¡La Constitución Vive! - A Spanish parliamentary monarchy

[Kurt_Steiner]

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98. The Japanese onslaught (January 15 - April 21, 1942)

Just after the attack against Pearl Harbor, the Imperial forces moved against Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies and Indochina. About the Malasian campaign, suffice it to say that its only sucess was the evacuation of Singapore: 45,000 soldiers, 100 guns, 50 tanks and 650 trucks were taken into safety under the very nose of General Yamashita. Nevertheless, 90,000 British, Australian and Indian soldiers were captured by the Japanese, At the cost of 8,500 casualties, Yamashita had conquered the "impregnable" Singapore in little more than three months (January 16th - April, 26, 1942). The success of the evacuation, however, was offset by the fall of Hong Kong after a short siege (January 8-29, 1942) and the disaster that befell upon the Allied forces in the Dutch East Indies and in Indochina, where the Japanese, at the cost of 2,000 casualties, defeated a 175,000 strong Allied force, taking 100,000 prisoners and destroying the American-British-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) fleet: from its original two seaplane tenders (USS Langley and Childs), two heavy cruisers (USS Houston and HMS Exeter), seven light cruisers (HNLMS De Ruyter, Java and Tromp, USS Marblehead and Boise, HMAS Hobart and Perth), 22 destroyers, and 28 American, 3 British and 9 Dutch submarines, only the USS Langley, the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter, three light cruisers (HNLMS Tromp, USS Boise and HMAS Perth), 9 destroyers, and 15 American and 6 Dutch submarines survived the campaign (January 16 – April 25, 1942).

The defense of New Guinea and Burma were to give new hopes and strength to the Allied cause, just as Port Moresby and the Irrawady lines held and stopped the Japanese advanced, which was halted there by the dogged British defence in Burma (early April) followed to the fighting withdrawal to the Indo-Burmese border, and the Australian one in New Guinea (October 1942), supported by the raids that Rear Admiral Jack Fletcher, with the carriers USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise, carried out against the vital sea lanes which supplied the invading force (April 1942). These operations convinced the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN)´s Combined Fleet commander, Isoroku Yamamoto, that he needed to draw the American carriers into battle as soon as possible in order to destroy them. However, the Japanese were making attacks on northern Australia, beginning with a psychologically devastating but militarily insignificant attack on the city of Darwin on February 25, which was followed by the Sydney raid. It would mark the beggining of a Japanese aerial campaign against Australia that would end in August 1942 with heavy losses for the attackers and little result.

However, the Torvey Raid in April marked the beginning of a change in the tide of war.

A naval sortie carried out by the IJN from April 7 to April 21 broke havoc in the Indian Ocean. Admiral Chūichi Nagumo lead a force made up by four aircraft carriers (Shōkaku, Zuikaku, Zuiho and Shoho), four battleships, and two heavy cruisers into the Indian Ocean to attack Allied shipping and naval bases around Ceylon. Somerville, forewarned by intelligence and sailed to evade the Japanese during the day and close to launch torpedo strikes during the night while hoping that the reinforcements sent from Europe (2 aircraft carrier -HMS Ark Royal and Victorious-, 2 battleships - HMS King George V and Rodney-, 6 cruisers and 14 destroyers) led by Admiral John Tovey would join in time to finish the Japanese task force. However, Nagumo was able to sink 23 merchant ships and to hit hard Colombo and Trincomalee while avoiding the British Eastern Fleet (3 carriers -HMS Formidable, Indomitable and Hermes-, 6 battleships, one battlecruiser, 7 cruisers, 19 destroyers and 7 submarines -1-), commanded by Admiral Sir James Somerville. Even worse, the Japanese admiral was able to launch a devastating strike against the unprepared Eastern Fleet that caught Sommerville by surprise: HMS Hermes was sunk, along with the battleship HMS Royal Sovereign and the heavy cruiser HMS Cornwall, while the HMS Formidable and a destroyer were damaged, However, the just-arrived Torvey was able to launch a torpedo attack that damaged the Shokaku. Undaunted by the bad news, Torvey pressed and was able to attack Nagumo once more that same night, hitting hard the damaged Shokaku and sinking the Ryujo.

The next wave of Japanese attacks would follow in June. By then, the Royal and the US Navy were ready for them.


-1- ITTL the Force Z joins with Sommerville as the Ark Royal is unable to depart in time to join them due to a dangerous raid by the Russian Northern Fleet from Murmansk and as China is in Japanese hands since 1939, the presence of any British fleet in the South China Sea without proper air cover is deemed to risky.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

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99. The Third Balkan war (December 20, 1941 - April 1, 1942)

On December 20th, the Romanian army crossed the Hungarian border with one armoured four infantry divisions on the front and two more in reserve. They faced the unaware defenders (two infantry divisions plus six brigades) by surprise and they broke through their lines with ease, advancing to the final objetive, the Tisza River. On December 24 Romanian forces took Nagykároly and on the 21st they took Oradea and Salonta. By the 29th, they had reached the Tisza River. To the south, Bulgarian launched two army corps against the Greek forces, but they were stop in the tracks when they met the Greek defensive line in the Nestos River.

The Hungarians, who had reinforced the Tisza line with six infantry divisions, massed heir artillery on the other side of the river and used the bridgheads of Tokai, Tiszafured, Szolnok and Szeged to lure the enemy troops into a trap where they batteries could decimated them with their concentrated fire. For three days (December 31s 1941-January 2, 1942) the Hungarian army bombarded the Romanian positions and conducted offensive reconnaissance operations. On January 5, after a fierce bombardment, Romanian infantry attacked Hungarian positions. After a days of vicious fight in Tokai, Romanian forces launched a massive onslaught against Tiszafüred. There they were halted by the defenders. The arrival of reinforcements -the 20th Infantry Division- allowed the Romanians to clear the bridgehead of Tiszafüred (January 9), only to come under heavy bombardment by the enemy batteries. There was a lull in fighting, as both sides dug in and, on January 11, the Romanians attacked in Tokai, but to no avail.

In the southern area, during a two-day battle (January 5-7), the Hungarians recovered Szentes and kept Hódmezővásárhely, which had changed hands several times between Hungarian and Romanian in those days, until it was finally lost to the Romanians (January 8). Two days later, Romanian forces occupied Szentes and Mindszent. The destruction of the Szolnok bridghead (January 10-º5) took great pains to the Romanians, but, finally, they controlled the eastern shore of the Tisza River. Then, for five days, the Romanian generals brought new reinforcements to the Tisza Line and prepared to cross the river on January 15. However, on January 13, Italy and his Balkan allies, declared war on Romania and Bulgaria and their troops crossed the border.

It's still a mistery how Mussolinni managed to conceal the build-up of his forces without being notices by neither Romanians nor Bulgarians. However, when the 3rd Italian Army entered in Romania attacking Timisoara, Mahadia and Orsova, the shock left the Romanian high command paralyzed for a few crucial hours. By the time they reacted, the forces deployed along the Serbian border had been brutally brushed aside and reduced to a pocket to the south of Timisoara. When the Italians conquered Craoiva on January 20th, they had suffered 15,000 casualties and lost 60 tanks; the Romanian army suffered less casualties (10,000) and managed to stop the enemy advance; both sides prepared for the decesive battlem that would begin on January 25, when a combined Bulgaro-Romanian army fought the Serbian-Italian forces in the battle of Stoenesti (January 25-February 26), crushing its enemies, While the Red forces were hit hard ( 75,000 casualties and lost 100 tanks and 124 aircrafts), the Bulgaro-Romanian army was crushed: 33,000 casualties and 150,000 prisoners of war. Three days later, Bucharest fell to the Italians, while Sofia surrendered on March 11. The Romanian army, with Russian reinforcements and a Bulgarian small volunter force (600-strong), would kept fighting, though March 19, when, after the battle of Buzău, the Russian forces withdrew from Romania. By then, the Romanians soldiers still fighting by their side numbered 77,000.

On March 19, 1942, Bulgaria, now led by a pro-Italian government led by Kimon Georgiev and Georgi Dmitrov, joined the RSI and declared war to Russia; King Boris III fled with the Royal Family to Spain, from where they flew, a few weeks later, to Argentina. On April 1st, Romania joined the RSI alliance with the new government of General Nicolae Radescu, who would be replaced by Constantin Parhon, who would take Romania further deep into the Socialist Revolution heralded by Mussolinni. King Carol II followed his soldiers to exile.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Spanish volunteers in the German army.
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100. From "Sonneblume" to "Case Blue": the Second Allied Offensive in Russia (January 5 - November 17, 1942)

Just as Romania and Bulgaria joined the war, the Allied command launched a limited offensive in Vinnitsa to test the enemy strength and to divert the Russian attention from the Balkans. It found that the Russian resistance was stronger than anticipated and, after a few hours, the attack was cancelled ( (January 5-6, 1942). However, the STAVKA was shocked by the German onlsaught and, eleven days later, launched a heavy counter-attack (January 17-18), that changed little. The next Allied attempt ( February 15-17) was aimed to create a springboard from where to launch the rescue operation that would save the encircled garrisson of Kiev, but, again, the dogged Russian resistance forced the Germans to stop the attack and to rethink their strategy. It was to lead to a disaster: half of the German tanks were destroyed by the concealed Russian AT defences and the operation was, again, cancelled (Unternehmen Sonnenblume, March 5-8).

Generaloberst von Brauchitsch, at the Supreme Allied Headquarters, was incensed. A complete upheaval of the SHAEF followed. Billote was replaced by Général d'armée Charles Huntziger (1); Royds Pownall was promoted to Chief of Staff and Leigh-Mallroy replaced Romatet as Air Force Commander. This changes had a political cost, that forced to please the French government by makikng Général d'armée Maxime Weygand as the new commander of the Army Group South; However, when Weygand died when his plane crashed after leaving Warsaw, Général Charles de Gaulle became his replacement.

Pressed by the French government and with the British concentrating most of their forces in Asia, von Brauchitsch put into action the plans for a big push towards the Caucasus region by the Army Group South. The attack, case Blue, began on July 18 all along the southern front. Vicious fighting erupted from Rowno to the Black Sea, which repeated the events of early 1942. However, the northern forces of the Allied Army Group managed to break up the enemy lines on July 26 and, by the next day, the French tanks were at the gates of Kiev. Four days later, on August 1st, the Russian defensive line in Moldavia gave up and the whole front fell down as a house of cards. A new line (Odessa-Balta-Uman) was built in a hurry, but it only held the enemy advance until August 7, the same day that the 3rd French Army secured Kiev after vicious house to house fighting, which left the city in tatters. The next Russian attempt to stop the Allied advance took place at the Dnieper (August 12-15) after which the STAVKA ordered a general withdrawl to the Donets, which was completed by September 5th.

Now, after three months of continuos fighting and continuous advance, the Allied faced the same problems that had brought to a halt their 1941 offensive: long lines of supply. Thus, De Gaulle began to rebuild again his forces. Then, as the Russian launched several counter-attacks (First Battle of Rostov, September 27-30), both sides began to dig in and to prepare their new defensive lines while Georgy Zukhov began to prepare Operation Uranus, that would shake the Allied strategy to the chore. Meanwhile, to the North, the Allied Center Army Group (Feldmarschall Fedor von Bock) attempted to move its lines closer to the Smolenks-Oriol axis. It took a month of gruelling combats to reach the line (October 16 -November 17).

Then, on December 5, Zukhov attacked.


(1) Billote died soon after, on March 22, 1942.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The last moments of the USS Saratoga.
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101. The crucible (June 1942 - March 1943)

On July 3 1942, planes from the fleet carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku attacked the defences of Tulagi but they were detected by a USN submarine. This prompted an air attack from the USS Hornet, Yorktown, and Enterprise carriers that all fond the targets, At the cost of heavy air losses, the two Japanese air carriers were reduced to blazing hulks and the invasion of Tulagi collapsed that very day. However, on their way back to their bases, the USS Yorktwon would be torpedoed by a IJN submarine, that heavily damaged her, even if Tokio claimed the sinking of an American carrier (1).

The battle that would break the back of the Japanese fleet would took place in August. Yamamoto was aware that after the battle of Tulagi the Combined Fleet no longer enjoyed a significant numerical aircraft superiority over the U.S. Navy. Thus the island of Wake was selected as the target of a diversionary attack that would attract the attention of the USN carriers while the real invasion fleet attacked Midway. Thus, while the carriers of the Carrier Division 3 (Hiyo and Junyo) attacked Wake and a small force landed in the Aleutian Islands, the fleet carriers Kaga and Akagi forming Carrier Division 1 and Hiryū and Sōryū as Carrier Division 2, would take part in Yamamoto's battle plan for taking Midway (named Operation MI). However, the United States had a crucial advantage. they had broken the Japanese code and Admiral Chester Nimitz was waiting Yamamoto with a formidable force that included USS Lexingon, Saratoga, Hornet and Enterprise. The battle of Midway (August 3-7) ended in a crushing defeat of Yamamoto, who ended the battle with only one operative aicraft carrier (the Hiryu) lost the Kaga and the Soryu, along with a 187 aircraft destroyed and a great number veteran pilots dead or missing. while the Akagi, heavily damaged, would be able to return to Japan to be repaired. The American losses were limited to the USS Saratoga, and 105 aircraft destroyed.

This defeat shitfted the tide of war, as Japan was unable to stop the inmediate counter-offensive of the United States against Guadalcanal (September 7-December 13), where the remaining aircraft carriers of the Kido Butai would claim a phyrric victory at the battle of Santa Cruz Islands (October 25-27), where they sunk the USS Wasp even if, again, at the cost of heavy aicraft losses. After Santa Cruz, the Japanese fleet would have only one operative aircraft (Hiryu) due to the lack of trained air crews. The twin defeat suffered by Japan in Guadalcanal and New Guinea ´(August 25 - September 7) would mark the end of the large-scale Japanese offensive actions as the strategic initiative passed to the Allies.

Then, in Russia, Zukhov launched Operation Uranus. It was preceded by a series of long range bombardments against Warsaw, Łódź, Danzig and Königsberg (October-November) -2-. The air raids came to an end when the STAVKA saw they were ineffective and unsustainable losses were being suffered for no material gain.

The first stage of Uranus (December 6, 1942 - January 1st, 1943) began with a decoy attack in the Donets as the main attack clashed against the enemy lines in the Northern front. Unexpected resistance at the south end of the line around Pskov, defended by a Spanish garrison, opened a gap between the two attacking wings of the Russian forces and threatened their supply route. Operation Lyon, an attack by the First French army to break the encirclement of Pskov was poorly co-ordinated Zhukov had little trouble to defeat it, causing many losses to the French armoured force. From then on, the Russian forces pushed overran the enemy defeces and pursued the defeated Army Group North back to the Daugava River. As both sides neared exhaustion and the year came to its close, the French First and Fourth Armies launched an attack against the enemy vanguard (Battle of Riga, January 10-27, 1943), that ended in an stalemate but it put an end to the Russian advance. Nevertheless, Zukhov launched a new attack at the end of February (February 25- March 4) that was defeated by the strong defences that De Gaulle built along the Daugava River.

By the end of the first stage of Uranus, Russian losses were 434,000 men killed, wounded or captured, along with 921 tanks, 896 guns and 845 aircraft while the French forces, in adition to the thousands of tons of supplies and ammunition left behind during the retreat. They suffered 300,000 casualties, inclured those missing or captured, plus 1,278 tanks and 1,589 aircrafts destroyed. However, the French were able to recover 278 of those tanks and sent 146 back to the combat units while 400 more were arriving from France.







(1) The USS Yorktwon would return to service in October, 1942
(2) These five cities were the main targets of the attack, but Lublin and Kraków were hit several times in October and Stettin and Bromberg in November.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Operation Bagration, the last hurrah! of the STAVKA
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102. The end of the beginning of the end (March 1943)

Operation Bagration (March 7 - 25, 1943), Zhukov's highest bid, aimed to throw the Allies out of the Daugava line. However, the SHAEF had turned the tables as the Russian had lost the numerical superority. Diminished by the losses and the continuous advances, Zhukov's First, Second and Third Army Groups mustered 960,000 soldiers, 2,750 tanks, 18,000 guns, rocket launchers and mortars and 6,000 planes, while the De Gaulle's Army Group North had 1,250,000 men, 1,800 tanks, 12,000 guns, rocket launchers and mortars and 8,000 planes.

De Gaulle prepared a series of delayed actions in the advanced positions of the main line. However, the plans were poorly and confused executed and Zhukov could destroy with ease the enemy positions, but not to trap its defenders, that withdrew in good order to the main line, leaving behind 6,000 prisoners, 120 tanks and an enormous quantity of supplies (March 7-8). Zhukovs plan was to penetrate the enemy lines between Riga and Ogre with the First Army Group while the Second would break the front at Jekapilis and then to veer north to advance to the Baltic Sea and to trap the defenders of Riga. However, on the first day of battle (March 10), 300 of his tanks were destroyed or heavily damaged by the concentrated AT defences. Zhukov then cancelled the Jekapilis' attack and focused on the coastal push on the following day. After five days of bloody figthing, with his armoured divisons had lost one third of its original force, the Czarist commander ordered his troops to dig in.

At this point, Zhukov decided his forces could make no further headway without resting and regrouping. He reported to the STAVKA that he needed urgently reinforcements and that the enemy air raids were causing havoc in his resupply. After listenning to the promises of the High Command, Zhukov informed that he would need two weeks to resume the offensive. Following a bombardment which started at 03:30 on March 13, the French First Corps launched an attack against the Vimbukorgs bridgehead. The Czarist defenders, with the Daugava at their backs, panicked. The inexperienced recruits of the 60th Infantry Division who had only sketchy defences in the sector, were crushed and lost 1,500 prisoners to the attackers, who routed the Division. By late evening, the defenders barely clung to half of the original bridgehead. Armoured strikes departed from Daugmale to hit the Allied right and to connect with the isolated defenders of Vimbukorgs, which was beaten off after a two-hour fight, with more than 6,000 Russian dead and wounded covered the ground in front of the Allied positions On March 18 the bridgehed had been destroyed, 20,000 Russian troops had been killed and 37,000 prisoners of war taken in the battle.

To alleviate the pressure upon Riga, De Gaulle attacked the Second Army Group at Jekapilis (March 16), but this time the Russians held the upper hand thanks to their minefields. Communications with the two British armoured brigades failed, and the British armour did not move forwards to protect the French infantry. For eight hours, the French soldiers fought without armed support. After three days of battle, little had been achieved. The Russian front held, after suffering 20,000 casualties. De Gaulle had managed, though, to have part of Zhukov's reserves moved to Jekapilis, wich eased the situation of the defenders of Riga. The cost had not been a light one: 14,000 casualties. During the next days (March 18-23), De Gaulle pressed the enemy front from Riga to Dvinsk, slowly eroding Zhukov's strength, for whom the situation continued to be grave as, despite successful defensive operations, his infantry had suffered heavy losses and he reported to the STAVKA that "the situation is critical in the extreme". However, after this attacks, the forces of De Gaulle were also exhausted, and on March 25, the French general ordered an end to offensive operations and the strengthening of the defences to meet a major counter-offensive.

Thus, Bagration ended in a stalemate, but it had halted the Russian advance. The Army Group North had suffered 132,500 casualties in July, including 12,000 Spaniards, but it had taken 50,000 prisoners and inflicted heavy damage on the enemy, who lost 110,000 men. In his appreciation of March 27, De Gaulle was confident that he would be ready to attack in early May, but the enemy was trully broken, he claimed. General von Brauchitsch was dissapointing at hearing this, and began to consider replacing De Gaulle with the new star of the French army, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, whose spirited defence of Riga had caught the eye of the Western World. De Gaulle's self_confidence was to lead to his downfall when Zhukov launched a limited attack (battle of Dzelmes, April 5-10). The Russian onslaught was easily contained, but the outraged French press made it look as if the French General had been caught naping and made a furious campaign against him. This greatly helped von Brauchtisch, who was now able to replace him with the wholeheartedly support of the Quai d'Orsay. In this attack, the Allies suffered 17,500 casualties, compared to 29,300 for the Russians.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Madrid, Alcalá Street,
winter of 1945
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103. Second Azaña Ministry/First Martinez Barrios Ministry (1940-1945) -4-

In Spain, Martínez Barrios had turned his back to the war in Europe and aimed to keep with his reforms in Spain. However, he had a problem. His naval program had barely started in 1941 and it would not be finished until 1943. Even worse, it could not be cancelled or this would give a terrible weapon to the Conservative party. Thus, he decided to turn it against them. The naval was ruinously expensive, but a necessary evil. Determined to take full benefit of the industrial boom caused by the war, he was to use it to propell his welfare reforms. Thus, he kept both. He thundered in the Cortes that his bugdet was a weapon in the war against poverty and then explained that the reforms included several proposed tax increases that were to hit hard those with harder incomes. The richer they were, they more they were to pay, Martínez Barrios said. However, the wealthy families had still a lot of power in politics, even after being severely it by the November Revolution. The monarchist newspaper ABC depicted the budget as "pure Bolshevism [...] the negation of property, of monarchy, of nation". It was not a budget, but a revolution. This started the fight for the budget, which was fought in the newspapers and in the parliament... and in the streets, as Martínez Barrios took his budget to the people. All over the country, Liberal politicians began to explain to the citizens the budget in the pubs, in the parks and in the churches. However, the Conservatives were unable to stop it. They had not the numbers neither in the Cortes nor in the Senate and the budget of 1942 was passed without much further ado. Even worse for them, King Federico wholeheartedly support the reform. It was a great victory for the Prime Minister.

However, troubles were soon to arise. The great economic boom that the Great War had caused twenty years back was repeating again. And, apparently, the same mistakes were being made. The Trade Unions were angered for the situation of thousands of badly paid workers of the docks of Barcelona, La Coruña, Valencia and Bilbao and by the long shifts of the heavy industry workers. On August 11st, 1943, the situation came to a head when the dock workers of Barcelona came out on strike. Piles of vegetable rotted under the scorching heat, barrels of butter turned rancid, fish and meat began to stink. The police prepared to break the strike. Then, an Anarchist leader, Buenaventura Durruti, warned the Interior Minister in a letter: "Poverty has driven the dock workers to this present situation and neither your soldiers nor your police men shall avert the catastrophe that is comming to this country". Was Durruti and his comrades going to take Spain down the revolutionary road again? The strike soon erupted in Valencia, five days later, and riots ensued. The police and the army had to protect the workers that went to work, and, for a few days, it was feared that everything was to end in revolution again, as in 1923. Then, King Federico took matters in his own hands.

The King met with ministers and bussiness, with social workers and with trade unionists, and eventually came to suggest the Prime Minister to press for a rise in the wages of the dock workers and a deep change in their working conditions along with their timetables. By August 29th this option seemed the only solution to end the strike, even if the great firms were still looking for a way to keep the docks working at full steam without they having to reduce their profits. In the end, the dock workers saw their shifts going to back to normal and a well-deserved rise in their wages as more workers joined them to deal with the massive trade that were flooding the Spanish harbours. By the end of September, the shifts of the workers of the heavy industry were also returned to normal.

This reform was to have another colateral effect in Martínez Barrios' government, as he had came too close to the Social-Democrats to push his budget 1942, and this had caused some internal dissention within the Liberal Party, as the future would tell, but it had an inmediate result in 1943 which led to the resignation of Mariano Ruiz-Funes (Minister For Agriculture) and Segundo Blanco (Minister for Education) in October 1943, who were replaced by Miquel Santaló (ERC) and Francisco Barnés (Liberal Party). By then, the outcome of the war was decided and the naval program lost priority. The hull of the unfinished -and still unnamed- aircraft carrier would be sold and converted into an ocean liner. Bearing in mind the huge number of warships already in service of being built for the Pacific War, the War Minister, José Giral, suggested to wait for its end and then bid for the surplus ships that the US Navy was not going to need. Ironically, even if the need of an aircraft carrier pushed the Spanish government to open negotiations with the United States, the first Spanish aircraft carrier would come from the ranks of the Royal Navy. However, this negotations would become intertwined with the Anglo-American pressure upon Martínez Barrios to join the Allies in the war. Eventually, Spain would declare war to Russia and Japan in November 1943.

With the social reforms working at full speed, the workers pacified and the country in war footing, Spain went to vote in 1945.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

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104. Operation Leichtfuss and its aftermath (July - November, 1942)

If Operation Bagration and the Japanese onslaught in Asia had been caused of concern to the Allies, by the end of the year, the situation had changed. Christmas 1942 was a moment of quite satisfaction. The Japanese devastating advance in the Pacific had been stopped at Midway and crushed in Guadalcanal. Zhukov's offensive, that seemed to been the verge of of destroying the whole Army Group North, but now he was stalled at the Dvina.

At 21:40, July 23, 1942 on a calm, Operation Leichtfuß began with a 1,000-gun barrage along a 50 km front. The shelling plan was to last five and a half hours, after the Allied guns had fired about 529,000 shells. Then, infantry advanced and the engineers opened paths in the enemy minefield for the Allied tanks. By the morning of July 24, the Allied tanks had achieved a limited penetration that was barely contained by the defenders. In spite of the massive artillery and air support, the Russian defences held and there was little progress by the end of the day. A Russian armoured counter-attack led to the first major tank battle of Operation Leichtfuss. The German lost 120 tanks and assault guns destroyed or damaged while the Russian saw 300 tanks and self-propelled guns destroyed or damaged. Little changed despite the losses. The initial thrust was over. The Allied advance had crated a bulge 9 km wide and 8 km deep, but the Russian forces were firmly entrenched in most of their original positions and the battle was at a standstill.

Then, the 11. Armee (Von Manstein) was ordered to turn south as following with the attack by the 7th Armee (Dollmann) would be too costly. Deollmann would keep firm to avoid the enemy shifting reserves to the new threat and von Manstein would came crushing down from the north and avance towards Uman, thus threatening to envelop the 9th, 12th and 18th Czarist armies. The Panzers made rapid progress. Von Mackensen's 1st Panzerarmee broke to the south cutting across the rear of the Southwestern Front. The Russian armoured counter-attacked failed to stop von Manstein. After that, the fate of the encircled Russian armies was sealed. With their supplie lines in disarray for the massive Allied air strikes and, thus, with little fuel for their mobile forces, there was no possibility to effect a breakout. The advancing infantry simply began to capture enemy soldiers by the hundreds. The Russian 12th Army was destroyed at Uman, but the few operative tanks of the 18th Army managed to slow the enemy advance, even if it was decimated in the process. On the evening of July 25, Marshal Timoshenko, in command of the Southwestern Front, assesed the battle. He had suffered severe losses. His three remaining armies were short of ammunitions and his tank corps, which had prevented an enemy breakthrough in a costly defensive success, were reduced to a third of their original force. Most other units were also under strength, the men were on half rations due to the critical supply situation. In spite of the enemy situation, von Manstein and Dollmann were unable to take advantage of it. Each time they tried to move forward they were stopped by anti-tank guns and aerial attacks. The Allied offensive was stalled.

The German offensive was resumed on July 27 and ran into stiff opposition. For two days the two enemies forces fought a vicious battle along the Uman-Odessa axis. If the Russians held there, they could retake the initiative. If not, war could be lost. By August 1st, seeing that there was no way to held the lines, Timoshenko treid to dislodge their troops and withdraw to a new line (Kirova-Nikolaiev). It was just whisful thinking. Once the Russian forces began to withdraw, it became a rout. Outgunned, low of supplies and of fuel, the Russian soldiers could no longer figh. Eight days of constant fight had reduced their fighting capabilites and their will to nill. The Allied air force began to cause havoc in the enemy supply routs, causing the disintegration of the enemy army. The intensity and the destruction was then greater than anything witnessed so far during the war. Eventually, by August 6th, Kiev surrendered. By then, the 9th Russian army had ceased to exist and the other two (6th and 18th armies) had been decimated and reduced to corp's size.

Operation Leichtfuss was over. The Allied had suffered 60,000 casualties and lost 300 tanks, 100 guns and 111 aircrafts. The Czarist forces were annhilated: half of their soldiers (425,000 men) were dead, wounded or captured by the Allies; 540 tanks had been destroyed, along with 254 guns and 184 aircrafts. Then, from August 9th onwards, what followed was less a fighthing withdrawal than a persecution. When Timoshenko could reorganize his commands and stop the rout, a new line was established along the Donets (November 24th, 1942). He had, again, four armies under his command (6th, 9th, 12th and 18th), but his armoured force had been reduced to a tenth of its original size. He badly needed time and reinforcements, but the Allied were only to give him a short respite.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

A German Tiger tank on the move towards Maikop,
January 1943
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105. The battle for the Caucasus (January-September, 1943)

The diasters that befell to the Southwestern Front moved General Vasili Danílovich Sokolovski to launch, on December 18, a limited offensive with two army corps against Bryanks. While the northern flank had little success, the second corps advancing 56 km towards the city. Seven French infantry battalions were cut off by the armored spearheads, but they managed to withdraw and to reach their lines. The arrival of reinforcements stopped the Russian attack, but the fierce fighting lasted until December 23, when the front was finally stabilised.

On January 30, 1943, four Russian corps, one of them armored, launched a surpirse attack against Smolensk. If they achieved a breakthrough, the whole Center and Northern Fronts would attack al allong the front. If not, another probe would be launched later on. Initially, the Russian managed to advance with ease. Several counterattacks were organised, including a belated attack by the British 1st Armored Division in her last attack in the East before departing to India. but, even if all of these were beaten off with ease by the Czarist forces, after three days of vicious battles, the Allied forces had been forced to pull back to the outskirsts of Smolensk, where they built a new forward defensive line. On February 14, four armoured corps pressed forward in the area of Vitebsk. In spite of the defenders, by the evening of February 15, three of the Russian corps were able to break through and to head towards the city. The Allied air support managed to slow down the enemy advance, but by midday of February 17, the Russians entered in Vitebsk.

To the north, Zhukov launched the 42th Army against Riga on February 15. Two days later, they crossed the Dvina and turned northeast, to attack Riga from behind. On February 19, the 8 Army attacked Riga frontally, pushing aside the XXI French Corps at Adazi. The French were taken by surprise but could direct heavy artillery fire to the armoured vanguard of the Czarist forces, which were brought to a halt. In spite of this, the Russian forces could resume their advance after their Air Force hit hard the enemy arillery positions. By the morning of the following day, heavy fighting eruped in the outskirst of Riga as Allied reinforcements rushed to the front and the Russian pressed their attack. The morning attack made slow progress but the intense pressure applied during the renewed attack that afternoon triggered a collapse in the Allied defences. Riga fell in the afternoon of February 20. By the following day the Russian tanks were stopped by the Allied defenders in Buldur, Olaine and Baldone.

The race of the Volga began on June 28, 1943, after a careful planification. First, the Allied Commanders fooled the Russians: it was operation Bertram; the overall Allied deception stratagem for the summer offensive of 1943. Its main objective was to ensure the Russian would not increase troop presence in the Center front to protect Moscow. It was such a complete success that the Russians were completely caught off-guard when, the offensive began with Fourth Panzer Army starting its drive towards Voronezh. Due to a chaotic Russian retreat, the Allied forces were able to advance rapidly. In two weeks, the Russian air force had been annhilated: 392 Russian planes where shoot down by the Allies, who only lost 87. By 5 July, forward elements of Fourth Panzer Army had reached the Don River near Voronezh and became embroiled in the battle to capture the city, which further reinforced the fears of Michael II and the STAVKA that the Allies would turn north after Voronezh to threaten Moscow. The armoured reserves of the Czarist army would be wasted in the failed attempts to recover the city (July 6-13).

Due to logistical difficulties, which slowed the advance, the Allies did not recover Rostov until July 20. Six days later,July the Allies cut the last direct railway between central Russia and the Caucasus, causing considerable panic to the Czar and the STAVKA. Now they began to realize that they had been fooled. On August 1 Maikop was taken after being secured by airborne troops, even if they had been so sabotaged that it would take six months to repair them. Again, logistic troubles brought the Allied advance to a halt several times. However, by then 2,000 enemy tanks and armored vehicles had been either destroyed or captured and 83,000 prisoners were taken as the Czarist resistance hardened. This, and the logistical troubles caused a change in Allied tactics, than placed its sights on the Volga River as the advance towards Grozny and Baku lost momentum. On 4 August, the Allied forces were still 97 km from Tsaritsyn.

Thus began the long battle for the Volga (August 10-September 12), that ended with 80,000 Allied and 140,000 Russian casualties. Seventy thousand Czarist soldiers were captured or changed sides. The Caucasus was cut out from Russia. Two whole armies (around 300,000 men) were trapped in the Caucasus.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chindits in action
​

106. The Allied Push in the Pacific (August 1942 - January 1944)

The next ofensive of the United States were the first steps of the drive across the central Pacific in August 1942, just at the fight for Guadalcanal and New Guinea was reaching its end. The purpose was to establish airfields and naval bases that would allow air and naval support for upcoming operations across the Central Pacific against he Gilberts and the Marshall Islands. By the end of the Gillberts campaign (September), the Americans emerged victorious even if after heavy casualties and gruesome fighting conditions (specially at the battle of Tarawa) shocked both sides. The Marshalls, by contrast, were a much easier landing, even if it took nearly a month of heavy air and naval bombardment to conquer the islands (December 23). The two atolls were then transformed into naval bases and airfields to use in the next assault, on the Marianas Islands, which the Japanese had reinforced with the Palau after the defeat. Furthermore, if the atolls were captured, they would put American heavy bombers within range of Tokyo.

April, 1943 saw the beginning of the campaign against the Marianas Islands and brought the annihilation of the Japanese carrier force after the battle of the Phillippine Sea: three carriers (Hiryū, Taihō and Yonaga) along with 550 planes were destroyed in the so-called "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" (May 2). The US losses, in comparison, were light: one carrier (the USS Lafayette) sunk, 1 battleship damaged and 165 aircraft lost. The aircraft and trained pilots lost in this battle were an irreplaceable blow to the already outnumbered Japanese fleet air arm. The Japanese would need the better part of a year to reinforce their depleted carrier air groups. And even then, until the spring of 1944, when the first two fleet carriers of the Unryū would join the Imperial fleet, only light and escort carriers would protect the actions of the fleet. With the conquest of Palau, the campaign was over in August and Washington set its aiming point in the Phillipines.

In mailand China, the occupying Japanese forces reported an increasing amount of ambushes in the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi. which left behind a trail of devastation and found heavy and unexpected resistancia from the Chinese guerrillas, that had remained dormant since the Japanese annexation. From May to September 1942, 300,000 Japanese soldiers would fight against a invisible enemy that hit at will that claimed 60,000 Japanese dead and wounded and an unknown number of Chinese casualties. It would be the beginning of an increased Japanese intervention in China, as Tokio deployed over 350,000 men, even if that force only allowed Tokio to control the coastal areas . In Burma, the stalemate lasted in spite of the failed British offensive in Arakan (September 1943 – January 1944) and the Chindits raids. This failed attack, however, would be the the reason behind the Japanese U Go offensive, the invasion of the India, as the Chindits armed and trained local Lisu, Kachin, Shan, Khun, Chin and Rakhine ethnic groups and minorities in Burma, forcing the Japanese to create local Burmese militia and police to fight them. By early 1944 both the Allied offensive and the Chindits were pushed back into India.

Meanwhile, US and British submarines began to strangle Japan by sinking its merchant fleet and cutting off nearly all the oil imports essential to weapons production and military operations, while the Japanese submarine fleet achieved little in its efforts. It wouldn't be until 1944 when the Allied submarine effort began to take its toll over Japan.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

General Zhukov during the signing of the
Act of unconditional surrender of the Russian Empire
​

107. The end of the war in Europe (September - November 1943)

With part of the Army Group South devoted to the annihilation of the Russian forces trapped in the Caucasus, the Army Group Center (von Kluge) against Kursk. All in all, the Allied commander, Feldmarschall von Manstein, launched on September 9, 1943, 800,000 soldiers, 3,000 tanks, and 10,000 guns and mortars against the enemy lines, manned by 610,000 soldiers, 1,500 tanks, and 20,000 guns and mortars (13th, 16th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 22th Armies). It all began with a frontal attack supported by a massive air force and three airborne attacks carried out by a German and a British airborne diisions plus a French brigade and a Polish batallion. While the airborne forces were too scattered to have a decesive effect upon the battle, they managed to create confusion.

The land force experienced more troubles with unexpected minefields than from the defending divisions. Nevertheless, most of the Russian units fought well. The Russian commander, Timoshenko, launched several armored counter-attacks which failed due to the heavy attacks of the French and German air units. The preparatory bombing of the previous weeks had greatly weakened the Russian defences and the heavy Allied air presence kept at bay most of the Russian attacks, who lost 160 planes only in the first day of the battle. On September 12, Timoshenko was forced to withdraw to the Orel and Kursk line while the Czarist rearguards fought several delaying actions that managed to slightly delay the Allied advance. Then, on the following day, Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group, to the north, launched a surprise attack against the Orsha-Mogilew line (September 20), which they swiftly broke, while Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group threatened Vitebsk. After three days of battle, Guderian's panzers reached Gorki (September 24), was finally cleared of defenders on the morning of the following day.

For six days, the Russians conducted a costly defence; they launched 17 counter-attacks and many small local ones, poor coordination and logistics on the part of the Czarist forces allowed the Allies to successfully defend against these efforts, and, in the end, the Russians had to withdraw to the Smolensk-Roslavi line. The sudden turn to the east of the 3rd Panzer Group meant the death knell for the Russian defenders and, on September 30, two of its panzer divisions reached Yartsevo. Timoshenko had to fight a vicious rearguard action to avoid his troops being trapped by the Allied pincer movement. In spite of the fast advance, the were not yet astride the Russian escape route in any great strength, and their positions were attacked by Russian forces that were retreating east. By October 2 the Smolensk pocket had been sealed; on the following men, 55,000 men surrendered to the Allied troops. Furthermore, 388 tanks, self-propelled guns and other light armoured vehicles, as well as 2,602 vehicles and 296 guns werer captured or destroyed. All in all, the Allies suffered 44,000 casualties and lost 84 tanks, while the Russians losses were 118,000 killed and wounded, 86,000 captured and 550 tanks.

At this stage, although Moscow was vulnerable, an offensive against the city would have exposed the Allied flanks. In part to address this risk, and to free the Baltic States, an offensive was ordered to eliminate Russain forces at Petrograd. It was Unternehem Lawine, which started on October 19th. Two days later, a Russian General, Konstantin Rokossovsky, was sent to Lisbon to contact Allied diplomats. He had startling news: Czar Michael had been deposed and Russian was willing to surrender. Among the representatives of the Allies, there were the British ambassador to Portugal, Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, and two generals sent by von Manstein: the French Admiral Darlan and the German Albert Kesselring. On October 24, Rokossovsky returned to Russia, which surrendered on November 3, 1943.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The last hope of Japan:
the Nakajima Ki-87-I
​

108. The end of the war in Asia (January 1944 - March, 15 1945)

As the Second World War progressed as after Operation Bagration ended in failure, the Allies held several major meetings to both plan the course of the war and to design the postwar world. They included:

-The Trident Conference (May 12 – 27, 1943). On May 12th, US President Willkie arrived to London to meet with the British Prime Minister, Churchill. Together, they planned the Allied movements in Asia and the Pacific, and they mapped out what Asia would look like after Japan’s unconditional surrender. In their vision of postwar Asia, Japan would be stripped of her Pacific Islands, Kai-shek and his wife would be returned to power in a Republic of China restored of her Japanese-occupied territories, and the Korean peninsula would be liberated as a free and Democratic country..

-The Quebec Conference (August 17 – 24, 1943). On August 17, Willkie and Churchill arrived in Quebec, Canada to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King. During their week-long conference, the three men agreed, among other strategic points, to support guerrilla operations in the Caucasus and establish nuclear cooperation between the three nations. They also discussed the creation of the European Advisory Commission to study the postwar political problems in Europe. Willkie also pressured Churchill to begin considering ending the British occupation of Palestine. This would mark the beginning of the Anglo-American split.

-The Eureka Conference (November 28 – December 1, 1943) An attempt by delegates from around the world met at London to regulate the international monetary and financial order in the aftermath of World War Two. It was a complete failure. The conference was dominated by the different points of views of the Allies and soon became stalled by arguments between the Americans and the British. This conference would, eventually, open the way to the creation of the World Trade Organization and the World Bank Group, that would be the chaired by an Briton and and American, respectively.

In the battlfield, after the fall of the Marianas (October 1943), just as the RAF and USAF bombers began attack Japanese targets in China, naval construction battalions began at once to construct air bases suitable for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress wings that were to attack Japan and the Philippines from there. The air offensive, then, began on April 1944, ven if the first attack against Tokio did not take place until May 12. Four months later, on September 24, the first firebombing raids began agains Japan along the mining of Japanese ports and shipping routes. To fight the Superfortress raids, the Japanese developed several new fighters, as the Nakajima Ki-87, who was introduced into service with the Imperial Air Force in November 1944. Due to the heavy attacks against the Japanese industry, only 80 Ki-87 were produced and only 50 reached the first-line units, Resistance to the air raids decreased sharply from late January 1945 as the number of fighters available declined and the effectiveness of Japanese anti-aircraft batteries also decreased as the collapse of the national economy led to severe shortages of ammunition. .

In March 1944, the Japanese launched their last gamble in Burma: Operation U-Go. The offensive, however, was defeated at Kohima and Imphal (March 6 - May 22). The disaster suffered by the Japanese forces, that lost 70% of their combat strength, resulted in the Japanese falling back to the Chindwin, abandoning their artillery, transport, and soldiers too sick to walk. They had suffered 65,000 casualties, including 13,500 dead, for 23,500 Allied casualties. The retreating Japanese units were pursued to the Chindwin River by the Allied forces despite heavy monsoon rains (September-November), which saw the only Spanish military intervention of the whole war, when a Spanish bomber group (flying a mixture of British Lancaster and American B-25 Mitchell bombers), supported the Allied advance by carpet bombing the enemy defensive lines. The campaign was over by December, when Rangoon was taken by the British forces, even if the Japanese fought a vicious guerrilla war in the Shan States until late January 1945.

The air attacks agains the Phillippines led the undergound and guerrilla to increase their actions. They would become a great help for the US Army when the invasion took place in July, when the 6th Army landed in Leyte, which was heavily contested by the Japanese defenders, who lost their last carriers in the battle of the Leyte Gulf (July 27-29), along with several battleships and cruisers. The IJN would never be able to fight a major battle after this. By September, the island was under Allied control, even if there was still heavy fights as the last Japanese pockers of resistance were destroyed one by one. September 5 saw the Allied landing at Luzon. It was the beginning of a long campaign, where ten Allied divisions had to fight for every inch of land during the next four months. This protracted fight finally persuaded president Wilkie and the Chiefs of Staff that a campaign in the Home Islands would turn a real bloodbath and, eventually, it opened the way for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Kokura and Nagasaki (March 6, 8 and 10, 1945). Five days later, Japan surrendered.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

​

109. The General Elections of 1945.

The Liberal victory in the General Elections of 1945 saw the consolidation of the bipartisan system in Spain, as the Liberal and Social-Democration Union became the two main parties after the split of the Conservative Party, that experienced a sligth recovery in with Calvo Sotelo (that was mutiplied out of proportion in the parliament). Meanwhile, Gil-Robles and Miguel Maura were confined to the bottom of the Spanish political scene as msot of their would-be voters opted for either Calvo Sotelo, Prieto or Martinez-Barrios.

The Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV - Basque Nationalist Party) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC - Republican Left of Catalonia), had still a voice in the Spanish Cortes, but the voters had deprived them of having any saying. They had still a loyal chore of voters, so both parties decided to wait for their time and tried to increase that base of support, a bit dissapointed that their Galician counterparts had no success in their attempts. On the horizon began to loom the Moroccan question. To decide the future of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, the government had promised to hold a referendum to choose between continuing with the protectorate or to join Spain or to become another region within the federated state of Spain. A third option was offered. To be another federated state of Spain but with a governor named by the Spanish government.

The elections left the USD with a bitter taste. In spite of their hard work under the slogan "Work, Security, and Freedom for All with the USD", the party had suffered a bitter defeat, as they had failed to keep the PSOE at bay. Thus, Prieto decided to support Martinez Barrios. He hoped to offer a sensible and responsible image towards what he termed as the "hoolinsg of Domingo". It goes without saying that the Socialist leader did not take kindly those words, as he stated in his farewell speech when he resigned from the leadership of the PSOE. It would be up to the new General Secretary of the Party, Álvaro de Albornoz, to try to reach a settlement with Prieto or to go to war against the USD, something that would put the future of the PSOE at stake very soon.

Party	Seats	%	+/-
Partido Liberal (Martínez Barrios)	150/350	39,78	-32
Unión Socialdemócrata (USD) (Prieto)	74/350	20,3	-27
Partido Conservador (Calvo Sotelo)	55/350	15,5	+27
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) (Marcelino Domingo)	46/350	11,1	+25
Bloque Nacional (BN) (José María Gil-Robles)	7/350	3,2	=
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) (Lluis Companys)	7/350	2,7	+2
Partido Republicano Conservador (PRC) (Miguel Maura)	5/350	2,6	+3
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) (Doroteo de Ziáurriz)	2/350	2,2	+1
Partido Republicano Liberal Demócrata (PRLD) (Melquiades Álvarez)	2/350	1,9	+1
Partido Sindicalista (Ángel Pestaña)	1/350	1,1	=
Partido Comunista de España (PCE) (José Díaz Ramos)	1/350	0,6	=

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Madrid, Cibeles Square,
1949
​

110 . Second Martinez Barrios Ministry (1945-1950)

The lack of a majority forced Martínez Barrio to ask the USD to support him. The price for that would be to include three USD ministers in his government, and Martínez Barrio agreed. They were Álvaro de Albornoz (as the Treasury Minister), José Maldonado González (Interior Minister) and Vicente Sol Sánchez (Foreign Minister). When Álvaro de Albornoz resigned in 1947 to lead the USD after Prieto left politics, he was replacled by another USD minister, Julio Just Gimeno (Public Works Minister). Once the agreement was reached, all went smoothly for the new prime minister.

As it was the rule with him in his first term, he demanded hard work of all of his MPs and Ministers, and worked hard himself. He was reputed to be as knowledgeable on some ministerial portfolios as the ministers responsible themselves. Then, he took a modestly progressive program, fiscally conservative and run with business-like efficiency. This was to give Spain a good, financially responsible government which was to be still remembered several decades after. He lowered taxation and expanded the social programs, giving brith to the present day social welfare programs, which included not only family allowances and old age pensions, but also government funding of primay and secondary education. This was not well regarded by Calvo Sotelo, who instead favouring the expansion of voluntary insurance through existing plans.

In addition, Martínez Barrios' cabinet modernized and established new social and industrial policies for the country, including the universalization of old-age pensions for all Spniards aged seventy and above ( National Health Service Bill 1946, Pensions Bill 1948) and the introduction of allowances for the disabled (Allowances Bill 1949), and set the steps that would lead to the National Housing Bill 1954, which provided state financing for the renovation or construction of new houses, with a special program dealing with he housing of the disabled, the elderly, and families on low incomes with the so-called "Programas de Viviendas Nacionales" (National Housing Program) of 1949.

That year , the Interior Minister had passed in the Cortes, in spite of the vicious opposition of the Conservatives, the "Justice devolution" to Catalonia and the Basque Country (1948), Valencia, the two Castilles and Galicia (1949) and to the rest of the federated states by 1950: the local courts would be the highes avenue of legal appeal, even if the Spanish Supreme Court would still held a last saying in any question that affected the sovereignty of the state. In 1949, following a referendum, the Protectorado español en Marruecos (Spanish protectorate in Morocco) joined the Spanish Federation as the federated state of Africa Española (Spanish Africa). Also that year an ambitious program to expand the Spanish railways began when the railway connecting Madrid with Bilbao, Valencia, Sevilla, Barcelona and Cáceres, that would take several years to be completed,

In Foreign matters, Martínez Barrios attempted to expand the international role of Spain in the postwar world. The small role of Spain in the Asian theatre of war had been part of this strategy. He had worked hard to have a strong national base to be able to act in foreign matters, so, even more that during his first term, he stressed national unity, insisting that "a disunited Spain will be a powerless one." He also stressed political liberty and rule of law in the sense of opposition to totalitarianism.

Martínez Barrios was a leading proponent of the establishment of the United Nations (UN), an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, in 1949, serving as an architect and signatory of the treaty document. In addition to this, he also attempted to return the Mancomunidad Hispana into life with the Madrid Declaration, that found little support but for Argentina and México. The Mancomunidad Hispana would become a key element of the Spanish Foreign politics for the next decades.

 

[Bob Gump]

It seems before the last paragraph words are misssing

 

[Archangel]

Good to see measures to improve the life of the average Spanish citizen.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Good to see measures to improve the life of the average Spanish citizen.

I'm afraid I'm going a bit ASB...

It seems before the last paragraph words are misssing

Quite the opposite. Some words that shouldn't be there.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

España Square,
Zaragoza, 1950
​

111 . Local Elections in Spain (1945-1950)

One of the few sweet political events for Calvo Sotelo after the General Elections of 1945 was the victory of José Moreno Torres in the local elections of Madrid (March 22, 1946). Moreno was to prove a quite resorceful major in his tenure: the extension of the paseo de la Castellana (Castellana Ride) to its present form and the a reform of the public transportation system which doubled the number of cabs and added new lines to the tramway. However, his attempt to solve the housing problems of the city were only partially successful. He also dealt with the expansion of Madrid, which annexed Carabanchel, Chamartín, Canillas, Canillejas, Hortaleza, Barajas and Fuencarral to Madrid between 1948 and 1952.

Calvo Sotelo could also boast about the Conservative victory in the local elections of Málaga (December 9, 1946), the only non-Socialist major city in Andalucia. However, this good result could not hide the crushing defeat suffered at the hands of the USD in Zaragoza (where the Conservative candidate was voted only by 7.56% of the voters) and the bitter sweet results in Murcia, where the Liberal candidate received 39% of the voters, while the Conservative came second with the 31% of the popular vote.

An event that was to feature prominently in the Spanish political life: the victory of the Nationalist Lluis Companys' Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC - Republican Left of Catalonia), voted by 51,24% of the Catalan citizens; the Liberals came next, with 36, 17%. It was the beginning of a decade of indisputed ERC supremacy in Catalonia, where politics worked in a different way, with ERC and the PSC (the Catalan branch of the PSOE) beign the main political parties there, while the Liberals and the Conservatives were relegated to minor roles, the former until the later 1950s and the latter until the 1970s, when there would be a split in the Conservative ranks, as the new star of the right-wing formation would leave the party to create a new rightist one but with a marked Catalan nationalist feeling.

Catalonia was, thus, to become a source of worries to the Spanish government; this was worsened in 1942, when, in the Basque Country, the USD and the PSOE lost their supremacy there to the Partido de las Vascongadas (PV - Basque Party, a right-wing Spanish nationalist party), which held the local government until 1959. Frontally opposed to the Basque nationalism of the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV/EAJ - Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea, Basque Nationalist Party). a Christian-Democratic party, their clashes in the Eusko Legebiltzarra (Basque Parliament) were to lead to occasional incidents of sectarian unrest in Bilbao towards the late 1950s, as we shall see.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

115 . The General Elections of 1950.

The elections of 1950 were the last one before the reform of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate. It was carried out to include the new federated state of Africa Española (Spanish Africa) in those representative bodies and saw their cut in size: the MPs would go from 350 to 260 and the Senate would be reduced from 265 to 105. The elections were marked by the disappearance of two political parties: the Partido Republicano Conservador and the Partido Republicano Liberal Demócrata as most of its members joined the Conservative party to form an united front against the Liberals and the USD. The Partido Sindicalista also dissapeared when Angel Pestaña joined the PCE but most of its followers and voters opted for the PSOE.

The elections were marked by the attempt of Calvo Sotelo to unite all the right forces, from the center to the most extremist ones, under the appeal of the patriotic feelinsgs of the voters. This attempt led the Conservatives to clash against Gil-Robles' Bloque Nacional, the other right wing party. However, Gil-Robles was not willing to stand aside and let Calvo Sotelo take control of his formation, and this disagreement led to violent verbal clashes between the two leaders, who accused each other of being too narcissitic, and this only helped to damage the standing of both leaders and their parties. Even worse, both of them failed to connect with the voters born after 1930, who only knew about the post-war/Revolutionary period from what they had read in the books or being told by their families, and scared the ones who had lived those times remembered it too well. Even worse, many would-be voters of the Conservatives turned to the patrotic tunes of Gil-Robles instead of Calvo Sotelo, who was deemed to be "an old thing of the past". Thus, in short, Calvo Sotelo's losses turned to be what Gil-Robles reaped. The Conservative party was in deep troubles.

In the end, this civil war of the right parties only helped Martínez Barrios by a slandslide. However, the victory worried the prime minister, as Gil-Robles managed to achieve an impressive number of MPs just by winning the good results of its party in Madrid, Valladolid, Sevilla and Valencia. Outside of those cities, the turn-out of the BN did not exist. However, this chore of rightwing voters in the capital of Spain disturbed the Liberals, as the left and center wing parties had normaly prevailed there since the 1920s. What Martínez Barrios did not know was that he was not the only Spaniard afraid by the right. Many center-right voters that felt quite comfortable with the turn of his party and had flocked to the Liberals. This would be the cause of a rift inside the party, as we shall see. This, along with the false sense of security that fifteen years in power had riled the Liberals, were to be the cause of all his future troubles.

Party	Seats	%	+/-
Partido Liberal (Martínez Barrios)	181/350	49,15	+31
Unión Socialdemócrata (USD) (Prieto)	61/350	29,65	-13
Partido Conservador (Calvo Sotelo)	43/350	13,42	-12
Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) (Marcelino Domingo)	19/350	2.40	-4
Bloque Nacional (BN) (José María Gil-Robles)	19/350	2,21	+12
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) (Lluis Companys)	14/350	1.04	+8
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) (Doroteo de Ziáurriz)	12/350	1,2	+1
Partido Comunista de España (PCE) (José Díaz Ramos)	1/350	0,6	=

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Adlai Stevenson,
President of the United States
(1953-1954)
​

116. Third Martinez Barrios Ministry (1950-1953)

In his third and last term, Martínez Barrios kept his social agenda, rising the number of citizens protected by his welfare politics close to a 60% in 1950 and little over 69% by the end of his term. It was around this time when the primer minister began to think that, eventually, a voluntary insurance system would be needed to complement the actual one, even f in this idea he was fiercely opposed by his Minister of Health, Federica Montseny, Montseny, one of the best-known Anarchist politicians in Spain, had impressed Martínez Barrios during the tragic days of the November Revolution, when she helped to create a temporary medical service out of nowhere in Barcelona amidst the strife and the chaos of the time and, since then, he had kept her as in charge of the Spanish Health services against all odds.

Federica Montseny (1905-1994)
​

Furthermore, during this term, Martínez-Barrios used $100 million to support research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. It was the biggest state investment in this areas since 1865. In addition to this, in 1952 his government introduced the policy of "Equalization payments", which redistributed taxation revenues between provinces to assist the poorer provinces in delivering government programs and services, a move that is considered the basis of the solidification of the Spanish federation, even if, at the beginning it was fiercely opposed in Catalonia. Nevertheless, this system would prove to be a huge success and would remain unchanged for more than 50 years. For this incredible success, Martínez Barrio would be posthumously named "Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Fatherland) in 1982.

In 1952 he would head the first meeting of the new "Mancomunidad Hispana", which only included Spain, Argentina and México, with Chile and Cuba invited to seat, but without any right to vote as they did not join the organization. This would reflect the wavering attitude of the goverments of those two countries towards the organization, that would begin to change in the last half of the 1950s, as we shall see. It was just in this time that Mexico went through the so-called Milagro Mexicano (Mexican miracle), which would spark an economic boom beginning in 1954 and would last until 1970. It would be in this meeting when the Mexican president, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, centered the meeting in discussing immigration issues and economic cooperation between Spain, Argentina and México.

In 1953 the diplomacies of Spain and the United States met in the so-called Encuentros de Madrid (Madrid meetings), which would last until 1955 and ended in failure as the Spanish government saw little reason to support a close cooperation with the United States as it was felt that it threatened the independence of Spain and its freedom of action. Thus, for this reason, Madrid refused to join the Anglo-American dominated, created in 1950 as an answer to the Italian dominated Rome Pact of 1949, even if, that same year, the Spanish diplomacy would open talks with London, Berlin and Paris to discuss military cooperation of Spain with the NATO but without joining the organization. Furthermore, the panicked reaction of the White House to the ‘Red Scare’ of 1952-56 and Nixon's witch hunt against the “Red Democrats” had damaged the international standing of the United States. Furthermore, the beginning of the Anglo-American split would also influence Madrid in his position towards Washington, as Martínez Barrios was moving Spain slowly but surely to the British area of influence. Thus, the Spanish-US relations remained cold for the moment and would remain so until the late 1950s.

A few weeks later, on June 1953, Martínez Barrios announced his resignation both as primer minister and as leader of the Liberal party. Carlos Esplá was to be his succesor. However, this decision caused a turmoil in the party, as Esplá was the leader of the Left wing of the Liberal party, and he had little support among its moderate and right wings. Thus, they voted against Esplá and selected Salvador Minguijón as the new leader of the Liberal Party; thus, with this odd arrangemente, the Liberal Party had a prime ministerial candidate and a party leader that were, in the best of cases, at odds. This split would have a great influence in the next General Election, that were to take place on August 10, 1953.

Carlos Esplá (1895-1971)​

 

[ramones1986]

I have a slightly off-topic (at least to principal timeline) question: Are paying licence fees for the public broadcaster applicable in TTL Spain? How is the situation of the mass media in this scenario?

¡Gracías!