The Skin of Sepharad: a Spanish nightmare.

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Spanish General Elections of March, 1971

The surprising call for elections had taken everybody by surprise. However, Muñoz Grandes had run out of options after the first drawn of the new Constitution was rejected at the Cortes, and the Spanish leader needed a new National Assembly to redact a new text. However, he was aware that the voting stations would not bring the majority he hoped for. He warned against the "regime of the parties" which was, according to him, responsible for the 1920 collapse.

However, so many decades of authoritarian rule had created a big libertarian conscience among the Spaniards, specially in the younger generation. Even then, it was a surprise for many when Carrillo's PCE became the most voted force on March 1970. The PSOE, seen by many too lenient with the regime, suffered a terrible defeat that lead to the resignation of Felipe González, which retired from politics. Adolfo Suárez, the new hope of the Spanish right, had used Muñoz Grandes efforts to create a "National" party to build Democracia Popular (DP - Popular Democracy) around himself. Even then, it was not enough to beat Carrillo. In the end, the old communist leader went for an unexpected moved when he offered to Suárez and Alfonso Guerra, the temporary leader of the PSOE, to form a parliamentary alliance to achieve a consensus first to ennact the new Constitution and then to pass the essential laws not only to turn Spain into area democracy, but also to take it out of the political crisis that it had plunged Spain in the 1960s. The Christian Democratic faction within the DP threatened Suárez to leave the party if he allied himself with the "red devil", but Suárez managed to sway them to his side. After all, Suárez claimed, it was just a temporary alliance that would only last for a few months before the voters returned order to Parliament.

Thus, on March 12, Enrique Tierno Galván was voted by the PCE, the DP and the PSOE as the head of a coalition government which, it was hoped, it would bring stability to Spain for once and all.

PS: The percentage of the PCE - SCP was 33.44%​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Political chaos: the bloody end of 1971 and the hard beginning of 1972

Tierno Galván's tenure is best remembered by his successful reforms of the welfare state and by his legalization of the trade unions during his brief tenure (March 24 - December, 9, 1971). He began by passing important pension and workman's compensation laws. Then, in April, he also extended coverage of family allowances to practically the entire population, and, in October, he expanded the insurance of occupation risks "would henceforth be mandatory and that such insurance would be granted by the Social Security". His last triumph would come in November 1971, with a law that regulated collective bargaining, and contained a guarantee of the right of workers to strike; this law also fixed minimum wages for agriculture and for industry. However, what eventually brought down Tierno Galván was his inability to find a solution to the Catalan trouble. About him and this issue, the US Ambassador in Madrid, Robert C. Hill, said that Tierno was "a deeply harassed man" [...] "on the verge of a nervous breakdown". Caught between his desires to end the war and to maintain Spanish rule over Catalonia, he vacillated between pressing the war, perhaps by asking the British for an increased support, or seeking a negotiated solution.

Thus, while Tierno doubted and was unable to choose one of the two options, the Catalan Army further divided itself. As López Raimundo kept pressing for a Marxist class struggle outlook, a sizeable part of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC; Republican Left of Catalonia), broke with ERC after branding its leadership as "lapdogs of the bourgeoisie", and joined López Raimundo to create the Partit dels Treballadors (PT, Workers' Party); with them went also a small part of the regular and irregular forces of the Catalan Army, thus creating a paramilitary force, the Voluntaris Catalans (VC- Catalan Volunteers). The VC would begin with bringing the war outside Catalonia: a VC active service unit based in Madrid carried out a series of armed bank robberies during the summer of 1971 to raise funds for the VC; this unit would exist until 1974, when most of its members left the VC and joined the Catalan Army.

The fall of Tierno began in October. Federico Jiménez Losantos (1951-1971), a member of the Organización Comunista de España (Bandera Roja) -Communist Organization of Spain (Red Flag)-, was arrested on October 21 when the police crushed with extreme violence a demonstration demanding religious freedom and having the Catalan language taught in the schools of Barcelona. A few days later (October 25) the family of the young protester was informed that Federico had died from a heart attack while sleeping in the jail of the police station of Via Laietana. When this was known by Federico's comrades, Barcelona was rocked by an explosion of pain. From October 27 to 30, a wave of demonstrations in protest against police brutality. On October 28, the same happened in Tarragona, followed by Lleida and Girona on the following day. In Barcelona, the marchers were blocked by Loyalists led by Adolfo Muñoz Alonso (1915-1994), an ultra right leader that, in those days, would become one of the most important leaders of the Loyalists in Catalonia. When, on October 30, a demonstration in Lleida was repeatedly attacked by loyalists armed with iron bars, bricks and bottles while the police did little to protect the demonsstrators. When the news spread, it sparked serious rioting between Nationalists and the police. When the police replied with a violent rampage through the streets of Girona, the residents sealed off their quarters with barricades to keep the police out. On the following days, the example would be followed in Barcelona, Lleida and Tarragona.

On November 5, the police entered one the nationalist quarters of Girona, Pedret, in armoured cars and tried to suppress the rioters by using CS gas, water cannons and eventually firearms when some Malraux cocktails₁ where thrown against the armoured cars. When the police returned with reinforcements, the Nationalist "defenders" opened fire against them with rifles and even submachine guns. It was the beginning of the battle of Pedret (November 6-8, 1970). Then, on the following days, the protests also took place in the Balearic islands (November 8-11) and Valencia (November 10-12). Eighteen Nationalists and nine Loyalists were shot dead and at least 532 were treated for gunshot wounds. Scores of houses and businesses were burnt out. Thousands of families were forced to flee their homes: from November 6 to December 14, 1,260 Nationalists and 6,020 Loyalist families left their homes because of the bout of violence. Schools, theatres, cinemas and even churches were used to house the refugees. By late August 1971, half of Girona and Tarragona, a great part of Lleida and several quarters of Barcelona were non-go areas for the police.

On December 20, 1971, Tierno Galván tendered his resignation and a crisis erupted, as, for two days, there was no agreement upon his succesor. Eventually, the DP and the PCE sidelined the PSOE and elected Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, from the DP (who was picked up by Suárez, who refused to drink such a poisonous drink) as the new prime minister after three days and two nights of debate in the Cortes. Fernández Ordóñez was primer minister from December 23, 1971, to August 20, 1972. A vehement supporter of European integration, he pushed for the integration of Spain in the European Coal and Steel Community, but faced a vicious opposition not only from France, but also in the Cortes, from both left and right parties until he dropped. He would be more succesful in his farm reform, to increase farm loans, and with a tax reform which lowered taxes for low-income groups. Budget deficits, however, would be the bane of Fernández Ordónez during his tenure.

Catalonia, of course, kept being a thorn in Spanish politics. The widespread violence forced the prime minister to send the Army to Valencia and the Ballearic Islands and to reinforce the military deployed in Catalonia. After a Loyalist gunman was shot by a Nationalit gunman in Valencia (January 2, 1972), an armored car of the Police opened fire with its heavy machine gun, killing four, included a nine year old child killed inside his house, who was hit by a stray bullet. By the time that the soldiers patrolled the streets and violence came to another temporary end, more than 600 houses had been destroyed in Catalonia, Valencia and the Ballearic Islands and almost 10,000 families had been evacuated by January 5, 1972. Casualties rose to 32 (24 Nationalists and 8 Loyalists) dead and 3,000 injured (included 650 from gunshot wounds - 360 Nationalists and 290 Loyalists).

However, Fernández Ordóñez could boast that the soldiers were welcomed and greeted in Valencia and the Ballearic islands. In Catalonia the reinforcements were simply greeted with cold distrust by the Nationalists . Meawnhile, the Interior Minister, Antonio Garrigues Díaz-Cañabate, was worried by the sorry state of the security forces in the eastern parts of Spain, which reminded him of a defeated force. However, the arrival of the army brought a temporary peace to Valencia, as it had happened in Catalonia, but not a solution. Fernández Ordóñez blamed the Catalan Army for the violence, accusing its leaders of causing the riots, but this statememt would be proved false by the internacional press. Over the following weeks, tension remained, but it looked as if the worst had passed. Then, when the prime minister ordered to reform the police forces in the East of Catalonia and to dissolve the reserve units that had been mobilized during the emergency and had proved to be not only unreliable but also prone to act withtout orders, violence returned in several Loyalists quarters in Barcelona, Tarragona, Alicante and Valencia (February 11, 1972), as the Loyalists attacked the police. It was the world upside down for the flabbergasted Fernández Ordóñez. Sixty-two people were shot dead during street violence in the loyalist areas. Fifty one were Unionist civilians and eleven were policemen. Ironically, the Spanish Army was cheered in the Nationalist areas.

Meanwhile, a deluge of weapons and heavy equipment flooded the French border in their way to the Catalan army while peace returned to the cities as the guns of the urban guerrillas felt silent.

As buildings burn, Spanish soldiers patrol the streets after being deployed. This men belong to the
12th Infantry Brigade, from the Reserve force. They are armed with the British Rifle No.9 Mk1, Some units
still used the Spanish CETME and even the American Armalite AR-10.​

₁ - TTL version of the Molotov cocktail.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Battle of Rocaberta

When Francisco Fernández Ordóñez turned to Europe and to the European Coal and Steel Community, he was a happy man. By then, order and peace had returned to Catalonia and the Spanish economy was making a small recovery. He was aware that Georges Pompidou was determined to block the Spanish proposal, but he was bitterly disappointed when the British Prime Minister, Barbara Castle, joined Pompidou. Back in Madrid, the Spanish prime minister could at least find some happiness in the progress that his reforms were making in the Cortes and the peace that was slowly returning to Catalonia. However, peace was only a mirage.

Quietly, the Catalan Army was on its way to become a full regular force. The arrival of war material and military advisors from France greatly helped along with the failure of the Spanish intelligence to detect the incoming threat, as the French help was greatly downplayed in the intelligence reports, as the attention of the intelligence service were centered on the main cities of Eastern Spain. Furthermore, it did not help that the service were divided into two rival branches, the Sección de Información del Alto Estado Mayor (SIAEM - Information Section of the General Staff) and the Servicio Central de Documentación (SECED - Central Documentation Service).

De Calassanç also extended the reach of the operations of the Catalan Army and, by March 1972, the first "regular" guerrilla units were raised in Valencia and the Balearic Islands. Blissfully unaware, Fernández Ordónez won his greatest victory when his Land Reform Bill was passed on March 23 with the support of even the small right coalition. The union of the Spanish political forces filled Fernández Ordónez with pride, even if he was too aware that Manuel Fraga, the leader of the Unión Popular (PU, Popular Union), was in a quite weak position, with a small representation in the Cortes and with his position threatened by José María Areilza, who led the main opposition force within the PU. Many felt that Areilza, who was a moderate politician that gathered around himself the center-right faction of the PU, was a better option as the future leader of the party, as Fraga was considered too conservative and too divisive.

Then, on May 25, 1972, Spain awoke to the sound of the guns. On the outskirts of Rocabruna, a small village₁ almost hanging on the French border, the army had established a small garrison (the 2nd Company of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, all in all 104 soldiers and three officers and two 81 mm mortars). Unexpectedly, at 09.30 of May 25, while a heavy rain fell upon the post, heavily limiting the field view of the garrison, the Catalan army opened fire with an 37 mm gun and several 60 mm mortars against the southwest block. The captain in command of the garrison was mortally wounded by the shrapnel and died around 10.45. His second in command, Lieutenant Manglano, organized the defense of the post commanding the 81 mm mortars.

The enemy fire ceased around 11:00, giving way to the enemy infantry assault, which was concentrated on the north and west faces of the entrenched camp. The northern block was the scenario of a merciless fight between attackers and defenders who in turn seize it. Around 11:30 the Catalan soldiers entered the fortified camp, and the defenders replied by firing their mortars almost with a vertical angle and then engaged them in close combat. Around 12:30 the Spaniards launched a counterattack and the post was retaken around 14:00. The attackers had to fall back.

At dawn on May 26, the repaired radio set allowed to reconnect with the Camprodon garrison and requested support and reinforcements. Two helicopters then flew over the camp where the garrison was burying their dead and those of the enemy. That night, food and ammunition was parachuted into the post and a relief column departed from Camprodon, under the orders of Colonel Simón. The next day, a medical helicopter was used to evacuate the most seriously injured. But the relief column encountered strong resistance and slowly approached at the cost of many wounded.

During the night, Catalan artillery continued to fire sporadically on the post. Eventually, on May 28, around 19.00, Colonel Simón reached Rocaberta. The Spanish casualties were 24 killed, including 2 officers, as well as 35 wounded. The Catalan casualties are not known, but a report that was released to the press in 2006 claimed that they had 40 men killed in the fight that day.

The relief columm marching under the schorching summer sun. ​

 

[galileo-034]

I guess peace will never come to Catalonia until there is some kind of deal between Paris and Madrid.

Great writing as always.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

I guess peace will never come to Catalonia until there is some kind of deal between Paris and Madrid.

Great writing as always.

Right now, Paris has only a deal to offer: A Balkanized Spain.

A bit of spirit of revenge, you could think...

 

[galileo-034]

How long can they hold that line? At some point, it's going to come back at them in some way.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

How long can they hold that line? At some point, it's going to come back at them in some way.

How long did they held the Alsace complex IOTL?

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Secret Army

The victory of the Left in the general election of 1970 and the events that were taking place in Catalonia led to further radicalisation among the Spanish right; thus, as the "Somatén Armado" (Armed Somaten) seemed unable to fight their Separatist enemies, the so called "Fuerza Española" (FE - Spanish Force) was created in response to those events in January 1971, by former officers of the army (lieutenant Colonels Antonio Ortiz de Zárate and Gonzalo Fernández and Major Felipe Soto) along with other members of the Spanish Army, including former members of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The FE also had a "foreign" branch that was to attack the supply lines of the Catalan Army in France. It was led by Major Antonio Tejero Molina, from the Guardia Civil. It is hardly surprising, then, that the movement had a broadly anticommunist and authoritarian base..

By acts of sabotage and assassination in both Spain and France, the FE attempted to prevent Catalan independence. The first victim was Pere Soler, a free lance journalist who stated on TV, "Spain has lost Catalonia", who was assassinated by the Commando Delta on 31 May 1971.

The FE engaged in indiscriminate killing sprees: against Catalan teachers on 17 March 1972; against taxi drivers on 15 July; and against civil servants who directed the Educational Services in Tarragona. It is estimated that the assassinations carried out by the FE between March 1971 and April 1972 left a toll of 710 people dead and wounded.

Eventually, the use of extreme violence by the FE created strong opposition among even the most patriotic Spaniards and soon it found itself under pressure from the Spanish police and secret services. By the end of the Spring of 1972 the FE dissapeared.

Meanwhile, the Catalan Army regular forces grew in size and experience. By the beginning of July 1972, it comprised roughly 75,000 combatants in 90 battalions, with another 45 battalions of regional and urban forces (40,000 men). Then they began harassing Spanish positions along the French border, in northern Catalonia, with ambushes and mortar attacks. The Spanish Army responded by withdrawning from their smallest posts along the border and concentrating its forces in the fortified positions in the cities. In the summer of 1972, the Spanish forces in Catalonia had an pproximate total of 172,000 regular ground troops, some 70,000 were Spanish; 30,000 were Foreign Legion; and no fewer than 53,000 were Catalan. (The latter figure does not include either the paramilitary milicia nor the police. Perhaps as many as three-quarters of this army were tied down in ‘sector’ commands; in 1972 the only real manoeuvre forces in Catalonia were seven motorized Mobile Groups (brigades with three infantry battalions plus integral artillery, armour, and services), and eight airborne battalions.

Here we can see this member of one of the local urban units of the Catalan Army
and his Maschinenpistole 63, which began to replace the MAS-49 in 1973.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Veiga Affair (June - September 1972)​

On the summer of 1972 Admiral Gabriel Pita da Veiga was sent to Catalonia to inquire about the military situation on the ground and the morale of the Spanish troops. The report of his mission would be known as the Informe Veiga (Veiga Report). It drew a very pessimistic conclusion about the Spanish intervention in Catalonia.

The report was completed on June 29, 1972. It consisted of 25 pages, five addendums and 24 annexes and was divided into two parts, one on the situation of Catalonia in those days and the other on the future. Pita da Veiga, who was quite critical with the government, was severe in the report about the incoherence of Spanish politics, the corruption of the Generalitat, and pessimistic about the military situation.

After pointing out the gradual loss of control over most of the North of Catalonia, Pita da Veiga stressed the low morale of the troops, caused, according to him, by the absence of clear objectives. Another element he points to is the influence of France. To improve the Spanish military position, the report proposed several solutions, such as giving more power to the Generalitat, the call for local nationalism against the French intervention, the evacuation of certain border posts that cannot be defended, as well as the internationalization of the conflict by asking for help to other powers (ie, United Kingdom and Germany) interested in containing the French influence in Europe.

Due to gross negligence (or even sabotage), the confidential report soon fell into the hands of a French journalist, and then jumped into the first Page of Le Figaro in August 1972, something that deeply embarrassed the Spanish government. Eventually, Admiral Pita da Veiga was forced to withdraw prematurely from the Navy and was replaced by Admiral Pascual Pery Junquera in the General Staff of the Navy.

Then, an isolated garrison in the Pyrenees changed the course of the of the Catalan insurgency. By September 1972, the Spanish outpost at Viliella₁ was defended by half a company from the Foreign Legion. The outpost had been designated as a forward observation post over the Llosa Valley. On September 19, the outpost was attacked with mortar bombardments, and then it was stormed by a whole batallion of the Catalan Army. After two days of close quarter fighting, only a few legionnaires managed to escape. Then, a relief force (two infantry companies of recruits) sent from La Seu d'Urgell was ambushed (September 18) and wiped out: barely 60 men managed to reach the outpost, were they were surrounded by the Catalan force and forced to surrender three days later.

Just a few stragglers managed to reach the Spanish lines​

₁ - A village in the province of Lleida. Coordinates: 42° 24′ 58″ N, 1° 41′ 45″ E

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

El Maquis

By 1972 a growing disappointment began to spread around those who had hoped that with the new government and the free elections Spain was to leave behind its authoritarian past. However, as most of the legal, religious and political structure of the past regime was kept in place, many began to lose their hopes in a democratic change through the polls, which, for them, were simply rigged. Spain must bleed to change.

Thus, in the first days of January 1972, a former officer of the Policia Armada, José Flores Vitini, who had been trained in France in guerrilla tactics, began to organize a resistance cell in Madrid. Even if the Spanish police claimed that Flores had been economically supported by France, this claim remains unproven to this day. By the end of that month, and after recruiting volunteers among the members of the extreme wing of the PCE, Flores created the so-called "Cazadores de ciudad" (City Hunters) and soon began to attack "the repressive structure of the regime": they began with a bomb attak that wrecked the Informaciones newspaper office (November 25, 1972). When they killed two members of the feared Brigada Central de Investigación (BCI - Central Investigation Brigade), David Lara Bernárdez and Martín Mora Martínez. These murders led to a widespread man-hunt in Madrid and, on March 20, one of the terrorists, Juan Casín, is arrested and this led to the end of the group, with Flores being apprehended in early April. All the members of the group were tried by a military court. From the eleven defendants. seven were sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad on April 28. The remaining four defendants were given life sentences.

However, just as Flores and his men were facing the guns of their executioners, another group was preparing itself to act. Led by Sebastián Zapiraín, who had returned after the elections of 1971 from Argentina, where his fathers had fled after Weyler rose to power, and where he had been born. He soon formed a commando with Cristino Grande Carrillo, who had been trained in France in sabotage techniques. In June, Grande and his men took part in several ambushes, but they got the worst part of it as the security forces killed five of them and arrested the rest of the group. Grande managed to run away, but the police was determined to arrest him as his group had killed three policemen- Amazingly, Grande not only managed to give them the slip but also to form a new guerrilla, recruiting some of the survivors of Flores' group. By September he had ten men with him and the group began to act. From September 14 to October 15 the group assaulted two banks, but after that Grande began to launch a series of purges within its own group, fearing that there were traitors among his men, and had executed two of them. By late November the group was almost destroyed by the purges and one of its scared members went to the police to surrender himself and to inform them about the whereabouts of Grande in exchange for his life. By November 16, 1972, the police had arrested twelve of the members of Grande's group, but its leader simply vanished and was never found. Five of them were tried and executed and seven were given life sentences. The executions took place on January 21, 1973.

In spite of these setbacks, there was another attempt to reform the City Hunters group. This time, the guerrillas were led by Agustín Sánchez Zora, also known as "Darío", who was one of the main leaders of the hard wing of the PCE. Darío was to waste the next months raising and training his recruits, until, on March 21, 1973, the house came crashing down on his head.

The Communist membership of most of the guerrilleros threw upon Carrillo and the PCE a terrible amount of pressure which was worsened by the vicious attacks launched by the opposition parties. Thus, on April 3, Carrillo tendered his resignation as leader of the PCE and was replaced by Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri (1920-2014), the only son of a legend within the party, Dolores Ibárruri. Ruiz wasted little time purging the PCE from top to bottom. This situation forced Tierno Galván to break with the Communist party on June 20, 1973, something that led to a period of political chaos that began in earnest with the resignation of Tierno on July 8. Eventually, Manuel Fraga found himself leading an even more unstable coalition government (March 8, 1973 - February 8, 1974) which was constantly in crisis. Ironically, Pio Cabanillas, who eventually replaced Fraga as both the leader of the Conservative Party and as a prime minister (August 25, 1977 to February 8, 1979) who ended the Catalan conflict after a devastating defeat and an ongoing economic crisis. As we shall see, the United Kingdom and Germany were paying most of the costs of the war, but its support inside Spain had collapsed; by February 1974, the opinion polls showed that only 8% of the Spanish people wanted to continue the fight to keep Catalonia within Spain. This would lead to the Berna Peace Talks just as Spain faced another problem, with Morocco asking for the annexation of Ceuta and Melilla, something that would led a clandestine war from 1976 to 1983.

In 1973, however, the First Fraga Ministry saw the rise of Communist guerrilla units in Toledo, Segovia, Ávila, Córdoba, Ciudad Real, Albacete, Madrid, Cáceres and Badajoz. For instance, from March 20 to April 6, the "12a División Popular" (12th People's Division) led by Pedro J. Marquino, launched a series of attack in the province of Cáceres than reached its high water mark when the Division took several small cities (Talavera la Vieja, Cañamero and Belvís de Monroy), which were proclaimed to be the first cities of the "Unión Socialista de España" (Spanish Socialist Union) and were kept under the control of the guerrilleros from March 22 to April 5, when the Division withdrew as the Army and the Police moved to surround the rebel cities, which were taken without firing a shot. These raids led to a reinforcement of the Security Forces in Extremadura, which doubled its numbers by the end of 1973, and to a remarkable decrease in the activity of the guerrilleros during 1974 in Extemadura while, at the same time, it rose to dangerous levels in Aragon, Valencia, the north of Spain and in Andalucia.

Even in this situation, the Spanish army was forced to withdraw from the Pyrenees line as its might was stretched thin due to its deployment against the guerrilleros in the already mentioned areas. It was then when the Catalan Army moved for the kill.

A small group of guerrilleros in the Gredos area​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Spanish Army in the 1970s

The Spanish Army, for a country of its size, economy and population, was one of the largest and best-equipped among comparable armies. However, even if it had a great potential, for a wide variety of reasons, it often failed to fulfill expectations, as it had happened in the Ifni War. It has been frequently criticized for being inefficient and unprofessional, unmotivated and ineffectual, guilty of terrible treatment of its own citizens, overcharged by a cumbersome command structure and with an officer corps (particularly at senior levels) which proved, over and over again, to be politically devious and corrupt. This was a reflection of the Spain of the 1970s, an insecure country suffering from a lack of national solidarity and with contradictory political goals, and plagued with self-serving politicians and officers. It was riven by differing cultural traditions – partly born of the French influence after a century of merciless colonization that divided the country between the deeply patriotic population and the Frenchified upper classes. More recently, this was complicated by the shock caused by the French support of the Catalan rebels and the growing German and British influence over Spain and its inhabitants,

The French (in fact, Petain) had created the Ejército Nacional Español (ENS - Spanish National Army) in 1919 to use it in their war against the Commune of France; however, the Spanish Revolution of 1919 derailed those plans. The British intervention to "protect" Spain against a Communist takeover led to London to provide material aid for the new force, though equipment deliveries were delayed by the simultaneous demands of post-war Britain. The ENS was never an army in the true sense, however, but a ragtag collection of individual battalions and companies locally raised and controlled by the local authorities. Many of the ENS units were disbanded or dissolve themselves with the revolution and the French withdrawal, leaving Spain with a shadow of an army based in the existing 80 battalions – many of them used in security duties – organized into six divisions, plus a reserve of eight battalions. It was proposed to detach some of the experienced Spanish troops from existing battalions as cadres for the new units, with attached British officers and senior NCOs to ENS units that were led by their own officers. Next task would be to create a central military administration, to standardize the command of the Spanish Army, and to organize tactical divisions out of the existing independent battalions. This is how the ENS began its way to become the modern Spanish Army.

By 1945 Spain had remained outside of the main European events, in part due to its own weakness and in part because it was largely ignored by the warrying parties (but for the arrival of volunteers and supplies to both sides). Then, Washington fixed its attention in Spain as a way to enter into the Anglo-German sphere of influence through the backdoor. Thus, that year (1945) began the definitive reform of the Spanish Armed Forces with the landing of US advisors to Spain The head of the US military mission, Colonel George Armstrong Custer III, recommended the creation of four field and six light divisions, plus 20 territorial regiments for internal security, the latter to be formed into four or five additional light divisions if required. The project and its funding were approved by the White House₁ in August 1945. From 1946 onwards the influx of US equipment required the Spanish to learn modern modern logistical and maintenance techniques, and this led to the creation, in 1947, of a professional school system (officer and staff schools, technical schools, and branch training schools). At the same time, Spanish officers began to be sent to the States to attend advanced schools,

The death of Eduardo Weyler and the end of the Directorio was a blessing for the Spanish Armed Forces. Until then, the army command structure was a terrible mess of conflicting, duplicated, and overlapping chains of command and with unclear lines of communication and responsibility, while the Ministers of the Army, Air Force and the Navy proved unable to coordinate their activities as they worked unilaterally, jealously protecting their "dominions" in endless internal squabbles. This was made worse by the interventions of Weyler himself, who had introduced secret cells in all echelons of command, furthering his personal goals and monitoring the loyalty of officers. Other chronic problems mirroed the corruption of the Spanish state and included the embezzlement and diversion of funds, the theft and sale of supplies and equipment, the listing of dead soldiers on payrolls so that officers could pocket their wages, and the passing of intelligence to foreign agents, as in the case of the (in)famous British spy Krystyna Skarbek (1908-1975).

By 1968 the four field and six light divisions had been replaced by seven infantry divisions; four battalion-sized armored regiments, an airborne group and a marine group were also raised. However, the Spanish Army was still a road-bound force relying heavily on conventional logistics, with many units also being assigned static security duties in spite of the creation of new local security forces. Additional infantry divisions were raised over the years: two in 1970, two in 1973, and one more in 1978. By 1971, the Spanish Army had 192,000 regular troops in four corps, with nine divisions, an airborne and a marine brigade, a special forces group, three independent regiments and 19 battalions, plus service support units. Each division was given an armored cavalry squadron in 1970/1971. In 1975/76 the divisions were upgraded, with most of the support and service companies enlarged to battalions, and the division artillery was raised to four battalions. A division now had three infantry regiments, a 155mm and three 105mm howitzer battalions, engineer, signal, quartermaster, and medical battalions, plus division headquarters, military police, transportation, and administrative companies. A new divisional reconnaissance detachment was envisioned as a long-range patrol unit operating in small teams like their US LRRP counterparts, but this was only applied to the units of the Legión.

By 1972 the Spanish Army reorganized the Legión into four Tercios (each of three battalions); the only Armoured Division was established with four armored brigades (each of two armored regiments), plus three independent tank battalions, all of them with M48A3 tanks; there were also four air defense battalions (40mm/quad .50cal). Additionally, the General Reserve had the Airborne and the Marine Division (each with eight infantry, three artillery, and a recon battalion). Between mid-1969 and late 1972 a great deal of US equipment was sent to Spain to provide them with more modern gear.

Washington also helped to expand the Spanish Air Force and the Navy, which had been largely ignored so far. The origins of the Ejército del Aire (EdA) were two liaison squadrons and one air transport squadron created and trained by the British until they were replaced by the USA. In August 1955 under the Lend and Lease Program, the United States equipped the fledgling EdA with 28 F8F Bearcats, 35 C-47s and 60 L-19s, which were followed,  in June 1956, with a further 32 C-47s and 25 F-8Fs. From 1957 onwards Spanish pilots and air crews were sent to Clark Air Force Base to be trained following the example of the USAF. In 1960 the first T-28 Trojans began to join the trainning units of the EdA, and, as the Bearcarts began to show their age, they were replaced by 30 A-1H Skyraiders. With them the EdA also added 13 Grumman HU-16 Albatross seaplanes, 270 North American F-86F figthers and 30 Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star jet trainers to its inventory.

In late 1960 in order to support the operations of the Legion and the Airborne Division 35 H-34C Choctaws helicopters were shipped to Spain. In September 1963 the USAF opened a training center at Morón AB equipped with L-19s. By the end of 1965 there were 13,000 men and 359 planes in the EdA, numbers that would not change substantially until the 1970s. In 1965 began the modernization of the EdA with the conversion of the fighter squadrons to the F-5As and the F-4C/Es, the H-34s and the A-1H would give way to newer UH-1s and A-37s, and the C-47 squadrons would convert to C-119 and C-123 transports.

One of the F-4C of the Spanish Air Force. ​

₁ - ITTL, the US president is Thomas E. Dewey; Republican-New York (1945-1953)

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

A bloody failure: the end of the Maquis

Just as the police forces acted against the guerrillas in Extremadura, Andalucia became the next target with the creation of three "Divisions". In fact, only one began to act in Córdoba while a few small groups were active in Granada and Málaga. The Division of Córdoba, the 31st, under the command of Manuel Hidalgo Medina, was made up of one hundred men, soon became a source of troubles for the security forces, with its ambushes, bank robberies and the kidnapping of several businessmen. As the members of the 31st Division expanded their actions towards Badajoz and Sevilla, the government reinforced its forces in the area and launched a big anti partisan raid. By early June the Guardia Civil had managed to isolate the raiding parties. After several skirmishes that left 50 guerrilleros and 34 Guardia Civiles dead and the actions of the Brigada de Information (Information Brigade), also known as "La Secreta" (the Secret Police), by late September 1973 the 31st Division had been annihilated and its surviving members had fled to Portugal.

The 9a Agrupación Guerrillera (9th Guerrilla Group) came to life by April 1973 and soon turned into a criminal band devoted to bank robberies and petty crimes. By the end of the year the unit had suffered heavy losses. From its 200 members, 50 were arrested and 38 deserted; another 24 of its members vanished without a trace. The casualties of the security forces were quite light, 30 dead and wounded. A few survivors fled to Málaga, where they joined a few raiding groups that were active between March 1974 and December 1975. Its most memorable action was ambushing an infantry platoon in Cazuelas Creek, killing six soldiers and wounding several more. These groups were to ambush several units of the Guardia Civil and of the Army in the Loja area, until it suddenly vanished by the end of 1975. In spite of its small successes, the unit was decimated by the losses of members in ambushes or put in jail. Slowly, the groups ceased their actions and its members either fled to Portugal or blended into the local population after destroying their weapons.

The guerrillas in Asturias and Galicia had no better luck. The groups hardly had any chance to act due to the heavy police deployment in the area and most of their members quietly returned to their cities and jobs without too many questions asked. This changed in June 1973, when the guerrillas, reduced to a few dozen hardliners, launched a widespread campaign of sabotages and ambushes in the area. From June 1973 to March 1974 they launched 44 "operations', that went from bank robberies to blowing up bridges and ambushing the security patrols and even attacking police stations with mortars. In spite of the efforts of the Police and the Army, they would remain very active from March to December 1974, with 308 "operations". The guerrilla also killed 29 civil servants, 19 Guardia Civiles and 26 soldiers. However, the casualties suffered by the guerrilleros forced a reduction of the activity. Reduced to bank robberies and a few ambushes, the Asturian and Galician guerrillas remained active until March 1978, when its last members were arrested in Borricios, a small village in the area of A Coruna.

In the end, this guerrillas proved to be a failure. The government was able to portrait them as simple thieves and gangster, and their political objectives were skillfully played down by the official propaganda. Thus, the guerrilla groups had little popular support and were regarded with fear and disdain. Facing the constant persecution carried out buy the security forces and with the PCE denouncing them as "terrorists" and "traitors to the People", it was hardly surprising that, after their "happy times" (1973 and 1974), the guerrillas lost steam and many of its members either deserted or fled abroad. Some groups, at it has been mentioned, remained active until 1978, but by then the original purporse of their actions had been lost and many of those groups were little more than common criminal gangs. The guerrillas, in spite of the initial panicked reaction of the government, never were a threat to the state.

These guns were secured by the 304th Military Police Battalion near Teruel in 1979. We can see a British SMLE along with some AKMs and a M-48BO.
​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Border War

The Battle of Rocaberta and the skirmish at Viliella taught a lesson to the Spanish Army: the Catalan rebels had managed to build an army lavishly equipped with French mortars and artillery. Furthermore, the rebels had proved to be quite good with their guns. Thus, the Spanish High Command decided to withdraw from their northern posts, away from the mountains, hoping to force the rebels to move into the plain, where their firepower and their air force would turn the tables. Thus the plan was to withdraw to a new fortified line running from Figueres to Girona and from there to Vic, keeping a strong aeromobile force to strike any rebel move in the forested area of Les Guilleries. To achieve this, the C-25 route would be protected by a series of strongpoints built to support each other to keep open the communication between Girona and Vic. From there, from Vic, the line would run to Manresa and then would proceed to Calaf and then Lleida.

If this strategy made sense from a military point of view, as it would force the Catalan Army into a killing zone selected by the Spanish army, politically speaking was not acceptable as it meant giving up half of Catalonia to the rebels. The debates in the Congreso de los Diputados (the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament) pit the government against the opposition, who smelled blood in the water and felt the weak position of Tierno. Then, events took matter in their own hands as the garrison of Puigcerdà had to withdraw as, after Viliella, it was isolated and on the verge of being surrounded by the Catalan rebel forces. On September 16, the Spanish garrison, under the command of Major Ricardo Pardo Zancada, departed Pugicerdà with the first light of the day. Pardo Zancada hoped to reach Berga on the following day and then march to Manresa, where they were expected to arrive on September 18. This group comprised 2,600 troops and 500 civilians, most of them related to the soldiers.

Following the C-16 (Highway 16), after crossing the Cadí Mountains the column reached Bagà without too much ado, However, when they were crossing the small valley gorgue were Guardiola de Berguedà was place, Pardo Zancada's force came under fire from the mountains that surrounded the open area. Forced to seek refuge in the village, the column prepared to resist there while radioing their difficult situation to the outside world. In Berga, the local commander thought that the problem could be solved as in Rocaberta, and sent two companies under the command of Captain Carlos Díaz Arcocha. It was a great mistake as the companies were ambushed against the de la Baells reservoir and annihilated. Barely 65 men managed to withdraw back to Berga. Meanwhile, Pardo Zancada and his men were under constant harassment by the enemy artillery and snipers. To help them three battalions were sent from Manlleu. It was hoped that they would arrive in two days, but, constantly attacked and ambushed, the force stalled when they arrived at La Pobla de L'Illet, when they found themselves in the same dire situation that Pardo Zancada was facing.

Amazingly, even if several A-1Hs and A.37s launched repeated attacks against the hills that surrounded Guardiola de Berguedà, this did not alleviate Pardo Zancada's plight. Further disasters were added. The 1st Company of the Regimiento de Fusileros de Montaña (Mountain Rifle Regiment) was ambushed and destroyed by the 24º Regiment of the Catalan Army near Ripoll as it withdrew from Camprodon. Eventually, under the cover of the Air Force, Pardo Zancada made a sortie on September 21. Leaving behind most of the heavy equipment (including 2 guns and 50 vehicles) and the civilians, the column rushed out of Guardiola de Berguedà under a heavy fire. Ten hours later, hardly 1,600 men from the original 2,600 reached Berga.

Two days later, the garrison of Berga was mightly surprised when the 500 civilians that were left behind by Pardo Zancada were taken back to the Spanish lines by soldiers of the Catalan Army under a banner of truce. Ricardo Pardo Zancada, who claimed that he had heard the civilians' shouts when they were executed by the rebels, was placed under arrest on the spot. Eventually, Pardo Zancada would be court-martialled for his actions during the withdrawal from Puigcerda. On June 3, 1974, he was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment and expelled from the army.

A Jeep-VIASA CJ-6, one of the vehicles captured at Guardiola de Berguedà, today kept in the section devoted to Military Conflicts of the History Museum of Girona​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The Border War (II)

By late September 1972 it was obvious that the Catalan Army had taken the initiative over the Spanish. Being able to operate from bases in French territory, the Catalan rebels constantly harassed the Spanish forces along the border and during the withdrawal, as the disaster of Pardo Zancada's command proved. Feeling that their days in La Moncloa were numbered, Tierno Galvan reacted in earnest: the High Commissioner for Catalonia, Salvador Sánchez-Terán, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Force in the IV Military Region (Catalonia), General Joaquín Nogueras y Márquez, were both retired and replaced by General Francisco Coloma Gallegos y Pérez, who arrived to Barcelona on Decembrer 17. By then the Spanish forces there had almost 190,000 men, 10,000 of whom were part of the air force and 5,000 of the navy. The Spanish still occupied most of the country, but the Catalan rebels occupied, for their part, a considerable area of the interior and the countryside. They had five divisions, all armed and equipped by the French, and each consisting of 10,000 fighters. Four of them were about to the north of Barcelona, the fifth to the Easter, close to the Aragonese border.

The year 1973 promised to be a particularly happy one for the Catalan army. "Cala" and the top brass of the army had reached and agreement with the Communist Party of Catalonia (PCC): while the regular forces destroyed the Spanish will to fight by inflicting heavy casualties and humiliating defeats in the countryside, which would also draw Spanish ttention and forces away from the main coastal cities, a general offensive and uprising would then commence with simultaneous actions on major Spanish bases and most urban areas, and with particular emphasis on the cities of Barcelona and Tarragona. However, by early December 1972 it was obvious that the necessary logistical build-up for the offensive would not be completed until, at least, April 1973. Thus, with death in his heart, "Cala" was forced to take a defensive strategy. However, he could not limit himself to be absolutely quiet and decided to test the strength of the new Spanish defensive line.

The Spanish army had not withdrawn from Cardona. There remained two Grupos Móviles (GM - mobile groups) of the Foreign Legion (3,000 men each). The Catalan 38th Division carried out a diversion at Pegueroles (January 9th, 1973), a small outpost about fifteen kilometers north of Cardona. When this was know, the GM 3 «Tigres de Buharrat» rushed north to relieve the beleaguered 50-strong garrison, but was ambushed in the B-240 road, but a series of aerial attacks and artillery barrages finally allowed GM 3 to break free from the trap and retreat to Cardona, but too late to have been able to prevent the loss of an entire company and the near destruction of another one. The 38th Division, after forcing the surrender of Peguerolas, took the high ground of the Riera de Navel Creek.

General Coloma arrived to Pegueroles on January 14 to take effective control of operations. He ordered GM 1 to come from Madrid to serve as a reserve, then GM 3 to attack west and break through to the village of Serrateix, thus flanking the creek. He also requested air support and reinforcements. GM 1 managed to advance along B-240 road, to the east of the creek, and joined GM 3 in making several attacks that eventually dislodged the recently captured Catalan hill. On January 16, however, the rebels launched a massive counter-attack using the 38th Division. Coloma responded with the largest concentration of air raids of the entire war, in which napalm was used on a large scale for the first time in Spain. Even if the Catalan forces were well equipped with Bofors AA guns given by the French, they had to withdraw. In the early morning of January 17, the Spanish soldiers ran out of ammunition, and the Catalan Army retook the northern part of the creek. At dawn the 38th Division resumed the counter-attack.

Coloma used GM 2, his last reserve, and more napalm airstrikes. In the end, the Spanish air force won the battle and the 38th Division began to withdraw under cover of the 32th. On the afternoon of January 17, the two Catalan divisions withdrew into the mountains.

While this Spanish victory did not provide a short-term reprieve (the Catalan Army attempted to break through theSpanish defense lines soon after), it was nonetheless a definite morale boost for the Spaniards. Furthermore, he confirmed that Tierno had made the right decision in appointing Coloma to lead operations in Catalonia.

The Spanish casualties were 43 dead, 160 wounded and 54 disappeared or taken prisoner, while the Catalan army was hit hard: 600 dead and 800 wounded and 150
taken prisoner. "Cala" had to admit that he could not afford battles like the one of Cardona.

An advanced artillery observer directs the Spanish air strikes against the withdrawing enemy forces.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Change of Strategy

After the heavy setback suffered at the Battle of Cardona, de Calassanç decided to attack the defensive perimeter of Lleida to resume his strategy of "small steps". He planned to breach the Spanish defenses at Albesa, which was about 20 miles north of the city. He hoped that the fresh 31th Division, supported by diversionary attacks from the 34th and 32th divisions, would be enough to break the Spaniards in a hit-and-run raid.

In spite or the course or the war, Albesa was poorly defended as the main fortification efforts were concentrated in Lleida and its outskirts. Albesa was encircled by a series of outposts, with the village itself held by an armored car platoon of the Regimiento de Caballería "Montesa" N.º 3 (3rd 'Montesa' Cavalry Regiment) which had recently been equipped with M114A2 reconnaissance armored fighting vehicle. It waa also supported by a light infantry company of Catalan loyalists commanded by a Catalan lieutenant and three Spanish NCOs. To the south of the town, a company from the 30th Infantry Composite Battalion guarded the road to Lleida. In total, the Spaniards had about 400 soldiers.

After diversionary thrusts on 23 March, the Catalan forces attacked Albesa's outposts later in the night. They had carried all major positions by 26 March and prepared for the main attack on the city, which was taken after a protacted and bloody close-quarters combat house to house. At this point, part of the Loyalist company either fled or changed sides, dooming the defense. The Catalan losses were about 30 KIAs and 80 WIAs.

Coloma was uncertain of de Calassanç's intentions, but he did send an infantry battailon and some artillery batteries to relieve what he thought the beleaguered forces at Albesa. However, early in the morning of 27 March, the last members of the 29th Regiment of the 32nd Division withdrew back to the mountains. When Coloma discovered that, he ordered several air raids against the withdrawing enemy, who was attacked by several A-37s and A-1Hs. The Catalan losses during the withdrawal were 46 KIAs, 209 WIAs, and 14 MIAs.

Having learnt the lesson from previous encounters, Coloma did not order any persecution of the enemy. The Spanish lossers were 40 killed and 150 wounded, while the Catalan Army lost 76 killed, 289 wounded and 14 missing in action, while the Spaniards estimated 1,500 Catalan casualties.

De Calassanç, on his part, was to cancel any further offensive action until October, and devoted the time to reconstruct the regular and irregular branches of the Catalan Army, determined to strike both on the frontline and in the rearguard. This change was heralded by the Cafetería Rolando bombing, an attack on 13 September 1974 at the Rolando cafe in Calle del Correo, Madrid, Spain which killed 13 people and wounded 71. The Rolando Cafe was located on 4 Calle del Correo in Madrid, close to the General Directorate of Security, the headquarters of the Spanish Police. It was regularly frequented by members of the police force and security services. Two of the 12 initially killed and 11 of the injured were members of the police force. However the wounded included the number two of the Spanish Political Police, with the remainder employees and customers of the cafe.

Calle del Correo after the explosion.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

One step closer to the abysm

Even ir the Fuerza Española (FE - Spanish Force) had vanished after the Spring of 1972, its Catalan branch attempted to form a paramilitary militia among those Spaniards living in Catalonia who were opposed to any kind of settlement with the Catalan Nationalists. This led to the battle of Raval (a traditionally working-class area mainly populated by Spaniard and Foreign emigrants) from November 23 to December 6, 1974.

It began on November 20 with a demonstration in support of the 'indissoluble nature" of Spain that soon became violent when, after the demonstrators aleft the Raval, they attacked several shops which had their names written un Catalan. The police dissolved the demonstration by using tear gas.

It was then when the Delta Commandos sprung into action.

The Delta Commandos were founded by a civilian, Dr. Claudio Pérez, and a 35-year-old soldier, a deserter from the Parachute Brigade, Lieutenant Roberto Guerra, who led them in close relationship with the former Head of Spanish Police in Barcelona, Colonel Julian Grimau (who had been forced to resign when the press aired his close relations with the ultraright paramilitary). Operationally, the Delta Commandos belonged to the Intelligence Operations branch of the FE, but in Catalonia worked on its own, quite independently from the national branch. In fact, Guerra had a marked habit of acting on his own. One of this actions was to create the so-called "punitive structure" by Juan Suárez: "death squads" in charge of elimination operations, where former career soldiers were a minority. The Delta Commandos were composed mainly of disappointed Spanish settlers trained in the use of weapons during their military service, most of them from Para Brigade. With a few hundred members (the exact number is still unknown), the "Deltas" were grouped into about thirty commandos, more or less autonomous, and these benefited by hiding from the support of various supporters of a Spanish Catalonia.

Their reaction to the breaking up of the demonstration by the police was the so-called "Operación Terremoto" (Operation Earthquake): 120 bomb attacks were to be launched against Catalan shops, business and houses of well-known Catalan politicians. They would take place in two hours on the night of 22-23 December. Even if the operation failed in its great objective ("only" 40 of the 120 bombs exploded), it had a devastating effect, but not as Guerra and Suárez had planned, as it terrified and angered not only the Catalan citizens, but also the Spaniards and the Spanish and international press. The government, with the whole support of all the Spanish political parties, launched the police against the Raval, the heart of the Delta Commandos.

The battle began on November 23 between the OAS Delta commandos and the Mobile Groups of the Police that closed all the streets leading to the Ravsl. The Police forces were supported by Army tanks take up positions in the besieged neighborhood, with Studebaker T27 armored cars controlled the entrances and exits while Air Force T-28s strafed the buildings held by the FE. Four T-6s strafed the roofs to clear them from snipers after Army helicopters dropping canisters with tear gas were shot from the roofs.

In order to reduce the rebels in Raval neighborhood, it would have been planned to use, during their passage through Barcelona, on November 26, two destroyers, Méndez Núñez and Lángara, though it soon became evident that this was not practical and the bombardment was called off.

At the end of the day, the Delta commandos manage to escape from the besieged district, after an army colonel left them to run away by delaying to follow the order that he was given to cordon off his sector. The balance of the day is 15 dead and 77 wounded among the police and the army, and 20 dead and 60 wounded among the Unionist terrorists.

In support of the Raval figthers, 200 FE maquis marched from Zaragoza to Lleida to try to gain support from local Spaniard loyalistsz but instead these men were harassed and eventually surrounded and defeated in Belchite by Legion units led by Colonel Alberto Hernández after several days of fighting.

In the following two weeks, the army established a blockade of the neighborhood, as well as a curfew. The population has one hour a day to refuel. Massive raids were carried out (7,000 homes visited, 3,000 arrests with nearly 700 revolvers and rifles seized).

During the blockade, the FE launched a call for mass demonstrations on December 1 directed at the Spanish population of Catalonia, with the aim of forcing the blockade. This demonstration became a complete failure as even the most patriotic Spaniards rejected the FE after his bombing campaign.

​

Originally the USS Leary (DD-879), the ship was sold to Spain in 1973, where it was named Lángara (D-64). In 1992, she was stricken and broken up for scrap by Spain after a marathon 47 years of service on the Earth's oceans.​

​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

The week of the barricades (January 23 - February 1, 1974)

Recurrent cabinet crises and reshuflles marked the last months of Tierno's government and increased the misgivings of the army, while the Rightish press claimed that the security of Catalonia was being undermined by party politics. Army commanders chafed at what they were forced to take inadequate military tactics due to the incompetent political initiatives of the government. The feeling was widespread that a debacle was bout to happen and there was the widespread rumour that the government would order a precipitate pullout and sacrifice Spanish honor to political expediency. Thus, when Tierno eventually resigned on March 8, 1973 and Fraga formed an unstable government gathering the main figures of the Right parties, many hoped that a radical change would follow. Nevertheless, Fraga's energy was devoted to the improvement of the Spanish economy. His first ministry would be seen as an example of the "classical right", following the example of Margaret Thatcher. He stabilized the finances and the currency of Spain, even if he was accused of 'giving up' Catalonia, in spite of the well-known patriotic feelings of Fraga.

However, the governor general of Catalonia, General Antonio Ibáñez Freire, did not trust Fraga and began to organize support for a coup d'çetat that would replace Fraga's cabinet with a military Junta By early 1974 he had organized a coup d'état, bringing together dissident army officers and Catalan Unionists. However, the goverment was aware of the plotting through the military and police information services.

However, Blas Piñar, a public notary from Murcia, with several members of the Sindicato Español Universitario, an ultraright association of university students, staged an insurrection in Murcia starting on January, 23, 1974. It was "the week of barricades". The ultras led by Piñar incorrectly believed that they would be supported by the army. As Piñar and his supporters threw up barricades in the streets and seized government buildings, the governor of the province, José María Varela, declared Murcia under siege, but forbade the troops to fire on the insurgents. Nevertheless, 20 mutineers were killed during the ríots. On January 24 the army began to patrol the city, recover the control of the buildings taken by the mutineers and to demolish the barricades. Then, Piñar rose the stakes by placing armed men in the barricades that the mutineers still held, directing the action from his headquarters, which he named as "Alcázar". That day, at 17.00 h, the army and the police advanced towards the mail office. There, they were fired by the protesters, who also threw a grenade towards the soldiers. By 18:12, there were firefights in several neighbourhoods of Murcia. All the attempts by Varela to put down the mutiny by peaceful means failed until the arrival of armoured vehicles of the army. The fight left 12 policemen and 8 mutineers dead and 150 wounded.

On the following day, Piñar used the local radio to call for a general rising in Spain. Meanwhile, the army advanced against the protesters in the college district. The Council of Ministers met on January 25 and it was divided on the issue: Cruz Martínez Esteruelas, Ministry of Industry and Federico Silva Muñoz, Minister of Public Works, were in favor of repression. Laureano López Rodó and Enrique Thomas de Carranza are against that measure while Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora proposed to negotiate with the protesters. Then, there came worrying news from Murcia: the soldiers were fraternizing with the mutineers. However, by January 30, some mutineers began to abandon the barricades as the rest of the country did not rise against the government and, on February 1, Piñar and the last rebels surrendered to the army.

A parlamentarian committee led by Antonio de Senillosa was charged with studying the events and writting a report about it. Their report claimed that the protest caused 22 deaths and 147 wounded: eight protesters and fourteen policemen died, plus twenty-four policemen and one hundred and twenty-three civiliana were wounded.

Blas Piñar and several of his followers were arrested, imprisoned and tried by a military court in November 1974, but, released on bail for the duration of the trial, fled to Portugal.

The examples of fraternization between soldiers and mutineers in the barricades of Murcia
made Fraga to ask himself if he could trust the army...​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

All Quiet on the Spanish Front (February - Summer 1974)

The aftermath of the week of the barricades was the sudden resignation of Manuel Fraga as prime minister. Joaquín Garrigues Walker, from the Liberal Party, became the head of a divided cabinet that closed ranks behind him out of spite for the authoritarian ways of the departed Fraga. However, his time as prime minister (February 8, 1974 - June 28, 1975) was as troubled as Fraga's, as the cabinet wasted little time to begin its political infighting.

At least Garrigues Walker could claim that Catalonia the guns were silent. Nevertheless, what was taking part in the 'free Catalonia ' did not make him happy at all. With Gregorio López Raimundo at its helm, the Catalan Republic began to organize itself as a sovereign nation. However, for all their wishes to live in an independent Catalonia,, the leaders of the new Republic found themselves with few practical plans for how to organize the country now the dream seemed so close at hand. Many of the existing schemes, drawn up in the 1920s as the French withdrew, were laughably outdated. First and foremost, there was the need to take care of those Catalan citizens that the fight had turned made homeless. Bombs, battles and sabotage had destroyed much of the nation’s industrial capacity and transport infrastructure, which complicated the distribution of food and essentials, even if the French help did somewhat to alleviate the problem. It was clear that the old plans of a smooth return to the pre-revolutionary status quo was just a dream. The French advice pointed out to a government of reconstruction which would be needed for some time to stabilize the nation, restore the basic structure of the state, root out Unionist remnants, and begin the difficult process of de-Spainizing and Catalanizing the population and the economy molded by the Weyler dictatorship.

A Provisional Catalan Government was officially inaugurated in July 1974. It was essentially a military administration controlled by de Calassanç, who set its reconstruction objectives, and operating under martial law, though various civil servants trained in France were deployed to give its governance a civilian face and to advise the military commanders and supplement their expertise in areas of civil concern. López Raimundo was first given an honorary position and then sidelined. As he would admit in his memoirs, his influence extended only to his desk. Beyond its borders ruled de Calassanç and his staff.

Agustín Bassols i Parés was selected as the 'Chief Minister' because of his conventional and intellectual background. Furthermore, he had the rare distinction of being fairly well-liked and trusted by all the competing political factions in Catalonia and he was well regarded in Paris.

Thus, in the summer of 1974, the Provisional Government set itself to the immediate and pressing tasks of feeding the nation and the restoration of the transportation system. De-Spainalization was also of top priority, as it has been already mentioned. By the end of Weyler's regime, everyone from doctors to postal workers had been required to be not only a loyal Spaniard but also a member of the political associations linked to the regime, something that was done either for professional advantage or for mere survival. The ascendant Ómnium Cultural think-tank did not believe that any Catalan was naturally or intellectually Spanish, but that he or she was driven to embrace the Spanish nationalism by neglect and agitation. Founded on 11 July 1961, Òmnium Cultural was launched to combat the censorship and persecution of Catalan culture and to fill the gap left by the political and civil institutions of Catalonia that were forbidden by the dictatorship.

Separating the die-hards Loyalists from the rest of the population would be a long process. It was clear that Catalonia was many years away from normality. And half of the country was still under Spanish occupation.

A crowd jeers as a woman’s head is shaved after the liberation of Vic:
the fate of women accused of "collaboration horizontale" with the Spaniards.​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Heart of Darkness: the World in the 1970s: Indochina

Ho Chi Minh’s communist insurgency in Indochina had begun in 1938, largely unnoticed against the unfolding crisis eruptiong in Europe and America. Communism was on the move across mainland South East Asia, spreading out from Bengala in an arc of instability. In 1938, the Communist revolution in Burma and the Indian civil war send waves of shock to the European chancilleries. Only after a terrible bloodshed the revolution was annhilated. Terrified by the events in the neighbouring country, King Rama VIII of Thailand launched an aggressive repression that kept the revolutionaries underground in his country. The last Asian colony of the French Third Republic (1924-1943) was a comparatively easy target.

Initially a low-key guerrilla war against jungle partisans, the Indochinese conflict would last until the early 1970s, even if it would not become so vicious and bloody as the Burma and Indian events until the end of the decade of the 1960s, almost two decades after the end of the Indian Civil War and fhe defeat of the Communist rising in Burma; during that period the Communist Viet Minh had been reinforced with the experience of the Communist refugees from those two countries and its leader began to grown his forces slowly and patiently. Of course, Paris wasn’t amused that these rebels were openly defying their rule. To put down the revolt, they dispatched military forces to Vietnam to reinforce Dai’s Vietnamese National Army. It would be in 1961 when Ho Chi Minh felt confident and strong enough and began advancing, first in the North eventually overrunning the interior as the French forces were pushed back toward the coastal cities and morale collapsed after a string of defeats along the Chinese border in 1962 and the fall of Na Sam in 1963. Furthermore, Vietnam’s rainy weather also play a role in Ho Chi Minh0s strtegy, particularly the Mekong Delta region in the South. The French soldiers were blanketed by incredible amounts of rainfall as they were simply unprepared for such a brutal weather and the various tropical diseases that followed; as a result, their morale plummeted.

France then turned to help, and Paris found it in the least expected country. After visiting London and Washington, général d'armée Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, High Commissioner and commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in Indochina, landed in Tokio, Tassigny’s mission was to make an eloquent appeal on behalf of his government for Japanese aid. Portraying Indochina as a war against Communism, Tassigny warned that without Japanese support, Indochina would fall to Ho Chi Minh, and this would trigger a domino effect of Asian countries toppling one-by-one. For Tokio, it was a terrifying scenario that Tassigny painted and the Japanese prime minister, Baron Kantarō Suzuki, took it quite seriously. The fist step in the Japanese intervention was soon manifested. French soldiers were soon being armed with Japanese weapons and Japanese military observers arrived to watch them fight the Viet Minh.

Somewhat outdated, the Nakajima Ki 43 had a second life in Indochina as a ground attack plane.
The Japanese observer and the French officer doesn't seem to be thrilled with the pilot.​

A decade later, with the war in Indochina dragging on with little to show for it, the French Government concluded that it was time to withdraw. Thus, on September 12th, 1973, of the first units of the French Expeditionary Force began to withdraw from South Vietnam as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; Vietnamese: Lục quân Việt Nam Cộng hòa; French: Armée de la république du Viêt Nam) replaced the French forces while the Japanese not only remained in place (until 1982) but also expanded their forces until having 350,000 soldiers in Indochina by 1978. Under the Emergency Decree 213-49-74, a military junta was installed to temporarily govern South Vietnam; this was headed by Lieutenant General Dương Văn Minh (1916 –2003), Admiral Chung Tấn Cang (1926 - 2009) and Brigadier-General Trần Văn Minh (1932 – 2005). The junta, although not with its original members, remained in power until the return to the democratic process on December 10, 1980.

Nguyễn Cao Kỳ (1930 –2019),
The last President of the Vietnamese Junta


​

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Heart of Darkness: the World in the 1970s: Southeast Asia

Just as Indochina fragmented into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia, a Communist coup d'etat broke out in Thailand on November 20, 1974, which divided the country into two halves and thus started the civil war. The Asian crisis provoked an uproar in France, as it proved the complete failure of the foreign policy that France had followed for the last hundred years. An expeditionary Anglo-Indian force advanced into Burma in February 1975 to create a buffer state that kept the Leftist threat away from India. By then the Thailand of Rama IX was on the verge of collapse. A rare historic opportunity had presented itself for Tokio, that redirected some of the units that were going to depart to Vietnam and, in early March 1975, they landed on the northern coast of Malaya, at Kota Bharu, and at Pattani and Songkhla, in Thailand. It was the beginning of the long Japanese intervention in Southeast Asia thatwould last until the fall of Hanoi in 1995 and the unification of the two halves of Vietnam into the Republic of Vietnam in 1997..

Ironically, the Republic of China would send an expeditionary force to Thailand in support of Japan from 1975 to 1984, China sent 900.000 soldiers to Thailand, with the first units arriving in September 1975, in a brigade group known as Dove Force. It also sent around 1,000,000 civilian workers to the country, employed in technical and civilian tasks. The withdrawal of the first Chinese units began in 1981 and the last Chinese soldier left the country in October 1984. Corea's involvement in Thailand began with a small commitment of fifty military advisors in 1976, and increased over the following decade to a peak of 75,000 Korean soldiers by April 1978, By the time the last Korean forces were withdrawn in 1982, the Thailandese Civil War, along with the price paid for the Vietnamese intervention, helped to heighten the Korean concern to the Japanese expansionism and it would lead to the Chinese-Korean rapprochement of the late 1990s, when the Peking-Seoul Axis was formed against the Japanese-controlled "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

Then, the Great Revolt began in Vietnam in 2006. It began as a wave of anti-taxation protests and attacks upon pro-Japanese citizens and it scalated quickly. The government led by Kok Ksor responded with a widespread use of violence. This prompted widespread rebellion in Hanoi that culminated in the destruction of the Japanese garrison by rebel forces as the Vietnamese officials of the city fled to the south. To quell the unrest, Kok Ksor sent the army, but, despite initial advances and the conquest of Haiphong, the government forces were ambushed and defeated by the rebels at the Battle of Haití Duong with 6,000 soldiers massacred. Vũ Phụng Trọng was appointed as the head of the rebel government, which was immediately recognized by China and Korea. Thus the rebellion started, and it became one of the bloodiest conflicts of modern history with 15,000,000 confirmed deaths by the end of the war. The war was is remenbered by the fanatism of the defenders, who clubg to the ruins of their cities and used their childrencand women in suicide bomb-attacks against the Japanese and Vietnamese forces, bringing on the population the vicious revenge of the government of Hanoi while the Kawasaki Ki-99 heavy bombers rained death from above. The civil war ended in 2014 with the victory of the Japanese-backed goverment, which was left with the reconstruction of the North of the country, where cities like Hanoi and Haiphong had been almost obliterated by the artillery bombardment, air raids and the fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults which reduced both cities to rubble.

The reconstruction forced the government to perform spending cuts and revenue increases, while the mucxh needed reforms where initially supported by Japan until 2019, when the fall of the Conservative government, which had been in power since 1965, and the rise of the Liberal coallition, that re-directed the Japanese foreign policy away from foreign adventures to face the budget crisis that threatened to bring Japan into bankruptcy. Thus, Vietnam was left to its own devices. However China jumped at the occasion and replaced Japan as the "protector" of Saigon. With Chinese money flooding Vietnam, the Vietnamese economy began to recover very slowly, even if by 2025 it faced grave economic problems.