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

The few formations of the republican army which remained intact carried out desperate rearguard actions, such as the defence of Montsec, or fell back from one position to another, ambushing their pursuers. The Italians took five days to cover the 30 kilometres between Barcelona and Arenys de Mar. Meanwhile, in the castle of Figueras Negrín tried to manage the remains of the republican administration, split between different towns.

On 1 February the Cortes met in the stables of the castle of Figueras. Only 64 deputies out of the full 473 were present. In his speech, Negrín laid down three minimum conditions for peace negotiations: the independence of Spain from all foreign interference; the holding of a plebiscite so that the Spanish people could decide the form of government it wanted; and the renunciation of all reprisals and political repression after the end of the war. Negrín hoped that the democracies might support this, but Franco would never have accepted the last two.

On the following day the nationalists entered Gerona. Their progress had been held up by bridges blown up in the retreat or destroyed by their own bombers. The Condor Legion reported, ‘The number of prisoners increases in an extraordinary way, just as the resistance in certain sectors.’ Among the prisoners were two Sudeten Germans. If they were handed over to the nationalists, ‘the best they could hope for was a bullet’. The Condor Legion’s main task was to intercept any republican pilots trying to fly back to the central zone. In two days they destroyed another fifteen aircraft.³⁰

During the battle for Catalonia International Brigaders waiting for repatriation had clamoured since early January to be allowed to rejoin the fighting. The republican authorities refused because this would break the agreement undertaken on the withdrawal of foreign volunteers. The volunteers, exasperated with their forced idleness, then appealed to the Spanish Communist Party. Only some 5,000 of them were fit to fight and they were finally given permission. One of them was a Latvian called Emil Shteingold and he recorded what happened: ‘Soldiers and officers were distributed hastily in platoons, companies and battalions. We were put on trains in a great rush, and moved off towards Barcelona. It was cold on the train, as the wind pierced the carriages completely. Glass had long ago disappeared from the windows. Walls and partitions, too, were sometimes missing. Our carriage was moaning like a wounded beast when the train moved. We huddled against one another in an attempt to keep warm. At dawn we arrived at Granollers. As the train was not going any further, we started to disembark. Barcelona had fallen, and Italian motorized divisions were moving along all the roads heading north. Exhausted refugees with children and household belongings were trudging along the roads.’

A truck arrived with weapons and ammunition. These were distributed and the International Brigaders moved off as quickly as possible. They cleaned the grease from the rifles as they marched. After half an hour they took up positions either side of a small bridge to cut off the road.

‘Some time later the enemy’s reconnaissance appeared. There were two motorbikes, and after them an ambulance with officers. When we tried to capture them, the motorcyclists turned back and we killed them at the turn of the road. The ambulance also turned back, but was surrounded by our soldiers…Officers surrendered and were taken to the headquarters of the brigade.’ Then a short column of motorized infantry appeared. They halted them by knocking out the first and the last vehicles, and started firing with their rifles and machine-guns. The Italian troops panicked. ‘Soldiers were pouring down from the truck like peas. Many fell and never got up again. Those who were still alive turned to flee, hiding behind vehicles which caught fire, and the ammunition and petrol on board began exploding. The corpses of these Italian fascists received a free cremation.’

But this was a short-lived success. They were soon attacked by fighters and then outflanked by stronger forces. They had to retreat over the hills by paths to find another ambush position. It was raining and they had received little food. ‘Our boots were wet and torn by sharp gravel, they started to fall apart. After the sleepless nights, people were falling asleep while on the march. No one was allowed to sit down, as it would be impossible to get them up again.’ This pattern of ambush and retreat repeated itself for at least a week, until the order finally came to withdraw over the French border.³¹