was a good second-best to an end to non-intervention. But the French reliance on the British prevented this. The French ministers realized that any breach with Britain would merely help Italy. The tragic actor in the drama remained Léon Blum: ‘
je n’en vis plus,
’ he would murmur, appalled, to his friends in the Second International, such as Nenni or de Brouckère.
²

The nationalists, meantime, sent a note to all foreign powers, threatening that those countries (England and France, for example) who did not agree to grant belligerent rights ‘should not be surprised’ if Spain were henceforward economically closed to them.

The British and French governments were laboriously patching up again the elaborate fabric of non-intervention. The Non-Intervention Board estimated that forty-two ships escaped inspection between its start in April and the end of July. Nor was the air route covered. The control board could not prevent the dispatch of military supplies in ships flying a Spanish or a non-European flag. German, Italian, and Russian material continued to flow into Spain, the German ships flying a Panamanian flag; a fact overlooked by the Non-Intervention Committee.

The nationalist debt to Germany had attained 150 million reichs
marks. For what purpose? Certainly simplifying the question, Hitler announced, in a speech at Würzburg on 27 June, that he supported Franco in order to gain possession of Spanish iron ore. In 1937, Germany was to import 1,620,000 tons of iron from Spain, 956,000 tons of pyrites, 2,000 tons of other minerals. During July, the Germans, because of the crisis over Brunete, were able to elicit from the nationalists some economic concessions.
¹
In a document signed by Jordana and Faupel on 12 July, the Spaniards promised that they would conclude with Germany their first general trade agreement, would tell Germany of any economic negotiations with any other country, and give most-favoured-nation treatment to Germany.
²
This was supplemented by a declaration, on 15 July, that both countries would help each other over the exchange of raw materials, food, and manufactured goods.
³
On the 16th, Spain agreed to pay its debts for war material in reichsmarks, with 4 per cent annual interest. As guarantee of the debt, raw materials would be sent to Germany, who would participate in Spanish reconstruction.
⁴
The monopoly companies HISMA-ROWAK, still directed by Johannes Bernhardt, would continue to control German-Spanish economic relations. The German foreign ministry did not like the arrangement but they knew of the prestige which Bernhardt enjoyed in Nazi party circles.

These good relations were a contrast with those between the nationalists and the Italians. The Italian commanders still wanted to use their troops in a decisive action where they could win ‘a great triumph’. Danzi, the fascist director in Spain, apparently spent 240,000 pesetas a month on propaganda for the legionaries. But, said Faupel, everyone really knew that the battle of Bilbao had been decided by German fliers and anti-aircraft batteries, not by the Italian forces on the ground. Franco himself had recently described the history of Italian troops in Spain as a ‘tragedy’.
⁵

Back in London, the deadlock in the Non-Intervention Committee seemed complete. On 9 July, the Dutch ambassador proposed that Britain should try and reconcile the opposing points of view.
¹
After consulting the cabinet, Lord Plymouth accepted the task. On 14 July, he sent to the committee a British ‘compromise plan for control of non-intervention’. Naval patrol would be replaced by observers at Spanish ports. There would also be observers on ships. On land, the control system would be restored. Belligerent rights at sea should be granted when ‘substantial progress’ had been made in withdrawal of volunteers. Germany accepted the plan ‘as a basis for discussion’.
²
Delbos was angry. Britain, he complained, was now midway between France and Italy, instead of cooperating with France.
³
Azaña emerged from his lonely eminence to denounce the plan, as helping Franco. Belligerent rights, he said, could only favour the nationalists, and a partial withdrawal of volunteers would enable Franco to dispense with the inefficient Italians; the republic might have to give up invaluable members of the International Brigade. Count Grandi, however, succeeded in evading any real consideration of the British plan. He demanded that the points in it be discussed in numerical order. Thus belligerent rights which, by hasty drafting, had been placed prior to volunteers, would have been discussed first. Maisky wanted to talk of volunteers first. On the 26th, Britain asked for other governments’ views in writing. Léger in Paris complained that the British ‘were prepared to accept anything rather than have a showdown’.
⁴

Eden, who was still Foreign Secretary under Chamberlain, had begun by welcoming the new Prime Minister’s interest in foreign affairs, for Baldwin had been bored by the subject. Eden had also thought Chamberlain agreed with him before he was Premier. Nevertheless, under Chamberlain, the British government were to seek the appeasement of Hitler and Mussolini more vigorously than they had done under Baldwin. The change of emphasis was seen in the olive branch sent in the form of a private letter suggesting ‘talks’ from Chamberlain
to Mussolini on 29 July.
¹
Mussolini was anxious to secure British recognition of his conquest of Abyssinia. Spain, for Chamberlain, was a troublesome complication which should, if possible, be forgotten. This now seemed possible. Even Eden told Delbos that he hoped Franco would win, since he thought that he could reach agreement for an eventual German and Italian withdrawal.
²
On 6 August, Maisky asked point-blank in the Non-Intervention Sub-Committee if Germany and Italy would agree to the withdrawal of all volunteers on the two sides in Spain. He received only a vague answer.
³
During the rest of August, there was only one non-intervention meeting. This was on the 27th, when it was concluded that the naval patrol did not justify its expense and that, therefore, the British idea for observers at ports should be substituted for it.
⁴

But there were new alarms. The flow of material to the republic from Marseilles, through the Straits of Gibraltar as well as direct from Russia, seemed formidable. Nationalist agents in Bucharest, Algiers and Gibraltar, as well as in Berlin and Rome (in collaboration with Germany and Italy), were worried.
⁵
Rumours of the extent of Russian aid to the republic caused Franco to send his brother Nicolás to Rome and to ask the Italian fleet to strike against Russian, Spanish republican, and other vessels in the Mediterranean.
⁶
Mussolini agreed. He would not use surface vessels, but submarines, ‘which would raise a Spanish flag if they had to surface’.
⁷
(Mussolini had the largest submarine fleet in the world at that time: 83 submarines to the French 76 and
British 57.)
¹
As a result, Russian, British, French, and other neutral ships, as well as Spanish vessels, were soon attacked in the Mediterranean by Italian submarines and by Italian aircraft operating from Majorca. A British, a French, and an Italian merchant ship were bombed on 6 August near Algiers. On 7 August, a Greek ship was bombed. On the 11th, the 13th, and the 15th, ships of the republic were torpedoed. The British tanker
Caporal
was attacked on 10 August. On 11 August, the republican tanker
Campeador
was sunk south of Malta by two Italian destroyers: surface ships were used several times. On the 12th, a Danish cargo boat was sunk: the head of the Foreign Office, Vansittart complained to the Italian chargé, Guido Crolla, saying he knew ‘for a fact that those aeroplanes were based on Palma’.
²
A Spanish merchant ship, the
Ciudad de Cádiz,
was sunk leaving the Dardanelles on 14 August, and another, the
Armuro,
was sunk on the 19th. On 26 August, a British ship was bombed off Barcelona. On 29 August, a Spanish steamer was shelled by a submarine off the French coast. A French passenger steamer reported that she was chased by a submarine into the Dardanelles. On the 30th, the Russian merchantman
Tuniyaev
was sunk at Algiers, on its way to Port Said. On 31 August, a submarine attacked the British destroyer
Havock.
On 1 September, the Russian steamer
Blagaev
was sunk by a submarine off Skyros. On 2 September, the British tanker
Woodford
was sunk near Valencia. ‘Three torpedoings and one prize,’ Ciano remarked in his diary on that day, ‘but international opinion is getting very worked up, particularly in England, as the result of the attack on the
Havock.
It was the
Iride,
’ the Italian foreign secretary admitted—though only to himself.
³

The nationalists, who had had no submarines at the start of the war, now had two, sold to them by Italy. A number of other Italian vessels had been made available to the nationalist command, as ‘legionary’ submarines; while some other Italian submarines were acting on their own, Italian, orders. The
Tuniyaev
had thus been sunk by a ‘legionary’.
The
Iride
was, however, under Italian orders.
¹
The British cabinet was still loath to take action: it was represented that the dispatch of British naval vessels to the Mediterranean would provide Italy with more targets.
²
Many British merchantmen were, as the cabinet knew, secretly carrying arms as well as food to Spain; and their motives were commercial as a rule, not idealistic. The freedom of the seas was one thing; the freedom of Jack Billmeir, the Newcastle shipping millionaire, to make a fortune another. But British imports of mineral ore from Spain were still considerable, and could not be done without.