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

By the beginning of August battle lines had become much clearer. With the two sides developing such markedly different characters in the wake of the rising, it seemed as if two completely separate nations were at war. The rebel generals urgently needed to show rapid gains of territory at the beginning so as to convince a foreign as well as the domestic audience of their success. Having failed to achieve a coup, they required the international recognition, credits and material which a war demanded. General Franco’s Army of Africa was to make the most conspicuous contribution to this necessary impression of victory.

Although the forces under General Mola played a less conspicuous role, the ‘Director’ had rapidly sent three columns from Pamplona mainly made up of Carlist requetés. The first left immediately for Madrid, a second force of about 1,400 men moved south to Saragossa to reinforce the nationalist garrison in the third week of July and another, much larger, force was sent north towards the Basque coastline.

The column of 1,000 men under Colonel García Escámez, who had set out for the capital on 19 July, found that Guadalajara had already been captured by armed workers from Madrid. García Escámez then tried another line of advance on the capital, swinging round to the north to cross the Sierra de Guadarrama by the main Burgos road over the Somosierra pass. His force came up against Madrid militias at the summit where, a century and a quarter before, Napoleon’s Polish lancers had opened the route to the capital with a suicidal uphill charge against artillery. García Escámez’s men captured the pass after several days’ fighting, but could do little except consolidate their position since they were virtually out of ammunition.

A nationalist force from Valladolid commanded by Colonel Serrador was joined by some civil guards and part of a signals regiment which had fled from El Pardo.¹ They managed to secure the other pass at the Alto de los Leones to the south-west, but they also suffered from a shortage of ammunition. It was surprising that the chief architect of the conspiracy had not built up reserves in Burgos or Pamplona during the previous months. Mola’s difficulties were solved only when Franco sent him large supplies from Germany via Portugal with the assistance of the Salazar regime (the nationalists referred to Lisbon as ‘the port of Castile’). Some supplies also arrived on the cargo boat Montecillo, when it reached Vigo. But by the time the nationalist columns were resupplied, the militia forces in the mountains had become less haphazard in their organization and had established a front.

Mola’s largest force of 3,500 men attacked northwards from Pamplona. The plan was to thrust up the high hills of northern Navarre towards the coast to cut the Basques off from the French frontier, then to capture the summer capital of San Sebastián. On 11 August the column under Major Beorleguí drove a wedge between San Sebastián and the border town of Irún. Six days later the nationalist battleship España, the cruiser Almirante Cervera and the destroyer Velasco arrived to shell the seaside resort. The republican military governor threatened to shoot right-wing hostages if heavy civilian casualties were inflicted. The nationalists called his bluff. Their bombardment was followed by aerial attacks from Junkers 52s on both San Sebastián and Irún.

The defence of Irún demonstrated that untrained workers, providing their defensive position was well sited and prepared, could fight bravely and effectively against head-on attacks backed by modern weaponry. The CNT had been the main contributor to the defeat of the rising in the province of Guipúzcoa, and its members joined with Asturians, Basque nationalists and French communist volunteers organized by André Marty (later the chief organizer of the International Brigades) to make a total force of 3,000 men. Beorleguí’s force was numerically weaker, but it had all Mola’s artillery, light German tanks and the Junkers 52s in support. In addition, Franco sent a bandera of the Foreign Legion 700-strong and a battery of 155mm guns.

There was ferocious hand-to-hand fighting on the Puntza ridge to the south of Irún where positions were captured and retaken several times in the course of a week. The militia fought with remarkable skill and courage. They were aided by French peasants from just across the border signalling the positions of Beorleguí’s artillery.² The convent of San Marcial was held to the end by a handful of Asturian dinamiteros and militiamen. During the final attack, when out of ammunition, they hurled rocks at the Carlists who were storming their position.