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

Of the government decrees issued at this time, the one on 18 October was to have the most far-reaching effect. This announced the establishment of ‘mixed brigades’ of 4,000 men each. Although not implemented immediately, it marked the first major step away from militia columns towards a formalized army. The brigades were to consist of four battalions, with supporting artillery.³ A few days later, XI and XII International Brigades were formed at Albacete under the command of Kléber and Lukács. The Republic soon had 80,000 men under arms, most of whom were to bear the brunt of defending Madrid.

Aleksandr Rodimtsev, one of the key commanders at Stalingrad six years later, described his arrival at the Madrid front at this inauspicious moment. He had come from Albacete by truck. Each time they had stopped on the way, village boys had admired their uniforms and stroked their pistol holsters. There had been an air attack on the convoy, and everyone had jumped out cursing in different languages. In Madrid he had reported to the war ministry, accompanied by an interpreter. He was taken to meet General Pozas, commander of the Army of the Centre, who was about to become a member of the Communist Party. Pozas warned him that discipline was weak in the militias. Soldiers went home from the front on their own accord.

Rodimtsev visited the front and encountered a young woman machine gunner and anarchist dinamiteros festooned with grenades. One of them fired a pistol in the air, demanding to see his documents. Rodimtsev was attached to Líster’s brigade and he found its headquarters in an abandoned village. Some of the staff were having a siesta. Others were out in a meadow singing a melancholy song. Their commander came over. ‘Líster was stocky and swarthy,’ wrote Rodimtsev. ‘He had a high protruding forehead, black hair which was long and its ends bleached by the sun. When he smiled, dimples appeared in his cheeks, which made his face look kindly and almost childlike. He said in Russian with a slight accent, “Hello, Pablito. I’ve been expecting you. I had a telephone call in the morning to say that you had left.” He introduced me to his commissar and officers. They clapped me on the shoulder, and shook my hand vigorously. All had a few words of Russian: “Come here. Have a coffee. Have a cigarette.”’ Líster warned him in a whisper that he must be careful. There were ‘people around from the “fifth column”.’⁴ The ‘fifth column’ was a phrase attributed to General Mola, who apparently claimed to a journalist that he had four columns attacking the capital and a ‘fifth column’ of sympathizers within the city ready to revolt.

The rhythm of the nationalist advance was so fast that on 21 October, three days after reaching Illescas, the column of Heli de Tella, supported by Monasterio’s cavalry, occupied Navalcarnero, 30 kilometres from Madrid. The militiamen, faced with Ansaldo light tanks, had fled from their triple line of trenches on the western side of the town.

In his final orders for the attack on Madrid, Franco emphasized the need to concentrate forces to provoke the fall of the city. On 23 October Junkers 52s bombed Getafe and Madrid itself for the first time. ‘Everyone who can flee the city is fleeing,’ wrote Koltsov in his diary the next day. ‘By means fair or foul, all the rich people, all top officials escape. Only four or five correspondents have stayed. The streets are completely dark in the evenings. Everywhere patrols are checking people’s passes, and it’s become dangerous to drive around unarmed. Aragon arrived suddenly from Paris. He came accompanied by Elsa Triolet.’⁵

Four days later the nationalists took Torrejón de Velasco, Seseña, ˜ón. The next day, 28 October, Largo Caballero, in an astonishing radio broadcast designed to boost morale, revealed the republican plans: ‘Listen to me, comrades! Tomorrow, 29 October, at dawn, our artillery and our tanks will open fire on the enemy. Then our air force will appear, dropping bombs on them and machine gunning them. At the moment of the air attack, our tanks will attack the enemy’s most vulnerable flank sowing panic in their ranks…Now we have tanks and aircraft! Forward comrades of the front, heroic sons of the working people! Victory is ours!’⁶

Next morning, as he had said, fifteen T-26 tanks commanded by Captain Pavel Arman of the Red Army attacked Seseña. They were the spearpoint of the first mixed brigade commanded by Líster. Pavel Arman was an adventurous character who, despite his heroism in Spain, later fell foul of the Stalinist authorities and died fighting on the Eastern Front. The crews were mainly made up of Russian instructors, with their Spanish trainees acting as gunners.⁷