Post by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora (Conrica) on Sept 1, 2011 23:05:28 GMT
The Battle of Madrid
The siege of Madrid was one of the most intense and longest running siege of the entire civil war. Running from November 1936 till March 28th 1939, the Loyalist forces of the Republic held the capital despite intense Rebel attempts to take the city.
Initial Uprising
Following the initial uprising by the rebels (self-styled 'Nationalists'), the Republican government in Madrid proved unsure what to do. True, they wanted to shut down the military uprising, the effective coup d'etat; however they couldn't be sure of the loyalty of the army.
Thus, the Republican government sent the Civil Guards in Madrid to Seville to put the rebellion down there on July 18th. However, upon arriving the Civil Guards promptly joined the rebels cause.
Eventually, after the failed attempt at a truce with General Mola (and the resignation of Republican PM Diego Martinez), Jose Giral was made PM. On the 18th, he immediately ordered the arming of the trades unions. This would prove decisive in the battle for Madrid throughout 1936, as the trades unions such as CNT & UGT would bleed successfully to defend the capital for loyalist forces.
In a radio broadcast on the 18th, the communist leader Dolores Ibarruri coined the famous slogan ¡No pasarán! ("They shall not pass"), urging resistance against the coup. The slogan was to become synonymous with the defence of Madrid and the Republican cause in general.
At the same time, General Joaquín Fanjul, commander of the military garrison based in Montaña barracks in Madrid, was preparing to launch the military rebellion in the city. However, when he tried to march out of the barracks, his 2,500 troops were forced back inside the compound by hostile crowds and armed trade unionists. On the 20th, the barracks was stormed by a mixture of workers and asaltos ("assault guards", an urban police force) loyal to the government (perhaps 10,000 fighters in total). The fighting was chaotic, and on several occasions some soldiers within the barracks indicated their willingness to surrender, only for other troops to keep firing at the attackers, killing those who had broken cover to take them prisoner.
Eventually the barracks fell when the asaltos brought up a 75 mm field gun to bombard the complex and its gate was opened by a sapper sergeant sympathetic to the Republican side. The sergeant was killed by one of his officers, but his action allowed the Republicans to breach the walls.[1]
Rebel 'Drive on Madrid' August-October '36
--Bunkers in Parque del Oeste, Madrid
The initial strategy of the military plot had been to assume power all over the country in the manner of a Pronunciamiento (military coup) of the 19th century. However, the resistance to the coup by Republicans meant that instead of this, Franco and his allies would have to conquer the country by military force if they wanted to seize power. Franco himself had landed in Algeciras in southern Spain with Moroccan troops from the Spanish Army of Africa. Mola, who was in command of the colonial troops as well as the Spanish Foreign Legion and Carlist and Falangist militia, raised troops in the north. Together, they planned a "Drive on Madrid" to take the Spanish capital, Franco advancing from Badajoz, which he took in August and Mola from Burgos. Franco's veteran colonial troops, or regulares, under General Yague, along with air cover supplied by Nazi Germany, routed the Republican militias in their path. Yague argued for a rapid advance on Madrid, but Franco overruled him in favour of relieving the Nationalist troops besieged in Toledo. This diversion held up their attack on Madrid by up to a month — giving the Republicans time to prepare its defence.
Meanwhile, in the city, the Republican government had reformed under the leadership of socialist leader Francisco Largo Caballero. Caballero's government included six Socialist party ministers, two Communists, two from the Republican Left party, one from the Catalan Left party, one Basque Nationalist Party and one Republican Union minister. Although the communists were a minority in the government, they gained in influence through their access to arms from the USSR and foreign volunteers in the International Brigades.
The Republican military commander in Madrid was nominally a Spanish general, Jose Miaja, but Soviet military personnel were perhaps more important. General Goriev was their overall commander. General Smushkevic controlled the air forces sent from Russia and General Dmitry Pavlov commanded their armoured forces. Most of the Republican defenders of Madrid (c.90%) were militias, raised by left-wing political parties or trade unions, who elected their own leaders. The Republican command had relatively little control over these units in the early phase of the Civil War.
On the other side, both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supplied Franco with air cover and armoured units for his assault on Madrid, while the German Air Force units in Spain, the Condor Legion were commanded independently of Franco's officers. The Nationalists reached Madrid in early November 1936, approaching it from the north (along the Corunna Road and west Estremadura road. On 29 October, a Republican counter attack by the 5th (communist) regiment under Enrique Líster was beaten off at Parla. On 2 November, Brunete fell to the nationalists, leaving their troops at the western suburb of Madrid. Mola famously remarked to an English journalist that he would take Madrid with his four columns, of regular and Moroccan troops from southwest in Spain, outside the city and his "Fifth column" - composed of right wing sympathisers within it. The term "fifth column" became a synonym for spies or traitors on the Republican side and paranoia regarding them led to massacre of nationalist prisoners in Madrid during the ensuing battle.
The government including Caballero expected Madrid to fall and so made a pre-planned move from Madrid on 6 November to Valencia. General Miaja and the political leaders who remained formed the Junta de Defensa de Madrid (Committee for the Defence of Madrid) to organise the republican defenders.
However, the Nationalists' attempt to capture Madrid had some serious tactical drawbacks. For one thing, their troops were outnumbered over two to one by the defenders (although the Nationalists were far better trained and equipped). Another disadvantage was their inability to surround Madrid and to cut if off from outside help. Nevertheless, the holding of the capital under such circumstances by poorly trained (if trained at all) troops proves the heroism of the loyalists fighting for the Republic.
Terror bombing by the Rebels
--Nationalist aircraft bomb Madrid in late November 1936. Fiat CR 32's - flown by Italian pilots - provide fighter cover.
Having failed to take Madrid by assault, Franco ordered the aerial bombardment of the city's residential areas, with the exception of the upper class Salamanca district (which was assumed to contain many Nationalist supporters) with the intention of terrifying the civilian population into surrender. Franco is quoted as saying, "I will destroy Madrid rather than leave it to the Marxists". German bombers pounded the rest of the city from the 19th to 23 November.
Arguably, this tactic of Franco's was counter-productive, as the Republican population in Madrid were not cowed into surrender and the aerial bombardment of civilians (one of the first in the history of warfare) was heavily criticised by foreign journalists, among them Ernest Hemingway. The casualties from the aerial bombardment seem to have been relatively low however. There is no definitive figure for the civilian casualties it caused, however according to Hugh Thomas, the death toll was about 200. From early 1937 on, fighter resistance and Republican pilot experience had also grown too strong for further bombardments to occur during daylight hours, further limiting their effectiveness[2].
Nevertheless, such callousness on the part of the so-called 'Nationalist' Spanish rebels does indicate their view of the rights of the lay citizenry. Again, heroic loyalist forces, this time pilots, succeeded in turning back a superior armed and trained rebel force motivated and driven simply by their passion and valour.
Battles surrounding Madrid: 1937
After the Battle of Madrid, the Republican government tried to re-organise its armed forces from a collection of militias into a regular army, the "Ejército Popular" ('Popular Army'). This was achieved by integrating the militias into the structures of the elements of the pre-war army which had sided with the Republic. While in theory this reduced the power of political parties relative to the government, in practice it increased the influence of the Communist Party, who were the source of Soviet arms and foreign volunteers and advisors (both groups providing much of the practical military experience on the Republican side). The party, therefore, had a disproportionate influence in the appointment of military commanders and the setting of military policy.
The year 1937 saw two major battles in the immediate area around Madrid, the Battle of Jarama (January to February) and the Battle of Brunete in July. In addition, two other battles were fought further afield as part of the Nationalist's campaign to take the capital. In March, at Guadalajara and at the end of December at Teruel, both north east of Madrid.
In the first of these battles, in early 1937 Franco tried to cross the river Jarama to cut off the road between Madrid and Valencia, where the Republicans had moved their government. The battle's results were inconclusive. Franco's troops managed to get onto the east bank of the Jarama but failed to sever communications between Madrid and Valencia. Casualties on both sides were heavy, estimates of their losses ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 on each side.
In March, the Battle of Guadalajara was fought about 60 km to the north east of Madrid, when Republican troops routed an attempt by Italian troops to cross the Jarama, encircle Madrid's defences and launch an assault on the city. With around a third of the city of Madrid heavily damaged by that time, morale was still holding up strongly amongst the populace, and Madrilenes prided themselves of doing "business as usual" under fire.[3]
In May, Republican forces under Polish communist officer Karol Świerczewski tried to break out of Madrid in an armoured assault, but were beaten back. A far more ambitious northern offensive was launched by the Republicans in July, with the intention of encircling the Nationalists.
However, the ensuing Battle of Brunete again developed into a bloody stalemate. The initial Republican attack took Brunete and pushed back the Nationalist front some 12 kilometres, but determined Nationalist counter attacks re-took this territory by the end of the battle. In this case, Republican losses were significantly higher than those of the Nationalists.
In late 1937, the Nationalists took much of northern Spain -the country's industrial heartland - and with it many arms factories that had sustained the Republican war effort up to that point. At the very end of the year, the Republican commander of the IV Corps, Cipriano Mera intercepted Nationalist plans for a fresh assault on Madrid from the direction of Zaragoza. General Vicente Rojo launched a pre-emptive offensive of his own, with over 100,000 men on 15 December and took the town of Teruel. Rojo's offensive put paid to Franco's proposed assault on Madrid, but led to one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with over 100,000 casualties on both sides.
The Fall of Madrid: 'Resistance till the end'
n 1938, the siege of Madrid tightened and its population suffered increasingly from a lack of food, warm clothes and arms and ammunition. However Franco by this point had given up on the idea of another frontal assault on the city and instead was happy to gradually constrict the siege, while keeping up a bombardment of the city. Apparently the 'Caudillo' (later to portray himself as a caring paternalist father-figure for Spain) was content to let the people starve, and die as he fought to remove their democratic right of self determination.
By the spring of 1939, after the collapse of the Republican forces on other fronts, it was clear that the Republican cause in Madrid was doomed. This created a bitter division within Republican ranks. On one side was the prime minister Juan Negrín, some other government ministers and the Communist Party, who wanted to fight to the end. They were opposed by the Republican general Segismundo Casado and others, who wanted to negotiate the surrender of Madrid to spare Republican supporters the worst of the Nationalist retribution. On 5 March, Casado's men arrested communist officers in Madrid and stripped them of their powers. On the 7th, the Communist leaders, Russian advisers and the socialist Prime Minister Negrin flew out of Madrid. The following day saw fighting in the streets between communist and non-communist troops, ending with the defeat of the communists and the execution of their leader Luis Barcelo (He died a hero)
This left Casado free to try to negotiate surrender terms with Franco. However, the Nationalist leader insisted that unconditional surrender was all that he would accept. On 26 March, Franco ordered a general advance into Madrid and on the 27th, the Republican front collapsed - many of their troops surrendered or simply threw away their weapons and started for home. On 28 March 1939, Madrid finally fell to Franco's forces. In spite of Casado's efforts at negotiation, many of the Republican defenders of Madrid were among the 20,000 or so people executed by Franco's regime between 1939 and 1943. There would be no shelter under the Caudillo for democrats, socialists or liberals. Heroes of the loyalist defence of the capital would not secure peace, and recognition, until the restoration of democracy.
-----
Bibliography:
[1] The Spanish Civil War By Hugh Thomas, (esp pg 404)
[2] "Chewed Up" - Time, Monday, 05 April 1937 (Link: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757549,00.html)
[3]Business & Blood - Time, Monday, 19 April 1937 (Link: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757619-1,00.html)
[4] The International Bridgades - Colodny, Robert G. (Link: web.usal.es/~iea/Texts/WebQuests_Americans/Unit_6/Bessie_Text_4_6.PDF)
The siege of Madrid was one of the most intense and longest running siege of the entire civil war. Running from November 1936 till March 28th 1939, the Loyalist forces of the Republic held the capital despite intense Rebel attempts to take the city.
Initial Uprising
Following the initial uprising by the rebels (self-styled 'Nationalists'), the Republican government in Madrid proved unsure what to do. True, they wanted to shut down the military uprising, the effective coup d'etat; however they couldn't be sure of the loyalty of the army.
Thus, the Republican government sent the Civil Guards in Madrid to Seville to put the rebellion down there on July 18th. However, upon arriving the Civil Guards promptly joined the rebels cause.
Eventually, after the failed attempt at a truce with General Mola (and the resignation of Republican PM Diego Martinez), Jose Giral was made PM. On the 18th, he immediately ordered the arming of the trades unions. This would prove decisive in the battle for Madrid throughout 1936, as the trades unions such as CNT & UGT would bleed successfully to defend the capital for loyalist forces.
In a radio broadcast on the 18th, the communist leader Dolores Ibarruri coined the famous slogan ¡No pasarán! ("They shall not pass"), urging resistance against the coup. The slogan was to become synonymous with the defence of Madrid and the Republican cause in general.
At the same time, General Joaquín Fanjul, commander of the military garrison based in Montaña barracks in Madrid, was preparing to launch the military rebellion in the city. However, when he tried to march out of the barracks, his 2,500 troops were forced back inside the compound by hostile crowds and armed trade unionists. On the 20th, the barracks was stormed by a mixture of workers and asaltos ("assault guards", an urban police force) loyal to the government (perhaps 10,000 fighters in total). The fighting was chaotic, and on several occasions some soldiers within the barracks indicated their willingness to surrender, only for other troops to keep firing at the attackers, killing those who had broken cover to take them prisoner.
Eventually the barracks fell when the asaltos brought up a 75 mm field gun to bombard the complex and its gate was opened by a sapper sergeant sympathetic to the Republican side. The sergeant was killed by one of his officers, but his action allowed the Republicans to breach the walls.[1]
Rebel 'Drive on Madrid' August-October '36
--Bunkers in Parque del Oeste, Madrid
The initial strategy of the military plot had been to assume power all over the country in the manner of a Pronunciamiento (military coup) of the 19th century. However, the resistance to the coup by Republicans meant that instead of this, Franco and his allies would have to conquer the country by military force if they wanted to seize power. Franco himself had landed in Algeciras in southern Spain with Moroccan troops from the Spanish Army of Africa. Mola, who was in command of the colonial troops as well as the Spanish Foreign Legion and Carlist and Falangist militia, raised troops in the north. Together, they planned a "Drive on Madrid" to take the Spanish capital, Franco advancing from Badajoz, which he took in August and Mola from Burgos. Franco's veteran colonial troops, or regulares, under General Yague, along with air cover supplied by Nazi Germany, routed the Republican militias in their path. Yague argued for a rapid advance on Madrid, but Franco overruled him in favour of relieving the Nationalist troops besieged in Toledo. This diversion held up their attack on Madrid by up to a month — giving the Republicans time to prepare its defence.
Meanwhile, in the city, the Republican government had reformed under the leadership of socialist leader Francisco Largo Caballero. Caballero's government included six Socialist party ministers, two Communists, two from the Republican Left party, one from the Catalan Left party, one Basque Nationalist Party and one Republican Union minister. Although the communists were a minority in the government, they gained in influence through their access to arms from the USSR and foreign volunteers in the International Brigades.
The Republican military commander in Madrid was nominally a Spanish general, Jose Miaja, but Soviet military personnel were perhaps more important. General Goriev was their overall commander. General Smushkevic controlled the air forces sent from Russia and General Dmitry Pavlov commanded their armoured forces. Most of the Republican defenders of Madrid (c.90%) were militias, raised by left-wing political parties or trade unions, who elected their own leaders. The Republican command had relatively little control over these units in the early phase of the Civil War.
On the other side, both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supplied Franco with air cover and armoured units for his assault on Madrid, while the German Air Force units in Spain, the Condor Legion were commanded independently of Franco's officers. The Nationalists reached Madrid in early November 1936, approaching it from the north (along the Corunna Road and west Estremadura road. On 29 October, a Republican counter attack by the 5th (communist) regiment under Enrique Líster was beaten off at Parla. On 2 November, Brunete fell to the nationalists, leaving their troops at the western suburb of Madrid. Mola famously remarked to an English journalist that he would take Madrid with his four columns, of regular and Moroccan troops from southwest in Spain, outside the city and his "Fifth column" - composed of right wing sympathisers within it. The term "fifth column" became a synonym for spies or traitors on the Republican side and paranoia regarding them led to massacre of nationalist prisoners in Madrid during the ensuing battle.
The government including Caballero expected Madrid to fall and so made a pre-planned move from Madrid on 6 November to Valencia. General Miaja and the political leaders who remained formed the Junta de Defensa de Madrid (Committee for the Defence of Madrid) to organise the republican defenders.
However, the Nationalists' attempt to capture Madrid had some serious tactical drawbacks. For one thing, their troops were outnumbered over two to one by the defenders (although the Nationalists were far better trained and equipped). Another disadvantage was their inability to surround Madrid and to cut if off from outside help. Nevertheless, the holding of the capital under such circumstances by poorly trained (if trained at all) troops proves the heroism of the loyalists fighting for the Republic.
Terror bombing by the Rebels
--Nationalist aircraft bomb Madrid in late November 1936. Fiat CR 32's - flown by Italian pilots - provide fighter cover.
Having failed to take Madrid by assault, Franco ordered the aerial bombardment of the city's residential areas, with the exception of the upper class Salamanca district (which was assumed to contain many Nationalist supporters) with the intention of terrifying the civilian population into surrender. Franco is quoted as saying, "I will destroy Madrid rather than leave it to the Marxists". German bombers pounded the rest of the city from the 19th to 23 November.
Arguably, this tactic of Franco's was counter-productive, as the Republican population in Madrid were not cowed into surrender and the aerial bombardment of civilians (one of the first in the history of warfare) was heavily criticised by foreign journalists, among them Ernest Hemingway. The casualties from the aerial bombardment seem to have been relatively low however. There is no definitive figure for the civilian casualties it caused, however according to Hugh Thomas, the death toll was about 200. From early 1937 on, fighter resistance and Republican pilot experience had also grown too strong for further bombardments to occur during daylight hours, further limiting their effectiveness[2].
Nevertheless, such callousness on the part of the so-called 'Nationalist' Spanish rebels does indicate their view of the rights of the lay citizenry. Again, heroic loyalist forces, this time pilots, succeeded in turning back a superior armed and trained rebel force motivated and driven simply by their passion and valour.
Battles surrounding Madrid: 1937
After the Battle of Madrid, the Republican government tried to re-organise its armed forces from a collection of militias into a regular army, the "Ejército Popular" ('Popular Army'). This was achieved by integrating the militias into the structures of the elements of the pre-war army which had sided with the Republic. While in theory this reduced the power of political parties relative to the government, in practice it increased the influence of the Communist Party, who were the source of Soviet arms and foreign volunteers and advisors (both groups providing much of the practical military experience on the Republican side). The party, therefore, had a disproportionate influence in the appointment of military commanders and the setting of military policy.
The year 1937 saw two major battles in the immediate area around Madrid, the Battle of Jarama (January to February) and the Battle of Brunete in July. In addition, two other battles were fought further afield as part of the Nationalist's campaign to take the capital. In March, at Guadalajara and at the end of December at Teruel, both north east of Madrid.
In the first of these battles, in early 1937 Franco tried to cross the river Jarama to cut off the road between Madrid and Valencia, where the Republicans had moved their government. The battle's results were inconclusive. Franco's troops managed to get onto the east bank of the Jarama but failed to sever communications between Madrid and Valencia. Casualties on both sides were heavy, estimates of their losses ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 on each side.
In March, the Battle of Guadalajara was fought about 60 km to the north east of Madrid, when Republican troops routed an attempt by Italian troops to cross the Jarama, encircle Madrid's defences and launch an assault on the city. With around a third of the city of Madrid heavily damaged by that time, morale was still holding up strongly amongst the populace, and Madrilenes prided themselves of doing "business as usual" under fire.[3]
In May, Republican forces under Polish communist officer Karol Świerczewski tried to break out of Madrid in an armoured assault, but were beaten back. A far more ambitious northern offensive was launched by the Republicans in July, with the intention of encircling the Nationalists.
However, the ensuing Battle of Brunete again developed into a bloody stalemate. The initial Republican attack took Brunete and pushed back the Nationalist front some 12 kilometres, but determined Nationalist counter attacks re-took this territory by the end of the battle. In this case, Republican losses were significantly higher than those of the Nationalists.
In late 1937, the Nationalists took much of northern Spain -the country's industrial heartland - and with it many arms factories that had sustained the Republican war effort up to that point. At the very end of the year, the Republican commander of the IV Corps, Cipriano Mera intercepted Nationalist plans for a fresh assault on Madrid from the direction of Zaragoza. General Vicente Rojo launched a pre-emptive offensive of his own, with over 100,000 men on 15 December and took the town of Teruel. Rojo's offensive put paid to Franco's proposed assault on Madrid, but led to one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with over 100,000 casualties on both sides.
The Fall of Madrid: 'Resistance till the end'
n 1938, the siege of Madrid tightened and its population suffered increasingly from a lack of food, warm clothes and arms and ammunition. However Franco by this point had given up on the idea of another frontal assault on the city and instead was happy to gradually constrict the siege, while keeping up a bombardment of the city. Apparently the 'Caudillo' (later to portray himself as a caring paternalist father-figure for Spain) was content to let the people starve, and die as he fought to remove their democratic right of self determination.
By the spring of 1939, after the collapse of the Republican forces on other fronts, it was clear that the Republican cause in Madrid was doomed. This created a bitter division within Republican ranks. On one side was the prime minister Juan Negrín, some other government ministers and the Communist Party, who wanted to fight to the end. They were opposed by the Republican general Segismundo Casado and others, who wanted to negotiate the surrender of Madrid to spare Republican supporters the worst of the Nationalist retribution. On 5 March, Casado's men arrested communist officers in Madrid and stripped them of their powers. On the 7th, the Communist leaders, Russian advisers and the socialist Prime Minister Negrin flew out of Madrid. The following day saw fighting in the streets between communist and non-communist troops, ending with the defeat of the communists and the execution of their leader Luis Barcelo (He died a hero)
This left Casado free to try to negotiate surrender terms with Franco. However, the Nationalist leader insisted that unconditional surrender was all that he would accept. On 26 March, Franco ordered a general advance into Madrid and on the 27th, the Republican front collapsed - many of their troops surrendered or simply threw away their weapons and started for home. On 28 March 1939, Madrid finally fell to Franco's forces. In spite of Casado's efforts at negotiation, many of the Republican defenders of Madrid were among the 20,000 or so people executed by Franco's regime between 1939 and 1943. There would be no shelter under the Caudillo for democrats, socialists or liberals. Heroes of the loyalist defence of the capital would not secure peace, and recognition, until the restoration of democracy.
-----
Bibliography:
[1] The Spanish Civil War By Hugh Thomas, (esp pg 404)
[2] "Chewed Up" - Time, Monday, 05 April 1937 (Link: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757549,00.html)
[3]Business & Blood - Time, Monday, 19 April 1937 (Link: www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757619-1,00.html)
[4] The International Bridgades - Colodny, Robert G. (Link: web.usal.es/~iea/Texts/WebQuests_Americans/Unit_6/Bessie_Text_4_6.PDF)