The battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (16 page)

Attacks across open ground surrounding the besieged buildings caused heavy casualties. Then, at about two o’clock, when it was evident that the army would not be able to defeat such determined numbers, Colonel Escobar brought in his civil guards on the side of the workers, with a column of 800 mounting the Vía Layetana to the Commission of Public Order where Companys waited on the balcony. A mounted squadron trotting along the Ramblas gave the clenched fist salute to roars of approval from the crowds. It was the first time that this paramilitary force had been cheered by the workers of Barcelona, though their instinctive suspicion of the Civil Guard did not disappear. With their excellent marksmanship, the civil guards were to prove a great help in the attack on the Hotel Colón and the Ritz, although the anarchists recaptured the telephone building on their own.

The real turning point came in the Avenida Icaria, where barricades were improvised with huge rolls of newsprint to stop cavalry and the 1st Mountain Artillery Regiment on their way to help the besieged rebels in the centre. At one moment during the fighting, a small group of workers and an assault guard rushed across to an insurgent artillery detachment with two 75mm guns. They held their rifles above their heads to show that they were not attacking as they rushed up to the astonished soldiers. Out of breath, they poured forth passionate arguments why the soldiers should not fire on their brothers, telling them that they had been tricked by their officers. The guns were turned round and brought to bear on the rebel forces. From then on more and more soldiers joined the workers and assault guards.

It was a salvo from captured artillery under the command of a docker which brought the surrender of General Goded in the
capitanía
. Many Republicans wanted to shoot this leading conspirator on the spot, but he was saved by a communist, Caridad Mercader, the mother of Trotsky’s assassin. Goded was taken to Companys, who persuaded him to broadcast a statement over the radio to save further bloodshed. ‘This is General Goded,’ he said. ‘I make this declaration to the Spanish people, that fate has been against me and I am a prisoner. I am saying this so that all those who are still fighting need feel no further obligation towards me.’
²⁷
His words were of great help to the left-wing forces in other parts of Spain, especially in Madrid where they were broadcast over loudspeakers to the rebels defending the Montaña barracks. But agreeing to make the statement did not save him. A court martial of republican officers in August condemned him to death for rebellion.

By nightfall only the Atarazanas barracks, near the port, and the Sant Andreu barracks still held out. The machine-gun emplacements round the Columbus monument had been silenced in the early evening. The airport at Prat was commanded by a sympathetic officer, Colonel Díaz Sandino, and his planes had attacked the monument, enabling a wave of workers and assault guards to overrun it. In the castle of Montjuich the garrison had shot the rebel officers and then handed over the weapons in the armoury to the CNT.

The next morning the anarchists, insisting that the capture of the Atarazanas barracks was their prerogative, told the paramilitary forces to stay clear. Buenaventura Durruti gave the order for the mass attack: ‘
Adelante hombres de la CNT!
’ He led the charge with his companion in arms, Francisco Ascaso, who was killed almost immediately. That final action brought total casualty figures to about 600 killed and 4,000 wounded. As in all the fighting, a desperate, selfless bravery was shown by the attackers. Many of the casualties were unnecessary, especially those suffered in the final assault when the anarchists had artillery and air support available. Nevertheless, the courage of that attack passed into anarchist folklore, obscuring the fact that dash and bravery are dangerous substitutes for military science.

The Struggle for Control

T
he plan for the military rising had given the navy a key role. Their ships were needed to bring the Army of Africa to the mainland. This had been worked out in advance between General Franco and senior naval officers, on fleet exercises near the Canaries. Warships were to make all speed for Spanish Morocco on the outbreak of the rising.

On 18 July General Queipo de Llano demonstrated his confidence in this strategy during the first of his garrulous broadcasts over Radio Sevilla, totally unconcerned that he might be revealing their plans in the process: ‘The navy, always faithful to the heartbeat of the nation, has joined us en masse. Thanks to its help, the transport of troops from Morocco to the Peninsula has to be carried out very quickly and soon we will see arriving in Cádiz, Málaga and Algeciras the glorious columns of our Army of Africa, which will advance without rest on Granada, Córdoba, Jaén, Extremadura, Toledo and Madrid.’
¹

Such sweeping assumptions, however, proved premature. The overwhelming majority of officers in the navy certainly supported the rising. In common with the naval officers of most Latin countries, those in Spain were more aristocratic than their counterparts in the army. The Spanish army had acquired liberal pockets, having become a ladder for the social climbing middle class in the nineteenth century. Spanish naval wardrooms, on the other hand, tended to be strongly monarchist and the average officer’s attitude towards the lower deck at that time was scarcely enlightened.

On the morning of 18 July the ministry of marine in Madrid instructed three destroyers to sail for Melilla from Cartagena. They received orders by radio to bombard the insurgent town. The officers on board thus knew that the rising had begun. In two of the destroyers all hands were called on deck, where their captains explained the objectives of the rebellion. But if the officers had been expecting shouts of enthusiasm, they were to be disappointed.

The junior ranks in the navy were far better organized than their counterparts in the army. They had held a secret conference in El Ferrol on 13 July to discuss what they should do if the officers rebelled against the government. In Madrid a telegraphist, Benjamín Balboa, intercepted the message dictated by General Franco in Tenerife. He passed it at once to the ministry of marine and arrested the officer in charge of the radio section, Lieutenant-Commander Castor Ibáñez, who was part of the conspiracy. Balboa, on orders from the ministry, immediately contacted all signals operators with the fleet to warn them of what was going on and asking them ‘to watch their officers, a gang of fascists’. As a result of his actions, the majority of ships’ crews were informed of events and could not be tricked by false stories. Following this up, Giral, still at this point minister of marine, sent a signal dismissing all officers who refused government orders.

Of the three destroyers off Melilla only the officers on the
Churruca
stayed in command. This was because the radio was out of order. On the
Almirante Valdés
and
Sánchez Barcaíztegui
(the ship on which Azaña had been imprisoned) the crews, forewarned by radio operators, rushed their officers and overpowered them. They then elected a ship’s committee, bombarded Melilla and Ceuta, and returned to the loyal naval base of Cartagena. The rebels thus had only one destroyer and one gunboat, the
Dato
, to start ferrying the badly needed reinforcements from the Army of Africa across to Spain.

By the morning of 19 July the government had ordered all available warships to steam to the Straits of Gibraltar to prevent the Army of Africa from crossing. The officers who wished to join the rising could not prevent the news from reaching the lower deck. On the cruiser
Miguel de Cervantes
the officers resisted to the end, but on most ships they surrendered once ratings had seized the ship’s armoury. The only seaworthy battleship, the
Jaime I
, was won back by the sailors, as were the cruiser
Libertad
and even the destroyer
Churruca
, after it had landed half a
tabor
of
regulares
at Cádiz. The nationalists later claimed that ‘mutinous’ sailors had assassinated their officers and accused Giral of being responsible.

After the ministry of marine had sent instructions relieving rebel officers of their command, the following famous exchange of signals occurred: ‘Crew of
Jaime I
to ministry of marine. We have had serious resistance from the commanders and officers on board and have subdued them by force…Urgently request instructions as to bodies.’ ‘Ministry of marine to crew
Jaime I
. Lower bodies overboard with respectful solemnity. What is your present position?’
²

The officers of the Royal Navy at Gibraltar were watching events carefully. The very idea of such action by the lower deck sent shudders down their spines. The Invergordon mutiny of 1931, even though it had been little more than a strike, was fresh in their memories, and only seventeen years had passed since the much more serious revolt of the French fleet in the Black Sea.
³
There was no doubt as to where their sympathies lay, and this was to have an appreciable influence in several areas. Voelckers, the German chargé d’affaires in Spain, informed the Wilhelmstrasse in October: ‘As for England, we have made the interesting observation that she is supplying the whites with ammunition via Gibraltar and that the British cruiser commander here has recently been supplying us with information on Russian arms deliveries to the red government, which he certainly would not do without instructions.’
⁴

With the rising crushed on most ships, many of the rebels were sure that they were doomed, since it seemed the Army of Africa could not cross to the mainland. Mola, convinced that their project had failed, continued only because there was no choice. The German chargé d’affaires reported to the Wilhelmstrasse that the defection of the fleet might frustrate Franco’s plans. It could mean the sacrifice of garrisons in the major cities.

This setback did not turn out to be a disaster for the nationalists because they managed to start the first major airlift of troops in history.
⁵
Although the airlift began almost immediately with a few Spanish air force Breguets, Nieuports and Italian Savoias, it was chiefly effected by Junkers 52s sent by Hitler, who remarked later that Franco should erect a monument to the plane because it was so vital to his victory.
⁶
But the nationalists also benefited from the fact that the new ships’ committees were badly co-ordinated, thus severely reducing the effectiveness of the republican navy. The republican navy was also deterred from attacking ships transporting units of the Army of Africa because they were screened by the German pocket battleships
Deutschland
and
Admiral Scheer
. In this way the rebels managed to bring across the so-called ‘convoy of victory’ with 2,500 troops and much equipment, including heavy weapons which could not be flown over.

The most furious fighting within the navy did not take place at sea, but in the port of El Ferrol at the north-west tip of Spain. On 19 July the CNT and UGT demanded that the civil governor comply with the order to issue arms, but the head of the naval arsenal refused to hand any over and a state of war was declared by the conspirators. The 29th Marine Infantry and detachments from the 3rd Regiment of Coastal Artillery managed to clear the town for the rebels, but many workers joined with sailors to seize the arsenal.

Loyalist sailors also manned the cruiser
Almirante Cervera
, which was in dry dock, as well as the immobilized battleship
España
. These two ships managed to knock out the destroyer
Velasco
, which had been secured by its officers for the rising, but they could not traverse their heavy guns landwards at the coastal batteries because of installations alongside the dock. The destruction caused by a major naval battle in such a restricted area was enormous. Eventually, on 21 July nationalist officers faked a signal from the ministry of marine ordering the ships to give in and avoid useless bloodshed. The loyalist commander of the
Almirante Cervera
, Captain Sánchez Ferragut, and Rear-Admiral Azarola accordingly offered to surrender on the condition that there were no executions. This was promised, but later ignored.

The military rising elsewhere in Galicia had begun, after a delay, early on 20 July. In Corunna the civil governor, Francisco Pérez Carballo, a personal friend of Casares Quiroga, refused arms to the UGT and CNT. He assured them that the military governor had received a solemn promise from his officers that they would not rebel. But General Pita Romero was then arrested and shot. The divisional commander, General Enrique Salcedo, was shot later, as was Pérez Carballo. The fate of his pregnant wife, Juana Capdevielle, was terrible. She was imprisoned, then miscarried when she heard that her husband had been murdered. She was let out of prison, but in August some Falangists raped and killed her.
⁷

Groups of workers with very few weapons held out against the troops and a large detachment of the Falange under Manuel Hedilla. They were finally crushed in a last stand near Sir John Moore’s grave, just as reinforcements were arriving in the form of
dinamiteros
and miners from Noya armed with rifles. Finding they were too late and coming up against strong counterattacks, the relief column fell back into the hills. Some broke up into guerrilla forces, others made their way eastwards towards Bilbao.

In Vigo, which also fell to the nationalists, the soldiers of the Mérida Regiment were given a great deal of alcohol, so the column marched to the centre of the town half-drunk. In the Puerta del Sol the officer in command proclaimed a state of war and, when unarmed civilians shouted protests, gave the order to fire. The soldiers started shooting in every direction.