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

The nationalists began this campaign with a major advantage. They had redeployed their formations far more rapidly than the republican general staff thought possible. Although warned of the threat by spies, the republican commanders somehow convinced themselves that the Guadalajara front was still the nationalists’ target. They assumed, also, that the enemy’s troops must be as exhausted after Teruel as their own. Within two weeks of the recapture of Teruel, General Dávila’s chief of staff, General Vigón, had finalized his plans. The Army of Manoeuvre positioned itself behind the start line, which consisted of the southern half of the central Aragón sector. Starting on the left flank, which was marked by the south bank of the Ebro, there were Yagüe’s Moroccan Corps, the 5th Navarrese Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, the Italian CTV and Aranda’s Galician Corps. Three other corps were deployed, those of Castille, Aragón and Navarre. Altogether, Dávila had 27 divisions, comprising 150,000 men, backed by nearly 700 guns and some 600 aircraft.

On 9 March the nationalist campaign opened with a massive ground and air bombardment. By the time the nationalist infantry reached the republican trenches, their occupants were hardly in a state to hold a rifle. The superiority of nationalist artillery, to say nothing of the Condor Legion, the Aviazione Legionaria and the Brigada Aerea Hispana, left the republicans at a total disadvantage. This campaign saw the Junkers 87, the Stuka dive-bomber, in action for the first time. Luftwaffe officers in Spain claimed that it could drop its load within five metres of a target.

Those republican defenders who endured such bombardments then had to face von Thoma’s tanks, which were used with great effectiveness: ‘the real blitzkrieg’.⁴¹ Nationalist infantry casualties were the lowest of any major offensive during the war. In fact, after many of the bombardments the Foreign Legion had little to do except bayonet the shocked survivors in their trenches. General Walter once again blamed the disaster on ‘the immense and intensive activity and work of defeatist elements and agents of the fifth column within republican units…Those were the days when the most stinking, fetid, treacherous activity by all the bastards of all shades and colours flourished the most.’⁴² Another report to Moscow, however, admitted that ‘we thought [that the nationalist attack] was only a feint and stubbornly continued to expect a general battle at Guadalajara’.⁴³ This, needless to say, was a rather more accurate appreciation of the situation.

On the first day of the offensive Yagüe’s Moroccan Corps, supported by tanks, smashed through the 44th Division and advanced 36 kilometres along the south side of the Ebro. Belchite, still in ruins, fell to the Carlist requetés of the second wave on the next day, 10 March. Yagüe, meanwhile, maintained the momentum of his attack. Any defensive line which the republicans patched together crumbled almost as soon as it was formed. The same day the Condor Legion sent all its Heinkel 111s, Dornier 17s and Heinkel 51s to attack republican airfields. They apparently inflicted with ‘astonishing effect severe damage to the enemy air force on the ground’. The next day the 5th Division’s rapid advance from Belchite was assisted with German tanks from the Gruppe Droehne and Condor Legion 88mm guns.⁴⁴ Without worrying about threats to his flanks, Yagu ¨e pushed forward to Caspe.

After Teruel the republican forces were exhausted and badly equipped (many of them had still not received proper ammunition resupply), while the fresh troops in the front line were inexperienced conscripts. The retreat was more a rout than a withdrawal. ‘A large part of the army, which survived the fascist offensive,’ wrote Stepánov, ‘the overwhelming majority of whom were officers and commanders, were confounded and seized by panic, lost their heads and fled to the rear.’⁴⁵