The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

On 15 February Franco ordered Orgaz to continue the advance, despite nationalist losses. It was an obstinate and unjustifiable decision, since the Italian forces were still regrouping for transfer to the Guadalajara front. Any further push should at least have been co-ordinated with their offensive. The nationalists lost more of their best troops for an insignificant gain in ground.

On the same day, on the other side of the lines, Miaja’s control over the Jarama front came officially into effect. With Colonel Rojo he reorganized the republican formations into four divisions. On 17 February the republican forces went on to the offensive. Líster’s 11th Division moved on Pingarrón in a frontal attack which brought appalling casualties; the 70th Brigade, attached from Mera’s 14th Division, lost 1,100 men, over half its strength. On the same day Modesto’s division crossed the Manzanares from the north to attack La Marañosa, which was defended by Rada’s Carlists. A communist battalion called the ‘Grey Wolves of La Pasionaria’ was shot to pieces in a doomed attack over a long stretch of open ground. Peter Kemp, an English volunteer serving as a Carlist subaltern, records how his aim was not helped by their chaplain screaming in his ear to shoot more of the atheist rabble.⁷

The only effective part of the republican counter-attack forced Barrón’s brigade back to the Chinchón–Madrid road. The Soviet tank brigade played a key role with its T-26s emerging from their camouflaged positions under the olive trees. Moscow was informed how a junior officer named Bilibin managed to evacuate a damaged tank under heavy machine-gun and shellfire. And on 19 February ‘Junior officer Novikov’s tank received three direct hits. His loader was killed and his mechanic-driver was mortally wounded. Novikov himself was heavily wounded but for more than 24 hours he would not let the enemy approach his burning tank. He was later rescued by his comrades.’ This tale of survival in a burning tank for a day and a night strains one’s credulity, but Soviet battlefield reports of often genuine heroism had to be as preposterously exaggerated as the Stalinist claims of labour achievements.⁸

Krasilnikov, a tank commander and Communist Party member, also revealed the insane influence of a Stakhanovite mentality on military affairs. ‘During the battles near Jarama, battalion commander Comrade Glaziev considered that the best crews were those that fired off the most shells. Yet they were firing these shells while three kilometres away from the enemy.’⁹

Little then happened for the next ten days, until General Gal threw his newly formed division into an impossible attack on Pingarrón. His orders stated that it ‘must be taken at any cost’, and he persisted with the attack even though the air and tank support, which had been promised, never arrived. Those behind with binoculars could see bodies strewn around, and watched the wounded struggling to crawl back, away from the killing zone. Once again both Brigaders and Spanish troops were paying for the deficiencies of their commanders and staff.

On the morning of 21 February the Scandinavian company in the Thaelmann Battalion took the opportunity of a lull to deepen their trenches and cut more branches for camouflage. It had finally stopped raining. Conny Andersson, a Swedish survivor of the battle, described the scene: ‘The morning sun caressed our earthen-grey faces and slowly dried the damp blankets.’ Some men crept back to fetch coffee from a huge green container which had been brought up to just behind the front line. Dates and biscuits were handed out. ‘We dozed a little in the sunshine, talking about nothing, rolled up the blankets as they dried, cleaned our rifles and prepared ammunition. A German poncing around with a helmet to tease the snipers was despatched to eternity with a professional crack. Some medical orderlies silently carried him down the road and extended the communal grave.’ The second company of the battalion was reinforced that day by some Austrians, ‘all of whom were bold and hearty and kitted out in short sheepskins. They aroused considerable attention wherever they went–at least the sheepskins did.’ Those who saw them coveted them, thinking of the cold hours of sentry duty in the early hours of the morning.¹⁰

The tight political control of ambitious commissars made propaganda motives interfere with military sense. There were a few extremely competent officers, like the French Colonel Putz, or the English Major Nathan (who was not promoted because he refused to become a Party member), but most senior officers bluffed their way through, relying on rigid discipline. Often their decisions resulted in massive casualties for little purpose. Their bravely dramatic orders like ‘stand and die’ or ‘not a centimetre’s retreat’, when ammunition was exhausted, sounded well in the propaganda accounts, but it was not the staff who suffered from them.