Campaign of Gipuzkoa
Campaign of Gipuzkoa | |||||||
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Part of the Spanish Civil War | |||||||
Campaign in one-week intervals | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Spanish Republic | Nationalist Spain | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Lt. Col. Antonio Ortega |
Gen. Emilio Mola Col. Alfonso Beorlegui Canet (DOW) Lt. Col. José Solchaga Lt. Col. Rafael García Valiño | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
3,000 |
3,500 men Ju 52 bombers Italian bombers[1]: 430 Panzer I tanks[2] 1 battleship 1 cruiser 1 destroyer | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
? | ? |
The campaign of Gipuzkoa was part of the
.Background
In late July Mola´s troops suffered a shortage of ammunition (having only 26,000 rounds of ammunition). Then
The campaign
Advance on San Sebastian
The campaign was initially conceived by General
Advance on Irun
Following the failure to relieve the siege of the Nationalists in San Sebastian, the forces of Beorlegui resumed their advance on Irún to cut off the northern provinces of
On August 17, the rebel battleship España, the cruiser Almirante Cervera and the destroyer Velasco arrived at San Sebastián and started to shell the city. After that, German Ju 52 bombers and other Italian planes bombarded on a daily basis the bordering towns of Hondarribia and Irun,[8] as well as San Sebastián. Furthermore, the Nationalists captured the republican commander in Gipuzkoa, Pérez Garmendia.
Fall of Irun and San Sebastián
On August 26, Beorlegi began the assault on Irún. The poorly armed and untrained leftist and Basque nationalist militias fought bravely but could not fend off the rebel push. After bloody combats, the resisting forces were overwhelmed: thousands of civilians and militia-men fled in panic across the French border on September 3, 1936.[9] The town was occupied that day. Beorlegui was wounded, and died a month later.
Enraged by their lack of ammunition, retreating anarchists burned parts the city.[10] The Nationalists followed this up with the capture of San Sebastián on September 13. The dying General Beorlegi could still preside over the parade of triumphant far-right rebel troops entering the city with no fighting.
A sizable number of the city's 80,000 inhabitants fled on an exodus towards Biscay. British field-journalist George L. Steer sets the figure of the terrified population fleeing to Bilbao at 30,000.[11] Basque Nationalist Party officials arranged for the final orderly evacuation of the city before its fall, holding back the anarchists, small in number, who were planning to wreak havoc.[12]
Despite their evacuation, 485 were killed at the city as a result of pseudo-trials mounted by the Spanish rebel troops in the aftermath of the city's occupation up to 1943, but during the first months of occupation approximately 600 were murdered in paseos (extrajudicial executions).[13][14] Among them, Steer cites the execution of seventeen priests of Basque nationalist sympathies.[15] The city mayor also faced summary execution.
The Nationalist rebels advanced further west. They were stopped by the Republicans at Buruntza for a few days, but continued their push until the outer fringes of Biscay (Intxorta). There, the resistance of the Basque pro-republican forces, backed up with 8,000 rifles smuggled in extremis by Lezo Urreiztieta to Santander on 24 September,[16] and the exhaustion of the Nationalists resulted in an end of the offensive until the War in the North began.[17]
Aftermath
The Nationalists conquered 1,000 square miles of terrain and many factories. Furthermore, they cut off the Basques from sympathetic France.[18] Then, Indalecio Prieto, the Republican minister of defense sent the Republican fleet to the northern ports in order to prevent a rebel blockade.[19] On occupation during September, a Comisión Gestora or Management Commission was appointed by the rebels comprising the factions involved in the military insurrection, i.e. Carlists, Falangists, and others. The Junta Carlista, the Carlist high executive body in the province, was then chaired during the first months by the local Carlist leader Antonio Arrúe Zarauz up to early 1937.
After taking over San Sebastián, speaking in the
The hatred underlying the crackdown was evidenced by the assassination of
See also
- List of Spanish Nationalist military equipment of the Spanish Civil War
- List of Spanish Republican military equipment of the Spanish Civil War
- The Basques during wartime
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-00-638695-7.
- ^ Beevor, Antony. (2006). The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Penguin Books. London. p. 116
- ^ Beevor, Antony. (2006). The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Penguin Books. London. pp. 115-116
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. pp.363-364
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. p.312
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. p.364
- ^ Jackson, Gabriel. (1968). The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939. Princeton University Press. Princeton. p.274
- ^ Preston, Paul, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, (2013), p. 430.
- ^ Preston, Paul, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, (2013), p. 430.
- ^ Preston, Paul, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, (2013), p. 430.
- ^ G.L. Steer (2009), p. 57
- ^ G.L. Steer, (2009), p. 57
- ^ Preston, Paul, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, (2013), p. 431.
- ^ "pistolero style", as put by Steer.
- ^ G.L. Steer (2009), p. 59
- ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. pp.364-366
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. p.367
- ^ Thomas, Hugh. (2001). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. p.397
- ^ G.L. Steer (2009), p. 59
- ^ Preston, Paul (2013), pp. 431-432
- ^ Preston, Paul (2013), p. 432
- ^ "Homenaje al personal del Ferrocarril del Urola, "perseguido y represaliado por su compromiso con la libertad"". El Diario Vasco. San Sebastián. 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-20.
- ^ Preston, Paul (2013), p. 432
Sources
- Romero, Eladi, Itinerarios de la Guerra Civil española : guía del viajero curioso, Barcelona : Laertes, 2001, 600 p.
- Barruso, Pedro, Verano y revolución. La guerra civil en Gipuzkoa' (julio-septiembre de 1936), Edita: Haramburu Editor. San Sebastián, 1996.
- Pedro Barruso, GIPUZKOA 1936: VERANO Y REVOLUCIÓN, LA GUERRA CIVIL EN GIPUZKOA (Spanish)
- ISBN 978-0-14-303765-1.
- ISBN 0-375-75515-2.
- Manuel Aznar Historia Militar de la Guerra de España. 3 vols. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1969.
- ISBN 978-0-691-00757-1.
- Paul Preston (2013). The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. London, UK: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-638695-7.
- ISBN 978-0-571-25513-9. Original date, 1938.