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

The greatest jolt to the attitudes of those in the International Brigades was the persecution of the POUM. Communist ranting against the POUM continued unabated. ‘We have in our country’, declared one Party orator late in 1937, ‘a long chain of very recent facts that prove that Trotskyists have long been engaged in these grotesque criminal activities and as the difficulties increase and decisive battles approach, they start, more and more openly, to popularize the enemy’s slogans, to sow the seeds of defeatism, mistrust and split among the masses, and engage more actively than ever in espionage, provocation, sabotage and crime.’²⁵

The Party’s version of events was so obviously dishonest that only those terrified of the truth could believe it. The majority, however, realizing that they had been duped, resented the insult to their intelligence. They had to hold their tongues while in Spain so as to avoid the attentions of the SIM. Then, when they did reach home they usually remained silent, rather than undermine the republican cause as a whole. Those who spoke out, like Orwell, found the doors of left-wing publishers closed to them.

Uncritical supporters of the Republic were forced to justify the Moscow line. Nevertheless, the attempt to export the show-trial mentality to Spain ignored the fact that, however authoritarian Negrín’s government might be, it was not totalitarian. As a result, the sealed maze of distorting mirrors that had replaced reality in the Soviet Union was not duplicated in Spain.

PART SIX The Route to Disaster

The Battle of Teruel and Franco’s ‘Victorious Sword’

Towards the end of 1937 the nationalists’ increase in military superiority became apparent. The occupation of the northern zone had indeed proved to be the essential intermediate step if they were to be assured of victory. For the first time in the war they equalled the republicans in manpower under arms (between 650,000 and 700,000 on each side) and the scales were to continue moving further in their favour. The conquest of the Cantabrian coast had not only released troops for redeployment in the centre; it had also yielded vital industrial prizes to the nationalists. The most important were the arms factories in the Basque country, the heavy industry of Bilbao, and the coal and iron ore of the northern regions (though much of the latter was taken in payment by Germany).

The nationalist army was reorganized, with five army corps garrisoning the fronts, and the five most powerful, including all their elite formations, organized into an offensive Army of Manoeuvre.¹ Although faced with this formidable war machine, the republican general staff and the Soviet advisers refused to admit that their ponderously conventional offensives were gradually destroying the People’s Army and the Republic’s ability to resist. They would not see that the only hope lay in continuing regular defence combined with unconventional guerrilla attacks in the enemy rear and rapid raids at as many points as possible on weakly held parts of the front. At the very least this would have severely hindered the nationalists’ ability to concentrate their new Army of Manoeuvre in a major offensive.

Most important of all, it would not have presented large formations of republican troops to the nationalists’ superior artillery and air power. A blend of conventional and unconventional warfare would have been the most efficient, and least costly, method of maintaining republican resistance until the European war broke out. Nevertheless, the pattern of set-piece offensives continued until the Republic’s military strength was finally exhausted on the Ebro in the autumn of 1938. Propaganda considerations still determined these prestige operations and the principle of the ‘unified command’ was vigorously maintained by the communists, the government and regular officers, even though it had hardly demonstrated effective leadership.

The inflexibility of republican strategy became even more serious at the end of 1937, when nationalist air support was increased. Spanish pilots took over the older German aircraft, especially the Junkers 52s, the Italian S-79s and S-81s, and four nationalist fighter squadrons were now equipped with Fiats.² The Italian Legionary air force had nine Fiat squadrons and three bomber squadrons on the Spanish mainland, apart from those based on Majorca. Soviet intelligence was certain that Mussolini’s son, Bruno, who arrived in Spain in October, commanded one of the S-79 bomber squadrons supporting the CTV on the Aragón front.³ The Condor Legion replaced the Junkers 52 with the Heinkel 111 entirely. In addition, it had a reconnaissance squadron of Dornier 17s, two squadrons of Messerschmitt 109s and two with the old Heinkel 51. All told, the nationalists and their allies deployed nearly 400 aircraft.⁴