The Spanish Civil War (76 page)

The crimes against the POUM were acts of barbarity carried out in Spain by Spanish and foreign communists at the behest of the republic’s only, and over-powerful, ally, Russia. The POUM had few friends, in Spain or outside. The repression against this party was sanctioned by most supporters of the Popular Front, and was scarcely a cause of complaint even by the anarchists. Azaña, Negrín, and Prieto, to name only three representative men, were plainly worried by the case of Nin, though the latter two perhaps less by the outrage itself than by the effect caused outside Spain. Azaña, and with him thousand of others, regarded the death of Nin and the suppression of the POUM as an acceptable exchange, in time of war, for the virtual end, under communist police, of the undisciplined killings of the first months, and for the embourgeoisement of, and the state’s capture of, the revolution.
They had no sympathy with the revolutionary aims of the POUM, no personal feeling for Nin. There were accusations made at the time, which have not been substantiated or fully disproved, that certain POUM leaders, as well as anarchists, had taken care to place money or valuables which they had seized in the early days of the revolution in France.
¹
Azaña looked on Russia as ‘the man whom one admits to society because it is impossible to do otherwise, but who is the friend of nobody’.
²
But the crime reverberates through the years, as do all the contemporaneous crimes in Russia. Thereafter, in fact, the communists in Spain were more circumspect. No other major political personality was detained. This was perhaps due to the full-time presence of the astute Togliatti as chief representative of the Comintern in the Spanish communist party from the summer onwards.
³
Still, there were many people unjustly in gaol for the remainder of the civil war and even the lawyer of the POUM, Benito Pabón, found himself so threatened that he fled the country; he went as far as he could to escape the vengeance of the communists and settled in the Philippines.

After the capture of the Basque provinces, General Franco paused before falling upon Santander, the next republican centre in the north. The republic then launched its long-discussed diversionary offensive in the centre. That, as expected, was the communist choice of Brunete. Two army corps had been gathered, under the overall command of Miaja. These were the 5th Army Corps, led by Modesto, and the 18th Army Corps, led by Jurado, an artillery officer. The former comprised Lister’s 11th Division, El Campesino’s 46th Division, and Walter’s 35th Division, while Jurado’s corps included Gal, with the 15th Division (the 11th and 14th International Brigades). In reserve, Kléber returned to command the 45th Division and Gustavo Durán, Kléber’s chief of staff during the winter, commanded the 39th Division. The communist influence in this army was extensive. They had five out of six divisional commanders; one army corps commander; and the commissars of the two army corps were communists (Delage and Zapiraín). So was Miaja’s commissar—Francisco Antón. This army numbered 85,000. It was supported by 40 armoured cars, 300 aircraft, 130 tanks and over 220 field guns. The aim was to advance towards the stagnant village of Brunete (population 1,556, in 1935) from the north of the El Escorial–Madrid road so as to cut off all the besiegers of the capital
from the west.
¹
Rojo, the chief of staff of the army, expected the republicans to achieve these aims before Franco’s reinforcements could arrive.

The 15th International Brigade, led by the Croat communist C? opíc, was used in this battle as a shock force,
²
along with the 11th Brigade of Germans, now led by Colonel Staimer, and the 13th, chiefly Slavs and French, led by the Italian communist ‘Krieger’ (Vincenzo Bianco). Later on, Pacciardi’s Garibaldi (12th) Brigade, mainly Italians, played a part.
³
Russian advisers were, of course, present, among them General Stern (Grigorovich) as senior adviser, and Smushkevich, still at the head of the air mission. Numerous Russian pilots were still with the republican air force. The planning of the attack was the responsibility of Matallana, new chief of staff to Miaja.

The nationalists were surprised by the offensive of Brunete, perhaps because it had been discussed in the cafés of the republic for months. At the point which was to bear the brunt of the attack there were certain depleted elements of the 71st Division, mainly falangists, and about 1,000 Moroccans. After being exhorted, on the eve of the attack, by Prieto and La Pasionaria, the 11th Republican Division under
Lister struck at dawn, on 6 July, after a heavy artillery and aerial attack. Within a few hours, they had advanced nearly ten miles and surrounded Brunete.

Miaja’s equivalent, as nationalist commander in the centre, was Saliquet, but General Varela was made supreme field commander for the defence and counter-attack. Several divisions were transferred to the Brunete front and the Condor Legion and heavy artillery were dispatched from the north.
¹
So were Colonels Alonso Vega’s and Bautista Sánchez’s 4th and 5th Navarrese Brigades. The transfer of these reinforcements was carried out very quickly: a real triumph of planning. When they arrived, Brunete was in the hands of Lister. The garrison of the nearby village of Quijorna was still, with courage, resisting El Campesino. Villanueva de la Cañada, Villanueva del Pardillo, and Villafranca del Castillo also held out against the 15th Brigade, most of the defenders being young falangist volunteers from Seville. Though the first of these fell the next day to the British, the advance was slowed by confusion. Brigade upon brigade were sent through the small breach in the nationalist lines, and became mixed up with each other. The known communist background to the attack caused republican officers and non-communists to grumble about the direction of the battle. The chief of staff of the operation, Segismundo Casado, who had been critical of it, retired ill in the middle. Eighty tanks were unsuccessfully flung at Villafranca.
²
By midnight on the first day of the attack, Varela reported to Franco that a front had been re-established. Twenty-four hours later, thirty-one battalions and nine batteries had arrived in reinforcement of the nationalist position. The battle, fought on the parched Castilian plain at the height of the summer, assumed a most bloody character.
³
The battle against thirst, it has been described, and it is obvious that water was a preoccupation. Negrín had desired to hold a special cabinet meeting in Madrid to celebrate the victory: Azaña dissuaded him.
⁴

On 8 July, El Campesino, egged on by being told that his troops were the best in the republican army and that they must set an example to
the rest, reached the last houses of Quijorna.
¹
That village fell the next day. Villanueva del Pardillo and Villafranca del Castillo fell in the early morning of 11 July. But Boadilla, constantly attacked, was held by Asensio. In the Condor Legion, Messerschmitt fighters (ME 109) appeared on the battle front here for the first time. Outnumbered by the Russians’ Chatos, they seemed, however, more effective. The Heinkel 111 bomber was also as successful as it had been in the north of Spain, particularly at night, though the Russian fighters were also here used at night, for the first time.

25. The battle of Brunete, July 1937

By 13 July, the offensive stage at Brunete was over. Henceforward, the republicans would be attempting to defend the positions which they had won. On 15 July, after further fierce fighting around Boadilla, orders were given for trenches to be dug. The republic had gained a pocket of land about eight miles deep by ten wide. Lister was two miles south of Brunete on the road to Navalcarnero. At the end of this battle,
the gallant English Major Nathan of the gold-tipped baton was killed.
¹
The reason for the republican failure to continue their offensive when all was in their favour was much discussed. The responsibility lay with the lack of imagination and initiative shown in battle by junior and middle-rank officers. Republican training, under Russian inspiration, or that of elderly regular officers, was more old-fashioned than that afforded to the nationalists at their new academies under the aegis of the Germans. The nationalists’ provisional officers,
alféreces provisionales,
were often well-educated young men of the upper class, used to the country (and to shooting game). They were now, as on other occasions, more effective as soldiers than even clever working-class young men from the city, intellectuals or workers, not to speak of elderly regular officers, who had spent years in dull garrisons reading French books on drill. Not for the first time, victory went to those who could think of war as hunting carried on by other means. The republic were also short of non-commissioned officers. Given an army as conventionally organized as the republican one, good corporals and sergeants are as important as staff officers. They were not available. The strictness of discipline and the absence of political intrigues in the nationalist army also played a critical part.

At a higher level, the nationalists can be faulted over Brunete, for Franco suspended his offensive in the north, in order to regain a ruined Castilian village of little strategic value. He sought to avoid the psychological damage of losing territory. That was Franco’s approach throughout the war: it was a political, rather than a military, reaction. At the same time, Miaja, in supreme command on the republican side, was, as expected, slow in his reactions.
²

On 18 July, divisions under Sáenz de Buruaga attacked on the left, under Asensio on the right, and under Barrón towards Brunete itself in
the centre. On this day, the Condor Legion began to dominate the skies of Castile, and shot down twenty-one republican aircraft.
¹
Henceforth, the balance of air strength remained with the nationalists. The battle continued between 19 and 22 July, in awful heat under an implacable sun, with thirst a characteristic of both sides.
²
On 24 July, Asensio and Sáenz de Buruaga broke the lines of the republic on the flanks. Barrón broke through in the centre to recapture Brunete, save its cemetery, where Lister maintained himself until the 25th. Varela wished to pursue the republicans to Madrid. But Franco restrained him, pointing to the prior need of concluding the war in the north.
³
The republic retained Quijorna, Villanueva de la Cañada, and Villanueva del Pardillo, at a cost of 20,000 casualties and about 100 aircraft. The nationalists lost 23 aircraft, and 17,000 casualties.
⁴

The battle may be regarded as similar to that of Jarama, Guadalajara, or the Corunna road, in reverse. Both sides claimed a victory. The battle certainly delayed the attacks in the north. The republicans gained an area of about four miles deep along a front of ten miles. But they failed to attain their main objectives. In fact, the republican army lost so much valuable equipment, and so many veteran soldiers, that the battle of Brunete should be regarded as a defeat for them. It was also a setback to the communists who had sponsored it. The appearance of the Messerschmitts, along with the new Heinkel 111s and the new Savoia 79s, marked the end of republican air superiority, which had done so much to preserve Madrid: for these new fast monoplanes, with their stressed-skin construction, were more than a match for the Russians.
⁵

The losses of the International Brigades were particularly heavy at Brunete. The Lincoln and the Washington Battalions lost so many men
that they had to be merged. Among the Americans who fell was Oliver Law, the black commander of the former Battalion. There was also insubordination among the Brigades. Captain Alocca, in command of the Brigades’ cavalry, deserted in the face of the enemy and drove to the French frontier. Returning later to Madrid, he was shot for cowardice. The British Battalion, which had been reduced to about eighty men, grumbled about returning to the battle. The 13th Brigade, mainly Poles, absolutely refused to return. Its commander, ‘Krieger’ (Vicenzo Bianco), sought to re-establish himself by brandishing his revolver. Pointing this weapon at one of the mutineers, he ordered obedience. The other refused. ‘Think well of what you are doing,’ returned the colonel. ‘I have.’ ‘For the last time!’ ‘No,’ answered the mutineer. The colonel shot him dead. The men became furious and ‘Krieger’ himself narrowly escaped death. The mutineers set off for Madrid and were only subdued after the arrival of some assault guards with tanks. The Brigade thereafter had to be thoroughly ‘re-educated’.
¹

Military theorists were later at pains to point out the tactical significance of the battle of Brunete for the use of the tank. The Czech Captain Miksche, for example, who commanded a group of batteries on the republican side, later reflected, in his theoretical study,
Blitzkrieg,
that the republican tanks were unsuccessful since they were used spread out in support of infantry, in accord with French theories; but Varela, on the advice of the German von Thoma, concentrated his tanks to find a tactical thrust-point (
Schwerpunkt
) and so gained the day. In fact, the republic always used all their armour dispersed, artillery and aircraft as well as tanks, and von Thoma’s experiments could only be on a small scale since he had so few vehicles to bring up infantry to support the tanks.
²
Neither
side conducted itself well in details: three hundred men of El Campesino’s column were surrounded and taken prisoner. They were all later found dead, with their legs cut off. El Campesino shortly captured a
tabor
of Moroccans. Four hundred of them were shot. The birth of a new Spain? Azaña asked himself on hearing the news. On the contrary the old Spain, with all its warts, was far preferable.
¹

Two weeks later, the nationalists renewed their offensive in the north. The Army of the North was still led by Dávila. The Italians, under General Bastico, were grouped as the Littorio Division, the Black Flames, and the March 23rd Division led respectively by Generals Bergonzoli, Frusci and Francisci.
²
The six experienced Navarrese brigades, under Solchaga, were commanded by Colonels García Valiño, Muñoz Grandes, Latorre, Abriat, Alonso Vega and Sánchez González respectively. (The two last had returned from the Brunete front.) Muñoz Grandes, who had been the first commander of the assault guards in 1931, had escaped from Madrid early in the year. An old friend of Franco’s in Morocco, as was Alonso Vega, this austere officer now began a successful military career. To these were added two brigades of Castilian volunteers, under General Ferrer, anxious to win back Castile’s only port, the splendid watering place of Santander. Another group were the Spaniards and Italians, the Black Arrows, some 8,000 men, led by Colonel Piazzoni. There were thus probably some 25,000 Italians engaged in the ensuing battle. The Army of the North comprised 90,000 in all. Before this campaign, Franco transferred his headquarters from Salamanca to Burgos, the Italian General Bastico at his side.
³
Dávila had at his disposal some 70 aircraft of the Condor Legion, 80 Italian aircraft and 70 Spanish machines, together with a seaplane flotilla.