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

On 18 August the nationalists again opened dams on the Segre. The wall of water, raising the level of the river by 3.5 metres, carried away the bridges at Flix, Móra d’Ebre and Ginestar. The next day ‘the long-awaited’ nationalist counter-attack began against the main Ebro bridgehead, with six divisions and a cavalry brigade. Condor Legion 88mm guns supported the ground troops, while the Stukas went for republican artillery batteries. The Heinkel 111 Kampfgruppe attacked the bridges again. The greatest success went to the Messerschmitt squadron, which shot down four Moscas (or Ratas as the nationalists called them) on that one day for no losses. One of the pilots was Oberleutnant Werner Mölders, later a great Luftwaffe ace of the Second World War. Having achieved fourteen kills in Spain, the highest score on the nationalist side, he became the first Luftwaffe fighter pilot to be credited with a hundred victories.²⁵ Yagu ¨e ordered his troops against the republican positions round Vilalba dels Arcs and captured the heights of Gaeta. This time the nationalist planes dropped leaflets calling on the republicans to surrender, followed by heavy bombs. Over five days of fierce fighting Yagüe’s divisions were hurled against well-defended positions manned by experienced troops who could deal with the waves of infantry. Nationalist tactics were often no better than those of the commanders on the republican side.

On 26 August Modesto was promoted to colonel, the first officer from the militia to achieve such rank. But the Army of the Ebro could do no more than hold on. Visits were paid by the friendly journalists of former battles: Hemingway, Matthews and Capa, but also Joseph North of the New York Daily Worker, Daniel Roosevelt of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Louis Fischer of The Nation and the German poet Ernst Toller.²⁶

From the Coll del Moro, where Yagüe had his command post, General Franco studied the battlefield through his binoculars: on the right the Sierra de Pàndols; in the middle Gandesa and the sierras of Cavalls and Lavall de la Torre; Corbera on the left and beyond flowed the River Ebro on its last stretch to the sea. ‘All within 35 kilometres’, Franco said euphorically to his aide, Luis M. de Lojendio, ‘I have the best of the red army trapped.’²⁷ But in Italy Mussolini did not see things in the same way. ‘Today, 29 August,’ he said to Ciano, ‘I predict the defeat of Franco. That man either does not know how to make war or doesn’t want to.’²⁸

On 31 August the nationalists launched their third counter-offensive. It was aimed between Puig de l’Àliga and the road from Alcañiz to Tarragona. They wanted to take the Sierra de Cavalls at any cost and advance towards Corbera d’Ebre. Their frontline troops had now been reinforced with García Valiño’s Maestrazgo Corps and stood at eight divisions, 300 guns, 500 aircraft and 100 tanks. Facing them were the 35th Division between Corbera and Gandesa, the 11th Division around Cavalls and the 43rd Division in Puig de l’Àliga. (According to Tagüeña, the telephone line from corps headquarters had to be repaired 83 times in a morning because of shell bursts.) Republican soldiers hung pieces of wood from their necks to bite on during the bombardments. Shell-shock and battle fatigue appear to have been far more prevalent on the republican than on the nationalist side, which was hardly surprising with the intensity of air bombardment.

On 3 September, exactly a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, the nationalists launched their fourth attack, this time against Líster’s men in the sierra. After hammering the republican lines relentlessly with their artillery, the nationalists advanced from Gandesa towards la Venta de Camposines and captured Corbera the following day. They had deployed 300 field guns on that sector as well as the German 88mm anti-aircraft guns firing directly at ground targets.²⁹

During this attack Yagüe’s forces managed to break the republican line on the boundary between the sectors of V Corps and XV Corps. Modesto had no choice but to throw in his only reserve, the 35th Division, to seal the breach. Modesto’s orders at this time emphasize the madness of the republican decision to hold on. ‘Not a single position must be lost. If the enemy takes one, there must be a rapid counterattack and as much fighting as necessary, but always making sure that it remains in republican hands. Not a metre of ground to the enemy!’³⁰