The Battle for Spain

by Antony Beevor

  The French government faced a huge wave of refugees, without having done anything to prepare for the catastrophe, short of sending to the border gendarmes, gardes mobiles and Senegalese troops.33 Its first decision was to close the frontier and refuse the republican government’s request to allow through 150,000 old people, women and children. But the pressure of the multitude was so great that the French government was obliged to open the border on 28 January to civilians. Troops and men of military age were forbidden to cross. More than 200,000 people came through, as well as thousands of others who slipped across in the mountains, escaping the attention of the Senegalese battalions.

  On 3 February nationalist units arrived within 50 kilometres of the frontier and it was evident that the republican rearguard could not hold them. The French government faced fierce opposition from the right-wing press and politicians. France was already sheltering many exiles, both from Spain and from the totalitarian states to the east and south. Since 1936, 344 million francs had been spent on supporting political refugees. But the government either had to let the republican troops through or attempt to keep the frontier closed with machine-guns against a well-armed force.

  On 8 February General Rojo signed the order to republican troops to fall back on the frontier passes. The Condor Legion reported that white flags could be seen everywhere, yet that very morning French 105mm anti-aircraft batteries had fired warning shots at their aircraft flying close to the frontier.34 ‘German arms have also played a decisive role in this victory,’ Colonel von Richthofen wrote in his war diary. The next day he added, ‘We think of our brave comrades, who happily gave their lives for the destruction of the red world-pest and for the peace and honour of our Fatherland.’35

  PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT III

  December 1937. The winter fighting of Teruel.

  An International Brigade officer at Teruel.

  Prieto (third from right) observes the fighting at Teruel.

  The nationalists’ devastating offensive in Aragón, 1938. Condor Legion Stukas with nationalist markings.

  On 15 April 1938, the nationalists reach the sea at Vinaròs cutting the republican zone in two.

  Panzer Mark Is advancing.

  Summer 1938. Condor Legion 88mm anti-aircraft guns were also found to be effective against tanks and vehicles.

  Republican soldiers under bombardment during the Battle of the Ebro.

  A republican hospital train behind the Ebro front, summer 1938.

  General Rojo (left) Juan Negrín (second left) and Líster (fourth left) at a farewell parade for the International Brigades, October 1938.

  The anti-communist coup of March 1939, which ended the war. Colonel Casado (left) listens while Julián Besteiro broadcasts the manifesto of the National Council of Defence.

  Republican refugees swarm across the French frontier in the Pyrenees, January 1939.

  Republican prisoners in the French internment camp of Le Vernet.

  19 May 1939. Condor Legion standard dipped in salute to Franco at the victory parade.

  The indoctrination of republican orphans.

  October 1940. Hitler and Franco meet at La Hendaye, a photo-montage after the event.

  The Spanish Blue Division in Russia on the Leningrad front.

  For the French government, which already had a bad conscience over the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, there was no choice. On 5 February it announced that the remains of the People’s Army could cross into France. Altogether, from 28 January around half a million people crossed the border. Another 60,000 did not arrive in time and fell into nationalist hands. Negrín witnessed the entry into France of the first units of the People’s Army. V and XV Corps crossed at Port-Bou; XVIII Corps at La Junquera; the 46th Division at Le Perthus; the 27th Division at La Vajol; and the 35th Division, which covered the withdrawal of the Army of the Ebro and XI Corps finally crossed the frontier near Puigcerdá, on 13 February.

  The sight of these gaunt, shivering masses was often tragic and pitiful. But many observers noted that their manner was of men and women who still refused to admit defeat. Some republican units marched across and piled arms on French soil under the directions of the gendarmes while the colonial troops from Senegal stood with rifles at the ready, not understanding the situation. A garde mobile, in a scene now famous, prised open the fist of a refugee to make him drop the handful of Spanish earth which he had carried into exile.36 The republican diaspora had begun.

  34

  The Collapse of the Republic

  On 9 February, just as the nationalists completed their occupation of Catalonia, the republican government, forced from Barcelona into France, met briefly in Toulouse to discuss the possibility of continued resistance. At the end of the meeting Negrín received a message from General Miaja, who a few days earlier had been promoted and made commander of all three services, requesting authorization to start negotiations with the enemy to end the war.1 Negrín made no reply.

  Accompanied by álvarez del Vayo, he then managed to elude journalists before taking a chartered Air France plane to Alicante. On his arrival Negrín immediately had a meeting with Miaja, accompanied by Matallana who had taken over as commander of the armies in the remaining central and southern zone. Negrín wanted to know his reasons for starting negotiations. Only a few ministers, generals and senior officials returned to the remaining central-southern zone. Azaña was shortly to resign the presidency, when Great Britain and France recognized the Franquist regime, and his provisional successor, the leader of the Cortes, Martínez Barrio, refused to return to Spain.

  Another meeting had taken place on 8 February in Paris. Mariano Vázquez, Juan García Oliver, Segundo Blanco, Eduardo Val and other CNT leaders had also come together to discuss the situation. For García Oliver, Negrín’s policies had been a resounding failure and in his opinion there was no alternative but to seek peace with the nationalists, although not at any price. It had to be an ‘honourable’ agreement and needed a new government to negotiate it. Eduardo Val, secretary of the defence committee of the central region, supported this, saying that Negrín had been telegraphing in code to his closest colleagues warning them to evacuate the republican zone. From this it appeared that Negrín was playing a dirty game. They unanimously decided to push for the formation of a new government from which Negrín would be excluded. On returning to Madrid, Eduardo Val, who did not have complete confidence in the determination of his comrades, decided to act on his own account.2

  During the first part of February the Comintern agent Stepánov tried to convince the cadres of the Spanish Communist Party in Madrid that the only course possible was a ‘revolutionary democratic dictatorship’.3 He proposed to replace the government with a ‘special council of defence, work and security’, made up of two ministers and two soldiers, ‘reliable and energetic’,4 not to make peace, but to continue the war and win it. The Madrid communists accepted this at their conference, which took place from 9 to 11 February.

  La Pasionaria also declared her determination to win the war and came up with another of her slogans: ‘Spain will be the torch which will light the road of liberation for people subjugated by fascism.’5 Palmiro Togliatti was dismayed. He tried to warn them of the divide between the leaders and the people, who were exhausted to the point of nausea by the war and only wanted to hear of peace.6 Togliatti realized that the communists had lost support, largely because of the disastrous military strategy and because their methods had made them more enemies than friends. Officers, who had leaned towards the Party early in the war, now opposed them in secret. Many of them believed that the communists constituted the main barrier to peace. Above all, the commanders of the republican armies left in the centre had no illusions about their inability to resist any longer. The lack of armament was not as serious as in Catalonia, but they knew they had no chance against the crushing nationalist superiority in artillery, tanks and aircraft.

  No assistance could be expected from the British. Chamberlain wanted the war to be finishe
d as quickly as possible. On 7 February, with the collaboration of the nationalists, the British consul in Mallorca, Alan Hilgarth, arranged for the island’s surrender on board HMS Devonshire. The British simply wanted to make sure that the Balearic Islands remained Spanish, with no Italian presence.7

  On 12 February Negrín came to Madrid, where he summoned a council of ministers for the following day. During the session, Negrín called once again for the unity of the Popular Front and re-emphasized his decision to resist until the end: ‘Either we all save ourselves, or we all sink in extermination and dishonour.’8 On the same day General Franco published in Burgos his Law of Political Responsibilities. Its first article declared ‘the political responsibility of those who from 1 October 1934 and before 18 July 1936 contributed to create or to aggravate the subversion of any sort which made Spain a victim, and all those who have opposed the nationalist movement with clear acts or grave passivity’. The law could thus apply to practically any republican, whether a combatant or not. The British consul in Burgos informed the Foreign Office that, in his opinion, the law gave not the slightest guarantee that those who had served in the republican army or been a member of a political party–which implied no criminal responsibility–would not be punished.9

  Despite his calls for resistance, Negrín did not install his government in either Madrid or Valencia. He went to live in a villa near Elda, close to the port of Alicante, guarded by 300 communist commandos from XIV Corps. From there, by telephone and teleprinter, he sent a frenetic series of instructions, on one hand attempting to invigorate the defence of the republican zone, and on the other making preparations for evacuation and exile. This confused everyone, because he never gave his reasons, but Negrín was cut off from reality in his solitary world. He threatened to shoot anyone who disagreed with him and was attacked on all sides.10

  It was hardly surprising that despite Franco’s intransigent attitude, people believed that some sort of agreement must be possible. The International Military Commission had reported hearing frequent statements along two themes: ‘If Spaniards alone were left here on both sides, we’d probably be able to reach agreement’; and ‘We on this side are tired of revolutionary freedom, and the others of strict fascist order. It should not be hard to agree.’11 In fact, the only argument on the republican side for continuing the war was that it was better to go down fighting than to face Franco’s firing squads.

  Negrín’s supporters, especially the communists, tried to claim that if the Republic held out until the autumn, they would be saved by an Anglo-French intervention. But this did not take into account the obvious fact that with the destruction of the Republic’s capacity to wage war after the battle of the Ebro there was no point in Britain and France coming to its aid, even if they had wanted to. They simply could not spare the troops or weapons with the threat from Nazi Germany and the prospect of war looming in Europe. They were bound to prefer a neutral Spain under Franco to a debilitated and needy ally in the form of the Republic.

  On 27 February the British and French governments formally recognized the nationalist government in Burgos. Marshal Philippe Pétain, who called Franco ‘the cleanest sword in the Western world’, was appointed the ambassador of France to Spain. In Paris, JoséFélix de Lequerica presented his letters of accreditation to President Lebrun. Daladier then handed over all the republican arms and matériel retained in France, as well as the republican gold deposits at Mont de Marsan.12 He also guaranteed that his government would allow no activity against the nationalists from French soil. In London the Duke of Alba became the Spanish ambassador at the Court of St James. Chamberlain misled the House of Commons by saying that Franco had renounced all political reprisals, just two weeks after the Law of Political Responsibilities had been published. The United States government recalled its ambassador to the Republic, Claude Bowers, so that it could establish relations with Franco.13

  On 26 February, a Sunday, Manuel Azaña left the Spanish embassy in Paris. He received a telegram from Negrín requesting him to return to Spain to continue in his duties. But Azaña decided to resign on 28

  February after hearing of Britain’s and France’s recognition of the nationalist government. He informed Diego Martínez Barrio, who as leader of the Cortes was obliged to succeed him temporarily until he could convene the deputies to elect a successor. In his letter of resignation, Azaña made use of General Rojo’s statement that the war was lost. He asked Negrín to arrange peace terms with General Franco and explained that he was resigning now that the Western democracies had recognized Franco and in any case the apparatus of the Republic, especially the Cortes, had ceased to function.14 Negrín was left in a constitutional void.

  Martínez Barrio met with sixteen deputies of the permanent commission of the Cortes at the Lapérouse restaurant on the Quai des Grands-Augustins. In this haunt of grand men of letters, the republican deputies discussed the rather academic question of presidential elections. There was not a single communist among them. They decided to send a telegram to Negrín, stating that Martínez Barrio was prepared to come to the central zone to carry out the requirements of the constitution and organize the election of a new president of the Republic, but only to ensure the negotiation of a peace accord. Apparently the telegram received no response. Martínez Barrio and others, including General Rojo, then made their final decision not to return.

  In the remaining republican zone of Spain, meanwhile, Negrín had summoned military leaders from all services to the aerodrome of Los Llanos outside Albacete. They included Miaja and Matallana, as well as General Menéndez of the Army of Levante, General Escobar of the Army of Estremadura, Colonel Casado and Admiral Buiza, the commander of the republican fleet.15 Negrín urged them to fight on, assuring them that he was seeking peace. He also made the incredible claim that in a short time the arms blocked in France would arrive and war would break out in Europe. His generals were clearly unconvinced. Matallana warned that their troops were handicapped by the terrible lack of supplies and arms, and Buiza said that without an immediate solution, the fleet would have to abandon Spanish waters, which was what his officers and sailors wanted. Camacho, the air force commander, told him that they had no more than three fighter squadrons and five bomber squadrons in a serviceable state. Only Miaja, irritated that Negrín had not asked him to speak first, said to everyone’s astonishment that he was ready to fight on. This sudden passion of his would not last long.

  Over the last few months, Madrid had been increasingly cut off from the decision-making process of the Republic. The parties of the Popular Front had become more and more united in their dislike of Negrín and the communists, and began to seek an independent solution to put an end to the war. An alliance grew up between the socialist professor Julián Besteiro, professional officers, especially in the Army of the Centre, liberal republicans and the anarchists. There were many reasons for their anger. The communists’ conduct of military affairs, however much they claimed to have had the interests of the war at heart, seemed to have had more to do with augmenting their own power. The arrogance of Soviet advisers, the ‘Kléberist’ arrogance of the International Brigades, the Stalinist persecutions through the NKVD and SIM, had all produced a strong reaction. It was also impossible to believe Negrín’s claim that the weapons waiting in France would soon be with them. Negrín must have known that the French government would never let them through, even if he did not yet know that they would be handed over to Franco the moment they recognized his government.

  Perhaps one of the deepest suspicions, however, was that while Negrín called for resistance, they found it hard to imagine him and the communist leaders sharing the fate of their followers. Specifically, there were strong fears that the communists might use their military superiority and their control of republican shipping to ensure that their members got away, while those belonging to other parties and organizations would be left to face the nationalist revenge on their own.

  The commander of the Army of the Centre,
Colonel Segismundo Casado, a professional cavalry officer of peasant birth and austere tastes, had been one of the few career officers to have opposed the communists since the beginning of the war. He got on well with the anarchists and was particularly close to Cipriano Mera, with whom he had shared the tension before the battle of Brihuega.16

  Mera still commanded IV Corps, which held the Guadalajara and Cuenca fronts. The other three corps in the Army of the Centre were all commanded by communists. The liaison committee of the libertarian movement had criticized Mera for adopting an independent political line and taking decisions on his own account. Mera defended himself throwing back at them the CNT’s collaboration with Negrín, who had ignored the anarchists altogether. When Negrín visited the Guadalajara front at the end of February, Mera told him what he thought of a government which told its people to resist when they had no means of doing so, and of ‘those who talk so much of resistance, while they collect valuables and goods to sell abroad and get their own families out of Spain’.17

  Like other commanders and senior officers, Colonel Casado thought there might be a chance of professional army officers obtaining better terms for surrender than a regime controlled by Negrín and the communists. He was not one of those who hoped to save their lives, and perhaps also their professional careers, through a last-minute betrayal. But he was naive to believe that their military links and a record of anticommunism would sway Franco. The last thing that Franco wanted was for anyone else to be in a position of claiming that they had saved Spain from communism.