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

The Basques could not now be starved into surrender, but the fighting which had begun again on 20 April was going badly for them. The combination of nationalist air power, the fighting qualities of the Carlist troops and republican units pulling out of line without warning brought the front close to collapse. Yet Richthofen’s frustrations did not decrease.

On 20 April he was furious with the Italian air force. ‘There you are. They dropped their bombs on our own troops. A day full of mishaps. Führer’s birthday. Sander [Sperrle] has been promoted to lieutenant-general.’¹⁴ Whatever the imperfections on the nationalist side, chaos among the republican forces was increased by the slowness and incompetence of the general staff. Its chief, Colonel Montaud, was notorious for his defeatism and the regular officers were widely criticized for ‘their civil service mentality’.¹⁵ The situation was so bad that Aguirre tried to intervene. Luckily for the Basques, Mola’s cautious advance failed to take full advantage of the republican disarray.

On 23 April Richthofen noted: ‘Weather very good. 4th Brigade has, despite orders, deployed two battalions not twelve. They are to be relieved. Infantry is not moving forwards. What can one do? Condor Legion pulls out at 1800 hours. One cannot lead infantry which is not willing to attack weakly held positions.’ The next day he complained again, exasperated that the Italians had bombed the wrong town. ‘These are burdens for the leadership which one cannot imagine…Should we destroy Bilbao after all?’¹⁶ The Italians had been concerned that an attack on the Catholic Basques in the north would provoke the Pope and were reluctant to bomb the main Basque city. One can only speculate, but perhaps Richthofen’s frustrations played a part in the most notorious of all the Condor Legion’s operations.

During 25 April many of the demoralized troops from Marquina fell back on Guernica, which lay some ten kilometres behind the lines. On the following day, Monday 26 April, at 4.30 in the afternoon, the main church bell in Guernica rang to warn of air attack. It was market day and, although some farmers had been turned back at the edge of the town, many had still come in with their cattle and sheep. The refugees from the advancing enemy, together with the town’s population, went down into the cellars which had been designated as ‘refugios’. A single Heinkel 111 bomber of the Condor Legion’s ‘experimental squadron’ arrived over the town, dropped its load on the centre and disappeared.¹⁷

Most people came out of their shelters, many going to help the injured. Fifteen minutes later the full squadron flew over, dropping various sizes of bombs. People who rushed back into the shelters were choked by smoke and dust. They became alarmed as it was evident that the cellars were not strong enough to withstand the heavier bombs. A stampede into the fields around the town began, then the Heinkel 51 fighter squadrons swept over, strafing and grenading men, women and children, as well as nuns from the hospital and even the livestock. The major part of the attack had not even started.

At 5.15 the heavy sound of aero engines was heard. The soldiers immediately identified them as ‘trams’, the nickname for the ponderous Junkers 52. Three squadrons from Burgos carpet-bombed the town systematically in twenty-minute relays for two and a half hours. (Carpet bombing had just been invented by the Condor Legion when attacking the republican positions around Oviedo.) Their loads were made up of small and medium bombs, as well as 250kg bombs, anti-personnel twenty-pounders and incendiaries. The incendiaries were sprinkled down from the Junkers in two-pound aluminium tubes like metallic confetti. Eyewitnesses described the resulting scenes in terms of hell and the apocalypse. Whole families were buried in the ruins of their houses or crushed in the refugios; cattle and sheep, blazing with white phosphorus, ran crazily between the burning buildings until they died. Blackened humans staggered blindly through the flames, smoke and dust, while others scrabbled in the rubble, hoping to dig out friends and relatives. According to the Basque government, approximately a third of the town’s population were casualties–1,654 killed and 889 wounded, although more recent research indicates that no more than between 200 and 300 died.¹⁸ Those hurrying towards the town from Bilbao had their original disbelief at the news changed by the orange-red sky in the distance. The parliament buildings and the oak tree were found to be untouched because they had been just outside the flight path which the pilots had followed so rigidly. The rest of Guernica was a burned skeleton.