The Battle for Spain

by Antony Beevor

  On 11 August Irujo and Aiguader resigned. The death sentences were carried out and two days later a shaken Azaña wrote in his diary, ‘Tarradellas told me that yesterday they shot 58 people. Irujo sent me details. It’s horrible. I feel indignation about the whole affair. Eight days after [I gave a speech] on pity and forgiveness, they kill 58. Without telling me anything nor seeking my opinion. I only found out from the press after the deed was done.’1 Negrín, without turning a hair, left that night to visit the Ebro front.

  Everyone began discussing the government crisis. La Vanguardia (perhaps at Negrín’s own suggestion) published an article warning that a coup d’état might remove him and bring in a defeatist government to seek peace with the nationalists. Troops in communist formations were asked to send telegrams of support for the head of the government. On 16 August, in a meeting with Azaña which the president described as ‘unforgettable’, Negrín, in a scarcely veiled threat, brandished the claim that the leaders of the army were behind him. Certainly, the communists were. Two days before, Frente Rojo had proclaimed, ‘Faced with all this manoeuvring, the workers, the soldiers, the whole people are firmly on the side of the government and its leader, Negrín.’

  It can hardly have been a coincidence that on the day of Negrín’s meeting with Azaña a military parade through the streets of Barcelona, with tanks and aircraft flying low overhead, was mounted by XVIII Army Corps, commanded by the communist José del Barrio. This blatant show of strength in the rear was especially provocative at a time when the republicans were fighting for their lives beyond the Ebro. Negrín’s former liberal and social-democrat allies were outraged. Prieto condemned the prime minister for ‘imposing his will over the composition of the government with a military show of strength through Barcelona streets’. Their protests were too late. In any case, Negrín’s action was overshadowed by graver events. The appalling sacrifice on the Ebro was virtually ignored by Europe as it moved to the brink of war over Czechoslovakia in the late summer of 1938.

  Negrín’s next move represented a curious form of brinkmanship. He went to the residence of the president of Catalonia for a meeting. Apart from Companys, there were also present Tarradellas, Sbert, Bosch Gimpera and Pi Sunyer. Negrín announced that he was exhausted and intended to resign. He suggested that Companys should replace him. Negrín, a man of voracious appetites in women and food, apparently claimed to Companys (who related it to Azaña) that he was ‘an animal and needed his hands free for his desires. Every ten days, a new woman.’2

  Companys, although having fiercely attacked Negrín, said that he should continue to lead the government of the Republic, yet maintain a dialogue with the Generalitat to sort out their differences. In fact, there was no possible alternative to Negrín. His close alliance with the communists remained the only way to prevent the military machine, then involved in the most desperate battle of the whole war, from becoming totally paralysed. Yet there was little chance of agreement over Catalan autonomy. Negrín was almost as much of a centralist as Franco. ‘I am not fighting Franco’, he had said in July, ‘so that a stupid and childish separatism resurfaces. I am fighting the war for Spain and on behalf of Spain…There is only one nation: Spain!’3

  Negrín decided to form a new government, but he restricted the changes in his cabinet to replacing Aiguader and Irujo with José Moix of the Catalan communist PSUC and Tomás Bilbao, of Acción Nacionalista Vasca. He then left for Zurich, officially to take part in an international medical conference, but also to have secret talks either with ‘some pro-Franco Germans’, according to Azaña,4 or with the German ambassador to France, Count Welczek, according to Hugh Thomas,5 or as has often been said with the Duke of Alba, to try to find a negotiated settlement of the war. Whichever the case, Negrín was attempting to find a way to finish the war while attacking his opponents as defeatists.

  The Anglo-Italian treaty of April 1938, which signified the tacit acceptance of Italian intervention, had been a serious blow to the Republic’s hopes of winning international support. The Munich agreement of September was far more serious. This climax of appeasement did not only signify that British policy towards Spain would not change, it also led to Stalin’s decision that the Soviet Union’s best interests lay in a rapprochement with Hitler. Soviet support for the Republic was starting to be an embarrassment.

  The Munich agreement marked, too, the postponement of the European war on which Negrín was counting to force Great Britain and France to aid the Republic. In fact, it was rash of him to believe that even then their intervention would have been worth much. There would be little incentive for the British government to aid a severely weakened Republic at a time when all available armaments would be needed for its own forces. Moreover, active participation would have exposed Gibraltar to Franco’s forces before a programme for improving the Rock’s defences had started.

  On the other hand the Republic’s other potential ally, France, was starting to resent the British government’s domination of its foreign policy. The French had been forced consistently from one compromise to another in what they had thought was the cause of democratic unity. Yet Chamberlain was in some ways closer to Franco, Mussolini and Hitler in his belief that France was politically and morally decadent. Fear of their traditional German enemy, combined with resentment against the anti-French attitude prevalent in the British government, had made even some conservative army officers feel they should intervene in Catalonia on the Republic’s behalf. But the French general staff was firmly opposed to any move which might result in a war on two fronts. It was therefore greatly relieved, during the Czechoslovakian crisis, when Franco (on British advice) assured them of Spanish neutrality in the event of a European war, and also gave his guarantee that Axis troops would not approach the Pyrenean frontier. Ciano was sickened by this pandering to France, but the German and Italian regimes were at least reassured that France, as well as Great Britain, would do nothing to hinder their intervention in Spain. Yet Franco, as already mentioned, continued to fear it obsessively.

  In fact, the proceedings of the Non-Intervention Committee had never given them cause for alarm. The sittings continued as before, despite the Anglo-Italian pact in April. ‘The entire negotiation in the committee’, the German representative reported, ‘has something unreal about it since all participants see through the game of the other side…The non-intervention policy is so unstable and is such an artificial creation that everyone fears to cause its collapse by a clear “no”, and then have to bear the responsibility.’6 The plan for the withdrawal of volunteers, which the British had originated as a formula to retard the granting of belligerent rights, had been undermined in the Anglo-Italian pact. Lord Halifax had deemed a partial withdrawal of troops sufficient to satisfy the spirit of the non-intervention agreement.

  Franco had been unsure how to react to the revised British plan for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Spain, once it had been agreed by the committee in London on 5 July. He had asked his allies for advice, and they counselled him to accept in principle, but delay in practice. On 26 July Negrín’s government accepted the withdrawal proposals, even though it was deeply disturbed at the prospect of the nationalists’ being awarded belligerent rights. This meant that even ships flying the British flag would become liable to search, thus allowing the blockade to become completely effective. Eventually, on 16 August, Franco made his reply to the British representative, Robert Hodgson. He demanded belligerent rights before the British minimum figure for withdrawal of 10,000 men on each side had been reached. His attitude was almost certainly encouraged by the fact that the British had pressured the French into closing the frontier to republican war matériel.

  Against this background, Negrín made a speech to the League of Nations on 21 September to announce the unconditional withdrawal of the International Brigades. His surprise gesture had little of the dramatic effect upon which he had counted to focus sympathy for the Republic. Concern over the Czechoslovakian crisis, then reaching a climax,
had turned Spain into a sideshow which diplomats in Geneva preferred to forget, since it was an embarrassing reminder of the worst aspects of international relations. Ciano was perplexed by Negrín’s move. ‘Why are they doing this?’ he asked in his diary. ‘Do they feel themselves so strong? Or is it merely a demonstration of a platonic nature? So far as we are concerned, I think this robs our partial evacuation of some of its flavour. But it has the advantage that the initiative is not made to appear ours–this would certainly have lent itself to disagreeable comments about Italian weariness, betrayal of Franco, etc.’7

  Mussolini, on the other hand, although infuriated at times by Franco’s ‘serene optimism’ and his ‘flabby conduct of the war’, offered fresh divisions. At that stage there were about 40,000 Italian troops in Spain. Eventually it was agreed that the best of them should stay and be concentrated in one over-strength division, while the remainder would be repatriated. In order to make up for this withdrawal, Mussolini promised additional aircraft and artillery, which were what Franco had really wanted in the first place. The Italian government was then able to point to its infantry withdrawals and insist on the implementation of the Anglo-Italian pact. Chamberlain asked for a brief delay, so that it would not look to the House of Commons, in Ciano’s words, ‘as if Mussolini has fixed the date’. This was necessary as Italian attacks on ships flying the British flag had continued sporadically. The first Italian troops disembarked in Naples to an orchestrated welcome on 20 October. Lord Perth asked permission for his military attaché to witness the event, which prompted Ciano to note, ‘No objection in principle on our part–so long as the thing is useful to Chamberlain for the parliamentary debates.’8

  Ciano had every reason to feel that he could afford to be patronizing in the wake of Munich. The prospect of a European war (which had frightened both Mussolini and Ciano, despite all their bombastic statements) had receded. Mussolini claimed that ‘with the conquest of Prague, we had already practically captured Barcelona’. This remark underlines the way that Britain had sacrificed the Spanish Republic in its misguided desperation to avoid war, just as it went on to sacrifice the Czechs. Soviet policy towards the Republic changed from cautious support to active disengagement. The betrayal of Czechoslovakia finally convinced Stalin that he could not count on Great Britain and France as allies against Hitler and so must cover his vulnerability by an alliance with Germany. But it would be misleading to link the fate of the Republic entirely with that of Czechoslovakia. The final destruction of the Republic’s hope of survival had begun with the fighting across the Ebro, at least a month before the Munich agreement.

  Chamberlain, however, was convinced that the Munich agreement had been a diplomatic triumph. He was so pleased with his efforts that, just before Mussolini and Ciano left Munich, he suggested ‘the possibility of a Conference of Four to solve the Spanish problem’.9 Evidently he felt that the Spanish republicans could be made to see reason like the Czechs and be persuaded to sacrifice themselves in the cause of what he thought was European stability. The late 1930s were years in which statesmen were particularly tempted to cultivate inflated ideas of their diplomatic abilities. A diplomatic coup in times of tension offers the dazzling prospect of political stardom. As Anthony Eden commented about Chamberlain, ‘This is a form of adulation to which Prime Ministers must expect to be subject: it is gratifying to indulge, and hard to resist.’ This observation was also true of Negrín who, perhaps because of his undeniable talents in many fields, gravely overestimated what could be achieved by personal reputation and the power of persuasion. It is difficult otherwise to understand how he could have taken such an unjustified gamble as the Ebro offensive to serve as the backing for his diplomatic ventures.

  In fact, Negrín’s declaration on 21 September to the League of Nations did not represent a great sacrifice for the Republic because the number of foreigners serving in the ranks of the People’s Army had greatly reduced already. The ‘International Military Commission to Observe the Withdrawal of non-Spanish combatants in Government Spain’ observed, ‘It may be said that the decision of the Negrín government to withdraw and send away the international volunteers and to let this happen under the supervision of the League of Nations was a way to make a virtue out of necessity.’10 It was an astute propaganda move, because both the Republic and the nationalists had greatly exaggerated their role. In September 1938, only 7,102 foreigners were left in the International Brigades. The balance had been made up with Spaniards.

  The stories of communist heresy hunting and the treatment of volunteers who wanted to leave, which had circulated in the second half of 1937, affected recruiting so seriously that the handfuls of new arrivals had done little to replace the losses suffered at Teruel and in Aragón. (The death rate among non-Spaniards in the International Brigades was just under 15 per cent up to the end of the Aragón campaign according to Soviet army statistics. A total casualty rate of 40 per cent is the figure most frequently cited.) The international military commission, which supervised their withdrawal, was later surprised to find how old many of the foreign volunteers were. The Swedish Colonel Ribbing paid particular attention to his own countrymen. ‘As for the Swedes, whom I checked in Sant Quirze de Besuara, I noted: “Remarkably many in and around their forties.”’11

  On the Ebro front, Negrín’s plan to withdraw foreigners was not communicated to the Americans, Canadians and British of XV International Brigade, because they were about to attack Point 401 on the following day and the news might affect their morale. During the last week of September, the survivors were brought back from the front to Barcelona for their official farewell, although more than half of them were given Spanish nationality and transferred to the People’s Army. They usually consisted of those men for whom the secret police would be waiting in their home country: Germans, Italians, Hungarians and those from other dictatorships in Europe and Latin America.12

  André Marty, however, rewrote the last editorial of the International Brigade newspaper, Volunteer for Liberty, telling the ‘anti-fascist fighters’ to return to their home countries to lead the struggle against fascism there. It was a way of saying that only selected senior cadres would be given refuge in the USSR. Marty was also terrified that proof of his summary executions might threaten him in the future, and headquarters personnel at Albacete only just escaped with their lives in his mania to suppress the truth.13

  On 28 October, seven weeks after their withdrawal from the front, the International Brigades assembled for a dramatic farewell parade down the Diagonal in Barcelona past President Azaña, Negrín, Companys and General Rojo, along with many other republican leaders. There were 300,000 people lining the streets and aircraft flew overhead ready to defend them against a nationalist raid. La Pasionaria said in her speech, ‘Comrades of the International Brigades! Political reasons, reasons of state, the welfare of that same cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some of you to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality. We shall not forget you and, when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves again, mingled with the laurels of the Spanish Republic’s victory–come back!’14

  It was a moving occasion. Even the passionless expression on a huge portrait of the Soviet leader who was secretly considering an alliance with Hitler could not belittle the emotion of internationalism which made the tears of the Brigaders and the crowd flow. They were leaving behind 9,934 dead, 7,686 missing and had suffered 37,541 wounded.15

  The international commission overseeing the withdrawal of foreign volunteers was clearly shocked later to find about 400 International Brigaders in prisons in and around Barcelona, including Montjuich and the ‘Carlos Marx’ prison. Colonel Ribbing, the Swedish member of the commission reported, ‘As regards the international volunteers, they had sometimes been convicted for pure trifles, sometimes for definite and seriously undisci
plined behaviour. Many stated that they were accused of espionage or sabotage; most of them protested their complete innocence.’ Even though the Negrín government had agreed to the repatriation of International Brigade prisoners as well, the commission found that there were still around 400 of them held in mid January 1939, just as the nationalists were advancing on Barcelona. This was more probably due to incompetence or bureaucratic inertia in a chaotic situation than to a deliberate attempt to leave them to the mercies of the enemy.16

  The beginning of the departure of foreign communists in the second half of 1938 did not change Party policy outwardly. The Spanish communists may have been relieved that the exporters of the show-trial paranoia were returning home but this is uncertain. Spanish communist leaders later claimed that they had on several occasions argued against the orders of Moscow, not necessarily because they disliked Soviet methods, but because they considered them to be ‘premature’, as La Pasionaria put it. There is, however, little evidence of this claimed opposition in Russian files. More strikingly, there is nothing to show in the Comintern files that Dimitrov ever warned the Soviet advisers in Spain that their urge to take over the government completely was against Stalin’s policy of reassuring the bourgeois democracies.