The Battle for Spain

by Antony Beevor

  After the battle of the Corunna road Kléber left for Moscow in the company of André Marty, having been relieved of his command. It has been said that jealous Spanish communists made him the scapegoat for the Pozuelo collapse, while others, such as Borkenau, believed that Miaja resented Kléber rivalling him as the hero of Madrid. Whatever the explanation, Kléber had become much less flamboyant when he returned to Spain in June to command a division. Despite the idealized portraits of many foreign journalists, who ‘played him up sensationally’ as one of them admitted, Kléber never really exceeded the level of a tough First World War commander who was unsparing with the lives of his men.

  In between the two parts of the Corunna road offensive, the republicans had fought an unsuccessful action in the south when Queipo de Llano’s forces advanced to capture the rich olive-growing area of Andújar. It was a singularly inauspicious start for the new XIV International Brigade under General ‘Walter’, a Polish communist, who later commanded the Second Polish Army in the Red Army’s Berlin operation. This brigade included the French Marseillaise Battalion, which had a British company. The main action, around a village called Lopera just after Christmas, became famous for the death of the two English communist poets John Cornford and Ralph Fox, and for a frightening foretaste of International Brigade justice.

  The battle began on the morning of 28 December and finished 36 hours later. Walter had been ordered to retake Lopera, but he had no telephone communications with his units and no air or artillery support. The nationalists decimated their ranks with machine-gun fire, mortars and artillery. XIV International Brigade was virtually untrained. Like the militia in similar circumstances, many of its men turned and ran on being surprised by machine-gun fire. Some 800 corpses were left under the olive trees and 500 men deserted the front line.8 The commanding officer of the Marseillaise Battalion, Major Gaston Delasalle, was arrested and accused, not only of incompetence and cowardice, but also of being a ‘fascist spy’. He was found guilty by a court martial hastily gathered by André Marty. Ilya Ehrenburg later described Marty as speaking, and occasionally acting, ‘like a mentally sick man’, and Gustav Regler remarked that Marty preferred to shoot anyone on suspicion, rather than waste time with what he called ‘petit bourgeois indecision’.9 Some Brigaders, however, admired him greatly. ‘A true revolutionary,’ Sommerfield called him, ‘compounded of patience, granite firmness and absolute unswerving determination.’ Tom Wintringham, who later commanded the British battalion, described the proceedings as ‘a thoroughly fair court martial’. But Nick Gillain, serving in XIV International Brigade, wrote later, ‘The guards dragged the condemned man out of the court room, while he continued to protest his innocence. There was the sound of two or three shots. Then, a man came back into the room and placed on the table a watch and some money…Revolutionary justice had been carried out.’10

  The nationalists and their Axis backers began to adjust themselves to a protracted war. Hitler was not surprised by the turn of events, informed as he was by accurate assessments from Voelckers, the German chargé d’affaires. He was also unperturbed by the long pessimistic reports from his ambassador to Franco, Faupel, and the Condor Legion commander, General Sperrle, because an extended war suited his purposes better. It would distract attention from his expansionist plans in central Europe. Mussolini, on the other hand, was eager to win military glory in Europe, but his mood fluctuated wildly according to the performance of his troops.

  The most urgent task facing Franco’s staff was to create a trained army of sufficient size. German assistance in this task was almost as important as their combat contribution. The Falangist militia trained by Condor Legion officers at Cáceres in Estremadura bore little resemblance to the gangs of señoritos involved in the summer fighting. The Carlist requetés, the nationalists’ most effective troops after the Army of Africa, now numbered about 60,000. At least half of them came from Navarre, which led to the Carlist claim that ‘Navarre had saved Spain’. This arrogance, combined with open contempt for the Castilian Church, which they thought corrupt and pharisaical, did not make them popular with their allies. The famed discipline of the requetés derived, not from strong respect for hierarchy, but from the self-discipline of the hill farmer. (Their leader, Fal Conde, exaggerated when he described Carlism as a movement guided from below, but it was a uniquely populist form of royalism.) Their medieval crusading faith made them fearless. Colonel Rada described his requetés as men ‘with faith in victory, with faith in God; one hand holding a grenade, the other a rosary’.

  In early December 1936 the Carlist war council decided to establish a ‘Royal Military Academy’ to ensure a supply of trained Carlist officers. Franco, jealous of their strength, declared that such an unauthorized move would be considered an act against the nationalist movement. The war council backed down and Fal Conde went into exile in Portugal. The Caudillo followed up this victory with a decree which subordinated all political militias to the code of military justice and the army chain of command.

  By the end of 1936 the nationalist army’s strength approached 200,000 men, with over half this figure made up by the Carlist and Falangist forces. The Army of Africa was increased to over 60,000 men by early 1937, chiefly as a result of intense recruiting in the Rif. Foreign volunteers also joined the Legion. The largest group was Portuguese and consisted of about 12,000 men known as the Viriatos. There was also a detachment of right-wing French volunteers and 600 Irish blueshirts under General Eoin O’Duffy, but their contribution was small. They were withdrawn after only one action in which they found themselves attacked by their own side.11

  In January Franco set up a joint German-Italian general staff in the hope of deflecting criticism from his allies over the way the war was being conducted. He simply intended it as a sop so as to be able to request more military aid, and implicate his advisers in the responsibility of any reverse. The nationalists’ most valuable assistance undoubtedly came from the increased German contribution. The Nazi government had reacted quickly in early November to the appearance of Russian weaponry. Hitler evidently did not realize that Stalin was afraid of provoking him and that he was unwilling to let Spanish affairs embarrass Soviet foreign policy. The first contingents of the Condor Legion arrived in Spain in mid November. General Sperrle was the overall commander and Colonel von Richthofen the commander of Luftwaffe operations. German air power in Spain grew to four fighter squadrons of Heinkel 51 biplanes (to be replaced gradually with Messerschmitt 109s in the early summer of 1937) and four squadrons of Junkers 52 bombers. Other aircraft were sent out later; in fact, all the important machines used by the Luftwaffe at the beginning of the Second World War were tested in Spain.

  The Wehrmacht reinforcements came under Colonel von Thoma’s command and included anti-tank and heavy machine-gun detachments, artillery and the equivalent of two Panzer battalions. This tank force of 106 Mark I Panzers assembled at Cubas north of Toledo. Their large black berets bore a badge based on the skull motif of the Death’s-Head Hussars of the old Prussian army. In support there were 20mm flak batteries and 88mm anti-aircraft guns. The signals corps, too, helped with equipment and training. There was a large contingent of engineers and civilian instructors, who later included Gestapo ‘advisers’, as well as a naval advisory staff, based on the pocket battleships Deutschland and Admiral Scheer, both of which stayed in western Mediterranean waters. On 16 November, 5,000 German servicemen disembarked in Cádiz and another 7,000 arrived ten days later.12

  The great increase in Italian aid followed the secret pact signed by Franco on 28 November at Salamanca. The Caudillo agreed to Mussolini’s policy of Italian primacy in the Mediterranean in return for military aid ‘to restore political and social order in the country’. During the first months of the war the Italian pilots flying the Savoia 81s and Fiat fighters had in theory been attached to the Spanish Foreign Legion, whose uniform they wore. But in his desire for glory Mussolini now wanted an independent command and recognizable Italian forma
tions in the land battles. As a result the CTV (Corps of Volunteer Troops) was organized. Its commander, General Mario Roatta, formerly of Italian military intelligence, had been Admiral Canaris’s counterpart. Roatta had already been to Spain at the beginning of the war with the German liaison officer, Colonel Warlimont.

  The Italian infantry sent to Spain consisted mainly of fascist militia, many of whom had been drafted or press-ganged. Having been told that they were going to Abyssinia, they arrived in Spain in midwinter wearing tropical uniforms. The CTV’s strength later reached a total of about 50,000 men, but many Spaniards were transferred to their formations and fought under Italian officers. The number of Fiat Ansaldo miniature tanks was greatly increased, but these were little better than closed-in Bren gun carriers. Italian field guns were of good quality, though old, but then artillery has always been the strongest section of Italian military industry. The ‘Legionary Air Force’, so called to summon up images of imperial Rome, was increased to some 5,000 men. Many more Fiat fighters and Savoia bombers were also sent. Their principal base was Majorca, from where they could attack shipping and, in Ciano’s words, ‘terrorize Valencia and Barcelona’.13 This reorganization left Franco’s air force commander, General Kindelán, in a similar position to his republican counterpart, Hidalgo de Cisneros, who, even after he became a communist, was lucky if the Russian General ‘Duglas’ told him what was happening.

  The Málaga campaign, the Italian CTV’s first action in Spain, took place while the opposing armies in the Madrid region were preparing for the next round. The southern extremity of the republican zone was no more than a long strip between sea and mountain, stretching from Motril to Estepona within 50 kilometres of Gibraltar. Only the overriding priority given to the assault on Madrid had delayed the nationalists from attacking it earlier. Quiepo de Llano had grown particularly impatient at what he regarded as a continuing insult to his control of Andalucia. The nationalist field command was given to a Borbón prince, Colonel the Duke of Seville. Franco asked Roatta to join this offensive with his 10,000 fascist militiamen and the Legionary Air Force in close support. It was a clever move, since victory was certain, and Mussolini would therefore be encouraged to continue his aid at a time when he had suddenly become worried about international opinion.

  If any campaign was fated to be lost by the Republic it was this one. The terrain and the elongated sector meant that the nationalists could cut it almost wherever and whenever they wanted. The state of the defence was pitiful, for Málaga had led a revolutionary existence cut off from the reality of the war. Within the town there was strong antagonism between the communists and the CNT, while in the countryside the predominantly anarchist peasants were immersed in their collectives. The mountain range provided a most dangerous sense of security.

  The republican forces consisted of no more than 12,000 militiamen, a third of whom had no rifles. There was little ammunition even for those who were armed. This state of affairs was largely the result of the deliberate neglect of the government, which disliked the continuing independence of the province. Largo Caballero is reputed to have said ‘not a round more for Málaga’. The performance of Colonel Villalba, the commander, moreover, was more than just unimpressive. There are strong grounds for believing that he sabotaged the defence deliberately, since he was treated so well by the nationalists after the defeat of the Republic.14

  The Duke of Seville’s offensive began slowly in mid January with the capture of small pieces of territory. The first major section to be seized was the extreme south-west, including Marbella. Then a small force from Granada occupied a chunk of territory to the north-east of Málaga, endangering its communication with Motril, which lay at the exit of the bottleneck. Yet the attack on Málaga itself in the first week of February still came as a surprise. The Duke of Seville’s force advanced up the coast, rolling back the militia detachments with ease; the blackshirt militia under Roatta cut down to the sea; and the Granada force pushed further towards the coast road, although they left this escape route open so as not to provoke resistance. Within three days the nationalist and Italian forces had entered the outskirts of Málaga, after a naval bombardment by units of the nationalist fleet, backed by the Admiral Graf Spee. The republican warships at Cartagena never even left port.

  The weather hampered operations and the Condor Legion could do little to help until almost the end. ‘At last the fighter squadrons can get off the ground,’ wrote Richthofen on 6 February. ‘Italians advancing with difficulty. One He 51 shot down. Italians are standing still four kilometres short of Málaga. Spaniards want fighters here there and everywhere. And today again in Saragossa because a red [aircraft] was there. That’s not how it should be. Today the Legion Condor had its fourteenth casualty.’ But just two days later, on 8 February, he was able to write: ‘Málaga taken! Great victory fiesta in white Spain.’15

  Descriptions of the fleeing civilians and exhausted militiamen along the coast are harrowing.16 Crazed mothers nursed dead babies and the old and weak died by the roadside. It seemed to the writer Arthur Koestler and his host Sir Peter Chalmers-Mitchell who had a house in Málaga, as if only a few solitary figures were left in the abandoned landscape of the city. Smoke drifted upwards from houses ruined in the shelling. In the shock of defeat odd militiamen waited apathetically to be put up against a wall. The nationalist revenge in Málaga was perhaps the most horrific of the war, judging by the British consul’s report of 20,000 executions between 1937 and 1944. The nationalist prosecutor in Málaga, Carlos Arias Navarro, eventually became the last prime minister under Franco and the man inherited by King Juan Carlos in 1975.

  The Málaga disaster brought tensions to a head between the communists and Largo Caballero, whom the Comintern and Soviet advisers referred to in their reports to Moscow as ‘the Old Man’. They were furious at Caballero’s attempts to restrict communist power within the army, partly because he could not forgive their successful infiltration of the Socialist Youth and the consequent loss of the whole organization to the PCE. André Marty even suggested later that Caballero and Prieto were in the pocket of the British who were urging them to resist the communists.17

  ‘He [Caballero] fears the exceptional influence that the Party has in a significant part of the army and strives to limit this,’ Berzin reported to Moscow on 12 January 1937. He went on to claim that General Asensio, the assistant minister for war, and General Cabrera, the chief of staff, ‘despite repeated exposures of their sabotage in the carrying out of useful measures for fortified fronts, up to now enjoy great trust from the premier and war minister, left socialist Largo Caballero. Some of them have not been exposed, but are undoubtedly agents of Franco…The fall of Málaga in particular was, for the most part, caused by treason.’ He levelled similar accusations against the anarchists and the ‘counterrevolutionary Trotskyists’ of the POUM, a leitmotif in almost every report back to Moscow. ‘It goes without saying that it is impossible to win the war against the rebels if these scum within the republican camp are not liquidated.’18 Colonel Krivoshein, in a report forwarded to Stalin by Voroshilov, concluded that ‘the Communist Party ought to come to power even by force, if necessary’.19

  The communists were also outraged by the ‘impudently slanderous position’ taken by Prieto, the minister for the navy, ‘at the last council of ministers (where he in essence repeated almost word for word the attacks of the Trotskyist La Batalla against the Soviet Union)’.20

  The transformation of the militia columns into a formalized army started in earnest in December 1936. At the beginning of 1937 republican forces totalled about 320,000 men, although only about half this number were at the various fronts at any one time. These forces were split among the central and southern zone with about 130,000, the three northern zones (Euzkadi, Santander and the Asturias) with over 100,000 and Aragón with about 30,000. The remaining 80,000 or so in rearguard areas included the Assault Guard, the National Republican Guard, formed from loyal civil guards, the carabinero fronti
er police and the MVR, the Militias of Rearguard Vigilance, which were a government incorporation of irregular forces. The carabineros came under Negrín, the minister of finance, who built them up as a personal force to about 40,000 strong. The main reason for lack of precision in army figures is inaccurate reporting, both of ration returns (minor and major frauds were carried out by staff and quartermasters) and of unit strengths (commanding officers sometimes adjusted the figures for personal and political reasons).

  These greatly increased figures were achieved mainly by increasing the call-up of the classes of 1933, 1934 and 1935. It is impossible to gauge what proportion of the intake was prompted by idealism, circumstances, or even hunger, for the rations were considerably better than those which the civilian population enjoyed. An English International Brigader in hospital later observed that the local people were so desperate that they would eat what they had left on their plates, even if it had been chewed. Meanwhile, with a mixture of encouragement, manipulation and blackmail, the militias were forced into the command structure already prepared on paper. Columns were turned into battalions and brigades during the winter of 1936. In the spring of 1937 divisions and even army corps started to be formed.