September 16, 2010
The Battle of the Ebro
I've longed admired the heroism and endurance of the men and women who fought and died to protect the Spanish Republic from a coup by the army, commanded by Franco and supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. The more I learned about this complex and ultimately tragic war, a precursor in many ways to WWII, the more I wanted to see the ground on which it was fought.
Since the war lasted from 1936-1939 and ranged all over Spain, from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, I decided to focus on one area and one campaign - The Battle of the Ebro River. This was the final and conclusive series of major battles in the war and the last ones that the International Brigades, volunteers from all over the world, participated in.
My plan was to visit as many sites along the Ebro as I could in the few days I had, beginning in La Terra Alta, the high country, southwest of Barcelona, and ending at the Ebro Delta where the river flows into the Mediterranean.
War as Test Case
The history of the Civil War is fraught with betrayal, military incompetence, and political maneuvering on both sides - in other words it was a typical war.
The extra dimensions of the conflict created by the machinations of Stalinist Russia on the Republican side and Germany and Italy on the rebel Nationalist side, with the Great Powers - Britain, France, and the U.S. - acting on their own perceived interests, made the war an international cause.
The leading figures in WWII - Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini - were able to test and gauge the strengths and weaknesses of their soon-to-be allies and/or enemies by practicing their statecraft during this period.
The battlefield was a testing ground for the emerging German and Italian armies as well. Picasso memorialized a Nazi air force practice session in his mural named for the village of Guernica.
Crossing the Ebro
In a last desperate attempt to halt the Nationalist advances, the Republican government ordered its battle-weary and outgunned army to attack across a long front on the Ebro River, beginning July 25, 1938.
From Mequinenza in the north
(the castle above Mequinenza viewed from the south bank)
to Amposta in the Delta
(looking upriver from Amposta)
the Republican troops waded across where they could, built pontoon bridges at narrow points, rowed small boats, and captured existing bridges.
The Nationalist forces, taken largely by surprise, were forced back and took some time to re-group. Franco's insistence that no territory captured by the Republicans, no matter how insignificant militarily, be allowed to remain occupied necessitated a grueling counter-attack that devastated the region and ultimately destroyed the Republican army. By November, they had been forced back across the Ebro with nothing to show for their courage and terrible sacrifice.
At Corbera
In the middle of the front, the ancient village of Corbera, west of the Ebro and built upon the high ground in a fertile valley, suffered relentless artillery barrages from the surrounding mountains and air attacks by the Legion Condor, the German air force contingent that attacked Guernica two years earlier.
(approaching Corbera from Mora d'Ebro)
My visit to Corbera was one of the most moving experience of my life. The ancient tradition of building villages on high ground was turned on its head by modern war technology; it lay exposed and defenseless to long-range guns and aircraft. The results were heartbreakingly obvious, as the old village was abandoned after the war.
(looking across the valley from the heights of old Corbera, the "new" village can be seen below.)
The day I visited, the village was deserted except for a small crew of volunteers restoring the street leading up to the church, which is also being repaired.
A few farmers could be seen working in the fields and olive groves surrounding the village. In my solitude, I tried to imagine the terrifying crash of bombs and shells exploding on those streets and walls, sending stone shrapnel in all directions. The villagers must have run down into the fields to try to evade those random deadly concussions and flying bits of the stones they and their ancestors from time immemorial had so painstakingly piled and mortared to make their poor homes and barns.
As I stood in a small grove in the village center, amazingly, I heard a baby cry. That most human of sounds overwhelmed my reverie with thoughts of the tragic past and with this present day where new life endures on the edge of that past. I took my leave.
Since the war lasted from 1936-1939 and ranged all over Spain, from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees, I decided to focus on one area and one campaign - The Battle of the Ebro River. This was the final and conclusive series of major battles in the war and the last ones that the International Brigades, volunteers from all over the world, participated in.
My plan was to visit as many sites along the Ebro as I could in the few days I had, beginning in La Terra Alta, the high country, southwest of Barcelona, and ending at the Ebro Delta where the river flows into the Mediterranean.
War as Test Case
The history of the Civil War is fraught with betrayal, military incompetence, and political maneuvering on both sides - in other words it was a typical war.
The extra dimensions of the conflict created by the machinations of Stalinist Russia on the Republican side and Germany and Italy on the rebel Nationalist side, with the Great Powers - Britain, France, and the U.S. - acting on their own perceived interests, made the war an international cause.
The leading figures in WWII - Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini - were able to test and gauge the strengths and weaknesses of their soon-to-be allies and/or enemies by practicing their statecraft during this period.
The battlefield was a testing ground for the emerging German and Italian armies as well. Picasso memorialized a Nazi air force practice session in his mural named for the village of Guernica.
Crossing the Ebro
In a last desperate attempt to halt the Nationalist advances, the Republican government ordered its battle-weary and outgunned army to attack across a long front on the Ebro River, beginning July 25, 1938.
From Mequinenza in the north
(the castle above Mequinenza viewed from the south bank)
to Amposta in the Delta
(looking upriver from Amposta)
the Republican troops waded across where they could, built pontoon bridges at narrow points, rowed small boats, and captured existing bridges.
The Nationalist forces, taken largely by surprise, were forced back and took some time to re-group. Franco's insistence that no territory captured by the Republicans, no matter how insignificant militarily, be allowed to remain occupied necessitated a grueling counter-attack that devastated the region and ultimately destroyed the Republican army. By November, they had been forced back across the Ebro with nothing to show for their courage and terrible sacrifice.
At Corbera
In the middle of the front, the ancient village of Corbera, west of the Ebro and built upon the high ground in a fertile valley, suffered relentless artillery barrages from the surrounding mountains and air attacks by the Legion Condor, the German air force contingent that attacked Guernica two years earlier.
(approaching Corbera from Mora d'Ebro)
My visit to Corbera was one of the most moving experience of my life. The ancient tradition of building villages on high ground was turned on its head by modern war technology; it lay exposed and defenseless to long-range guns and aircraft. The results were heartbreakingly obvious, as the old village was abandoned after the war.
(looking across the valley from the heights of old Corbera, the "new" village can be seen below.)
The day I visited, the village was deserted except for a small crew of volunteers restoring the street leading up to the church, which is also being repaired.
A few farmers could be seen working in the fields and olive groves surrounding the village. In my solitude, I tried to imagine the terrifying crash of bombs and shells exploding on those streets and walls, sending stone shrapnel in all directions. The villagers must have run down into the fields to try to evade those random deadly concussions and flying bits of the stones they and their ancestors from time immemorial had so painstakingly piled and mortared to make their poor homes and barns.
As I stood in a small grove in the village center, amazingly, I heard a baby cry. That most human of sounds overwhelmed my reverie with thoughts of the tragic past and with this present day where new life endures on the edge of that past. I took my leave.
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