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

Of all the major towns, Valencia experienced the longest delay before the situation was clear because General Martínez Monje, the military commander, refused to declare himself for either side. General Goded’s broadcast from Barcelona was a great blow to the conspirators there, who found it very difficult to persuade fellow officers to join. The CNT had already declared a general strike in the Valencian region and joined the executive committee set up by the Popular Front parties in the office of the civil governor. This dignitary had been deposed by the committee because he refused to hand over arms.

The CNT, with its docker membership, was the largest of the worker organizations and insisted on various conditions before co-operating with the Popular Front. One of these was that the paramilitary forces should be divided up among much larger groups of workers in order to ensure their loyalty. This was accepted and the mixed ‘intervention groups’ occupied the radio station, telephone exchange and other strategic buildings. Even so, when a detachment of the Civil Guard was sent together with some workers to help in another area, they shot their guardians and went off to join the nationalists.

General Martínez Monje continued to insist on his loyalty although he refused to hand over any weapons as ordered by the government. Few were convinced by his protestations, since he was evidently waiting to see how events developed in other towns. The argument over whether to storm the barracks was further confused when a delegation under Martínez Barrio arrived from Madrid. Eventually even those who were afraid of forcing neutrals into the enemy camp agreed that the situation was intolerable. The barracks were finally taken two weeks after the rising had begun. This failure to take Valencia was a grave blow for the plotters, because they could not advance on Madrid from the east.

In Andalucia Queipo de Llano’s forces had not managed to secure much more than the centre of Seville and the aerodrome. The private planes housed at the aeroclub were to prove very useful for reconnaissance work and amateur bombing raids. But the vital function of the airstrip was to provide a landing ground for the airlift from Morocco, including the 5th Bandera commanded by Major Castejón. Their arrival on 21 July led to an all-out assault on the working-class district of Triana (where the Emperor Trajan is supposed to have come from). Castejón and his men then attacked the districts of la Macarena, San Julián, San Bernardo and el Pumarejo, which held out until 25 July.

Queipo de Llano’s press assistant, Antonio Bahamonde–who later changed sides–described the action against these areas, which were defended by their inhabitants with hardly any weapons, claiming that more than 9,000 had been killed in the repression: ‘In the working-class districts, the Foreign Legion and Moroccan regulares went up and down the streets of very modest one-storey houses, throwing grenades in the windows, blowing up and killing women and children. The Moors took the opportunity to loot and rape at will. General Queipo de Llano, in his night-time talks at the [Radio Seville] microphone…urged on his troops to rape women and recounted with crude sarcasm brutal scenes of this sort.’¹²

News of these actions triggered off reprisal killings in the Andalucian countryside, where the peasants had risen against their landlords and the Civil Guard. Then, once Queipo’s forces had secured Seville, the rebels started to dominate the countryside around. Some Falangist sons of landowners organized peasant hunts on horseback. This sort of activity was jokingly referred to as the ‘reforma agraria’ whereby the landless bracero was finally to get a piece of ground for himself.

In many outlying areas of Spain a shocked stillness followed the sudden violence, but there was little pause for breath after control of the major towns had been decided. Columns were rapidly organized to help in other areas, or recapture nearby towns. In Madrid the UGT had organized an effective intelligence system through the railway telephone network to find out where the rising had succeeded and where it had failed. Lorryloads of worker militia rushed out from the capital. Guadalajara was retaken after a bitter struggle, Alcalá de Henares was recaptured from the Civil Guard who had declared for the rising and Cuenca was secured by 200 men led by Cipriano Mera. Other hastily formed militia detachments moved quickly north to block General Mola’s troops along the line of the Guadarrama mountains.