10 August, 1950 – 18 January, 1951
Following their disastrous defeat, the Western Allies were thrown away from France by the unstoppable rampage from the Soviet Union and across the Pyrenean Mountains. In the spring of 1950, the war-weary and disorganized armies of the United States and her compatriots made a hasty retreat into the last bastion of democracy in Europe: the Iberian peninsula. After the conclusion of World War II, Francisco Franco's dictatorial regime in Spain became a staunch ally of the U.S. and the Western Allies in their fight against communism. As soon as the Bolshevik forces marched across Pannonia and struct the defenseless underbelly of France, the Spanish rightfully concluded that the Red Wave wouldn't break in the Meuse, but rather in the Ebro.
As such, preparations began for the construction of defensive positions. Unlike the French 10 years earlier, the Spaniards had no Ardennes to worry about. Spain's sole connection with the rest of continental Europe was defended by the unsurmountable Pyrenees, a great mountain chain spanning from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean. Any Soviet assault would have to break through this geographic barrier, which was expected to become a meat-grinder of death once Franco's defensive plans were realized. With the Russians overrunning the French Metropole and the Allied armies in full retreat, Franco allowed their battered remnants to station themselves in Spain. These were mostly American and British troops, the legacy of Eisenhower and Montgomery; however, there were also a great many of Frenchmen and Italians which fled their homelands as they fell to the Bolshevik blight, as well as some Commonwealth soldiers fighting under the Union Jack. In total, they numbered no more than 950,000 men, facing a force almost five times their size.
This deplorable state wouldn't last long, however. As spring bled into summer, Franco initiated the largest national mobilization in the country since the civil war. Almost 7 million Spaniards, roughly a quarter of the total population, were brought in to participate in the war effort in some capacity, including 1.3 million fighting men. In preparation, and with the Bishop of Urgell's consent, the nominally independent country of Andorra was occupied by Spain. President Truman of the United States hastily ordered the deployment of 3 million soldiers to Europe by the end of 1951, with division after division disembarking in Spanish ports every week. Similar measures were taken by the British, which committed some one million extra men in six months. The full might of the American industry, already at its maximum capacity, directed all of its energy into supplying the U.S. troopers and their allies. This included supporting the effort to build Franco's "Pyrenean Line", as it became known. This formidable beast of iron and concrete was set to become the largest defensive structure ever built, complete with bunkers, machine-gun nests, anti-air towers, barbed wire, artillery positions, supply depots, fortresses, and other such constructions. "The Maginot Line shivers in its presence," Franco once quipped.
Of course, a few scarce months were not enough to bring the entire project into completion. At the height of August, the Soviet Union resumed its attack: some 800,000 of the Soviet Union's best troops swarmed against the Spanish border. Luckily for their Allies, the French debacle was long in the past: they were now strong and ready for the attack, bolstered by fresh reinforcements, new equipment, and hundreds of thousands of Spanish soldiers. The Soviets ran into a brick wall: wave after wave was ground into a pulp by artillery and heavy machine-gun fire. Russian armor was practically useless in the mountain terrain, while their aircraft were subpar when compared to newer American-designed jets and experienced British pilots. It was a debacle the Soviet leadership wasn't expecting, but it was one they certainly feared. The picturesque Pyrenean slopes and quaint wooded hillsides resembled the battle-scarred fields of Flanders during the Great War. It was now a battle of attrition, complete with static frontlines and the ungodly slaughter of men. Repeated assaults later in August only ended in further bloodshed for the Soviets, who failed to penetrate even briefly into Spain's open country, not least due to the valiant and dogged resistance from the Allied army.
As the summer wore on, the front quieted. The Soviets were facing a serious problem, and no amount of frontal attacks would solve it. They required a different strategy.
On 10 September, 1950 - a Sunday - Basques to the left and Catalans to the right erupted in open revolt. These two socio-ethnic minorities had felt the brunt of Franco's iron-heeled boot; during the civil war they had also risen in arms, only to be brutally subjugated by the Nationalists. Once Franco took power, he saw ethnic factionalism as a threat to a united Spain. The oppression only deepened once the Soviets swarmed across Europe, since their socialist leanings had been made evident during the 1930's and hadn't truly gone away. With covert Soviet support, the Basques and the Catalans launched a nationwide insurrection; at the same time, the Russians launched their largest offensive yet. Moscow was gambling everything on the insurgents destroying the Allied rear, while they swept in to finish the job.
During the early weeks, they nearly got it. The attack was so sudden and devastating, that Allied leaders seriously considered a general retreat to a more manageable position. Franco, however, firmly countermanded this decision. The Allies would hold their ground, or die trying.
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