Battle of Teruel
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Gijón - Oviedo - Alcázar of Toledo - Mérida - Badajoz - Guipúzcoa - Mallorca - Sierra Guadalupe - Talavera de la Reina - Madrid - Road to Coruña - Málaga - Jarama - Guadalajara - War in the north ( Durango , Guernica , Santander ) - Brunete - Belchite - Teruel - Cabo de Palos - Aragon - Ebro - Catalonia
The Battle of Teruel took place from December 15, 1937 to February 27, 1938 during the Spanish Civil War . The conquest of Teruel by Franco's troops brought the republican army a loss of people and material that could no longer be replaced.
prehistory
The decision of the Republican generals to conquer Teruel was guided by several strategic considerations. Teruel was an important symbol of nationalist power in Aragon and was enclosed on three sides by republican troops. The resulting section of the front protruded deep into the republican territory. The conquest of the area would thus shorten the front, facilitate communication between central Spain and the seat of government in Valencia and stabilize the influence of the republic on the north of Spain. Assuming that Teruel would not be strongly defended and that an attack could regain the initiative at the front, the Republican War Minister Prieto intended to demonstrate the progress of the army newly organized under him with a spectacular victory. Prime Minister Juan Negrín saw the conquest of Teruel as an opportunity to strengthen the government's influence on Catalan industrial plants and their production. In addition, the Republican secret service had reported that Franco was planning a major offensive on Madrid near Guadalajara on February 18 . It was intended to divert attention from Madrid with an attack on Teruel Franco.
The Republican Army was under the command of Juan Hernández Saravia . Enrique Líster was another well-known Republican general who took part in this battle. The operation was to be carried out exclusively by Spanish troops without the involvement of international brigades . The attack was therefore incumbent on three corps of the Republican Eastern Army with a total of around 100,000 soldiers who marched on the city from the north, south and east. The nationalist commander of the Teruel garrison, Colonel Domingo Rey d'Harcourt , probably had only 4,000, but no more than 10,000 men available.
Course of the battle
December 15th to December 28th
Without prior bombardment, Lister and his division began the attack on Teruel from the north on December 15, 1937. By late afternoon of the same day, Teruel was surrounded by republican forces, whereupon most of the defenders under Rey d'Harcourt withdrew to the city's garrison . On December 17, they were followed by the remaining nationalist contingents from the Muela de Teruel ("Teruel's molar"), a chain of hills west of the city that played a key strategic role. On December 21st the first republican troops were accompanied u. a. by then war reporter Ernest Hemingway , invaded the city. Due to the situation in Teruel Franco postponed the attack on Madrid planned for December 23rd.
On December 24th, the nationalist defenders were trapped in a small zone between the government building, the Bank of Spain , the Santa Clara convent and the seminary. The Republican Radio Barcelona already reported that the city had fallen, but Rey d'Harcourt held out with 4,000 men remaining. There was a fight for every single house.
December 29th to January 16th
On December 29, nationalist troops under the command of Generals Antonio Aranda and José Enrique Varela came to the aid of the trapped and launched a counter-attack. The Condor Legion flew air support. With all their strengths, the nationalist troops managed to capture the Muela on New Year's Day and advance into the city. The recaptured positions could not be held, however, and a snowstorm with temperatures of minus 18 degrees made the situation worse. Many soldiers were frostbitten and there were numerous amputations.
Franco again sent men and material. Still, Republican troops captured the convent and government building on January 3. In house-to-house fights, both sides sometimes faced each other on different floors of the building and fired at each other through holes in the ceilings and floors. However, the defenders soon ran out of food, drinking water and medicine, and on January 8, Rey d'Harcourt, accompanied by the Bishop of Teruel, surrendered. Both were then arrested and shot together with other prisoners shortly before the end of the civil war.
January 17th to February 7th
The civilian population was evacuated after the fall of Teruel. On January 17, 1938, the 100,000-strong Northern Nationalist Army under General Fidel Dávila launched a counter-offensive and attacked the Republicans, who had meanwhile been victorious. The Republican leadership, now on the defensive, gave up its original reservation against the use of non-Spanish troops, so that from January 19, international brigades also took part in the following fighting .
The nationalists' offensive advanced slowly but steadily, and they managed to take the Muela one more time. The Republicans launched violent counter-attacks between January 25 and 27, but they did not bring them any significant territorial gains. For this offensive, the Republican General Staff had withdrawn most of its troops north of Teruel. On February 7, the nationalist troops massively attacked exactly there and broke the resistance of the Republicans with the help of one of the last cavalry attacks in military history .
February 8th to February 22nd
From February 17th, the fighting for Teruel took place again. General Aranda and Colonel Juan Yagüe encircled the city from the south and north, much as the Republican troops had already done in December. Before Teruel was completely surrounded, Saravia gave the Republican troops the order to withdraw on February 20. Most of the army was able to escape, but around 14,500 soldiers were still trapped in the city when Teruel finally fell into the hands of Franco's troops on February 22nd.
Legion Condor
Immediately after the start of the republican offensive, the German Legion moved its headquarters from Almazán to Calamocha and two weeks later closer to Teruel to Bronchales . The airborne units operated from the airfields Alfaro , Calamocha, Gallur and the two fields near Saragossa, Sanjurjo and Valenzuela . Although the aircraft could temporarily not be used due to the extreme meteorological conditions of that winter, the lowest temperatures of which were down to minus 20 ° Celsius, the Condor Legion made a significant contribution to the victory of Franco's troops at the Battle of Teruel.
Losses and consequences of the battle
The few weeks of the Battle of Teruel alone, in which more than 200,000 people took part, claimed tens of thousands of lives and injuries on both sides. The defeat of the Republican forces, however, was complete. The territorial losses in Aragon resulting directly from the battles for Teruel even exceeded the territorial gains that had previously been expected in the event of success. In addition to thousands who had to be taken prisoner, the nationalists also captured tons of valuable material, ammunition and military equipment. The republican army, weakened by the lost battle of Teruel, offered little resistance to the nationalist Aragon offensive that had begun on March 7, 1938 . As a result, Franco's troops reached the Castellón coast near Vinaroz in mid-April 1938 , which divided the remaining republic in half.
literature
- Edward H. Carr : The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War. Macmillan, London et al. a 1984, ISBN 0-333-36952-1 .
- Cecil Eby: Between the Bullet and the Lie. American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York NY et al. 1969.
- Carl Geiser: Prisoners of the Good Fight. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. (Americans against Franco Fascism). Lawrence Hill, Westport CT 1986, ISBN 0-88208-216-7 .
- Gabriel Jackson: The Spanish Republic and the Civil War. 1931-1939. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1965.
- Laurie Lee : Moment of War. A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War. 1st American edition. New Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 1-56584-060-7 .
- Paul Preston: The Spanish Civil War. 1936-39. Grove Press, New York NY 1986, ISBN 0-394-55565-1 .
- Hugh Purcell: The Spanish Civil War. Wayland, London 1973, ISBN 0-399-11238-3 .
- Hugh Thomas : The Spanish Civil War. Harper, New York NY 1961.
- Peter Wyden : The Passionate War. The narrative History of the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Simon and Schuster, New York NY 1983, ISBN 0-671-25330-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 1880–1962, confidante of Azaña and war minister in the cabinet of José Giral Pereira in August / September 1936. In exile in France, later in Mexico.