The Spanish Civil War

by Hugh Thomas

  During these exchanges, the Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano, was paying an important visit to Berlin. He discussed Spain with both Neurath and Hitler. These men agreed that Germany and Italy should accord the nationalists diplomatic recognition after the fall of Madrid. Neurath imagined that could be counted upon within a week. Both Germans and Italians denied vigorously to each other that they desired to take over any part of Spanish territory. They also exchanged rumours: Ciano said that he had heard nothing of the German report that 400,000 Russians were on their way to Spain. But he was all the same instituting an observation service between Sicily and Africa. In addition, Italy was finishing two submarines for the nationalists. No doubt the completed vessels would be useful in this Mediterranean vigil. This meeting brought the Germans and Italians close together on all matters. Within a week, Mussolini would for the first time use the phrase ‘Berlin-Rome Axis’ to describe that doomed friendship.2

  Henceforth, in more ways than one, the Spanish Civil War would be more even than a European civil war: it would be a world war in miniature. For the conflict had broken out at a particularly critical moment not only in diplomacy, as has been seen, but in the development of armaments. By October 1936, the Junkers 52 and Heinkel 51 were familiar sights in Spanish skies. So were the Fiat fighter CR-32 and the French ‘flying coffins’, along with Dewoitines and Blochs. Soon the Russian aircraft of the newest new generation of aircraft, modelled on US precedents, would become equally familiar. The later famous Messerschmitt fighter and the much faster Heinkel 111, made with stressed skins, were already tested and would shortly be seen in Spain. On the ground panzer tanks and T26s from Germany and Russia would be in action in what the German tank commander General von Thoma would call ‘a European Aldershot’.3 Equally, the new German machine gun—the ‘MG34’—which entered service only in 1936 would be used in Spain, as would the slightly older Russian Degtyareva Pekhotnii (DP). The new German 88 millimetre anti-aircraft gun—famous in the Second World War as the ‘Eighty-Eight’ for use against tanks—was already in Spain by late October, alongside the still reliable Italian artillery of the First World War. Thus, in a country which until July had been technologically backward, the most modern designs in the most important of industries were employed to murderous effect. The rebellion of July 1936 thus thrust Spain into the twentieth century with, in the exact sense of the word, a vengeance.

  Book Three

  WORLD WAR IN MINIATURE

  ‘I do not know if it is irreverent or not. I believe not. But I am anyway convinced that if, from today onwards, some son of this blessed region of Navarre presents himself at the gates of heaven and says that he is from here, Saint Peter will enthusiastically say “Bravo! Carry on!”’

  GENERAL MILLÁN ASTRAY IN PAMPLONA

  ‘Yesterday, thousands of men and women marched to the trenches singing. “The International” reached the enemy lines and made the mercenaries flee. The people of Madrid mounted guard around the city. Comrades, the hour is difficult. Despite that, we shall triumph. We shall triumph for ourselves, for our country and for the entire anti-fascist world.

  Long live Madrid combatant and militant!

  Long live our militias and our Fifth Regiment!

  Long live the world struggle against fascism!

  Long live new Spain, the Spain of the people!’

  ‘COMANDANTE CARLOS’ (VITTORIO VIDALI)

  28

  On 28 October, the diplomats met again in the gilded Locarno Room at the Foreign Office in London. Maisky repeated, with a plethora of double negatives, that those countries who considered it just to supply the Spanish government (that is, Russia) were ‘entitled to consider themselves no more bound by the Non-Intervention Agreement’ than did Germany, Italy, and Portugal.1 The same day the British Trades Union Congress and Labour Party followed the Russians by dropping their support of non-intervention, following a meeting of the representatives of both the Second International and the Comintern in Paris on 26 October. Henceforth, ‘Arms for Spain’ was a cry which united the Left2 in Britain as elsewhere. At the same moment, Largo Caballero was broadcasting over Madrid Radio:

  The time has come to deliver a death-blow [he began]. Our power of taking the offensive is growing. We have at our disposal a formidable mechanized armament. We have tanks and powerful aeroplanes. Listen, comrades! At dawn, our artillery and armoured trains will open fire. Immediately, our aircraft will attack. Tanks will advance on the enemy at his most vulnerable point.1

  Madrid had heard such optimistic predictions before. This time, however, Largo Caballero was speaking the truth: Russian tanks and aircraft had arrived.

  The attack took place at dawn on 29 October. Fifteen T-26 Russian tanks, driven by Russians, led by a Lithuanian tank specialist in the Russian army, Captain Paul Arman (known as ‘Greisser’), smashed into the nationalist cavalry.2 These tanks were used in the new Blitzkrieg style propagated in Germany by Colonel Guderian and admired in Russia: massed together for a shock attack rather than, as favoured by the French, spread out in support of infantry.3 A strange quixotic battle ensued between tanks and horsemen in the narrow streets of Seseña. Since Lister’s new first Mixed Brigade, which had been allocated the task of providing the main assault behind the tanks, could not advance fast enough, the new monsters of the battlefield were forced to retire. Nevertheless, these tanks, heavily armoured and carrying heavy guns, were shown to be effective. One Russian tank was said to have destroyed eleven Italian ones. In addition, the Army of Africa had as yet only a few, bad, Italian anti-tank guns. The same day, a squadron of Russian Katiuska bombers bombed Seville.4

  The following day—though presumably without news of the Russian tank attack—the German foreign minister, Neurath, dispatched an instruction to Admiral Canaris, then in Spain where, under the name of ‘Guillermo’, he was enjoying himself driving fast about the deserted roads. ‘In view of possibly increased help for the reds,’ Neurath said, ‘the German government does not consider the combat tactics of White Spain, ground and air, promising of success.’ He therefore ordered Canaris to propose to Franco that Germany should send powerful reinforcements. If Franco wanted these, he would have to agree that they should be placed under a German commander responsible solely to him and guarantee that the war would be more systematically conducted.1 Franco accepted these rather insolent terms. On 6 November, the so-called ‘Condor Legion’, with Germany’s ‘most brutal-looking general’ (as Hitler put it himself), Major-General von Sperrle, as commander, and Colonel von Richthofen (cousin of the famous ‘ace’ of the Great War) as chief of staff, began to leave Germany for Seville under the code name Exercise ‘Rügen Winter’.2 This force comprised about a hundred aircraft: a battle group of four bomber squadrons of twelve bombers each, a fighter group of the same strength, and a seaplane, reconnaissance, and experimental squadron. It would be supported by anti-aircraft and anti-tank units, and two armoured units, of four tank companies, of four tanks each. This force amounted to some 3,800 men at the beginning, later to 5,000.3 Richthofen, one of the two assistants of the head of the technical department in the Luftwaffe, was one of the architects of the growing German air force. He was ‘a man of vision and resolution’.

  Although the Condor Legion was in some ways a revolutionary unit, its equipment and armament were still primitive. To begin with, aircraft flew mainly without radio. The machine-guns had to be reloaded by hand. The bombers were Junkers 52s. The fighters were still Heinkel 51s. These heavy aircraft were all slower than Russian equivalents.

  There was also later attached to the Condor Legion a ‘North Sea Group’ composed of gunnery, mine, and signal specialists. These operated from the pocket battleships Deutschland and Admiral Scheer.1 Since, at the beginning of the war, Franco had had only five signals officers, and no tanks, the technical value of this aid is self-evident. The use of a Heinkel 70, for photographic work inside republican territory, was another innovation. The Russian and German officers who, in the years befo
re Hitler had come to power, had secretly trained together on the plains of White Russia, were now able to carry out other experiments in the larger battle-game of the Spanish war.

  No doubt because of this new commitment, the nationalist generals seemed now supremely confident. For the final assault on Madrid, Mola established his headquarters at Avila. When asked by a group of foreign journalists which of his four columns would take Madrid, he replied that it would be that ‘Fifth Column’ of secret nationalist supporters within the city.2 This unwise phrase was a justification for endless murders within the capital. A heavy bombing campaign against Madrid was mounted from 29 October onwards, partly to satisfy the German advisers who were curious to see the civilian reaction. The attack upon Getafe on the 30th was particularly severe. From that time onwards, every day until fighting began in the outskirts of the city on 6 November, one small pueblo after another described by journalists as a ‘key’ to Madrid was captured by the Army of Africa. On 4 November, the airport of Getafe fell. The same day, the new Russian fighters (which first flew in combat on the 3rd) showed their superiority in dispersing a squadron of Fiat fighters which escorted some Junkers 52s.3

  Franco announced that the liberation of the capital was near, and told madrileños to keep to their houses, which ‘our noble and disciplined troops will respect’. A threat that ‘we shall know the guilty and only upon them will fall the weight of the law’ accompanied these words.1 Lists of persons to be arrested were made ready, and a municipal administration for the conquered city was formed. Lorries of food for the population were assembled only a little behind the artillery. Radio Lisbon even broadcast a description of Franco entering Madrid on a white horse.

  On the republican side, despite the effectiveness of the Russian aircraft, and the high hopes of the day of the tank attack, there was renewed gloom. The tanks, used again on 3, 4 and 5 November, had made little impact, partly because the Spaniards manning them were baffled by their complexity. The streets of the capital were also filled with refugees, cattle, and domestic animals.

  The government was then re-formed to include, in this crisis, the anarchists, just as the Catalan Generalidad had been re-formed a month earlier. The outstanding anarchist organizer in Catalonia, García Oliver, became minister of justice; Juan Peiró, the treintista who had spoken out so vigorously in July against the terror at the beginning of the war, became minister of industry; Juan López Sánchez, also a treintista, from Valencia, became minister of commerce; and Federica Montseny, an intellectual from Barcelona, became minister of health. These working-class leaders entered the government causing scarcely a ripple of surprise. The move had been urged ever since mid-September by the secretary-general of the CNT, Horacio Prieto, an unyielding ‘realist’ and advocate of collaboration.2 The four anarchists had been previously elected as the appropriate members of their organization to join the government at a ‘plenum’ of the movement. The rest of the ministry, enlarged from thirteen to eighteen, remained much as previously. A Left republican, Carlos Esplá, active in preventing the rising at Valencia, became Spain’s first minister of propaganda.1 Azaña opposed the inclusion of the anarchists, but he was unable to prevent it.2 In fact, since industry and commerce had previously been one department, and health had previously been simply a directorship-general, the number of anarchist portfolios was less than it seemed. García Oliver, the only anarchist ever to have held the portfolio of justice in any country, impressed even republicans by his efficiency.3 But his obsession at the start of his tenure of office was to destroy the archives of convicts. This he did. It was later said that the compromising files had been burned in the air raid.4 Solidaridad Obrera spoke of 4 November as ‘the most transcendental day in the political history of the country’, and announced that the government had ‘ceased to be an oppressor of the working class’. Federica Montseny was after all the first female minister in Spanish history. The socialist Araquistain explained meantime from his embassy in Paris that the UGT had become converted to revolutionary socialism, and that the CNT now recognized the state as ‘an instrument of struggle’.5

  Peiró some weeks before had suggested how the government after victory should be a federal socialist republic—since, having admitted the collaboration of the other working-class parties, ‘it would be neither just nor noble’ to try and impose anarchist views by force on the future society.6 But Federica Montseny was told by her father (an old anarchist propagandist, Federico Urales) that this step meant ‘the liquidation of anarchism. Once in power you will not rid yourselves of power.’7

  How many reserves [she later remarked], doubts, internal anguishes had I to overcome personally in accepting this post! For others, a governmental post could be the goal and the satisfaction of measureless ambitions. For me, it was nothing less than a break with an entire life’s work, which itself derived from the life’s work of my parents.1

  At the same time as the anarchists entered the government, the anarchist Council of Aragon, moving to Caspe, also opened their doors to receive representation of the other parties. Joaquín Ascaso was received by Largo Caballero, Companys and Azaña and the Council’s powers were formally, if most reluctantly, accepted by the government. For the foreseeable future, republican Aragon would remain anarchist; but the seeds of its eventual destruction were already sown, since two communists, two members of the UGT, and a republican were now present at its deliberations; and the republican member was Ignacio Mantecón, a communist sympathizer who soon became councillor of justice.2 Still, for the time being, Aragon was virtually an independent state, even having commercial relations with the outside world. They had a police force, a production programme, tribunals—but, fatally for them, no army.

  With a mixture of overconfidence and caution, meantime, Mola, Varela, and Yagüe delayed their assault on Madrid until dawn on 8 November.

  The plan was that an arrowlike attack should be launched between the University City and the Plaza de España into the middle-class part of the city on the heights immediately above the valley of the Manzanares. The attack would entail a difficult climb up the hill covered by West Park, across the river Manzanares and the Casa de Campo. Of Yagüe’s columns, the first, Asensio’s, was to cross the Manzanares directly below the Paseo de Rosales, the long terracelike street running along the top of West Park, and climb up to capture the Model Prison and the Don Juan barracks. Castejón was to cross to the left and establish himself at a student hall of residence known as the Fundación del Amo, on the Madrid side of the University City. Delgado Serrano, on the right, was to capture the Montaña barracks and bring the Royal Palace and the Gran Vía under fire. Barrón and Tella were to advance in the suburb of Carabanchel to try and suggest that the main attack was coming from the south.3 These columns, led by commanders all of whom had fought as young men in the Rif, were mostly composed of Moroccans and Foreign Legionaries. Though, as has been seen, the latter were mainly Spaniards, they may have been outnumbered by the Moroccans. A number of Italian tanks—perhaps twenty—also fought, under Captain Oreste Fortuna, he and his men being technically a part of the Legion, and there were also some German tanks, under Colonel von Thoma—two companies of ‘heavy’ tanks, one of light.

  Largo Caballero’s government now decided to leave Madrid after all, and go to Valencia. It was announced that administration could not be carried on in a war zone. The postponement of this decision till now gave the government’s withdrawal the appearance of flight. Further, Prieto had thought that like Azaña they should go to Barcelona, a more logical decision.1 In the afternoon of 6 November, nevertheless, Largo Caballero suddenly told the commander of the Madrid Division, General Miaja, of the plan, and that he was henceforth in overall political, as well as military, control. The leading ministers, civil servants, and politicians of all parties thereupon abandoned Madrid, taking with them all the government files, including those of the ministry of war.2 The new anarchist ministers opposed this move, thinking that they had been brought into the gover
nment on false pretences, but they could do nothing about it; they left in silence, unable to communicate even with their followers.3 Great convoys of vehicles covered the highway to Valencia, taking with them the files, archives and other materials of government.4 The Russian Embassy left with other diplomats—the only Russian official staying behind being Orlov of the NKVD. Orlov said to Louis Fischer: ‘Leave as soon as possible. There is no front. Madrid is the front.’5 Miaja and General Pozas, commander of the Army of the Centre, were sent for by the under-secretary of war, General Asensio, who gave them each an envelope marked ‘very confidential, not to be opened till 6 A.M.’6 Asensio then left for Valencia also. Miaja insisted that the orders be opened immediately. The two generals then discovered that the two sets of instructions had been put in the wrong envelopes. Pozas was ordered to establish a new headquarters of the central army at Tarancón. Miaja was charged to set up a junta of defence with representatives of the Popular Front parties, to be responsible for Madrid and defend the capital in every way he could.1 If he had to withdraw, he was to do so with his army intact and establish a new line near Cuenca, at the point which Pozas thought best.

  16. The battle of Madrid, November 1936