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

On 5 February Negrín, accompanied by President Azaña and his wife, crossed the frontier with Martínez Barrio, Giral, Companys and Aguirre. Azaña wanted to resign at that point, but he was persuaded to remain a little longer. He went to stay, supposedly incognito, in the Spanish embassy in Paris. Meanwhile, the endless caravan of refugees moved painfully towards the French frontier.

The nationalist rejoicing at having captured the second city of Spain slowed their advance and allowed the fugitives more time. The official cars of government functionaries tried to make a way through the crowds of refugees on foot. In the general atmosphere of sauve qui peut, some bureaucrats and politicians commandeered ambulances for themselves and their families, while the wounded had to make it on foot. ‘A human mass,’ wrote Julián Zugazagoitia, the socialist ex-minister who would also be handed back to Franco and shot, ‘scattered across the countryside and slept on the hard winter ground, heating themselves with fires made from wood from the carts and branches. Some died of cold during the night. Mothers refused to let go of dead babies and women who had just given birth stood little chance.’³²

The nationalist troops pursuing them were also tired from the long marches of the campaign, yet the main concern of the nationalist general staff focused on the remaining republican fighters. They did not want to allow them to rejoin squadrons in the central zone. All the nationalist and allied fighter and bomber groups were tasked to attack the last enemy airfields.

The French government faced a huge wave of refugees, without having done anything to prepare for the catastrophe, short of sending to the border gendarmes, gardes mobiles and Senegalese troops.³³ Its first decision was to close the frontier and refuse the republican government’s request to allow through 150,000 old people, women and children. But the pressure of the multitude was so great that the French government was obliged to open the border on 28 January to civilians. Troops and men of military age were forbidden to cross. More than 200,000 people came through, as well as thousands of others who slipped across in the mountains, escaping the attention of the Senegalese battalions.

On 3 February nationalist units arrived within 50 kilometres of the frontier and it was evident that the republican rearguard could not hold them. The French government faced fierce opposition from the right-wing press and politicians. France was already sheltering many exiles, both from Spain and from the totalitarian states to the east and south. Since 1936, 344 million francs had been spent on supporting political refugees. But the government either had to let the republican troops through or attempt to keep the frontier closed with machine-guns against a well-armed force.

On 8 February General Rojo signed the order to republican troops to fall back on the frontier passes. The Condor Legion reported that white flags could be seen everywhere, yet that very morning French 105mm anti-aircraft batteries had fired warning shots at their aircraft flying close to the frontier.³⁴ ‘German arms have also played a decisive role in this victory,’ Colonel von Richthofen wrote in his war diary. The next day he added, ‘We think of our brave comrades, who happily gave their lives for the destruction of the red world-pest and for the peace and honour of our Fatherland.’³⁵

For the French government, which already had a bad conscience over the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, there was no choice. On 5 February it announced that the remains of the People’s Army could cross into France. Altogether, from 28 January around half a million people crossed the border. Another 60,000 did not arrive in time and fell into nationalist hands. Negrín witnessed the entry into France of the first units of the People’s Army. V and XV Corps crossed at Port-Bou; XVIII Corps at La Junquera; the 46th Division at Le Perthus; the 27th Division at La Vajol; and the 35th Division, which covered the withdrawal of the Army of the Ebro and XI Corps finally crossed the frontier near Puigcerdá, on 13 February.

The sight of these gaunt, shivering masses was often tragic and pitiful. But many observers noted that their manner was of men and women who still refused to admit defeat. Some republican units marched across and piled arms on French soil under the directions of the gendarmes while the colonial troops from Senegal stood with rifles at the ready, not understanding the situation. A garde mobile, in a scene now famous, prised open the fist of a refugee to make him drop the handful of Spanish earth which he had carried into exile.³⁶ The republican diaspora had begun.

The Collapse of the Republic