Battle of Malaga

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The Battle of Malaga took place in early February 1937 during the Spanish Civil War and was the culmination of a combined offensive by national and Italian forces on Franco's side to bring the Republican- controlled province of Malaga under their control. The Moroccan colonial troops and the tanks of the recently arrived Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie forced the surrender of the republican troops in Malaga after just a week .

prehistory

After the failed attempt to take Madrid and the republicans' counterattack in the battle for the Coruña road at the turn of the year 1936/37, the nationalists were forced to take the initiative again. In the south of the country there seemed to be an opportunity. In Andalusia , the Republicans held a 40 km wide area on the Mediterranean Sea with Málaga as its center.

The nationalist armed forces under Gonzalo Queipo de Llano consisted of about 15,000 men made up of Moroccan colonial troops, militias and Italian volunteers. The Duke of Seville, Francisco de Borbón y de la Torre , acted as commandant of the front . The Italian black shirts were under the command of Mario Roatta . The Italian troops, which had their first combat mission here, consisted of nine mechanized infantry battalions with about 5,000 men, equipped with tanks and armored vehicles. The nationalist warships Canarias , Baleares and Velasco were in position off the coast . These had the task of controlling the coast and shooting at Malaga.

The republican armed forces consisted of about 40,000 Andalusian militiamen and members of the CNT . Although the sheer number of Republicans was high, the troops were not prepared for the coming conflict. In addition, there was a lack of weapons and ammunition to be able to withstand the modern equipped Italians. The central government, which fled to Valencia , refused to supply the defenders of Malaga for political reasons.

attack

Blue: advancing nationalist troops, green: Italian troops, red: Republican counterattacks.

The Italians landed in Cádiz, already held by the nationalists, at the end of December . On January 17th, the newly formed army of the south, under the command of Queipo de Llano , started moving from the west. Another nationalist army, under the command of Colonel Antonio Muñoz Jiménez , was advancing from the northeast . Both troops met little resistance and could therefore cover up to 22 km per day. The Republicans did not realize that the attack on Malaga was aimed itself and were therefore completely unprepared for the main attack on February 3rd.

On February 3rd, the Army of the South began its attack near Ronda . On the night of February 4, the Italian black shirts made a major breakthrough when the Republicans were completely unprepared to use tanks. The nationalists advanced steadily and reached Ventas de Zafarraya and the heights around Malaga on February 6th . The Republican commander, Colonel Villalba, feared that his troops would be encircled and therefore ordered the city to be evacuated on February 8th. However, the nationalists did not cut off the route of retreat. They believed that if Malaga were encircled, the Republicans would fight desperately. For several days, the citizens of Malaga fled to Almería via the coastal road . According to various estimates, between 40,000 and 150,000 people, including 5,000 children, fled the city. As a result, German and Spanish planes and warships bombed the coastal road for three days. The nationalist warships Canarias, Baleares and Velasco were involved in the bombing. This event went down in history as the Málaga massacre . The German warship Admiral Graf Spee also shelled Málaga. On February 8, the Duke of Seville's troops entered the city. What followed was one of the largest political reprisals since Badajoz was captured . Thousands of supporters of the republic were arrested, some shot immediately. An eyewitness reported that there were mass shootings in the first week after taking the city.

The battles for Málaga also saw the first combat missions of the first Messerschmitt Bf 109 of the German Condor Legion, stationed at that time in Tablada , on the national side.

consequences

The Republicans who were unable to escape the city in time were either shot immediately or imprisoned. The nationalists caught up with the retreating Republicans on the coastal road towards Almería and shot every man they could get their hands on. Around 100,000 people fled the city and were bombed by German and nationalist air forces and ships in the Málaga massacre , killing between 3,000 and 5,000.

The catastrophic defeat led the Spanish Communist Party to call on February 20 for the resignation of General José Asensio Torrado , the Republic's War Undersecretary. Francisco Largo Caballero relented on February 21, replacing Torrado with Carlos de Baraibar , editor of the Claridad newspaper, who had no military experience.

Benito Mussolini saw the Italian success as a sign to strengthen the Italian commitment. The Italians failed to realize that their success was largely due to the good weather and the Republicans' lack of experience in fighting tanks. The plans to conquer Valencia were then abandoned and the Italians started moving towards Madrid. In March, off Madrid, the Italians suffered a heavy defeat during the Battle of Guadalajara .

literature

  • Hugh Thomas : The Spanish Civil War. Ullstein, Berlin West et al. 1962.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Antony Beevor : The Spanish Civil War (= Goldmann. 15492). Paperback edition, 2nd edition. Goldmann, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-442-15492-0 , p. 256.
  2. Hugh Thomas: The Spanish Civil War. 1962, p. 290.