Franco. Paul Preston
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Lisbon Radio also jumped the gun by describing in detail the frenetic welcome that he received from the people of Madrid. The American Hearst Press’s sensationalist correspondent, H.R. Knickerbocker, wrote a detailed description of the victory parade, ‘from the steps of the Telefónica’, which even included the customary barking dog following behind.27 The British journalist Henry Buckley was told by a news editor in London that his story of fighting in the outskirts must be wrong because it was known that Franco’s forces were in the centre of the city.28
Miaja and Rojo faced a frightening situation. They had little or no idea of the scale, disposition or readiness of the forces at their disposal. There was a shortage of rifles and ammunition, no anti-aircraft cover and little or no radio liaison between the random collection of arbitrarily armed irregulars whose only asset was their determination to defend the city to the death. Miaja and Rojo were fully aware of the skill and aggression of the Legionarios and Regulares about to hit them. They also knew of the numerous and well-organized fifth column of Nationalist supporters carrying out sabotage and ready to rise in the city.29
Varela, understandably confident that Madrid would fall easily in the light of the government’s desertion, delayed in launching the attack in order to allow his troops to rest. He had faced virtually no resistance on 5 November. Had he attacked on 6 November when demoralization still gripped the population, he might have had an easy victory.30 As it was, Rojo and Miaja were able to spend the night of 6 November and the entire day and night of the seventh organizing the disparate forces at their disposal. Rojo was blessed even more by the fact that on the night of 7 November Varela’s detailed battle plan was found in a captured Nationalist tank.31 Curiously, the departure of the indecisive government of Largo Caballero seemed to take with it the blanket of pessimism and the proximity of Franco’s forces wiped away internecine political squabbles.32
In the silent streets of the capital on the night of 7 November, the defenders were united by tormenting thoughts of what had happened after the Army of Africa had entered Badajoz and Toledo. Nevertheless, there was a popular determination to fight to the last.33 Along with the Communist Party’s Fifth Regiment, the most highly organised and disciplined force in the central zone, the 1,900 men of the Eleventh International Brigade helped Miaja to lead the entire population of Madrid in a desperate and remarkable defence. Inspired by Miaja’s jocular bluster and guided by Rojo’s brilliant use of Varela’s battle plan, the ordinary citizens of Madrid, with aged rifles and insufficient cartridges, dressed only in their civilian clothes, halted the Nationalist forces.34 In the course of the attack – launched in brilliant autumn sunshine on 8 November – the Army of Africa suffered casualties on a scale hitherto unknown as it battled to cross the Manzanares, which is dominated from above by the terrace-like avenue known as the Paseo de Rosales. Major Antonio Castejón, the most fiercely energetic of Franco’s column commanders, was seriously wounded. With his hip shattered, Castejón, depressed by the high casualties among his Moors, told the American journalist John Whitaker, ‘We made this revolt and now we are beaten.’35
Varela’s attack through the Casa de Campo had faltered by 10 November at the cost of the lives of one third of the men of the International Brigades. When the Manzanares was finally crossed on 15 November, there was hand-to-hand fighting between them and the Moors in the University buildings.36 Defending their city, with their backs to its walls, the working-class militia were much more of a match for the Moors than they had been in open scrub land. However, after the arrival on 12 November of the Condor Legion, working-class districts were shelled and bombed more systematically than before, although the Generalísimo was careful to try to spare the plush Barrio de Salamanca, the residential district where many of his fifth columnists lived and other important rightists with his forces had their homes. The Germans were anxious to experiment with terror bombing. The damage was massive, the military impact negligible.37 In deciding to try to terrorize Madrid into submission, and permitting the incendiary bombing of a city bulging with Spain’s art treasures, Franco had cast aside the pretence that he was not prepared to damage the capital. He had told Portuguese journalists that he would destroy Madrid rather than leave it to the Marxists.38 The American Ambassador wrote to Washington: ‘it is currently reported that the former King, Alfonso, has protested against this policy to Franco. If he is responsible it can only come from the fact that in his humiliation over his failure to take Madrid in a few days, he has permitted his resentment to get the better of his judgement.’39
By 22 November, the Nationalist attack was repulsed.40 On the following day, Franco and his Chief of Staff, Colonel Martín Moreno, travelled from Salamanca to Leganés on the outskirts of Madrid. The Generalísimo addressed a meeting of Mola, Saliquet, Varela and their respective general staffs. Without massive reinforcements which he simply did not have, there was no choice but to abandon the attack. The Generalísimo ordered an end to frontal assaults on the grounds of the weakness of his forces, the foreign assistance received by the Republic and the difficult tactical situation of the Nationalist Army, given its reliance on long exposed lines of supply and communication.41 Orgaz would take over the forces on the Madrid front, Mola those in the north. Franco’s forces had suffered their first major reverse.42 However, instead of taking the militarily sensible decision of withdrawing to easily defended lines four or five kilometres from the city, Franco revealed his obstinate determination never to give up an inch of conquered ground. He thus ordered Asensio to fortify the positions taken in the University City in order, as he perceived it, to maintain a psychological and moral advantage, irrespective of the cost which, in the next three months, would be considerable.43
Franco was immensely fortunate that the Republican forces in Madrid were too depleted to mount a serious counter-offensive. If they had, the tide might well have turned decisively in their favour. Totally disconcerted by the losses suffered by their men, Varela and Yagüe had told Captain Roland von Strunk, a German military observer in Spain, in the presence of John Whitaker, ‘We are finished. We cannot stand at any point if the Reds are capable of undertaking counter-attacks.’ Captain von Strunk was in total agreement, convinced that only German reinforcements could save Franco from defeat. He commented bitterly to the US Consul in Seville that ‘Franco could have captured Madrid on the first day’ and added that he had informed Franco that he must accept German direction of the campaign or else Germany would withdraw its material and Franco had accepted.44 In Paris, in Rome, in Morocco, as well as in the Nationalist tents around Madrid, it was believed that if Franco did not get more help from Germany and Italy, his movement would collapse.45
Before the Republic could test the new confidence forged in the flames of Madrid, Franco’s battered columns would receive massive reinforcements from Fascist Italy. It is ironic that only four days before Franco’s tacit acknowledgement – in his change of strategy – that he had been defeated, he had secured the co-ordinated recognition of Germany and Italy. In near-identical terms, Berlin and Rome justified their action on the grounds that Franco controlled ‘the greater part of Spanish territory’.46 On 18 November in Salamanca, a visibly emotional Franco appeared before crowds wildly cheering for Hitler and Mussolini.