1937 жылғы Испан азамат соғысы: Мадрид пен Герника шайқастары

In 1937, the Nationalists, under the leadership of Francisco Franco began to establish their dominance. An important element of support was their greater access to foreign aid, with their German and Italian allies helping considerably. This came just as the French ceased aid to the Republicans, who continued, however, to be able to buy arms from the Soviet Union. The Republican side suffered from serious divisions among the various communist and anarchist groupings within it, and the communists undermined much of the anarchists' organisation. With his ranks being swelled by Italian troops and Spanish colonial soldiers from Morocco, Franco made additional attempts to capture Madrid in January and February 1937, but failed again. On February 21 the League of Nations Non Intervention Committee ban on foreign volunteers went into effect. The large city of Málaga was taken on February 8. On March 7, the German Condor Legion equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes arrived in Spain; on April 26 they bombed the town of Guernica (Gernika) in the Basque Country; two days later, Nationalist General Emilio Mola's men entered the town. After the fall of Guernica, the Republican government began to fight back with increasing effectiveness. In July, they made a move to recapture Segovia, forcing Franco to pull troops away from the Madrid front to halt their advance. Mola, Franco's second in command, died in a plane crash on June 3, and in early July, despite the fall of Bilbao in June, the Republican government launched a strong counter offensive in the Madrid area, which the Nationalists repulsed with some difficulty. This was the Battle of Brunete (Brunete is a town in the province of Madrid). Franco soon regained momentum, invading Aragon in August and then taking the city of Santander (now in Cantabria). On August 28, the Vatican recognized the Franco government. Two months of bitter fighting followed and, despite determined Asturian resistance, Gijón fell in late October, effectively ending the war in the North. At the end of November, with the Nationalists closing in on Valencia, the government moved again, from Valencia to Barcelona.

January 5 Nationalist General Orgaz with 18,000 men attacks the roads north west of Madrid in an attempt to cut the city's supply lines. Madrid is suffering several air raids daily, and sometimes nighttime raids as well. January 6 Nationalists take Boadilla del Monte. The International Brigades (IBs) defended the town; one of the few survivors of the Internationals is Esmond Romilly, 18 year old nephew of Winston Churchill. Romilly volunteered despite his famous uncle's open sympathy for Francisco Franco, like that of most of his colleagues in the ruling British Conservative Party. January 11 The Nationalist offensive northwest of Madrid is stopped. Both sides, temporarily exhausted after heavy casualties, start to build trenches and dig themselves in. January 17 The Nationalists begin the battle to take Málaga. Three Nationalist columns converge on the city from Sevilla and Granada. January 19 General Enrique Líster with the IBs gains back the Cerro de los Ángeles next to Madrid. This hill overlooks the city; the heavy Nationalist artillery there had been shelling the city. The IBs become more and more the key units in the Spanish Republican Army. February 5 A Nationalist army approaches Málaga. The situation in Málaga epitomizes the worst conditions existing in the Republican zone: perhaps 600 hostages are held on a prison ship in the harbor, and groups of them are shot in reprisal for the air raids over the port. The sailors' committees in the fleet and the city administration are divided in mortal rivalry between the CNT and the Communist Party of Spain. Like all Republican cities, there is no anti aircraft defense. Its militiamen, mostly anarchists, and not yet reorganized into the new Popular Army, built no trenches or roadblocks, because they consider this cowardice. The government assigns Colonel Villalba, a professional officer, to organize the defense, but without guns to place on the heights, without ammunition to give his soldiers, and without the slightest possibility of controlling the rivalries within the city, there is virtually nothing he can do. The invading force consists of some 10,000 Moors, 5,000 Requetés (right wing militiamen), 5,000 Italians and plentiful supplies of trucks and artillery. They have only a few tanks and planes, but they can use these with maximum effectiveness in the virtual absence of effective deterrents. February 6 Nationalists start a powerful offensive in the Jarama Valley. Nationalist General Orgaz is in command of around 40,000 troops, most of them Spanish Foreign Legion and Moroccan cavalry, supported by anti tank artillery, two battalions of German operated heavy machine guns (German ground troops under the command of the Condor Legion), German operated tanks and planes (Condor Legion), and 600 Blueshirts under the command of the right wing Eoin O'Duffy. The Nationalists want to cut the main Madrid Valencia highway. General Pozas, commander of the new Central Army of the Republic, is planning his own offensive against the Nationalist line and is therefore massing men and material in the same area. Due to their own planned offensive, the Republicans fail to fortify their high ground, and the Nationalist offensive takes them completely by surprise. The hills are quickly lost, as are the two principal bridges. The Republican guards on the bridges are killed in the night by Moorish commando units. The guards on the Pindoque Bridge manage to mine the bridge during the attack, but it remains usable for enemy tanks and trucks. Citizens flee Málaga. About 100,000 people begin a disorganized mass exodus along the coastal road to Almería. The road is blocked by slow vehicles and wounded people; for the next two weeks, the Nationalist air force and navy bomb the road at will. German warships of the Non Intervention Committee participate in the shelling, sometimes in the presence of Royal Navy vessels which do nothing to intervene. (Until the 1960s, truck drivers continued to find skeletons of those who fled Málaga in February 1937)

February 8 Málaga taken by Franco's troops. The militiamen resisted rifle and grenade fire, but broke at the totally unfamiliar sight of tanks. The Nationalists start immediately to take an enormous number of prisoners and to execute them. For example, participation in a strike several years previously is grounds for execution. The Italian military authorities are horrified at the number of executions and the mutilations practiced on the corpses and those who were wounded, as well as the mass rape of women. Nationalists advance in the Jarama Valley. Soviet tanks slow down the advance for brief periods, but the Nationalists quickly concentrate heavy artillery fire and force their withdrawal. The planes of the Condor Legion control the air. February 10 The XIV and XV IBs fortify the Republican army in the Jarama. The troops stop the Nationalist advance, but take horrible losses in doing so. At one point the Nationalists force approximately 30 survivors of a captured British machine gun group to advance in front of their attack; half of these men die under fire of their own comrades. February 12 Air supremacy for the Republic at the Jarama front, all out attack on the last Republican positions. 40 new Russian airplanes arrive at the Jarama front, giving the Republic air supremacy in the area. These planes consist of 15 ground strafers and 25 fighters, the fighters are nicknamed "Chatos". The arrival of these planes forces the enemy planes to retreat. On the night of February 12, Nationalist General Orgaz commits all his reserves to gain control over the last key positions that still prevent his forces from cutting the Valencia highway. Several companies of the IBs — including British and Polish — as well as Spanish companies, were "cut to pieces" attempting to hold these positions. February 15 The force of the offensive in the Jarama had spent itself. As in the Battle of the Corunna Road, the Nationalists have gained ground, but strategic victory had escaped them. The Foreign Legion is broken. Around 20,000 men died in the 10 days of the Jarama Battle, two thirds of them Republicans. February 17 The anarchist writer Pedro Orobon dies in an air raid at Madrid. February 21 Republican General José Asensio Torrado dismissed, after the fall of Málaga. The League of Nations Non Intervention Committee's ban on foreign national and stateless "volunteers" went into effect. February 27 The newly formed Abraham Lincoln Battalion, part of the IBs, consisting mostly of North Americans had arrived at the Jarama front February 13; they are ordered to carry out a suicidal attack. 127 men die and more than 200 are wounded. Responsibility for poorly planned attack lies on Brigade Commander Copic, who refuses to see the wounded leader of the "Lincolns", Robert Hale Merriman, after the disastrous, failed action. March 5 First council of the PCE (Communist Party of Spain) in the war. The PCE makes a declaration in favor of democracy and against revolution and Trotskyism. The delegates sharply attack the government and the CNT. March 8 Strong Nationalist attack in the Guadalajara starts at 7 a. m. Italian troops quickly break the front and, by the end of the day, dominate the heights, from which they can "roll" downhill to Madrid. Their plan is to advance to Madrid via Brihuega and Guadalajara. The attacking force includes 250 tanks, 180 pieces of artillery, 4 motorized machine gun companies, about 70 planes and a large number of trucks. March 9–March 11 The Italians are moving too rapidly for their units to preserve communications and supply lines. A sudden turn in the weather catches the Italian trucks in a snow and sleet storm, just as the Republicans begin to hold firm south of Brihuega and Trijueque. While the Italian planes are grounded by the weather, the Republican air force is operating at considerable risk from airfields outside of the bad weather zone. Low flying fighters are machine gunning the stalled truck columns while vintage 1918 Breguets, which had survived the summer air battles, run bombing missions. Vittorio Vidali and Luigi Longo, the political leaders of the IB Garibaldi battalion (Italian volunteers on the Republican side), mount a propaganda campaign intended to destroy the morale of the CTV, pulling loudspeakers up to the lines and dropping leaflets from the air, exhorting the Italian soldiers not to shoot against their brother workers and to leave the Fascists. March 12 The Republican forces start a massive counterattack, with the support of 70 Russian tanks and strong air cover. The CTV has no AA artillery, and it suffers heavily from air attack; most casualties belong to XI Gruppo de Banderas, whose commander (Console Liuzzi) is killed. March 13 Improving weather allows the Italian planes to cover the withdrawal of Division III "Penne Nere" from the Trijueque sector, and the battle is more or less stabilized. March 18 Republican divisions under Cipriano Mera and Enrique Líster with 60 T 26 tanks of the Pavlov Brigade take back Brihuega, causing the collapse of the Italian front and the rout of Division I "Dio lo Vuole", which in turn forces Division IV "Littorio" to abandon its positions. The rout is not stemmed until the morning of next day. March 19 The Guadalajara battle ends, the rout stops short of the bases from which the Nationalist attack started. The Italians admit the loss of 650 killed, 1,994 wounded and some 500 prisoners, plus 90 vehicles and 25 guns. During the retreat of the Nationalists, the Republicans capture large stocks of equipment, and a mass of documentary evidence about the Italian intervention in Spain. The government is hoping to lay this evidence before the Nonintervention committee. The so called "London Committee" will declare itself incompetent to receive this evidence from any source not represented in the Committee itself. Thereupon the Spanish Foreign Minister, Alvarez del Vayo, will exhibit the documents before the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva. Ernest Hemingway is reporting for United States newspapers from the battle and the war. He collected US$40,000 in the US to buy ambulances for the Republic. U. S. public opinion tends strongly in favor of the Republic, but right wing and anti Communist forces in the government control U. S. foreign policy. March 31 Nationalist General Mola starts a new offensive in the north with 50,000 troops. After failing in the capture of Madrid, the Nationalist army is concentrating in a campaign against the Basques. In the morning hours the Condor Legion starts a new tactic: massive terror strikes against nonmilitary targets, the annihilation of complete villages. The small town Durango suffers the first attack; some of the first bombs fall into the church during the well attended morning Mass. Fighters fly low and machine gun the fleeing population. The Nationalists also attack a nearby cloister, killing 15 nuns. Around 300 people die in this air raids, 2,500 are wounded, practically all of them civilians. A second air attack takes place as fire brigades, police and ambulances from Bilbao try to help the victims.

July 6 The International Brigades (IBs) under General Lister launch an offensive at Brunete, 25 km west of Madrid, to lift the siege of Madrid and to draw some pressure off of the Basque army in the north. The Republic launches this attack with their best troops and equipment: around 50,000 men of four IBs (mostly the divisions of generals Lister, Kleber and Campesino), 100 modern Russian tanks and 100 Russian planes (about half the Republican air force). The armament of the soldiers themselves is poor: they are supplied with machine guns, grenades and artillery dating from World War I.

July 8 Franco sends reinforcements to the Brunete front. With this the Brunete offensive achieves one of it main goals, the relief of the Basque army, giving the Republican troops in the north the possibility of reorganizing their resistance. Franco sends 31 battalions, 7 batteries of artillery and the entire Condor Legion (around 70 planes and several motorized units). The Condor Legion uses their new and improved Bf 109s and Heinkel He 111s, superior to the Russian planes. July 9 IBs take Quijorna. July 11 Republican troops take Villanueva del Pardillo. Nationalist reinforcements reach the Brunete Front, artillery and Condor Legion hammering the Republican troops without pause; both sides are suffering horrible losses. July 12 France opens the border. Angry at the permanent and obvious breaks of the Nonintervention by the Fascist states, France opens its border for several days, allowing a large amount of armaments from several countries to pass into the Spanish Republic. July 14 The Republic bans criticism of the Soviet Union. This censorship is aimed especially against the anarchist and POUMist press and follows a large number of complaints by the Communist party and their press. July 19 The Republican army retreats at Brunete, overwhelmed by the Nationalist forces. Until today the Republic, at terrible cost, held the bulge they created in taking Brunete. During this period, the Nationalists concentrated overwhelming artillery and air power on the bulge, drawing upon supplies that had been accumulated for the Santander offensive; the Republican had no uncommitted reserves of men or weapons upon which to draw. Hundreds of retreating Republican soldiers, whose lives could have been saved by retreating while the Republican air force was still able to limit the freedom of the Condor Legion, die under the machine gun fire of Heinkels and Messerschmitts. Gerda Taro, companion of Robert Capa, is heavily injured by an accident during the retreat. July 26 End of Battle of Brunete: Republican forces are thrown back to a position only 5 km from where they started the offensive. The Republic lost around 20,000 men and half their air force, the Nationalists lost around 17,000 men. August 2 Nationalist militia leader Hedilla, sentenced to death for opposing General Franco, is imprisoned in Las Palmas. The death sentence against him is suspended by General Franco. August 6 A fierce dogfight over the town of Torrelavega results in the loss of a dozen republican fighters, worsening the aerial support of republicans in the North. August 7 Private Catholic worship is permitted in the Republic. August 10 Consejo de Aragón (Council of Aragon) dissolved. Prime Minister Negrín is working steadily to affirm the authority of his government against all forms of regional and political dissidence. Today the government announces the dissolution of the anarchist dominated Consejo de Aragón administration which had been recognized by Largo Caballero in December 1936. The Anarchist officials are arrested and the troops of General Lister, mostly Communists, behave like invaders. The revolutionary efforts and changes made by the Anarchists will be undone. The arrested officials will be released in a couple of weeks, after the authority of the council has been broken and central government authority established. August 13 Nationalist under the command of General Dávila start their offensive against Santander, the next big city in their race towards Gijón. The Republican forces were the XIV Corps of the Army (Basque), XV Corps of the Army (Cantabrian), and the XVI and XVII Corps of the Army (Asturian). They lack an airforce and are further weakened by a dispute between the Basque prime minister Aguirre and the commanding general of the army, Gamir Ulibarri. August 15 SIM created; political meetings in Barcelona forbidden. The SIM (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar) gives back the control of secret police activities to the government, rather than leaving it in the hands of Soviet and Communist intelligence organizations. Political meetings are forbidden in Barcelona from now on. The mixture of regionalism, anarchism, and defeatism, constituted a steady drain of the Republican war effort. Also the situation was unstable after the May incidents. August 17 Socialist Party and Communist Party unity pact. The Communist party had demanded the fusion of the Socialist Party with the Communist Party, as would later happen in all Communist controlled countries. The government refuses this demand as not appropriate for a democratic country. To put an end to this demand, the government moved the involved parties to declare a unity pact instead, leaving them independent. August 24 The Republican Army, including International Brigades, starts a major offensive at Belchite and Quinto. The intent is to lay the ground for a later recapture of Zaragoza, a pro Republican city in the hands of the Nationalists. Belchite and Quinto, the most important towns in their area, are defended by around 7,000 Nationalist militiamen, who turn out to be fanatically brave and resourceful defending the towns, involving the Republican troops in heavy streetfights. August 26 The Republican Army at Santander breaks down under continual attack from troops, artillery and around 250 airplanes. Ten thousands of soldiers and civilians flee to the port of Santander. Only a few, among them General Gamir Ulibarri and the leader of the Basque government, Aguirre, can escape over the stormy Bay of Biscay, where overcrowded boats are sinking. In secret consultations the Autonomous Basque Government agreed with the Italian allies of General Franco to surrender in Santoña, east of Santander, on condition that the Basque heavy industry and economy was left untouched. Around 25,000 soldiers, 3,000 officers and several hundred officials of the Basque army and administration surrender themselves and hand over their weapons, the Italians agreeing to allow the Basque officers and civil servants to go aboard two British ships waiting in the port. For many Republicans in Spain this event is known as the Treason of Santoña, as many of the Basque soldiers went then to join the Francoist army in the rest of the Northern front

August 27 The troops at Santoña are captured by Franco's troops, while embarking to the British ships, Nationalist battle cruisers enter the port and force the Basques to disembark. The Italians withdraw from the port and the Eusko Gudarostea are made to choose between being imprisoned or joining Franco's army. The International Brigades attack at Fuentes de Ebro to establish a third position, besides Belchite and Quinto, from which to retake Zaragoza. September 1 The Republican Army attacks Peñarroya and Córdoba. September 4–5 Nationalists cross the river Deva and invade Asturias from the East; Nationalists capture Llanes. September 6–22 The Battle of El Mazuco; fewer than 5,000 Asturians and Basques hold off more than 33,000 Nationalists and the Condor Legion in and around the Sierra de Cuera. September 7 Battle of Cape Cherchell between the Nationalist heavy cruiser Baleares and the Republican light cruisers Libertad and Méndez Núñez. In the early morning hours Baleares unexpectedly meets a Republican convoy consisting of several merchant ships escorted by Republican battleships. The biggest danger for the convoy is not the Baleares itself, but Nationalist airplanes who might approach after their sighting. While the convoy flees, along with most of the escorting ships, Libertad and Méndez Núñez engage Baleares. After losing contact with each other, they meet again in the afternoon, and Libertad hits Baleares twice. While Baleares then waits for her sister ship Canarias, the retreating Republican ships are attacked, ineffectively, by several Nationalist airplanes, including Italian airplanes from the Non Intervention Committee blockade on Spain. September 22 The Nationalist 6th Brigade of Navarre overruns Peñas Blancas. The battle of Sella begins. September 27 Solchaga's forces enter Ribadesella.

October 1 Nationalist forces occupy Covadonga. The new main board of the UGT expels their member and former prime minister Francisco Largo Caballero. Caballero is traveling the country holding lectures against communist synchronizing and Stalinism. The Cortez, the Spanish parliament, also expels parliamentarians known to be close to Caballero. Prime Minister Negrn is not willing or not able to back Caballero. October 5 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States condemns the 'Nazi Fascist aggressors' in Spain. October 10 The Brigades of Navarre enter Cangas de Onis. International Brigades and Republican army launch new attacks in the South Ebro region. October 13 The Madrid council of socialist parties, unions, etc., unhappy with the overwhelming influence of the PCE (Spanish Communist Party) on the Spanish government, confronts the Spanish Cortez over the expulsion of "Caballeristas". October 17 The Consejo Soberano decides to evacuate Asturias. The Nationalists are gaining absolute control of Asturias and closing in on Gijón. Asturian officials, their families and members of the Republican army have to be evacuated quickly. Many Asturian fighters organize a guerilla campaign from the high and inaccessible mountains. With memories of the 1934 workers' revolt and its bloody suppression still fresh, Asturian villages empty in terror at the approach of the Nationalists. The Asturian miners practice a scorched earth policy, and from the ruins of their houses often fight to the death with dynamite charges. Largo Caballero arrested during a speech in the Madrid cinema 'Pardinas', in which he criticized the PCE; he is placed under house arrest. October 21 The fall of Gijón. Nationalists enter Gijón and plunder the city for days; death sentences over Asturians are so frequently imposed and carried out that the Nationalists themselves call their jurisdiction "the machine gun". Rapes and murders are tolerated by the Nationalists leadership for several days. There is no reliable count of the thousands of civilians murdered during these days. October 30 The Republican government abandons Valencia for Barcelona. December 15 Start of the Battle of Teruel.