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

The terrible weather conditions prevented the nationalists from launching their counterattack until 29 December. This opened with the greatest artillery bombardment yet seen in the war. That day the visibility had improved, the blizzards had died down and the nationalist squadrons were able to operate at full strength, dropping 100 tons of bombs on the republican positions. The republican Moscas were not even able to approach the bombers because of the strong escort of Fiat fighters. The combination of aerial and ground bombardment lasted two hours.²³ As soon as the firing ceased, ten nationalist divisions attacked south-east-wards but the republican line held. The Condor Legion acknowledged that the effect was ‘not great’. The Galicia Corps gained only 300 to 400 metres of ground, while the Corps of Castille ‘remained on their start line’.²⁴

The weather improved next day and the nationalist artillery thundered again. The Condor Legion’s Heinkel 51s attacked the ‘trench systems and reserve positions’, while the highly accurate 88mm guns of its flak batteries focused on key points. ‘As we had already tried out in the Asturias,’ the Condor Legion staff reported to Berlin, ‘the enemy was rendered incapable of fighting when shot up in their trenches by a combination of strafing and flak.’²⁵

During 31 December 1937, fresh blizzards reduced visibility to just a few metres. That night the temperature dropped to below minus 20 centigrade. Despite the weather, the Condor Legion managed to get both bombers and Heinkel 51s off the ground, even though it meant carefully chipping the ice off the wings. Tanks and vehicles were frozen to a standstill. And soldiers who resorted to alcohol to warm up died of cold if they fell asleep. Casualties from frostbite rose dramatically.

On this last day of 1937 the two Navarrese divisions commanded by García Valiño and Muñoz Grandes retook the Muela de Teruel. General Rojo informed Prieto of the development by teleprinter and he replied in an ill humour.²⁶ But worse was still to come. That night, Major Andrés Nieto, commander of the 40th Division who had been appointed military commandant of the city, inexplicably ordered his troops to abandon Teruel. The besieged nationalists do not appear to have realized what had happened. ‘For several hours’, observed Zugazagoitia, ‘Teruel belonged to nobody.’²⁷ General Walter was scathing. He called it ‘a difficult, panic-stricken day when the republican forces fled from the front and cleared out of Teruel itself. [This] was to a significant degree the result of a panic organized by fascist agents among our units.’²⁸

On 1 January 1938, General Rojo ordered Modesto to bring up V Corps to halt the nationalists’ advance on the city. Hellish blizzards filled the trenches with snow and made movement almost impossible. Troops in the open stood out as dark silhouettes and became easy targets. Conditions were so bad that the Condor Legion could not take off. The Germans were highly critical of the Italian artillery, which fired from maps and did not observe the fall of shells ‘which at no point during the attack’ found their targets.²⁹

Republican troops reoccupied most of the city and the fighting began again. Just over a week before, on 23 December, Franco had sent a message to to Colonel Rey d’Harcourt to stimulate his resistance with the promise of immediate reinforcement. ‘Have confidence in Spain, as Spain has confidence in you.’³⁰ But Teruel was not the Alcázar de Toledo and the republican forces were not the militias of 1936. On 7 January, after 24 days of fighting, Rey d’Harcourt surrendered. The nationalists blamed the loss of Teruel on ‘the weakness and incompetence of the sector commander who agreed with the reds to surrender his post of duty’.³¹ The republican authorities evacuated the wounded, some 1,500 people, and took most of the civilian population in trucks to Escandón in terrible weather conditions.

Ten days after the surrender of Teruel the nationalists launched a counter-attack from the north towards the Alto de Celadas and El Muletón, which dominated the valley of the River Alfambra. The onslaught with aircraft and artillery was immense. Over a hundred aircraft fought in the skies over the Alfambra valley. Walter brought up the International Brigades in the 35th Division to halt Aranda’s Galician Corps. XI International Brigade fought well and deserved ‘the highest praise’, Walter reported.³²