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

The next day, nationalist formations began to advance on all fronts. They encountered no resistance. The Army of the South signalled at 2 p.m.: ‘Many prisoners, including Russians.’³⁴ ‘27 March 1939,’ wrote Richthofen in his personal war diary the next day. ‘Artillery begins at 05.50. No movement in the red lines. Our first bombing attack at seven o’clock very good. At the same time reconnaissance flights over red positions which had been bombed. Artillery gets going as never before in Spain. 06.00 Infantry moves ahead with tanks after Condor Legion has made bombing attacks in front of their positions. The reds have evacuated. Only a few people left in the front lines. But they all run away. Our fire magic has really worked. After a 24-kilometre advance the infantry runs out of breath. News that there are white flags and units are surrendering everywhere round Madrid. THE WAR IS OVER!!! End for the Condor Legion.’³⁵ This declaration, not surprisingly with the impatient Richthofen, was a little premature. But by the next morning the republican fronts had suffered a spontaneous collapse. Soldiers embraced each other. Surrounded republican troops were ordered to pile arms, before they were marched off to bullrings or open-air camps. Others who were not captured at this time threw away their weapons and set off for home on foot.

The Condor Legion wasted no time in sending ‘propaganda flights’ over Madrid during the morning. At four in the afternoon the last entry was made in the official Condor Legion war diary: ‘In the course of the day radio stations and transmitters in all provincial towns offer their submission and express their devotion to nationalist Spain and its Caudillo. The war can be said to be at an end.’³⁶

With its attempts at negotiation completely thwarted, the National Council for Defence collapsed. Julián Besteiro decided to remain in Madrid awaiting his fate (which would be death in prison a year later). Miaja fled to Orán in his aeroplane on 28 March. Casado went to Valencia, having given orders that formal surrender would take place at 11 a.m. on 29 March.³⁷

Nationalist formations continued their advance to the main ports, where thousands and thousands of people were jammed trying desperately to board one of the few boats. The pleas for help which Casado had sent to the British and French governments had received no reply, and in any case there had been too little time to organize such an evacuation. There was also still the danger of Italian submarines torpedoing any ships in the area. When Casado reached Valencia he encountered total chaos. Only one ship, the Lézardrieux, managed to get away loaded with refugees. In the port of Alicante the Maritime and the African Trade sailed without taking on passengers, unlike the Stanbrook, which left on 28 March loaded with 3,500 refugees. From Cartagena only the Campilo managed to sail. Casado carried on to Gandía where the next day he was allowed to board the British cruiser HMS Galatea, which was there to evacuate Italian prisoners as part of an exchange arrangement.

Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers, union members and politicians still tried to get to Alicante, despite the blocked traffic of coaches, trucks and vehicles of all sorts. More than 15,000 were rounded up by Gambara’s Italian troops on 30 March. Many committed suicide, but the vast majority were marched off by nationalist troops to prisons, bullrings and camps.

The first nationalist troops to enter Madrid were those on the Casa de Campo front on the morning of 28 March. Later, at midday, a column led by General Espinosa de los Monteros arrived, followed by trucks with food and 200 justice officials and military police who, assisted by the Falange, began to take part in the repression of the defeated. On balconies the flag of ‘Old Spain’ appeared, while fifth columnists rushed out into the streets, shouting nationalist slogans with their right arm raised in the Falangist salute. ‘They smashed portraits [of republican leaders] and tore down posters, they pulled down street signs and those on buildings, and they dismantled barricades. Yet apparently on that first night Falangists patrolled the streets to prevent revenge killings. Priests and monks appeared blessing everyone, also civil guards who had hidden away their old uniforms.’³⁸ The Spanish capital was transformed even more dramatically than on 19 July 1936. Julián Marías, who had assisted Besteiro in the Junta, felt bemused. The slogans of the Popular Front were replaced by their nationalist counterparts. Language itself changed. People went back to saying ‘my wife’ instead of the left-wing ‘mi companˆera’, and ‘Buenos días’ instead of ‘¡Salud!’.³⁹