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

The Basque counter-attack on Mount Gorbea was successful and they were to hold it for another eight weeks, thus securing their extreme right flank. But two other mountains were lost the next day, while the air attacks on and around the town of Ochandiano smashed a hole in the front. The gudaris were demoralized by this overwhelming air power. They could fight back against the fierceness of a Carlist infantry attack, but they lacked both anti-aircraft guns and fighter cover. Twenty battalions lacked proper automatic weapons and some units’ machine-gun companies had only a handful of machine pistols. On 4 April Richthofen noted: ‘The fighters are strafing the reds up and down the mountain. 200 dead 400 taken prisoner.’ The Basque forces were pushed back, but they dug in and fought on. ‘We are always surprised by the toughness of the red infantry. The reds are bleeding heavily.’¹²

Later that day, to Richthofen’s exasperation, Mola gave orders for a pause in the offensive. ‘War here is a tedious business,’ Richthofen wrote on 5 April. ‘First Spaniards are brought to an operation. Then operational orders have to be worked through. Then reconnaissance, then visiting headquarters. Look at the operational orders and suggest changes, perhaps with the threat “without us”. Checking if orders have gone out and were followed.’ The next morning his bombers attacked as agreed, ‘but the infantry does not intervene, then asks for more support’. Mola ordered another attack for the next day. ‘We are dropping bombs for no reason at all,’ wrote Richthofen. ‘Protest telegram to Franco.’¹³

On 6 April the nationalists announced a blockade of republican ports on the Cantabrian coast. The same day the nationalist cruiser Almirante Cervera, with the moral support of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in the background, stopped a British merchantman. However, HMS Blanche and HMS Brazen of the British destroyer flotilla assigned to the Bay of Biscay raced up and the cargo ship was allowed into Bilbao.

Baldwin’s government was alarmed that Anglo-Basque trade might force Great Britain to take sides in Spain. It did not wish to recognize either the nationalists or the republicans as belligerents, because that meant allowing them to stop and search British ships en route to Spanish ports. Nevertheless, in the light of subsequent events it is difficult to credit the cabinet or its advisers with impartiality. Admiral Lord Chatfield, the First Sea Lord, was an admirer of General Franco and his officers in the Bay of Biscay had an undoubted sympathy for their nationalist counterparts. Sir Henry Chilton, the ambassador at Hendaye, who still had the ear of the Foreign Office though he was not on the scene, acted as a mouthpiece for the nationalists. Chatfield and Chilton informed the British government that the blockade of Bilbao was effective because the nationalists had mined the mouth of the River Nervión and would shell British ships if they did not stop. Although no unit of the Royal Navy had been near the area in question for months, the Basques’ assurances that all mines had been cleared were ignored. The Royal Navy flotilla was ordered by London to instruct all British vessels in the Biscay area en route to Bilbao to wait in the French port of Saint Jean de Luz until further notice. As if to mitigate any damage to British prestige caused by this implicit support of the nationalists, the battle-cruiser HMS Hood was ordered to Basque waters from Gibraltar.

The Royal Navy’s view of the blockade’s effectiveness led to furious scenes in the House of Commons. There were only four nationalist ships watching 200 miles of coast and the Basque shore batteries controlled an area beyond the three-mile limit. The government was taken aback at the onslaught it received but Sir Samuel Hoare, the First Lord of the Admiralty, would not admit the truth about the mines in the Nervión, for his source of information was the nationalist navy.

On 20 April the Seven Seas Spray, a small British merchantman which had decided to ignore all Royal Navy instructions and warnings, arrived off Bilbao from Saint Jean de Luz. There were neither nationalist warships nor mines; only an ecstatic welcome from the population of Bilbao awaited them. The British government and the Admiralty were totally discredited. Other vessels waiting near the French Basque coast immediately set out for Spain. One of them was stopped ten miles from Bilbao by the cruiser Almirante Cervera. The merchantman radioed for help and this time the Royal Navy, in the form of HMS Hood, had to take a firm line with the nationalists. In the Basques’ view it was poetic justice that the battleship España struck a nationalist mine off Santander nine days later and sank.