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

To seal the breach, Franco sent Aranda to Teruel with three divisions and ordered Dávila to move the 81st Division from the upper Tagus. On 20 December he issued a directive putting together an army for the relief of the city. It would be commanded by Dávila and include the Army Corps of Galicia, which would operate north of the River Tuna, and the Corps of Castille, reinforced with two Navarrese divisions, which would deploy to the south. These forces would be supported by all the artillery and air units available, especially the Italian artillery and the Condor Legion. But for almost a whole week aircraft were grounded by bad visibility and unusually harsh frosts, affecting engines, wings and runways. Only the Condor Legion’s anti-aircraft batteries could be sent into action against the breakthrough.

On 21 December fierce street fighting began in Teruel itself. The republican 68th Division with T-26 tanks seized the suburb round the bullring. Slightly blurred photos of republican tanks in Teruel were published around the world. The nationalist garrison under Rey d’Harcourt pulled back towards the centre of the city and prepared to defend the buildings around the Plaza de San Juan and its church. These included the Comandancia Militar, the Civil Governor’s office, the Banco de España, the Hospital de la Asunción and many other public buildings. Colonel Barba commanded the defence of the Seminary, the Convent of Santa Clara and the churches of Santiago and Santa Teresa. The republican infantry advanced into the city behind a curtain of machine-gun fire. ‘You could make out the dinamiteros running up the first streets,’ wrote Herbert Matthews of the New York Times, ‘and the flashes of their explosive charges exploding inside houses. A great moment had arrived: one of those dramatic moments in history and journalism.’¹⁷ But such excited optimism was badly misplaced. The winter fighting in Teruel rapidly turned into the most horrific of all the battles of the civil war.

The republicans had to advance up frozen streets, dodging from one pile of rubble to another under nationalist fire. House after house had to be cleared, using grenades and small arms. Holes were blasted in floors during the fighting, and in side walls as soldiers made their way from house to house, avoiding the killing zone of the street outside. Civilians cowering in cellars were in just as much danger of being killed or maimed by grenades, or buried in masonry from the explosive charges. ‘We suddenly saw’, recorded one republican soldier, ‘someone holding a baby out of a window, shouting at us not to fire because there were civilians in the house.’¹⁸

The republicans, following Prieto’s personal instructions to protect the civilian population, were evacuating women and children back to the cellars of the houses near the Plaza del Torico. But many of the women, despite the risk of being shot, looted what they could. In the temperatures, which dropped to around minus 15 centigrade, there was little water available in the city, with pipes frozen solid. Furniture was smashed to provide fuel to melt snow, as well as create a little warmth. Fighting continued during the night, with soldiers on either side bayoneting each other in the intimate anonymity of close-quarter combat. Conditions in Stalingrad, five years later, would not be much worse.

From 22 December the republican artillery was firing at point-blank range into the public buildings held by nationalist defenders. Miners, directed by Belarmino Tomás, were trying to lay charges under those occupied by Rey d’Harcourt and Barba. When the civil governor’s offices were taken ‘some of the defenders slipped into the adjoining building, the Hotel de Aragón, where they carried on this cruel struggle. In the civil governor’s building some prisoners were taken and many corpses brought out. The majority were children who had died of hunger.’¹⁹ The war photographer Robert Capa described the scene: ‘More than fifty people, women and children, most of them blinded by the light, showed their cadaverous faces stained with blood and dirt. They had spent fifteen days below ground, living in continual terror, living off the scraps of food left by the soldiers and a few sardines. Very few had the strength to get up; they had to be helped away. It is impossible to describe such a painful scene.’²⁰

Teruel was still not completely occupied by the republicans, but the government proclaimed victory. On Christmas Eve promotions and awards were made: Hernández Saravia was made a general and Rojo was decorated. The communists claimed the victory for themselves. Even Prieto suffered an attack of optimism and joked that he was now minister of defence and attack.²¹ Professor Haldane, a great supporter of the Republic, had invited the famous singer Paul Robeson to Teruel, and for most of a night he sang spirituals to the British battalion.²²