The Spanish Civil War

by Hugh Thomas

  The Alcázar remained besieged. Though food was short, there was water and ammunition. The provisions were supplemented by a raid on a nearby granary which brought back two thousand sacks of wheat. Horsemeat (there had been 177 horses in the Alcázar at the start of the siege) and bread were the basic diet of the besieged. As the days wore on, Moscardó became less the real leader in the siege than the colonel of the local civil guard, Pedro Romero Bassart. But Moscardó remained the heroic symbol. The number of attackers varied between 1,000 and 5,000, of whom many were ‘tourists’ of war, who drove out with their wives or girlfriends from Madrid for an afternoon’s sniping.1 As for the hostages taken in with the defenders at the beginning, they were never heard of again, and all fifty of them must be supposed to have shared the fate of Luis Moscardó, though on the other side of the lines.

  While the Alcázar at Toledo continued to hold out, the Loyola barracks in San Sebastián surrendered to the Basques on 27 July, and the civil guard of Albacete were overwhelmed on 25 July. The officers in Valencia were also stormed in their barracks on 31 July, after a rising by NCOs and soldiers against them. Those who were not killed in the assault were tried and, in many cases, executed. The remaining points of nationalist resistance within republican territory were, therefore, Oviedo, the Simancas barracks at Gijón, the Alcázar, and one or two isolated spots in Andalusia.

  At the same time, the dividing-line in Spain itself was being altered, in the south and in the north and north-east. The as yet few members of the Army of Africa, legionaries and Regulares, who had been transported across the Straits of Gibraltar were enough to enlarge substantially the area dominated by General Queipo de Llano from Seville. Huelva, the whole of the southern coast from that port up to the Portuguese border, the once rich though now neglected land between Seville, Cádiz and Algeciras, and that between Seville and Córdoba, passed into nationalist hands, after a series of rapid marches by officers and men trained in the Moroccan Wars.1 Instead, therefore, of merely controlling in Andalusia a few cities where the rising had been successful, the nationalists held a compact territory striking a wound into the heart of the revolutionary south. As yet, Granada and several towns on the way to it were still beleaguered. But their relief did not seem distant. In all such towns or villages as were captured, bloody reprisals were enacted as atonement for the atrocities of the preceding days.

  Between Barcelona and Madrid, the two main republican centres and fronts, the battle-line was uncertain. The column which had captured Guadalajara and Alcalá advanced to capture the cathedral city of Sigüenza. But further advances were precluded, as on the nationalist side, by a shortage of ammunition. From Valencia, a militia column drove north-west towards Teruel, the most southerly rebel town of Aragon. The civil guard, which formed part of that force, deserted to the nationalists as soon as they reached the front. Though Teruel was surrounded on three sides, and Major Aguado, its nationalist commander, was killed, no progress was made towards its capture. Here, as elsewhere, revolution occupied the militiamen as much as war. The confusion of the region was increased by the release of the common criminals of the Valencian prison of San Miguel de los Reyes. These chiefly joined the CNT’s Iron Battalion. One of the released convicts (aged thirty-four at the time of release, after eleven years of gaol) described how he and his comrades ‘changed the mode of life in the villages through which we passed, annihilating the brutal political bosses who had robbed and tormented the peasants and placing their wealth in the hands of the only ones who know how to create it …’ He added how the bourgeoisie (still in control of events, by his definition) plotted the Iron Battalion’s later destruction, since ‘they can be injured … by the wildly irrepressible desires we carry in our hearts to be free like eagles on the highest mountain peaks’.2

  Yet, while rhetoric might inspire fighting hearts, the railways were as important in carrying men, and provisions, from cities to fronts and from one city to another. Behind the republican lines, the CNT strove to keep as many trains as before the war—a waste of resources, since there were different needs.

  Between these main battlefields, along the line of division soon referred to as a ‘front’, nearly 2,000 miles long, there were many gaps whence it was easy, from either side, to cross into the other Spain. Many refugees crossed secretly in these early weeks, from one ‘zone’ to another. Many ‘loyal’ civil guards joined their friends thus, others escaped by boat.

  Thus gradually the passions in Spain matured, or became debased, into a regular war.

  The war which now began was in many respects a class war. But as usual in such circumstances, that meant that the middle class was divided. There were innumerable instances of fathers and sons or brothers being on different sides. General Pozas, head of the civil guard and republican minister of the interior, had a brother who became ADC to General Mola; Colonel Romero Bassart, military adviser to the militia in Málaga, had a brother who led the defence of the Alcázar at Toledo; the brother of the commander of the republican fleet, Admiral Buiza, soon died in Andalusia fighting for the Legion. Hidalgo de Cisneros, soon to be the commander of the air force in the republic, also had a brother with Franco. Four Pérez Salas brothers were to be, in 1936, fighting in the republican army, while a fifth was with the Carlists in Beorlegui’s column. Franco himself, as has been said, sentenced a cousin to be shot. (Another first cousin, Captain Hermenegildo Franco Salgado, and a brother of his own ADC, was the captain of the Libertad; he was murdered by his sailors at El Ferrol.) Carlos Baráibar, editor of Claridad, and Largo Caballero’s adviser on military matters, had a brother who was an official in Franco’s engineers. That list could be endlessly extended. The great anarchist Durruti’s brother, Pedro, was a falangist.

  Largo Caballero’s misery at the (false) news that his favourite son had been shot on the nationalist side affected his judgement. ‘Almost everyone had someone on the other side,’ remarked an old supporter of the CEDA who fought ultimately for the Right, adding sourly though perhaps not accurately, ‘the immense majority didn’t want to fight for one side or the other’.1

  The rebellion of the Right was partly a rebellion of youth. The establishment at the head of the junta de defensa of the 64-year-old General Cabanellas obscures the fact that Franco was the youngest general of a Spanish division, and that the leaders of the Falange were mostly twenty years younger than their enemies. In Seville a colonel, Santiago Mateo, was condemned to death for seeking to resist the rebellion; he was defended at the summary Council of War by his son, an officer who sided with Queipo.

  The total of men under arms in 1936 was, on paper, just over 100,000 in the army in the Peninsula and 30,000 in Morocco, together with 33,000 civil guards, 14,000 carabineers and 18,000 assault guards. But in Spain figures on paper are never the last word since, as usual, about a third of the conscripts were on leave: men would be called up in February, given three months’ training, and then given leave at least for the summer, perhaps for the rest of their time of national service. Thus, the total in the Spanish army had been about 66,000, of whom some 34,000 were in the republican zone (together with some 12,000 ‘on leave’) and some 32,000 in the rebel zone (along with 13,200 ‘on leave’). In addition, the Army of Africa, of some 30,000, was wholly with the rebels. Probably about 18,000 civil guards were with the government, against 14,000 with the rebels; 12,000 assault guards with the government, 5,000 with the rebels; and 4,000 carabineers with the government, 10,000 with the rebels. As for the air force, 3,000 were probably with the government and 2,000 with the rebels; while, in respect of the navy, the figures might be 13,000 loyal and 7,000 rebellious.2

  Such estimates ignore the equally large numbers of men, also on both sides, who were ‘loyal’ or ‘rebellious’ only by accident of geography. Nor do men mean much, in modern war, if considered apart from their weapons, organization, leadership and training. For example, the 30,000 men in the Legion and in the Moroccan regiments were an excellent force if they could only be carried
to the mainland. The conscripts on the Peninsula were often illiterate and as ignorant of discipline as were the anarchists. In addition, many of the regular officers and NCOs who sided with the republic were not African veterans, and hence had little combat experience. Out of about 12,000 officers who were either on active service or retired, about 7,000 probably sided with, or were available to, the rebels (including officers in the civil guard and including some 2,750 in Africa). Some 5,000 officers were in what became the republican zone of Spain at the beginning of the war. Fifteen hundred of these were shot and another 1,500 dismissed from the army. Some 1,000 hid in embassies or elsewhere and perhaps escaped to nationalist Spain. There were also many retired officers, of whom some were happy to be asked to serve again in the army, even if some were disloyal.1

  As for arms, there were probably over half a million rifles or portable arms in Spain and Morocco: the civil guard, assault guards and local police in the Basque country and Catalonia had about 100,000 rifles, the army about 400,000. The navy had some 30,000 rifles, the air force 6,000. These were mostly Mausers of 1893 vintage. There were also some 3,000 automatic rifles, made in Spain, of Trapote type, and 1,650 Hotchkiss machine-guns, bought from France. Of these, the government, after the rebellion, had probably a little over half the rifles (perhaps 275,000) and perhaps a third of the automatic weapons. No one knows how many militarily useful weapons there were before the war in private hands or with political parties. The government retained about 400 out of the 1,000 pieces of artillery in the country, as well as the arms factories at Trubia in Asturias, Reinosa in Santander and Placencia de las Armas in the Basque country. All the artillery was old-fashioned, mostly made by Schneider, but nevertheless not easily co-ordinated: Howitzers ranged from 105 to 155 millimetre, cannon from 70 to 150 millimetre; coastal artillery was larger. But in the arms factories, ammunition and explosives plants (at Toledo, Murcia, Galdacano, Guernica, Eibar and La Manjoya), there were possibilities of renewal and new production. As for tanks there were but twenty of them in Spain in 1936: the rebels held onto eight of these, the republic twelve. By and large, the government did not lack weapons in 1936. What they lacked was military leadership, organization, workmanship and discipline.

  There were some 400 aircraft in the country: about a hundred were civil aircraft, either private planes, or aircraft used for the post.1 The navy had about one hundred aircraft, mostly seaplanes,2 while the air force proper (a division of the army and commanded by regular army officers) had 50 fighters, 100 reconnaissance aircraft, and 30 light bombers.3 Many (perhaps a third) of the military aircraft were in bad repair, were unarmed or could not fly for some other reason. In consequence, about two hundred serviceable aircraft turned out to be in government hands in July 1936, while the rebels had a few less than a hundred.4 The government retained Spain’s four fighter squadrons, based at Getafe and Barcelona, and one patrol squadron;5 the rebels had no full squadrons, only about ten fighters, which chanced to be at one of the few airfields to fall into their hands. The ninety Breguet XIX reconnaissance aircraft were divided nearly equally between the two sides. The republic had five Fokker bombers, as opposed to the rebels’ three (including the one which brought the first legionaries to Seville), and four De Havilland Dragon bombers, as opposed to the rebels’ one (the aircraft which had taken the ill-fated General Núñez de Prado to Barcelona). The republic retained the four Douglas DC2s, and some Dornier Wal bombers bought by the army the previous year, as well as most of the naval aircraft. The postal aircraft and some fifty light aircraft remained with the government but the rebels had about a dozen useful sporting aircraft belonging to the Aeroclub of Andalusia. Reserves of bombs and munitions on both sides were negligible. Of air force pilots, there were some 150 republicans to about 90 nationalists, but the rebels could call on some private or retired fliers, such as King Alfonso’s brilliant cousin, the Infante Antonio de Orleans, who had fought as a bomber pilot in Morocco before 1914.1

  As for the navy, the government had there, it seemed, a greater superiority than in the other arms, since they held the battleship Jaime I, three cruisers (the Libertad, the Miguel de Cervantes and the Méndez Núñez), twenty modern destroyers and twelve submarines. The rebels had only the Jaime I’s twin, the battleship España, then in dry dock, the cruisers República2 (an old ship) and Almirante Cervera, one destroyer, El Velasco, five gunboats, two submarines and some coastguard ships.

  The government’s advantage was only apparent. The rebels had the main naval dockyard at El Ferrol, where two new cruisers, the Canarias and the Baleares, were nearing completion, along with Spain’s only two minelayers. They had also a small naval base at Cádiz and a harbour at Algeciras. Against this, the republic had only the small naval building yard at Cartagena, and no dry dock suitable for their cruisers: Mahon, in Minorca, had a floating-dock adequate for destroyers and submarines, but not for bigger craft. More important, the revolution in the fleet meant that the republic could count on only two admirals out of nineteen, two captains of ships of the line out of thirty-one, seven captains of frigates out of sixty-five, and only thirteen captains of corvette out of 128. These few officers were also demoralized by the murder of many of their comrades and the insecurity of their own position. But other matters favoured the republicans at sea. The ports of Barcelona and Bilbao could be fitted out to serve a navy, and they had over two-thirds of the merchant fleet of Spain (some 1,000 ships, many of which could be refitted for war).

  If there was going to be a long fight, the republic seemed in a strong position from an economic point of view: they had most of Spain’s industry, in Catalonia and the Basque country, the seat of Spanish clothing manufacture and of its iron and steel. In Asturias, they controlled the coal of the country, and they had the chemical and explosives plants. They had the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain. They had also the two cities of Spain with a population over a million (Madrid and Barcelona), and five out of the nine others which exceeded 100,000.1 They perhaps controlled a population of some 14 million, as opposed to 10 million with the rebels, and, while Burgos and Pamplona and perhaps some other cities in the north might be enthusiastic for the rising, Saragossa, Seville, Granada and Córdoba were far from it. The government probably held two-thirds of the 200,000 motor-cars then in Spain, most of the 60,000 buses and lorries, much of the 4,000 railway engines and the 100,000 rolling stock. The cereal-growing areas of Spain were, on the other hand, almost equally divided, even if, after some weeks, nationalist advances would give the rebels two-thirds of the wheat-growing areas. The rebels had the sheep of Castile and Estremadura, the pigs of Galicia and Estremadura, as well as the beef cattle of Galicia and Castile. Cheese and butter production, the cotton, sugar, and potato regions, the flax, and the fishing industries were also mostly with the rebels. The government had, on the other hand, the best olive- and wine-growing areas, of La Mancha and Catalonia (though not Rioja), and the fruit, rice and vegetable regions on the Mediterranean coast. The nationalists had much of the forests, including the corks of Estremadura and the wooded hills of Galicia; they had also the tin, the copper and the manganese which partially compensated for the republic’s control of the iron. But republican Spain had Almadén, with its mercury. The government controlled about 240,000 square miles, the rebels only 110,000. But the rebels’ possession of Morocco, the two archipelagos of the Canaries and the Balearics (except for Minorca), together with most of the territory adjoining friendly Portugal, gave them a strategic advantage. On the other hand, the republic had the two main entry points for rail and road to France, as well as the north coast.

  Both contestants, independently, began in this balanced, if tragic, situation to think of procuring decisive help from abroad. Both, also independently, thought that this help could come best in the form of aircraft (though Mola was short of ammunition and could not advance in late July primarily for that reason). The aeroplane was the unknown factor. It seemed the weapon of the future. Hence the unfolding war became the first se
rious war in the air (as it had been the first rebellion of the telephone age).

  20

  For many generations, Spain had played little part in international conflicts, and foreign affairs had played a minor part in domestic politics. During the first years of the republic, Spain had been a conscientious member of the League of Nations, though Gil Robles had criticized the League’s condemnation of Mussolini. Now, if the Spanish Civil War became an international crisis, if both sides were soon accusing the other of causing a foreign invasion, if cries of ‘We don’t want foreigners here’ were to ring out as battle slogans in the lonely valleys of Aragon, and if nearly everyone from abroad who has written of the war records some Spaniard, on one side or the other, wishing that the ‘foreigners’ would leave the Spaniards to fight their own battles, it was the Spaniards themselves who, to begin with, sought aid from outside, not the powers of Europe who insisted on intervening.1