Battle of Teruel

Battle

Lister's Republican division attacked Teruel without any preliminary aerial or artillery bombardment while snow fell on December 15, 1937. Lister and his fellow commander, Colonel Enrique Fernández Heredia, moved to surround the town. They immediately gained a position on the heights of La Muela, and by evening, they encircled the city. Rey d'Harcourt pulled his defences into the town and, by December 17, had given up trying to keep a foothold on La Muela. Francisco Franco, the Nationalist commander, finally decided on December 23 to aid the defenders at Teruel since he had decided that as a matter of policy, no provincial capital would be allowed fall to the Republicans. Such a loss would be a political failure, and Franco determined to make no concession. He had just started a major offensive at Guadalajara, and the relief of Teruel forced him to abandon that offensive, much to the disgust of his Italian and German allies. The Nationalist relief of Teruel also signified that Franco had given up the idea of a knockout blow to end the war and had accepted a long war of attrition, to be won by the force of arms and by foreign assistance.

Republican advances and siege

By December 21, the Republican forces were in the town. Ernest Hemingway and two journalists, one being The New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews, accompanied the troops entering Teruel. Rey d'Harcourt, the Nationalist commander, pulled his remaining defenders back to an area in which he could make a last stand in the southern part of the town. By Christmas Day, the Nationalists still occupied a cluster of four key points: the Civil Governor's Building, the Bank of Spain, the Convent of Santa Clara and the seminary. The Republicans' Radio Barcelona announced that Teruel had fallen, but Rey d'Harcourt and the remnants of the 4,000 man garrison still held out. The siege continued with the fighting being hand to hand and building to building. The Republicans would bombard a building with artillery and then move in with the bayonet.

Nationalist relief attempts

Franco cancelled the Guadalajara offensive on December 23, but the relief force could not begin its attack until December 29. Franco could only send messages to Rey d'Harcourt to hold out at all costs. In the meantime, the Republicans pressed home their attack in atrocious weather. The Nationalist counterattack began on schedule on December 29, with the experienced Generals Antonio Aranda and José Enrique Varela in command. The German Condor Legion covered the attack. By New Year's Eve, a supreme effort allowed the Nationalists to be on the La Muela Heights and actually to break into the town and to take the bullring and the railway station, but they could not hold their gains in the town. Then, the weather actually turned for the worse, with the start of a four-day blizzard in which 120 cm of snow fell and temperatures of -18 °C occurred. The fighting ground to a halt as guns and machines froze, and the troops suffered terribly from frostbite. The Nationalists suffered the most, as they did not have warm clothing. Many amputations were performed to remove frostbitten limbs.

Franco continued to pour in men and machines, and the tide of the battle slowly started to turn. However, the Republicans pressed home their siege, and by New Year's Day in 1938, the defenders of the convent were dead. The Civil Governor's Building fell on January 3, but Rey d'Harcourt fought on. The attackers and the defenders were on different stories of the building and fired at each other through holes in the floors. The defenders now had no water, few medical supplies and little food. Their defences were piles of ruins, but they continued to hold out. The Nationalist advances stalled because of the weather, and finally, on 8 January Rey d'Harcourt surrendered with Anselmo Polanco, the Bishop of Teruel, at his side. Teruel had fallen to the Republicans.

Just over a year later, the Republicans, in one of their last acts of the war, killed Rey d'Harcourt and the bishop, along with 41 other prisoners in February 1939. After Rey d'Harcourt's surrender, the civilian population of Teruel had been evacuated, and the Republicans became the besieged and the Nationalists the besiegers.

Nationalist counteroffensive

After Rey d'Harcourt's surrender, the Nationalist buildup began to tell on the Republican forces. With the weather clearing, the Nationalists started a new advance on 17 January 1938. Two days later, the Republican leadership finally gave up its scruples about the Battle of Teruel being an all-Spanish operation and ordered the International Brigades to join the struggle. Many of the units had been in the area but in reserve. Celebrities and politicians meanwhile entertained and visited the units. The US communist-sympathising singer Paul Robeson sang for them on Christmas Eve with a repertoire that included L'Internationale and ended with Ol' Man River. Future British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, the left-wing Labour politician Ellen Wilkinson and future Labour government official and diplomat Philip Noel-Baker visited a British unit.

Both high commands were now in heated trains near the battlefield and directing their troops in the final part of the battle. Slowly but surely, the Nationalists advanced, and the La Muela heights fell to them. The Republican forces launched fierce counterattacks on 25 January and the next two days, but gains were temporary. Finally, on 7 February, the Nationalists attacked north of Teruel. That was a weak area since most Republican forces had been concentrated to the south around Teruel itself. A massive cavalry charge, one of the last in the history of warfare (there were one or two exceptions near the Caspian Sea during World War II), broke the Republican defences and scattered them. Aranda and Yagüe swiftly advanced and the victory was complete. The Nationalists took thousands of prisoners and thousands of tons of supplies and munitions. The Republicans ran for their lives if they could.

The final battle began on 18 February. Aranda and Yagüe cut off the town from the north and then surrounded it, as the Republicans had accomplished in December. On 20 February, Teruel was cut off from the former Republican capital in Valencia, and with the Nationalists entering the town, Hernández Saravia gave the order for withdrawal. Most of the army escaped before the route was cut off, but about 14,500 men were trapped. The colourful communist Republican commander El Campesino was surrounded but eventually broke out to escape. He always claimed that Lister and other communist commanders had left him to his fate in the hope that he would be killed or captured. The Nationalists finally recaptured Teruel on 22 February.

The Nationalists found 10,000 Republican corpses in Teruel after the battle was over.

Aftermath

The Battle of Teruel exhausted the resources of the Republican Army. The Spanish Republican Air Force could not replace the airplanes and arms that it had lost at the Battle of Teruel. On the other hand, the Nationalists concentrated the bulk of their forces in the east and prepared to drive through Aragon into Catalonia and the Levante. Franco had the edge on resupply, as the Nationalists now controlled the efficiently run industrial might in the Basque Country. The Republican government, however, had to leave the armament industry in Catalonia in the hands of the anarchists. One anarchist observer reported, "Notwithstanding lavish expenditures of money on this need, our industrial organization was not able to finish a single kind of rifle or machine gun or cannon...." Franco's retaking of Teruel was a bitter blow to the Republic after the high hopes that had been engendered by the city's capture. It also removed the last obstacle to Franco's breakthrough to the Mediterranean Sea.

Franco wasted little time and began the Aragon Offensive on March 7, 1938. The Republic had withdrawn its best troops to replenish them after the loss of Teruel on February 22, and the Republicans, still reeling from the heavy losses at Teruel, offered little resistance. The Nationalists rolled through Aragon, entered Catalonia and Valencia Province and reached the sea. By April 19, 1938, they controlled 60 km of coastline and so divided the Republic into two.

Laurie Lee, a British poet and writer who, by his account, served in the International Brigade, summed up the Republican strategy of attacking Teruel: "The gift of Teruel at Christmas had become for the Republicans no more than a poisoned toy. It was meant to be the victory that would change the war; it was indeed the seal of defeat".

Casualties

Casualties from the Battle of Teruel are difficult to estimate. The Nationalist relief force lost about 14,000 dead, 16,000 wounded and 17,000 sick. In the original Teruel defensive force, including the garrison, casualties were about 9,500, nearly all of whom were dead or captured, which gives a total of 56,500 casualties for the Nationalists. The Republicans lost a large number of prisoners. Round figures would be Nationalists 57,000 and Republicans 60,000, for a total of about 110,000.

Celebrities

Mathews, Hemingway, Robeson and the British politicians have been mentioned previously, and the battle certainly attracted many other such celebrities. One of them was the Soviet spy Kim Philby, who was nominally a correspondent for The Times covering the war from the Nationalist side. Evidently, he was already under Moscow's orders in Spain but wrote glowing reports about Franco. Near Teruel in December 1937, a shell hit an automobile in which Philby and three other journalists (Bradish Johnson, Eddie Neil and Ernest Sheepshanks) were riding. Philby was the only survivor. Franco personally decorated Philby, who was greatly exhilarated.