The Spanish Civil War Began

Historiography has often emphasized the internal political struggles and the international repercussions of the Spanish Civil War at the expense of the military history of the conflict. Furthermore, the role played on Franco's Nationalist side by his German and Italian allies has attracted historians' interest rather more than he Spanish Nationalist army itself. In the Republican side, books have devoted much space to the International Brigades which, although of great political and even at times military importance, were nevertheless no more than a fraction of the Republican army.

At the time there was a tendency to forget that the extended nature of the fronts in Spain, the paucity of aircraft, armour and other modern weaponry, and the sheer lack of skill, experience and training of most of the forces on both sides, did not make the drawing of 'lessons' from the Spanish Civil War a particularly valuable exercise. That Italian troops advanced towards Guadalajara in March 1937 with a wealth of mechanisation and armour, but were defeated and thrown back, did not indicate, as many said, that the advocates of the new warfare of movement were wrong, but merely that the Italians did not conduct it properly. Goering may well have claimed at Nuremberg that he used the bombing of Guernica to test his young Luftwaffe, but the almost complete absence of opposition could hardly have made the exercise very informative.

The war was a conflict between two Spanish armies and two fleets which had their roots in the national armed institutions of Spain. Both forces experienced a counter-revolution, which reflected the revolution and counter-revolution that occurred in the political situation on both sides.

The Francoist Insurgents had been successful more or less completely in five of the eight military districts into which Spain was divided, with the exception of the coastal strip of Andalusia with its centre at Malaga and the provinces of the northern coast, together with most of Central and Eastern Spain. But the very fact of the army uprising meant that the military were disconnected from their normal chain of command: the Ministry of War, the Undersecretariat and the General Staff. The regional divisional commands themselves took over all the functions of administration and logistics which were carried out in an intensely urgent and anti-bureaucratic way.

In contrast, the government, or Republican zone retained the war ministry and the undersecretariat. Part of the immense effort of re-establishing order after the chaotic revolutionary days following the uprising consisted precisely of restoring the structure of hierarchical command, though this was no more than a shadow, lacking solidity and depth for several weeks and, in Catalonia and Aragon, for months. However, in spite of the theoretical presence of units of the 1st (Madrid), 3rd (Valencia) and 4th (Barcelcona) divisions, the cohesion of the military establishment had been destroyed by the defection of many officers and the distrust with which almost all the others were regarded. The troops had, in many cases, abandoned barracks and mingled with the heterogeneous militias which political and trade union organisations immediately created.

The contrast between the two sides was marked. A battalion from Burgos or Valladolid in the Nationalist zone could set out for the front with all its officers and NCOs, and all its equipment. But in Madrid and Barcelona, loyal officers would struggle hard to collect a few companies. The officers and NCOs who volunteered or were persuaded to lead the government columns were in most cases unknown to and distrusted by these disparate military and police units, many of which were composed of new recruits and often accompanied by groups of indisciplined militia. An incalculable amount of armament was lost in the revolutionary chaos of those early days, or abandoned by militia as they Red from the professional and hardened Legion and Moorish troops of Franco's African army.

The consequence of this was that in the government zone there was centralised authority, but the centre took a very long time to function efficiently. It would strive to control the locaI military autonomies which might – and in the Anarchist view would – have been a better solution than the rigid centralisation which was imposed. On the other side, in contrast, senior military and naval commanders enjoyed considerable independence for a long time.

For many years writers insisted that there had been very few professional officers in the Republican forces. While this enabled left-wing authors to offer the reactionary nature of the officer corps as a reason for the military failure of the Republic, the authorities of Franco's Spain also found it useful in order to conceal the fact that well-known and distinguished soldiers had served the Republic loyally. Later Francoist 'revisionist' writing went to the other extreme of exaggerating the number of professional officers who served the government. The truth is somewhere in between. It is also true however, that if an officer found himself in the government zone and escaped capture or execution, he might serve the Republic, but in many cases lackadaisically if not with hostility. His military education and life might make him feel that he owed greater loyalty to the army than to a transient regime. On the Nationalist side, there must also have been many professionals who did not sharethe ideals of the 'Crusade'. There were many who were Freemasons – the bete noire of the Spanish Right – and who did not like the pseudo-religious aura of the Glorioso Alzamiento. Others may well have felt that it was disloyal to rebel against a legally-elected government or may have voted for a party which had collaborated in the Popular Front. But for them the conflicts were resolved by the emotion of military solidarity and the absence of political pressures. Unlike the Republican officer, the loyalty of a Nationalist was assumed and he did not have to seek the protection of a political party or movement.

Both sides had also to create large numbers of new officers, but political pressures and the absence of the sense of urgency which was so apparent among the Nationalists, meant that the People's War Schools established by the government produced far fewer war-temporary lieutenants than the academies which trained the provisional second lieutenants (Alfereces provisionales) of Franco's army. One result of this was that untrained militiamen commanded – often, it must be said, with courage and efficiency – Republican brigades and even divisions and corps, while the newly-trained young Nationalist officers rarely commanded at higher than platoon level. Nationalist corps divisions and regiments were commanded by experienced men of field rank. Frequently the Nationalist colonels and lieutenant-colonels were among the youngest in their rank, often coming from the army in Morocco. In contrast, the Republican commanders, if not militiamen, were low-ranking professional officers or even promoted NCOs, frequently not from the arm of the service which they were commanding. So great was the shortage of experienced staff officers that the chief-of-staff of a Republican brigade, for example, might well be an ex-Civil Guard sergeant. Frequently these men were looking over their shoulders at the political commissar, who existed at all levels in the Republican army.

Perhaps for these reasons there is little point in discussing the mistakes made by the Republican command in the first few weeks of the war. There was no alternative. One can perhaps see this very clearly in the case of the naval war where, because the crews of most of the ships deposed the rebellious officers, the Republic appeared to have overwhelming strength. That was true, but the Republican navy lacked three basic essentials: harbours, officers, and international recognition. Denied the use of Tangier and Gibraltar for refuelling because the British authorities saw them as a mutinous force, with only about fifty career officers to command their ships, and refused the status of belligerents and the right to blockade Nationalist-held ports, there was little that the government's ships could do.

By the time some control was reestablished over Republican military forces, a date which could be fixed in October 1936 after the Largo Caballero government had reconstructed the general staff, the government navy had lost control of the Straits of Gibraltar and Nationalist reinforcements were crossing into Spain with- out hindrance. Militia forces had retreated, abandoning valuable equipment in the face of the skilled open-country tactics of the hardened Moroccan and Legionary forces. The next few months would see the failure of Franco's forces to take Madrid in a series of battles – of the Corunna road, the Jarama river, Guadalajara and Brunete. The latter, which was fought in the burning heat of July 1937, would mark the end of Franco's attempts to take the capital. All through the previous winter and spring the Republican authorities strove to increase the size and efficiency of the army which defended Madrid. But, though Franco's forces hurled themselves in vain against the capital, government troops suffered heavy casualties.

While Madrid held Franco at bay, political and social circumstances prevented the authorities of the Republic from strengthening the defences of the rest of Republican Spain. Along the strip of Andalusia centering on Malaga, military chaos reigned. Little had been achieved in organising the defence of the city; commanders were appointed and dismissed with dizzy rapidity, and militia rule was at its most undisciplined, so much so that the Nationalist offensive with newly-arrived Italian troops took the city easily in February 1937. Heads rolled after the disaster, but reports suggest that bureaucracy in Valencia, the Republican seat of government, an anky-losed hierarchy of generals and a fatal lack of communication, were equalled by a justified distrust of the city's possibilities of defending itself, given the revolutionary chaos which obtained. There is a marked contrast between the photographs of panic-stricken refugees fleeing up the coast towards Almeria, and the confident bearingof the Nationalist commander, General Queipo de Llano, as he stands on the bridge of the new cruiser Canarias, inspecting the effect of naval shelling, in the course of a smoothly-organised joint military and naval operation.

The loss of Malaga occasioned a conflict between the Communists and the government. The Largo Caballero administration was challenged. In Barcelona, the internal struggle between, on the one hand, Catalan autonomists and Anarcho-Syndicalist resistance to the militarisation of their militias, and on the other governmental and Communist pressure for centralisation of authority, was reflected in the 'May Days' of 1937, followed by the imposition of militarisation and a series of command changes. But the first result of the change towards what was hoped would be a more pro-active response to the war effort – the attack on Belchite in August 1937 – was not a success.

Overall, Republican staff work in the launching of battles was imaginative, under the guidance of Major, later General, Vicente Rojo, one of Spain's foremost tacticians. Yet, although logistic preparation steadily improved and although general security and intelligence work became better, the Republican army larked the training and especially the experienced junior commanders to carry through the impetus of its initial elan. Frequently, Republican advances were bogged down by the stubborn resistance at which the Nationalists excelled, and then had themselves to fight obstinate defensive battles in the face of the more efficient Nationalist logistic systems and concentration of aircraft and heavy artillery.

While the government, in its attempt to select its own place of battle away from the stalemated Madrid front, had launched the abortive attack at Belchite on the Aragon front, the Nationalists had identified the northern coastal strip as a strategically vital object of conquest. The area would be a hard nut to crack, containing as it did the well-disciplined Basques, who were defending their newly-granted autonomy, as well as the traditionally tough Asturians. But victory would bring a large tract of economically advanced and industrialised Spain into Franco's hands, as well as freeing his navy from having to patrol the long northern coast. The Basque country, already cut off from road- or rail-borne foreign supplies by the capture in September 1936 of the frontier town of Irun, was isolated from the rest of government Spain as well as from its agriculture, hinterland. The result was the campaign from March to October 1937 which brought the north coast under Nationalist rule. Both political and military reasons led to this result. Not until too late were the Basque provinces of Santander and Asturias able to weld their forces into a single Army of the North. They relied on irregular supplies which ran the gauntlet of the efficient Nationalist blockade, hardly affected by the demoralised Republican navy. Air defence was especially weak and the campaign witnessed the notorious terror bombing of Guernica, carried out by the German Condor Legion. Furthermore the naval blockade was sufficiently efficacious, in spite of the exploits of some British blockade breakers, to limit the arrival of material even if enough had been available. So, while the Nationalists held off Republican attacks around Madrid and in Aragon, they were able to subdue the north. Franco could immediately employ the captured resources, completely lost to the government, and concentrate his men, aircraft and ships on the next two areas, which would decide the war: Aragon and the Mediterranean.

The Republican navy had failed to maintain control over the Straits of Gibraltar. It had also been powerless to prevent Nationalist ships blockading the north. In August 1937, political decisions had decided the abandonment of Majorca, which from 1937 onward would become increasingly important as the base for ships and aircraft threatening Republican shipping along the Mediterranean coast. From the summer of 1937, the arrival of arms by sea would become increasingly risky for naval, as well as for political reasons. Unlike the Nationalists' extended cruises, the Republican fleet ventured out of its well-defended harbour of Cartagena for short periods only, and showed little aggressive spirit. While its leaders would willingly have engaged in a 'search and destroy' operation to try to sink the two brand-new and very superior Nationalist cruisers, the Canarias and the Baleares (the latter was indeed sunk in March 1938, but by a fortuitous encounter and skilful torpedoing), many of the very junior career officers who commanded Republican ships had divided loyalties. At higher levels it was considered essential to maintain the 'fleet in being' rather than risk the loss of ships. Thus the Nationalist ships, often no more than armed merchantmen, were able to create a psychosis of defencelessness by their attacks on undefended Spanish and foreign merchant ships. Furthermore, the Nationalists, whose own supplies came in without hindrance, went repeatedly to the brink of crisis in their attacks on foreign, particularly British, shipping. In contrast, the Republican government, anxious to maintain its status as the legitimate and recognised authority, feared to give its enemies the opportunity to accuse it of international irresponsibility.

A Republican offensive in the winter of 1937-38 captured the city of Teruel, which had been a Nationalist salient ever since the uprising of the garrison in July 1936. In a bitterly-fought battle in sub-zero temperatures, Nationalist logistics, aided by military and political unity, recaptured the city after several weeks from an enemy which was unable to organise its transport satisfactorily and whose fighting divisions were still hampered by their political differences.

The fundamental weakness and exhaustion, both moral and material, of the Republican forces, became sharply evident in March and April 1938, when Francoist troops, heavily reinforced and regularly supplied by Germany and Italy, launched an offensive which was the nearest thing to a war of fast movement that the Spanish Civil War was to see. In a few weeks they cut the Republic in two, reaching the Mediterranean sea on April 15th. This was followed by the fall of the Socialist minister of defence, Prieto, and the assumption of the direction of the war by the prime minister, Juan Negrin. By Herculean efforts, aided by the opening of the French frontier until mid- June, Negrin and his staff reconstructed two Republican armies to the north of the River Ebro, while an efficient defence blocked the Francoist advance down the coast to Valencia.

An enormous effort rearmed and retrained the brigades and divisions of the Army of the Ebro, Communist-led and consisting of the units which had been the nurseries of the Republican Army. On July 25th, 1938, its militia commander, Juan Modesto, launched an attack over the River Ebro. Like other Republican offensives, it was well-conceived and planned. Speedy advances were made. But once again, Republican forces were bogged down by obstinate Nationalist resistance in difficult terrain, which held them at bay until Franco's excellent logistics brought up ever more numbers of troops and heavy artillery and aircraft. This led to a battle which lasted till mid-November, among the hills and rocky crags of Aragon, which wore the Army of the Ebro out until it withdrew to the other bank. Most of the Republican forces were still in the central and southern fronts, including the substantial Army of the Centre. One of the notable weaknesses of the Republican Army was its seeming inability, which may well have had political causes, to launch offensives in the enemy's rear or to organise the type of guerrilla operations which would have impeded Franco's troop movements.

Nationalist forces launched the attack on the bastion of Republicanism – Catalonia – on December 23rd, 1938. Resistance was futile; Republican forces fell back swiftly. Barclona was taken on January 26th, 1939, and less than two weeks afterwards the frontier was reached. Two exhausted Republican armies crossed into France to be interned.

In the other Republican zone, which included Madrid, Valencia, the Mediterranean coast with the naval base at Cartagena, and large parts of New Castille and Andalusia, there were several Republican armies. But their arms and aircraft were insufficient in the face of the inevitable Nationalist offensive. By this time, internal conspiracy between senior Republican officers and Franco's representatives had been encouraged by the belief that, if only Negrin and his Communist commanders could be got rid of, it would be possible to achieve peace with honour, particularly for the professional Republican officers. This view was widely held and led to the successful coup of March 5th, 1939, led by Colonel Casado, the commander of the Army of the Centre. So swift was the success of the coup that those members of the Negrin government who had returned to Spain after fleeing to France, departed at once for exile. The fleet abandoned Cartagena and sailed into internment at Bizerta. But negotiationswith Franco proved difficult and disappointing. Professional Republican officers were promised nothing save their lives – and only then in exchange for immediate surrender – and those who did not manage to get away served terms of imprisonment and were dismissed from the army. Madrid was surrendered on March 28th, 1939, and Nationalist troops occupied the whole of Spain.

The causes of the Republican defeat were manifold, and many of them fall outside the scope of this article since they imply internal and external political considerations. Nevertheless, among purely military causes one may identify the break-up of military units brought about by the military rebellion itself, the lack of officers, the acute politicisation of the army and the demoralisation caused by political differences in the rear. There was the clash between the Anarchist ideal of a 'revolutionary' army and Communist commitment to a disciplined and classically organised force, a conflict which led to the worst of the two concepts: over-authoritarian and bureaucratic organisation combined with frequent examples of poor discipline. In contrast, the Nationalist armies were able to subdue their political differences because the rebellion had been essentially a military one. Military discipline was imposed on the Nationalist militias from the beginning, in a rebellion whose aim was, of course, the imposition of order. While the higher levels of Republican command included some very able men, it cannot be said that they gave the general tone to the Republican army which the efficiency and practicality of Franco and his commanders gave to their forces.

Lastly, the absence of efficient co-operation between the Republican navy and the ground forces and the lack of any co-ordinated effort between the air force and the army, is striking. One might perhaps say that, whatever the difficulties under which the Republican forces laboured, and there were many, they were unable to do the best possible to the same extent as their opponents had been able to do in their own straitened circumstances at the beginning of the war.

Michael Alpert is principal lecturer in Spanish at the Polytechnic of Central London.