47: Disaster on the Ebro

Description

After the defeat at the Battle of Teruel, and with Valencia under threat, the Republic launches yet another attack, this time across the River Ebro.

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Sources

The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor
Spain in Arms: A Military History of the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by E.R. Hooton
The Spanish Civil War A Modern Tragedy by George R. Esenwein
Spanish Civil War Tanks: The Proving Ground for Blitzkrieg by Steven J. Zaloga
The Anarchist Collectives: Workers’s Self-management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939 Edited By Sam Dolgoff
Patterns of Development and Nationalism: Basque and Catalan Nationalism before the Spanish Civil War by Juan Diez Medrano
Blackshirts, Blueshirts, and the Spanish Civil War by John Newsinger
Edge of Darkness: British ‘Front-Line’ Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1937 by Tom Buchanan
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Covert Aid to the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 by Dominic Tierney
The Cult of the Spanish Civil War in East Germany by Arnold Krammer
Fascism, Fascitization, and Developmentalism in Franco’s Dictatorship by Ismael Saz Campos
Writing the Female Revolutionary Self: Deoloris Ibarruri and the Spanish Civil War by Kristine Byron
A Spanish Genocide? Reflections on the Francoist Repression after the Spanish Civil War by Julius Ruiz
The Spanish Civil War in the 21st Century: From Guernica to Human Rights by Peter N. Carroll
The Revolutionary Spirit: Hannah Arendt and the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War by Joel Olson
Seventy Years On: Historians and Repression During and After the Spanish Civil War by Julius Ruiz
Fascist Italy’s Military Involvement in the Spanish Civil War by Brian R. Sullivan
The Spanish Civil War: Lessons Learned and Not Learned by the Great Powers by James S. Corum
Truth and Myth in History: An Example from the Spanish Civil War by John Corbin
‘Our Red Soldiers’: The Nationalist Army’s Management of its Left-Wing Conscripts in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 by James Matthews
Multinational Naval Cooperation in the Spanish Civil War, 1936 by Willard C. Frank Jr.
‘Work and Don’t Lose Hope’: Republican Forced Labour Camps During the Spanish Civil War by Julius Ruiz
The Spanish Civil War, 1936-2003: The Return of Republican Memory by Helen Graham
Soviet Armor in Spain: Aid Mission to Republicans Tested Doctrine and Equipment by Colonel Antonia J. Candil, Spanish Army
The Soviet Cinematic Offensive in the Spanish Civil War by Daniel Kowalsky
Soviet Tank Operations in the Spanish Civil War by Steven J. Zaloga
The Spanish Military and the Tank, 1909-1939 by Jose Vicente Herrero Perez
The Theory and Practice of Armored Warfare in Spain October 1936-February 1937 by Dr. John L. S. Daley

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 47 the Spanish Civil War Part 12 - Disaster on the Ebro. This week I would like to remind everybody that coming up on April 24th is the Intelligent Speech conference, where over 40 excellent creators, including myself, will be presenting a whole list of excellent talks on a variety of topics. I will be participating in a panel on the Spanish Civil War and giving a solo talk on the fantastic voyage of the Czech Legion. You can go to intelligentspeechconference.com/shop/ and use the code g-r-e-a-t to get 10% off your registration. I also realized that I have not mentioned them in quite awhile, but if you enjoy the show please consider reviewing the show on iTunes or on your preferred podcast platform of choice if it allows reviews. In the algorithmic world that we live in reviews really help more people find the show. And with that, back to the history. After the disaster that was the Battle of Teruel, the Republican government and military found itself in an impossible position. The military and economic situation was becoming more and more precarious by the day, and so there was once again discussions of doing something to manufacture a shift in the situation that might prompt Franco to be more open to some form of negotiations. To do this they knew that they had to have a military success, and hopefully one that greatly shifted the balance of forces in their favor, which they would attempt to manufacture at the Battle of Ebro, the Ebro being a river in north eastern Spain. This would result in the final major Republican offensive of the war and in terms of the men involved, the length of the fighting, and the resources committed it would be the largest battle of the war. It would run from July 25th 1938 to the middle of November, and it would result in more than 50,000 casualties. In reality, it never had any chance of the kind of success that the Republican leaders were hoping for. Franco was by this point in the conflict simply in too good of a position to be interested in any form of negotiation, and the Nationalist military forces were far too strong to be dealt the kind of decisive blow that would have been necessary to change this mindset. This military strength came primarily from the fact that the Nationalist forces were in a far better position, in terms of manpower, material, morale, and territory to be able to withstand the kind of attrition that had become a feature of the Spanish Civil War battles, they could sacrifice a lot of territory and men if they had to, and still come out the over side in a better position. The Republic would have needed to rattle off a string of military victories in succession, and as would rapidly become apparent, even one victory was beyond their capabilities.

Before the Republic could launch the attack across the Ebro, they once again had to continue to ensure that they maintained political control of the territory that they did still have in their possession. This meant a continued reduction in the power of anarchist groups that had been so essential to the war effort in Catalonia during the earlier years of the war. The National government, still led by Negrin, had moved to Barcelona and with this move the suppression of any movements toward Catalonian autonomy were increased. There were several reasons for this, the influence of the Communist leaders and their ideological contrasts with the anarchists was certainly a part of it, however there were also many political groups within the Republican government that were just as against any kind of regional autonomy for other reasons as well. There were many groups that favored strong central control, and they were assisted by the Servicio de Investigacion Militar, or the SIM, which were the internal security forces used by the government. There is no real number on how many prisoners were taken by the SIM during this period, ostensibly to protect the Republic from agents of the enemy, but their presence was felt by the local population. Speaking of those local populations, while fear of a Nationalist victory was still an important motivating factor, but the Republican forces were often seen as an army of occupation, not liberation. This drop in the trust of the local governments coincided with what was becoming an economic disaster. What was left of the Republican zone of control was soon under the influence of hyperinflation, making life incredibly difficult for those who lived in the Republican zone. At the same time they were being asked, and at times forced, into greater sacrifices for the war effort both in their work and in the form of conscription into the army. All of these problems together created a general atmosphere of distrust between the various remaining political groups, and even among the people towards their government, at a time when the greatest possible asset would have been a strong sense of unity.

This rising distrust did not end on the borders of Republican Spain, it also extended out into all of the nations where Republican officials were trying to purchase additional supplies and weapons to continue the fight. There had always been a markup on goods that were sent to Spain in the two primary areas where they were purchased, France and Russia. It often required bribes and special understandings to get the signatures required on export licenses, especially for anything that could be construed as a weapon. Even with all of this work there were many cases of supplies that were purchased simply not arriving in Spain, either because they were intercepted in route or they were never sent, even though payment was received. There were many areas that this was done, even beyond the two most popular, in fact the Republican would even purchase arms in Germany, a situation that left the Nationalists a bit flabbergasted. They would protest several times to German authorities, but in the mind of the German leaders, particularly Goering who was heavily involved in the rearmament programs, money was money, regardless of its origin. Most, if not all of these purchases were done with goal that had been moved out of Spain before the war began, mostly into banks in Paris and Moscow. However, by the beginning of 1938 the stockpiles of goal were beginning to run low, leaving the Republican without any currency to continue their purchases. As the territory available to the Republic shrank, and particularly after the loss of Aragon to the Nationalists, they also had to purchase large amounts of food to be imported, with Mexico being one lucrative source. These food purchases further strained the funds available, making it even more difficult to buy the items required to continue the war effort. The Nationalists never really had to worry about any of this, they had been able to capture and control some of the best agricultural areas right from the start, and their supplies abroad did not demand immediate payment for purchases, and were instead mollified with promises of future payment in Spanish raw materials. This financial line of credit became more secure as it became more and more clear that the Nationalists were going to win, removing any real possibility of that payment not eventually being received. Not all developments were bad for the Republic though. In March the Socialist Prime Minister Leon Blum would once again come to power in France, which would cause Negrin to fly to Paris on March 12th to try and gain French military support at what had become a critical moment. These meetings occurred in the shadow of the Anschluss, in which Nazi Germany had taken control of Austria, a move that had caused no small amount of concern in Paris. The French were still not willing to commit any actual troops to Spain though, even though Negrin had arrived in Paris hoping to secure 5 French divisions and 150 aircraft. Instead all that could be arranged was that the French border would once again be opened for weapon shipments. These had been held up for months on the border, and 831 trains worth of goods, including over 19,000 tons of weapons and ammunition would make their way into Spain. While these supplies were welcomed, they did not completely tip any balance of power in Spain, at most they simply made the Republican supply shortages less acute.

Turning now to the military situation, in our last episode we ended with the Nationalist attack having reached the Mediterranean coast in the aftermath of the battle of Teruel. There were two paths that Franco and the Nationalists could have taken at this junction, the first was to attack south into the Levante, which was the path that Franco preferred, but which was not the path that most of his staff wanted to take. They would have preferred to instead attack north, but Franco was concerned about attacking north for two reasons. The first was a concern that, with recent shipments of weapons from France, the troops in Catalonia would be a tough nut to crack. The second was that the French might react too negatively and violently if the Nationalist made a successful attack that appeared to be approaching their southern borders. What Franco did not know, or discounted, was that the Republican position in early April was very poor, this being before the bulk of the goods transferred from Spain were able to be used. In hindsight the correct course would have been to continue the attacks north immediately, they probably would have been very successful and would have prevented the Republican forces from recovering from their previous defeats. General Rojo, the Republican commander, was even hoping that Franco might attack south into the Levante, so that his troops in the north could recover and prepare to maybe even launch their own attack south to try and cut off the newly created Nationalist corridor. In the end Franco’s opinion would rule the date, and on April 25th, just over a week after they first reached the sea, Nationalist troops would begin pushing south.

The attacks along the coast would prove to be far more challenging than originally anticipated. This was due to many reasons, the first was that the Republican forces had been able to throw together some pretty strong defenses in many areas, and they were generally helped by the terrain in many areas away from the direct coastline. The Nationalists were also forced to fight on a relatively wide front due to that terrain, which saw large differences in elevation, and this limited the ability of the Nationalists to properly concentrate their greater amounts of equipment, especially artillery. Finally, the weather did not help at all, and after the initial attacks in April rain would force a halt for several days. When the attack was able to then restart the advances were slow, but were at least still consistent. It would not be until June that Catellon and Villareal were captured, which put Valencia squarely in the sights of the Nationalist advance. The hope was that they city could be captured by July 25th, the day of the Feast of Saint James the Apostle. The defenders were resilient though, and instead of falling apart like so many previous Republican defensive positions those guarding the approaches to Valencia continued to hold out. The weather was again becoming a problem, although this time it was due to the incredibly heat of the late summer months. The attacks would continue on for another 10 days, but on July 23rd they were finally halted. Over the previous months the Nationalists had advanced another 100 kilometers along the coast, but they would go no further. They had suffered around 20,000 casualties, which far outnumbered those of the defenders, and most importantly Valencia was still in Republican hands, and would not fall until March of the previous year at the very end of Republican resistance.

While the Nationalists were attacking along the coast, the next Republican attack, which would eventually become known as the Battle of the Ebro and which would be the last major Republican offensive of the war, was in the planning stages. The basic idea for this offensive was first laid out in early June, with the idea that a huge Republican offensive from both the north and the south would cut the new Nationalist corridor that had been created in the aftermath of the attack on Teruel. In its initial form this offensive was much larger than what it would eventually become, involving forces in both of the Republican controlled areas along the entire length of the corridor. It was also seen as a political offensive as much as one necessitated by the military situation, with Negrin and the other leaders hoping that a large republican success would result in a reignition of international support. While this had been one of the driving forces behind earlier offensives as well, outside of the Spain political events in Europe had continued to deteriorate and a growing number of European leaders believed that the continent was clearly on the path to war. Earlier I mentioned the Anschluss which had occurred in March 1938, and then a few months later the Munich Crisis would again greatly amplify tensions between the major European powers. Because of these increased tensions, especially between France and the Fascist powers that were helping the Nationalists, the hope among the Republican government was that a military success would see the border with France once again fully reopened, and maybe greater assistance from the Western democracies which were both already in the middle of their own large rearmament programs. With this as an impetus for the attack, it also caused the hopes of the Republican leaders to far outstrip the actual capabilities of their forces. This was especially true when the defenses on other parts of the front were also considered. As more realistic planning took over the decision was made to scale down the offensive to just be an attack across the River Ebro, an effort that some Republican generals had been advocating for since late April. Even in this much smaller form the offensive was based on the idea that it would be the only way to save Valencia, which was in serious danger of being captured at the time that the planning was taking place. The primary forces used in the offensive would be General Modesto’s Army of the Ebro, which numbered around 80,000. As planning and preparations continued Modesto himself actually flew to the southern Republican area to consult with the Republican officers in charge of the forces in the region, with the hope that they could at least provide some diversionary efforts when the main battle got underway. The main effort would be made at an area where the Ebro pushed out into a salient into Republican lines, allowing one Corps to attack from the north while another attacked from the south with the goal of the two attacking meeting behind the Nationalist lines. Once they occurred they would continue to push west, with the hope that this would rupture the Nationalist lines and provide a long period that would allow for a proper exploitation, with motorized units prepared and ready for such an action. While such lofty goals were in retrospect clearly unattainable, there were serious attempts to make the attack as successful as possible. The importance of the crossing of the river was fully understood, and as many boats as possible were assembled so that men could be moved as quickly as possible. Behind the front there were training exercises on other rivers and on the coast to provide the forces practice when it came to getting into and out of the boats as quickly as possible to minimize their time under fire and the cycle time for each trip. Everything was ready and put in place by July 21st, with the goal of making the crossing on the 23rd. Orders for that date were sent out, and the troop moved near their crossing points to prepare. It was only after all of these preparations were complete that a 24 hour postponement was called, due mainly to the fact that some of the artillery was not in position and prepared to play its part in the attack. Remarkably, even with all of the preparations and then the delay, on the Nationalist side there was little full understanding of what was about to happen. There had been Nationalist reports as early as June about increased Republican activity in the sector, including troop movements and the possible assembly of boats during July. Reconnaissance flights had also noted signs of some kind of build up being done behind Republican lines. Even with all of these warnings there was not a full alert provided to the units near the river. It was only in the second week of July that the Nationalist officers began to take things seriously and began to enhance their defensive preparations with concrete defenses capable of standing up to Republican artillery.

With the 24 hour delay the attack would not get going until the early hours of July 25th. During the early moments of the attack the key was in stealth and surprise, both were essential if the first waves wanted to make the crossing successfully, and to accomplish this small groups of Republican soldiers moved across the river and began to take out any sentries as quietly as possible. These first groups would also bring along ropes that would be used by the assault boats for the first waves. Shortly thereafter 6 Republican divisions were in the process of crossing the river while artillery fire opened up on identified Nationalist positions. The early defense was a complete lost cause, with the Republican attack catching them almost entirely off guard and heavily outnumbered. By mid morning the first echelon of troops had fully crossed and were advancing while behind them more and more troops were crossing the river as quickly as possible. Behind them work began on pontoon bridges which would allow vehicles, tanks, and a much larger flow of equipment to begin crossing the river. These pontoon bridges were joined by 2 ferries, which were slow, but until the pontoon bridges were fully operational they were the only way to get vehicles across the river. The hope was that all of these methods of crossing would soon be replaced by wooden and iron bridges that were already under construction hours after the attack began, and by the end of the first day 2 of them would be completed. In around 24 hours the amount of territory seized was around 800 square kilometers, which was nothing to scoff at, and along with this territory they had captured thousands of nationalist prisoners. The early hours of the attack were the moment when the Republican units were most vulnerable, but the Nationalist defense was in complete chaos. News of the attack quickly filtered back through the chain of command, Franco himself would learn of it within just hours, but there was little firm information and even less that could be done about it immediately. The Nationalist reaction was the same as it had been for every Republican attack, an instant concentration of resources to first contain it and then to drive it back. Franco rejected out of hand any suggestion of allowing the Republicans to keep the territory that they gained. This meant that very quickly air attacks began to hit the crossing points over the river, which did cause some damage to the bridges, it also caused havoc among the massive traffic jams that had developed on the eastern side of the river as vehicles waited to cross. This was all made much worse when the Nationalists, after being reassured that no permanent damage would be caused, opened up the locks up river which caused the river to rise by 2 meters. This destroyed many of the pontoon bridges which were so essential to the crossing efforts. Even with these efforts to stem the tide at the crossings, little could be done about the men and vehicles that had already made the crossing, and it would take far more time to arrange for ground forces to move into the area.

The Republican attacks would continue, but throughout July 26th and into the 27th there was a growing problem. The Republicans had achieved a solid tactical victory, they had pushed across the river and their territory there was relatively secure, but they had yet to captured anything of real value or positions that would help them to hold onto their new territory. The first of these objectives was the city of Gandesa. At dawn on the 27th the attack on the city would begin with artillery and tanks to join the infantry. The defenders were ready for them though, and they had been recently bolstered by reinforced that had arrived from behind the front which allowed them to stop the Republican attack on the outskirts of the city. At the same time on other areas of the front similar scenarios were taking place where the Nationalist reinforcements were beginning to arrive, not in numbers large enough to launch counterattacks, but enough to begin to slow the Republican advance, generally at areas like cities and villages that were important defensive positions that the Republicans had to capture if they wanted the offensive to continue. This stalemate would continue to solidify as the end of July approached, while in the skies some of the largest aerial combat of the war was taking place, with the Republican air forces throwing everything they had into supporting the attack while the Nationalists tried to keep them away. On August 1st the Army of the Ebro officially shifted to the defensive, having lost about 12,000 men. What they had captured was an area of little strategic value, which had been largely destroyed by their own attacking efforts. The real weakness of the Republican army was very shortly on full display, while they had the resources and the men to launch the attack, and to do it quite well, obviously, they had a serious lack of operational and strategic level reserves. The men and equipment simply did not exist to be injected into the attack to keep it going after the first units across the river had exhausted themselves in combat. They had attacked into an area that demanded large advances if there was any hope of achieving a greater and more permanent victory, and they had not met those goals. Now they found themselves in a very bad position, with a whole bunch of men with a river at their back, on the defensive, dependent on a very flimsy supply line, with a Nationalist counterattack on its way. At this point it would have been prudent to start pulling troops back across the river, there was simply nothing more to be gained in the attack. But to do so would have meant admitting that the attack was a failure, which was not something that they wanted to consider, and so instead more men, more equipment, and more supplies came across the river, trapping themselves for what was about to come.

Before that counterattack came though, the Nationalists reinforced the fact that moving back across the river was going to be a challenge, because they once again opened up the locks upstream, and this time they kept them open long enough for the river to rise 3.5 meters, which destroyed several more bridges. Then the first of the counter attacks would begin the next day on August 19th. During these attacks the initial results would be less than spectacular, they were attacking positions that had been under construction for several weeks, and against defenders that knew that a counterattack was coming. The Nationalists understood that these preparations had been made and tried to use their advantage in artillery to offset some of these issues, with up to five hours of artillery bombardment before attacks, but the results of were still heavy losses, and only very slow advances which would continue for almost two months. By that point both sides had suffered heavily casualties, and more importantly the troops involved were exhausted, but the Nationalists had been able to push forward between the two largest areas of Republican control. The weather was also becoming a problem was September turned to October, with rain and even some light snow beginning to be a more common occurrence. This weather was by this stage in the offensive the only hindrance that was experienced by Nationalist air units, who had long before swept the Republican air forces from the skies. On October 23rd at a meeting of Nationalist commanders the next stage of the attack was planned, with the goal being to capture the Sierra de Caballs. If they could capture this area it would compromise the entire Republican defensive effort on the west side of the Ebro. As always the attack began with artillery at 8:30 on October 30th, while in the sky 200 bombers and 150 fighters joined in the bombardment. The Nationalists units were able, in small groups, to infiltrate into the defenses as the artillery lifted, and the small teams of attackers found the defenders still in their dugouts sheltering from the artillery. The attack was a complete success, and very quickly the entire defense began to unravel. The Republican defenders simply did not have the ability, or the desire, to continue the fight. On November 4th a withdrawal was ordered as brigades in the southern defenses were pulled back. The retreat would continue until November 16th when the last Republican units would re-cross the river, with the last vehicles crossing over the iron bridge at Flex before it was blown up a few hours later, while the last infantry would cross the last foot bridges under a heavy mist which shielded them from attacks from the air. With the attack, and then the counter attack over, the result was no real change in territorial control. But, Modesto’s Army of the Ebro essentially ceased to exist as a combat effective unit. The Republican army had lost between 70,000 and 75,000 men, along with vast amounts of equipment and supplies, the Nationalists had lost around 60,000 but they were in a much better position to replace them. The Ebro offensive had always been a desperate attack in the hoes that it could help shift the balance of the war not by its own achievements but by how the action would be viewed by others, but with it results in no real change, all hopes for such an alteration of circumstances were dashed. The last Republican offensive had failed, and soon the entire Republic would follow with it.