The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 полностью

When the 69th Division retreated from Cabeza Grande, an infuriated Walter (before he was relieved) had ordered ‘the machine-gunning of those who pull back, executions on the spot, and the beating of stragglers’.⁹

The second tactical operation to take pressure off the northern front was an attack on Huesca with the newly constituted Army of the East commanded by General Pozas. General Lukács was ordered up from Madrid with XII International Brigade, which included the Garibaldi Battalion, as well as four other brigades from the Central Front. He was put in charge of the operation, but found that many of the soldiers were badly armed, and that they would have little artillery or armoured support.

Lukács launched the offensive against Huesca on 12 June. The infantry had to attack across a kilometre of open ground. The nationalists, who were well dug in, forced them back with machine-gun fire and artillery. To compound the disaster, the vehicle in which General Lukács and his aides were travelling was hit by a shell. Lukács and his driver were killed, and Gustav Regler, the commissar of XII International Brigade, was badly wounded.¹⁰

At dawn on 16 June the republican troops launched a new attack against the villages of Alerre and Chimillas, but the intensity of enemy fire forced them back. On 19 June, after another two days of desultory firing, the offensive was cancelled. The Navarrese brigades had just entered Bilbao. Walter reported that XII International Brigade’s performance ‘was nothing like what it had been during earlier battles.’¹¹

The Huesca offensive, recounted by Gustav Regler in his book The Great Crusade, contributed to a defeatist mood in republican ranks. It had taken place soon after the events of May in a sector where there were many anarchist formations and the POUM’s 29th Division, which included the British centuria led by George Kopp, who had just been arrested and accused of espionage. Newspapers from Valencia and Barcelona were intercepted so that the troops should not hear of the denunciations of members of the POUM as traitors.¹²

Total losses for the Huesca offensive rose to nearly three times those of the Segovia offensive. The losses among anarchist and POUM members were very heavy. (Orwell himself received a bullet through the throat, a wound which took him out of the war.) As it had been a communist-led operation and the nationalists appeared to have been forewarned, this only increased their suspicions and their bitterness.

The major operation, however, which the republican government planned to replace the Estremadura offensive, was to take place against Brunete, a village some 25 kilometres to the west of Madrid. The idea was to penetrate the weakly held nationalist lines and cut off the salient, which extended to the edge of the capital. The Communist Party had been carefully preparing the Brunete offensive to demonstrate its power and military effectiveness.

All five International Brigades and the communists’ best-known formations were given key roles, and every important officer had a Soviet adviser at his elbow. Miaja was overall commander. Under him were Modesto’s V Corps on the right with Líster’s 11th Division, El Campesino’s 46th Division, and Walter’s 35th Division; Jurado’s XVIII Corps on the left with 10th, 15th and 34th Divisions. (Jurado, the only non-communist senior commander, became ill and was replaced by Colonel Casado during the battle.) There was also a forward reserve of Kléber’s 45th Division and Durán’s 69th Division. In support of this force of 70,000 men, Miaja could count on 132 tanks, 43 other armoured vehicles, 217 field guns, 50 bombers and 90 fighters, although only 50 turned out be serviceable.¹³ It was by far the largest concentration of strength yet seen in the war. To the south of Madrid, II Corps commanded by Colonel Romero was to attack towards Alcorcón to meet up with XVIII Corps. And II Corps was to make a diversionary attack in the area of Cuesta de la Reina. ‘If we cannot succeed with such forces,’ wrote Azaña with his usual lucid pessimism, ‘we will not be able to manage it anywhere.’¹⁴