The battle for Spain: the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (42 page)

The republicans had no idea where the next attack was going to take place, so they decided to reinforce the Madrid road and right bank of the Manzanares. The nationalist offensive was held up for the next two days because heavy rain had made the Jarama unfordable. On 11 February at first light, Moroccan troops from Barrón’s brigade, using their large triangular knives, killed the French sentries of the André Marty Battalion (XIV International Brigade) who were guarding the Pindoque railway bridge between Vaciamadrid and San Martín de la Vega.
²
The bridge had been prepared for demolition and the charges were detonated just after its capture, but the metal construction, which was similar to a Bailey bridge, went up in the air a few feet and came down to rest again.

Barrón’s brigade, followed by Sáenz de Buruaga’s troops, crossed rapidly, but they were then held up for some time by heavy fire from the Garibaldi Battalion from XII International Brigade on higher ground. Later in the day 25 T-26s counter-attacked twice, but each time they were driven back by the nationalist 155mm batteries on La Marañosa. Downstream, Asensio’s
regulares
captured the bridge at San Martínde La Vega in a similar attack at dawn the next morning, despite Varela’s order to wait until the other bridgehead was established. His brigade then swung south-east towards the high ground at Pingarrón, which like other key features in the area had not been prepared for defence.

General Pozas, the republican commander of the Army of the Centre, had immediately hurried to Arganda to organize a counter-attack. Matters were not helped by his squabble with Miaja, whose chief of staff, Colonel Casado, described their differences as ‘fundamentally childish’. Miaja refused to send the five brigades he had available to join the battle unless he was given command of the front. He had his way, but by then the nationalists were across the river in strength, despite air attacks against the two crossing points, in which the Chato fighter squadrons suffered heavy losses from the Condor Legion’s 88mm guns.

During the night of 11 February the newly formed XV International Brigade arrived under the command of General ‘Gal’ (Janos Galicz). His chief of staff was Major George Nathan, widely regarded as one of the most competent officers in the International Brigades. The British battalion was on the left, under the command of Tom Wintringham, the Franco-Belgian ‘6th of February’ Battalion in the centre and the ‘Dimitrov’ on the right. The brigade advanced through the sodden olive groves under heavy enemy fire, which allowed them no respite.
³
Gal’s orders were to attack the troops of Sáenz de Buruaga on the San Martín–Morata road. The American battalion was being hurried through induction at Albacete to be ready to reinforce them.

The next day Asensio’s troops captured the commanding feature of Pingarrón, while to the north XI International Brigade and the 17th Brigade just held on at Pajares. The British battalion bore the brunt of the attack on the south of the road. They lost over half their men in capturing, then defending, ‘Suicide Hill’ with their Maxim machine-guns until they ran out of ammunition.
⁴
The French ‘6th of February’ Battalion on their right was forced back. The British received no warning of what had happened and their machine-gun company was captured by a group of
regulares
from their exposed side. They claim to have been surprised when a group of nationalist troops came up singing the ‘Internationale’.
⁵

‘Suicide Hill’ could be held no longer and the whole brigade had to fall back. But a breakthrough in the centre had been prevented, because the nationalists believed republican forces to be much stronger. They also failed to discover the weakness on XV International Brigade’s southern flank.

The British battalion had lost 225 men out of 600. Wintringham himself fell badly wounded and the communist novelist Christopher Caudwell was among those killed. Meanwhile, on its right flank, the brigade’s Dimitrov Battalion of Balkan exiles and the re-formed Thaelmann Battalion of XI International held off an equally severe attack. Very heavy casualties were inflicted on the
regulares
until the old Colt machine-guns jammed.

In the rolling hills and olive groves to the east of the Jarama between Pajares and Pingarrón, attack followed attack throughout 13 February, as Varela became desperate to achieve his breakthrough. Eventually the Edgar André Battalion of XI International Brigade was forced back as a result of fire from a Condor Legion machine-gun battalion and 155mm bombardment from La Marañosa. The shellfire also destroyed brigade headquarters and cut all field telephone lines to the rear. Barrón’s column took advantage of this gap at Pajares and his attack turned the right flank of XV International Brigade. Since the other nationalist formations had already been fought to a standstill, Barrón’s troops pushed on alone towards Arganda on the Valencia road.

The front was on the point of disintegrating that night as XI International Brigade and its flanking formations fell back trying to reestablish a line. Varela was worried by the fact that Barrón’s brigade was exposed, so he ordered him to halt until the other columns could protect his flanks. It was to be the furthest point of their advance, for the next day 50 of Pavlov’s T-26s counter-attacked in what could best be described as a confused charge of mechanized heavy cavalry. Although not a success in itself, this attack gave the republicans enough time to bring forward reserve units to consolidate the centre of the sector.

Richthofen jotted down what he heard from nationalist officers. ‘Red opponents before Madrid–tough fighting. French, Belgian and English prisoners are taken. All shot except for the English. Tanks well concealed in the olive groves. Many dead are lying around. The Moors did their work with hand grenades.’
⁶
Why British prisoners were spared is not clear. Perhaps Franco, on German advice, had judged it safer not to outrage the organizers of the Non-Intervention Committee.

Mola was by now extremely concerned at the way the offensive had halted. He, too, was obsessed with the idea of Madrid and he had persuaded Franco to let him commit the last six battalions in reserve, but these units could not even replace the losses the columns had suffered. Both sides had fought to a temporary standstill. Front-line troops had sustained fearful casualties in charges of hopeless bravery. Both sides were also weakened by hunger because the intensity of the fighting had often prevented the arrival of rations. The republican general staff had reacted so slowly to the crisis that fresh units were not in position to take advantage of the nationalists’ exhaustion by counter-attacking. The only reinforcement available at this point was XIV International Brigade, which consolidated the centre of the sector between Arganda and Morata.

On 15 February Franco ordered Orgaz to continue the advance, despite nationalist losses. It was an obstinate and unjustifiable decision, since the Italian forces were still regrouping for transfer to the Guadalajara front. Any further push should at least have been co-ordinated with their offensive. The nationalists lost more of their best troops for an insignificant gain in ground.

On the same day, on the other side of the lines, Miaja’s control over the Jarama front came officially into effect. With Colonel Rojo he reorganized the republican formations into four divisions. On 17 February the republican forces went on to the offensive. Líster’s 11th Division moved on Pingarrón in a frontal attack which brought appalling casualties; the 70th Brigade, attached from Mera’s 14th Division, lost 1,100 men, over half its strength. On the same day Modesto’s division crossed the Manzanares from the north to attack La Marañosa, which was defended by Rada’s Carlists. A communist battalion called the ‘Grey Wolves of La Pasionaria’ was shot to pieces in a doomed attack over a long stretch of open ground. Peter Kemp, an English volunteer serving as a Carlist subaltern, records how his aim was not helped by their chaplain screaming in his ear to shoot more of the atheist rabble.
⁷

The only effective part of the republican counter-attack forced Barrón’s brigade back to the Chinchón–Madrid road. The Soviet tank brigade played a key role with its T-26s emerging from their camouflaged positions under the olive trees. Moscow was informed how a junior officer named Bilibin managed to evacuate a damaged tank under heavy machine-gun and shellfire. And on 19 February ‘Junior officer Novikov’s tank received three direct hits. His loader was killed and his mechanic-driver was mortally wounded. Novikov himself was heavily wounded but for more than 24 hours he would not let the enemy approach his burning tank. He was later rescued by his comrades.’ This tale of survival in a burning tank for a day and a night strains one’s credulity, but Soviet battlefield reports of often genuine heroism had to be as preposterously exaggerated as the Stalinist claims of labour achievements.
⁸

Krasilnikov, a tank commander and Communist Party member, also revealed the insane influence of a Stakhanovite mentality on military affairs. ‘During the battles near Jarama, battalion commander Comrade Glaziev considered that the best crews were those that fired off the most shells. Yet they were firing these shells while three kilometres away from the enemy.’
⁹

Little then happened for the next ten days, until General Gal threw his newly formed division into an impossible attack on Pingarrón. His orders stated that it ‘must be taken at any cost’, and he persisted with the attack even though the air and tank support, which had been promised, never arrived. Those behind with binoculars could see bodies strewn around, and watched the wounded struggling to crawl back, away from the killing zone. Once again both Brigaders and Spanish troops were paying for the deficiencies of their commanders and staff.

On the morning of 21 February the Scandinavian company in the Thaelmann Battalion took the opportunity of a lull to deepen their trenches and cut more branches for camouflage. It had finally stopped raining. Conny Andersson, a Swedish survivor of the battle, described the scene: ‘The morning sun caressed our earthen-grey faces and slowly dried the damp blankets.’ Some men crept back to fetch coffee from a huge green container which had been brought up to just behind the front line. Dates and biscuits were handed out. ‘We dozed a little in the sunshine, talking about nothing, rolled up the blankets as they dried, cleaned our rifles and prepared ammunition. A German poncing around with a helmet to tease the snipers was despatched to eternity with a professional crack. Some medical orderlies silently carried him down the road and extended the communal grave.’ The second company of the battalion was reinforced that day by some Austrians, ‘all of whom were bold and hearty and kitted out in short sheepskins. They aroused considerable attention wherever they went–at least the sheepskins did.’ Those who saw them coveted them, thinking of the cold hours of sentry duty in the early hours of the morning.
¹⁰

The tight political control of ambitious commissars made propaganda motives interfere with military sense. There were a few extremely competent officers, like the French Colonel Putz, or the English Major Nathan (who was not promoted because he refused to become a Party member), but most senior officers bluffed their way through, relying on rigid discipline. Often their decisions resulted in massive casualties for little purpose. Their bravely dramatic orders like ‘stand and die’ or ‘not a centimetre’s retreat’, when ammunition was exhausted, sounded well in the propaganda accounts, but it was not the staff who suffered from them.

One of the most tragic episodes involved the men of the Lincoln Battalion, who had arrived in the middle of February fresh in their ‘doughboy’ uniforms. They were put under the command of an English charlatan who pretended to have been an officer in the 11th Hussars. He ordered them into attack after attack, losing 120 men out of 500. The Americans mutinied, nearly lynched the Walter Mitty character who had been imposed on them and refused to go back into the line until they could elect their own commander. Soon after these last attacks at the end of February the front stabilized, because both sides were now completely exhausted. The Valencia road had not been cut and the nationalists had suffered heavy losses among their best troops. (It would seem that casualties were roughly equal on both sides, although estimates varied from 6,000 up to 20,000.)

The Battle of the Jarama saw a closer co-ordination between ground and air forces on the nationalist side, but not on the republican, as a commissar with the Soviet squadrons reported back to Moscow: ‘The air force keeps working all day under a great strain, giving its greatest effort to the fighting. It defeats the enemy in the air [an over-optimistic claim] and on the ground, tank units break the front line. All that the infantry needs to do is to secure the results of the air and armoured operations. But the weak rifle units fail to do this. Our men, when they learn about this, feel that their work is being wasted. For example, the fighter pilots said after the air battles over the Jarama: “We don’t mind making another five or six sorties a day, if only the infantry would advance and secure the results of our work.” After our fighters had had a successful day of fighting over the Jarama sector, the pilots asked what the rifle units had achieved, and when they found out that the infantry had even retreated a little, this caused a lot of unhappiness. Pilot Sokolov became very nervous, he even wept.’
¹¹

The nationalists had used the Condor Legion Junkers 52 to counter the T-26 attack on the Pindoque bridge and Modesto’s advance on La Marañosa. The republican air force had managed to maintain an effective umbrella for most of the early days of the battle, but after 13 February their supremacy was challenged by the Fiat CR 32s of the nationalists, which engaged the Chatos in a large-scale dogfight over Arganda. Five days later the ‘Blue Patrol’ Fiat group, led by the nationalist ace Morato, was transferred to the front. Together with Fiats of the Legionary Air Force they inflicted heavy losses on a republican group comprising a Chato squadron with a flight of American volunteers, a Russian Chato squadron and a Russian Mosca squadron. It would appear that the Soviet pilots were ordered to act with great caution as a result of these disastrous engagements, in which eight Chatos were shot down while the nationalists lost only one Fiat.
¹²