The Battle for Spain

by Antony Beevor

18 AgustínSánchez Vidal in F. Rico, Historia y crítica de la literatura española vol. vii, p. 759.

  19 On the intellectuals and the ‘cause of the people’ see Santos Juliá, Historias de las dos Españas, Madrid, 2004.

  20 The Mangada column had Avance, the communists on the Somosierra front ¡No pasarán! and El miliciano rojo on the Aragón front; Octubre for the battalion of that name; Komsomol for the Communist Youth of La Mancha; socialists, anarchists and republicans all had their own. The International Brigades had a dozen of their own: Le Volontaire de la Liberté, Our Fight, Il Garibaldino and Freiheit Ka¨mpfer. Even the Scandinavian company with the Thaelmann Battalion produced its own paper, edited by a journalist called Lise, who had accompanied them to Spain (Conny Andersson in Sixten Rogeby, Spanska frontminnen, Arbetarkultur, 1938).

  The nationalists, meanwhile had ABC in Seville; El Heraldo de Aragón in Saragossa; El Norte de Castilla in Valladolid; Ideal in Granada; the Gaceta regional in Salamanca; El Faro in Vigo, La Voz de Asturias in Oviedo; El Pensamiento Navarro in Pamplona and the Diario de Burgos. In the early part of the war the besieged nationalist garrison in Toledo had produced the roneoed El ´zar. The main Falangist publication was Arriba España!, but also Jerarquía; Fotos, which was close to Manuel Hedilla; Ve´rtice, published by the Delegacio ´n de Prensa y Propaganda; Fe in Seville; Patria in Granada; Odiel in Huelva; Sur in Malaga; Destino, the publication of the Catalans in Burgos and the satirical review Ametralladora. In November 1938 the nationalist administration created an official news service, EFE, financed by Juan March and other bankers. For the press on both sides see Rafael Abella, La vida cotidiana durante la guerra civil, Planeta, Barcelona, 1975.

  21 Phrase used in El Socialista, October 1936.

  22 Josep Renau, Carles Fontseré, Lorenzo Gomis, Ramón Gaya, José Bardasano, Josep Obiols, Lola Anglada, Martí Bas, José Luis Rey Vila (‘Sim’), Antoni Clavé, Emeterio Melendreras, Helios Gómez and Luis Quintanilla. On the nationalist side the best-known designers were Carlos Sáenz de Tejada, a great draughtsman, and Teodoro Delgado. See Jordi and Arnau Carulla, La guerra civil en 2.000 carteles, 2 vol, Barcelona, 1997; Carmen Grimau, El cartel republicano en la guerra civil, Madrid, 1979.

  23 The republicans had Unión Radio, Radio España and the many transmitters belonging to political parties and trade unions. La Voz de España was the station for propaganda aimed abroad. The nationalists used Radio Tetuán, Radio Ceuta and Radio Sevilla (known as Queipo de Llano’s ‘plaything’), as well as the foreign broadcasts of their allies in Rome, Berlin and Lisbon. The radio station attached to the Generalissimo’s headquarters soon became the most important in nationalist Spain. When the nationalists conquered a sector of republican territory, they immediately put the radio station there to work for their own side. See C. Garitaonandía, ‘La radio republicana durante la guerra civil’ in Historia y memoria de la guerra civil, vol. i, pp. 391–400.

  24 Most were by Ramon Biadiu: Delta de l’Ebre; Els tapers de la Costa; Transformació de la indústria al servei de la guerra and Vail d’Aran (Santos Zunzunegui and Eduardo González Calleja, Comunicación cultura y política durante la Il República y la guerra civil, vol. ii, Bilbao, 1990, pp. 475–493); see also Daniel Kowalsky, La Unión Soviética y la guerra civil española.

  25 For the exhibition, see Manuel Aznar, Pensamiento literario y compromiso antifascista de la inteligencia española republicana, Barcelona, 1978.

  26 André Malraux, Julián Benda, Tristan Tzara, André Chamson, Anna Seghers, Ilya Ehrenburg, Alexis Tolstoy, Stephen Spender, Malcolm Cowley, Jef Last, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Pitcairn, Eric Weinert, Pablo Neruda, Nicolás Guillén, Octavio Paz, César Vallejo, Vicente Huidobro, Juan Marinello, Raúl González Tuñón, José Mancisidor, Enrique Díez Canedo, Antonio Machado, Rafael Alberti, Corpus Barga, Eugenio Imaz, Wenceslao Roces, Manuel Altolaguirre, Emilio Prados, Jose´ Bergamín, Juan Chabás, Juan Gil Albert and Miguel Herna Alca´ndez (International Anti-Fascist Congress of Writers in Spain, GARF 1117/04/37).

  27 Victor Serge, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, Oxford, 1968.

  28 Churchill, Step by Step, p. 304.

  CHAPTER 22: The Struggle for Power

  1 Faupel to Wilhelmstrasse, 14 April 1937, DGFP, p. 269.

  2 Cowles, p. 80.

  3 In his last despatch of 9 April 1937 the Italian ambassador to Franco, Roberto Cantalupo, described with great clarity the Generalissimo’s plans to amalgamate the political parties and establish ‘his own position as future head of state, head of government and head of all the political and union organizations in the future totalitarian Spain’. Quoted by Ranzato, L’eclissi della democrazia, p. 527.

  4 Decreto no. 255, published in the Boletín Oficial of 20 April 1937. The text was drafted by Serrano Súñer and Ernesto Jiménez Caballero who, needless to say, did not consult either Hedilla or Rodezno.

  5 Ellwood, Prietas las filas, p. 111. The Carlists were in charge of only nine provincial organizations, while the Falangists took over twenty-two. See J. Tusell, Franco en la guerra civil, Tusquets, Barcelona, 1992.

  6 Heleno Saña, El franquismo sin mitos. Conversaciones con Serrano Súñer, Barcelona, 1982, p. 69. Leonardo Painador, the prosecutor of the popular tribunal which condemned to death the two brothers of Serrano Súñer, was shot early in 1940 (Bullón and De Diego, Historias orales de la guerra civil, p. 191).

  7 Manuel Hedilla, Testimonio, pp. 529–33.

  8 TsAMO 132/2642/77, pp. 45–6.

  9 Elorza and Bizcarrondo, Queridos camaradas, p. 341 and Dimitrov, Diarios, 20 March 1937, p. 58.

  10 RGVA 33987/3/960, pp. 14–15.

  11 RGVA 33987/3/961, pp. 34–56, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, pp. 403–4.

  12 TsAMO 132/2642/192, p. 42, quoted in Rybalkin, p. 48.

  13 Bolloten, La Revolución española, p. 322.

  14 Frente Rojo, 17 April 1937, quoted Bolloten, p. 337.

  15 Petrov, battalion commander, 17 May, 1937, RGVA 35082/1/185, p. 374.

  16 A project of close collaboration between the PSOE and the Spanish Communist Party was first put forward by Ramón Lamoneda on 26 December 1936. This proposal consisted of creating a joint supervisory committee. See Graham, Socialism and War, p. 75.

  17 Treball, 22 December, 1936. For the food supply situation in Barcelona, see E. Ucelay da Cal, La Catalunya populista. Imatge, cultura i politica en l’etapa republicana 1931–1939, Barcelona, 1982.

  18 Treball, 8 April 1937.

  19 Solidarid Obrera, 8 April 1937.

  20 La Batalla, 11 April 1937.

  21 See L. Trotsky, La revolución española 1930–1940, Barcelona, 1977, vol. i, p. 333.

  22 Elorza and Bizcarrondo, Queridos camaradas, p. 364.

  CHAPTER 23: The Civil War within the Civil War

  1 See J. Pous and J. M. Solé, Anarquia i república a la Cerdanya (1936–1939), Barcelona, 1988.

  2 Many suspected that the killing was a communist provocation, arguing that Roldán Cortada objected to the PSUC attacks against the CNT and the POUM. See Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 2003, p. 635; José Peirats, Los anarquistas en la crisis política española, Buenos Aires, 1964, pp. 241–3; and Felix Morrow, p. 87.

  3 Bolloten, p. 557.

  4 ‘Kein Wagen, der nicht zur CNT gehörte dürfte passieren und mehr als 200 Polizisten and Sturmgardisten wurden entwaffnet’ (12 May 1937, RGASPI 495/120/259, p. 4).

  5 Orwell, Homage to Catalonia.

  6 García Oliver’s address was astonishingly emotional and sentimental. He spoke twice of bending over the dead ‘to kiss them’. The libertarian rank and file referred scornfully to his speech as ‘the legend of the kiss’.

  7 Gabriele Ranzato says that Berneri and Barbieri were killed probably by communists, but that one cannot rule out the theory of García Oliver that they might have been killed by agents of Mussolini’s secret police, the OVRA (L’eclessi della democrazia, p. 453). The simultaneous killing of prominent Catalan anarchists would, however, suggest that these crimes were more likely to
have been the work of communists.

  8 In an interview with John Brademas, Anarcosindicalismo y revolución…, p. 246.

  9 Casanova, De la calle al frente, p. 222.

  10 Personal account of Hidalgo de Cisneros in Bolloten, p. 570.

  11 RGASPI 495/74/204, p. 129.

  12 RGASPI 495/120/259, p. 117.

  13 Ibid., p. 118.

  14 RGASPI 495/120/261, p. 4.

  15 Ibid., p. 6.

  16 Faupel to Wilhelmstrasse, 11 May 1937, DGFP, p. 286.

  17 For the establishment of republican justice in the face of revolutionary disorder see Franc¸ois Godicheau, La guerre d’Espagne. République et Révolution en Catalogne (1936–1939), Paris, 2004. Of the 3, 700 ‘anti-fascist prisoners’ still in jail in January 1939, 90 per cent were from the CNT-FAI.

  18 The Pueblo Español (Montjuich), Vandellós, L’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Omelles de na Gaia, Concabella, Anglesrola and Falset. Franc¸ois Godicheau, ‘Los hechos de mayo de 1937 y los “presos antifascistas”: identificación de un fenómeno represivo’ in Historia social, n. 44, 2002, pp. 39 and 55, and La guerra civil a Catalunya (1936–1939) vol. ii, pp. 212ff.

  19 JoséDíaz, Tres años de lucha, p. 433.

  20 Helen Graham argues convincingly that the Spanish Communist Party and the republicans had worked closely together, with the joint aim of opposing Largo Caballero (Socialism and War, p. 91).

  21 Ibid., pp. 100–2.

  22 RGASPI 17/120/263, p. 32.

  23 The other main portfolios were José Giral, minister of state; Bernardo Giner de los Ríos, public works; and Jaime Aiguader, minister of work and public assistance.

  24 Diarios completos, pp. 959–60.

  25 For the POUM and the Nin affair see Francesc Bonamusa, Andreu Nin y el movimiento comunista en España(1930–1937), Barcelona, 1977, and Elorza and Bizcarrondo, Queridos camaradas.

  26 Diarios completos, p. 1054.

  27 Diego Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la guerra, Buenos Aires, 1940. See J. Pous and J. M. Solé, Anarquia i república a la Cerdanya (1936–1939), Barcelona, 1988.

  CHAPTER 24: The Battle of Brunete

  1 RGVA 33987/3/969, p. 266.

  2 R. Salas Larrazábal, ‘Génesis y actuación del Ejército Popular de la República’ in Carr (ed.), Estudios sobre la República y la guerra civil española, p. 222.

  3 ‘Mein Bruder ist ein Flieger / Unserm Volke fehlt’s an Raum / Und Grund und Boden zu kriegen, ist / Bei uns ein alter Traum. / Der Raum, den mein Bruder eroberte / Liegt in Guadarramamassiv. / Er ist lang einen Meter achtzig / Und einen Meter fünfzig tief (Bertolt Brecht, ‘Mein Bruder war ein Flieger’ in Gedichte 1931–1941, Frankfurt, 1961 p. 31.

  4 Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales, p. 214.

  5 RGVA 35082/1/95, pp. 33–58, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 436.

  6 J. Salas Larrazábal, La guerra de España desde el aire, p. 222.

  7 J. Salas, p. 223.

  8 Nick Gillain, Le mercenaire, p. 59.

  9 Castells, p. 217.

  10 García Morato, who had fired his machine-guns at another black car, believed that he had killed Lukács, when in fact he had killed Doctor Heilbrun, the head of medical services.

  11 RGVA 35082/1/95, pp. 35–58, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 436.

  12 Castells, p. 225.

  13 D. Kowalski, La Unión Soviética y la guerra civil española, p. 340.

  14 Azaña, p. 1003.

  15 Ibid., p. 1073.

  16 Colonel Rudolf Xylander, September 1937, RGASPI 545/2/185, p. 9.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Ibid.

  19 Ibid.

  20 F. Ciutat, Relatos y reflexiones de la guerra de España 1936–1939, Madrid, 1978, p. 71.

  21 J. Salas, p. 241.

  22 Colonel Rudolf Xylander, September 1937, RGASPI 545/2/185, p. 9.

  23 Castells, p. 241.

  24 Richthofen war diary, BA-MA RL 35/38.

  25 BA-MA RL 35/42

  26 Richthofen war diary, BA-MA RL 35/38.

  27 Report G. Stern, 8 October 1937, RGVA 35082/1/21, p. 12.

  28 RGVA 35082/1/95, pp. 33–58, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 437.

  29 Richthofen war diary, BA-MA RL 35/38.

  30 V. Rojo, España heroica, p. 87.

  31 Alexander, p. 118.

  32 RGVA 35082/1/95, pp. 33–58, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 440.

  33 Rodimtsev, Dobrovoltsy.

  34 Azaña, p. 1054.

  35 Radosh and Habeck, p. 267.

  36 Preston, Franco, pp. 355–6.

  37 Castells, pp. 246–9.

  38 RGVA 35082/1/42, pp. 249–55.

  39 RGVA 33987/3/1149, p. 262.

  40 Ibid., pp. 221–6, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 481.

  41 23 June 1937, RGVA 33987/3/1056, pp. 27–8.

  42 RGVA 35082/1/90, p. 533.

  43 Meretskov and Simonov to Voroshilov, 21 August 1937, RGVAI 33987/3/1033.

  44 RGVA 33987/3/1149, p. 261.

  CHAPTER 25: The Beleaguered Republic

  1 P. Azcárate, Mi embajada en Londres, pp. 145–9.

  2 Ibid., p. 155.

  3 Cowles, p. 80.

  4 Chargé d’affaires in US to Wilhelmstrasse, DGFP, pp. 208–9.

  5 J-F Berdah, La democracia asesinada, pp. 292–8.

  6 Ciano, Diarios, p. 13.

  7 Ibid., p. 19.

  8 H. Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1930–1939, London, 1966.

  9 Ribbentrop to Wilhelmstrasse, 22 June 1937, DGFP, pp. 364–5 and 366–7.

  10 Azcárate, p. 192.

  11 Eden, Facing the Dictators, p. 412.

  12 RGVA 33987/3/1015, pp. 92–113, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, pp. 219–33.

  CHAPTER 26: The War in Aragón

  1 Bolloten, La Revolución española, pp. 337–9.

  2 Casanova, De la calle al frente, p. 233.

  3 Fraser, Recuérdalo tú…, p. 481.

  4 F. Mintz, L’autogestion dans l’Espagne révolutionnaire, Paris 1970; Bernecker, op. cit., Casanova, op. cit.

  5 La revolución popular en el campo, p. 17, quoted in Bolloten, La Revolución española, pp. 339–40,

  6 Líster, Nuestra guerra, pp. 151–5.

  7 Antonio Cordón, Trayectoria, pp. 301–2.

  8 TsAMO 132/2542/192, p. 61.

  9 Blanco Escolá, Falacias de la guerra civil, p. 238.

  10 Cordón, op. cit.

  11 Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales…, p. 272.

  12 TsAMO 132/2542/192, p. 61.

  13 RGVA 33987/3/1149, pp. 211–26, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 484; and RGVA 33987/3/1149, p. 229.

  14 M. Dunbar, The Book of the XV Brigade, p. 266. For the course of the battle see Cordón, pp. 302–14; Rojo, España heroica, pp. 115–27; and Martínez Bande, La gran ofensiva, pp. 77ff.

  15 Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales, p. 283.

  16 RGVA 33987/3/1149, pp. 211–26, quoted in Radosh and Habeck, p. 483.

  17 Mundo Obrero, 4 September 1937.

  CHAPTER 27: The Destruction of the Northern Front and of Republican Idealism

  1 Salas, La guerra de España desde el aire, p. 270.

  2 It was at this point that the Council of Asturias ordered the evacuation of 1,200 children to the French port of Saint-Nazaire, from where they were taken to Leningrad. Already 14,000 children had been evacuated from the Basque country, most of them going to Britain, France, Belgium and the Soviet Union. In all, the republican government arranged the evacuation abroad of 33,000 children. See Alicia Altea, ‘Los niños de la guerra civil’ in Anales de Historia Contemporánea, 19, 2003, pp. 43ff.

  3 Viñas, Guerra, dinero, dictadura, pp. 141–52.

  4 Tuñón, Historia de España, vol. x, pp. 401–4.

  5 El Socialista, 30 October 1937.

  6 Salas, La guerra de España desde el aire, p. 272.

  7 Thomas, La guerra civil española, p. 846.

  8 Zugazagoitia, Guerra y vicisitudes de los españoles, p. 343.

  9 Cordón,
Trayectoria, p. 340.

  10 Tuñón, Historia de España, vol. x, p. 400.

  11 Graham, Socialism and War, pp. 130–1.

  12 The SIM incorporated the intelligence and counter-intelligence services, especially the DEDIDE (Departamento Especial de Información del Estado) and the SIEP (Servicio de Información Especial Periférico). For the creation, organigram and evolution of the SIM see François Godicheau, ‘La le´gende noire du Service d’Information Militaire de la République dans la guerre civil espagnole, et l’idée de controˆle politique’ in Le Mouvement Social, No. 201, October–December 2002. Also D. Pastor Petit, La cinquena columna a Catalunya (1936–1939), Barcelona, 1978 and Los dossiers secretos de la guerra civil, Barcelona, 1978.

  13 Skoutelski, Les Brigades Internationales, p. 254.

  14 Azaña, Diarios completes, p. 1232.

  15 Peirats, La CNT en la Revolución española, III, p. 278.

  16 Franc¸ois Godicheau, ‘La légende noire du SIM…’, pp. 38–9.

  17 Ibid.

  18 Ibid., p. 46.

  19 IKKI report, RGASPI. 495/120/261, p. 7.

  20 Thomas, La guerra civil española, p. 722n.

  21 RGVA 33987/3/1149, pp. 211–26.

  22 Castells, Las Brigadas Internacionales, pp. 258–9.

  23 Ibid., p. 262.

  24 Ibid., p. 265.

  25 From the speech by the secretary of the Madrid branch of the Spanish Communist Party at the Plenum of Central Committee, December 1937, RGASPI 495/120/259, p. 112.

  CHAPTER 28: The Battle of Teruel and Franco’s ‘Victorious Sword’

  1 Among the ‘garrison’ or front-holding formations were V Army Corps in Aragón commanded by Moscardó; the Army of the South under Queipo de Llano, which included II and III Army Corps; the Army of the Centre, led by Saliquet, which consisted of I Corps on the Madrid Front and VII Corps along the Guadarrama. In the Army of Manoeuvre there were: the Moroccan Army Corps under Yagu ¨e, with the major part of the Foreign Legion and the regulares in Barrón’s 13th Division and Sáenz de Buruaga’s 150th Division; Solchaga’s Army Corps of Navarre with the Carlist requetés; Varela’s Army Corps of Castille and Aranda’s Army Corps of Galicia. After the fall of the Asturias the Italian CTV, now commanded by General Berti, was sent to Aragón as reserve force. These corps were massively strong, and on the republican side only V Corps and XVIII Corps were in any way comparable.