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

XI International Brigade and El Campesino’s brigade retook Trijueque and advanced up the Brihuega road, dispersing the Italians they found. The inhabitants of Trijueque had been traumatized by the shelling and the air attacks. Fathers were pulling beams and rubble out of the way to find survivors. Among those killed was an eighteen-year-old heroine called Antonia Portero who, according to one Soviet account, had been leading a company. She was one of the first to enter Trijueque, but she was killed by an Italian bombing raid and buried in the ruins of a house.²⁰ Karl Anger, who witnessed the scenes, also saw the arrival of Mikhail Koltsov, the leading Soviet journalist and plenipotentiary: ‘A car arrives. Koltsov climbs out of it and greets us silently, like in a house where someone has just died.’²¹

But Koltsov’s morale soon rose when he saw evidence of the Italians’ rapid retreat. ‘The highway is jammed with Fiat tractors, which they used to transport guns, as well as huge Lancia trucks and cars. The road is littered with rucksacks, weapons and cartridges. There is lots of stuff inside the trucks…An excited young fellow is persuading the passing troops to take half a dozen hand grenades and as much sponge cake as they can. The soldiers fill their bags with grenades and cake without stopping their march.’²²

The next day, 13 March, the republican IV Corps started to prepare for a major counter-offensive, while the Republic’s own representatives protested to the League of Nations and the Non-intervention Committee with documentary proof from prisoners of the presence of Italian formations.²³ The republican plan was straightforward. Líster’s division and all available tanks were to be concentrated on the Saragossa road, while Mera’s 14th Division was to cross the River Tajuña from the south-east bank and assault Brihuega. Franco’s chief of operations, Colonel Barroso, had warned the Italians that republican forces might attack their flank in this way, but he was ignored.

Soon after midday Pavlov’s T-26s charged up the Saragossa road, with infantry clinging to the outsides and firing away from the rattling tanks. The Italians, who had been preparing to advance again, had no defensive positions and were caught in the open. The tanks even managed to ambush a convoy of Italian trucks. The Spanish infantry leaped off the tanks, which then proceeded to ram the lorries and crush some under their tracks. One group of tanks found a camp concealed in a ravine and began shooting it up. But the republican soldiers were tired after the long approach march the night before and heavy going in the mud. And as they neared Trijueque, they were repulsed by machine-gun fire. They also found themselves counter-attacked by Italians with flame-throwers attached to their Fiat-Ansaldo miniature tanks. An Italian infantry battalion then appeared out of an olive grove. Major Pando and Rodimtsev organized an all-round defence at the base of a small hill. Their machine-gun company, commanded by a woman, Captain Encarnación Fernández Luna, managed to hold off the battalion until Líster organized a counterattack with tanks and reinforcements. Rodimtsev and Pando ran over to the machine-gunners to hug their commander in gratitude, only to find her calmly combing her hair while looking into a fragment of broken mirror.²⁴

Meanwhile, Mera’s preparations for his part of the counter-offensive were not without problems. He had placed a battalion of carabineros by the river to guard a small bridge prepared for demolition by his dinamiteros, in case the enemy made a further attempt to advance, but the carabinero commanding officer blew it up despite his orders.²⁵

A serious setback was avoided only because Mera was helped by local CNT members acting as spies and scouts who were able to advise him of the best places to throw a pontoon bridge across the swollen river. At dawn on the morning of 18 March his division crossed the pontoon bridge and occupied the heights above Brihuega. Heavy sleet shielded them from the enemy’s view, but it also caused the general offensive to be delayed. Mera had no alternative but to keep the division lying in the wet with instructions not to fire, hoping that the Italians would not discover them.

The weather did not start to clear until after midday; only then did the Chato and Katiuska squadrons become operational. Jurado gave the order for a general attack. Líster’s division advanced up the main road, supported again by T-26 tanks, and this force crashed into Bergonzoli’s Littorio Division, made up of regular troops. XI International Brigade also went on to the offensive. Karl Anger wrote excitedly of ‘the tap-dance of machine-guns’.²⁶