The main entrance to Belchite (Source: own photo)
Today's democratically elected leaders show great reluctance to pay an upfront price to stop fascism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the West’s lacklustre support for Ukraine in its existential defence against the Russian invasion.
Shying away from confrontation with fascists is dangerous. Fascism is different. Fascists do not respect democracy. Fascists do not respect the rule of law. Fascists do not respect human rights. Fascism can only be fought with violence. Early and hard.
The 1937 Battle of Belchite was a turning point in the Spanish Civil War, a pivot point between two futures, one with democracy, the other with dictatorship.
Sixteen times more people died in Belchite than at Guernica. The ruins of the town have been preserved as a memorial to the conflict. Walking through the rubble is a deeply emotional experience. There was so much suffering here. A sense of tragedy hangs over the town, a sense that something truly awful happened here. Something entirely avoidable.
In the end, all the suffering of Belchite was in vain. Franco won. Half a million people died in Spain. The world fell apart. Eighty-five million people died in World War II.
The Battle of Belchite resonates to this day, because it is a reminder what happens when fascism is not stopped in time.
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The town of Belchite is located some 50 kilometres south of Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon. Aragon is a large region bordering France in the north, Catalonia and Valencia in the east, Navarre and La Rioja in the west, and Castilla & Leon as well as Castilla La Mancha in the south.
Aragon is located in northern Spain (Source: here)
In July 1936, a group of military officers led by Francisco Franco staged a coup against the democratically elected Spanish government. Supporters of democracy took up arms against Franco’s forces. Thus began the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from July 1936 to April 1939. Immediately after the coup, Franco had gained control of about half of Spain, including Zaragoza, the capital of the region of Aragon. Initially, it looked as if Franco would fail, but by August of 1936 the tide had begun to turn.
Map showing positions soon after the coup in July 1936 (Source: here).
Early 1937 witnessed a series of Republic defeats, partly due to deep divisions within anti-fascist ranks, which comprised social democrats, anarchists, Trotskyists and Stalinist communists. In “May Days” of 1937, hard-line communists loyal to Stalin sought to annihilate Trotskyites and anarchists in Barcelona, further dividing and weakening the anti-fascist alliance (See here).
In the same month, Juan Negrin became prime minister and aligned himself decisively with the Stalinist communists. He badly needed a victory to prove his worth as a leader and to unify the fractured anti-fascist alliance.
In July 1937, Negrin therefore launched an offensive at Brunete near Madrid, but the bloody battle ended in stalemate. Desperate to show results, he then changed his focus to Aragon in August 1937 with a big idea of taking Zaragoza. In addition to strengthening Negrin’s own position, an successful offensive against Zaragoza achieve three important military objectives:
1. Divert Nationalist forces away from the north to save Santander, which was on the cusp of defeat at the time.
2. Retake Zaragoza, a vital communications centre for the entire region.
3. Control the river Ebro in order to eventually connect Republic forces in the north with Republic forces in Catalonia.
Negrin's plan was to break through Nationalist lines at seven different points along a one hundred-kilometre stretch between Zuera and Belchite (see chart below). The Republic forces had at their disposal 80,000 infantry, 105 tanks, and 90 aircraft. Nationalists could count on 50,000-100,000 infantry and 200 aircraft. The main fighting took place in and around Belchite.
The line of attack in the Zaragoza Offensive (Source: Google maps and own annotations)
The Francoists were not prepared for the Republic offensive, which was carried out by the Republic army’s very best units. However, early on the attack was retarded by logistical failures and lack of coordination between different brigades and commanders. The delay allowed the Francoists to bring up reinforcements.
The Republic’s early air superiority was also squandered as its air force proved uncoordinated and ineffective. By contrast, Nationalist aviation quickly mobilised and proved very effective, dropping ammunition, food and medicines daily with large Ju-52 cargo planes and efficiently bombing Republic positions. Fast Heinkel He 70 planes of the German Condor Legion took daily photographs of Republican positions, thereby aiding Francoist artillery in the destruction of many Republic batteries.
When Republic commanders realised that the Zaragoza offensive was failing, they decided to take Belchite instead, if only to raise moral. From this moment onwards, for propaganda purposes, the Republic side no longer referred to the operation as the Zaragoza Offensive, but rather as the Battle of Belchite.
Belchite had been in Francoist hands since the July coup. The fascist take-over of the town was accompanied by the customary executions and complete disregard for human life. Belchite’s mayor, Mariano Castillo, and his family were arrested (see here). Castillo committed suicide on July 31. His brother and his wife were then executed along with 370 other politicians, teachers, peasants, day labourers, workers, even the village idiot. By the time the firing stopped, the Francoists had killed a tenth of the population of Belchite.
Mariano Castillo (Source: here)
The Republic’s attempt to liberate Belchite was entrusted to the XV International Brigade, also known as the Lincoln-Washington Brigade, which mainly consisted of American volunteers. The battalion was commanded by Colonel Robert Merriman, an economics doctorate student from the University of Los Angeles (see here). Merriman was the inspiration for the character of Robert Jordan in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Merriman would be captured and executed by fascist forces near Corbero d’Ebro in April of 1938. The International Brigades totalled some 40,000 soldiers from Eastern and Western Europe, the US, and Latin America. They were mainly used a shock troops, therefore taking massive casualties. As their numbers dwindled throughout the conflict they were gradually replaced by Spanish soldiers.
The Battle of Belchite began on 24 August, 1937. A Francoist garrison consisting of 2,273 men was stationed in the centre of the city, aided by 2,600 civilian sympathisers, including women, children and elderly. They faced 8,000-25,000 Republic and International Brigades infantry with 40 tanks and 80 aircraft.
The Battle of Belchite: The red arrow indicates where the Lincoln-Washington Brigade first broke into the city. The red circle marks the location of the oil factory. The blue circle is the location of the Francoist headquarter. The white circles show Plaza Nueva and the San Martin church (Source: Google maps and own annotations)
By 26 August, Belchite was fully surrounded by Republic forces, but breaking into the city proved extremely difficult due to the entrenched positions of the Francoist forces. The breakthrough eventually came at the San Agustin Church in the north of the town. This quote from Spartacus Educational, a history website run by the author John Simkin, describes some of the action:
“Once again, the Americans had to endure sniper fire. Robert Merriman ordered the men to take the church. In the first assault involving 22 men, only two survived. When Merriman ordered a second attack, Hans Amlie at first refused saying the task of taking the church was impossible. Then Amlie and Steve Nelson led a diversionary attack. This enabled the Lincoln-Washington Battalion to enter the town. The Americans suffered heavy casualties, Nelson and Amlie received head wounds and amongst the dead were Wallace Burton, Henry Eaton and Samuel Levinger.” (Source: here)
The San Agustin church through which Merriman's forces first entered Belchite (Source: own photo)
From the church, the Republic forces made their way slowly into the centre of town, where the main Francoist forces were concentrated. The fighting got much fiercer. The streets were too narrow and too full of debris to allow tanks to enter, so fighting was house to house, hand to hand. Civilians hid in cellars as Republic artillery blasted away at the Francoist positions, leaving the town devastated. Bill Bailey, an American soldier, describes the fighting:
“We would knock a hole through a wall with a pickaxe, throw in a few hand-grenades, make the hole bigger, climb through into the next house, and clear it from cellar to attic. And by God we did this, hour after hour. The dead were piled in the street, almost a storey high, and burnt. The engineers kept pouring on gasoline until the remains sank down. Then they came with big trucks and swept up the ashes. The whole town stank of burning flesh.” (Source: here)
Belchite is one of the driest regions of Aragon and the summer of 1937 was particularly hot. The Republic forces diverted the water supply away from the town, which added to the hardship of the summer heat. On August 31st, the International Brigades managed to reach the oil factory close to the Francoist headquarters.
Left to right: Francoist headquarters, facade of house in Calle Mayor, San Martin church (Source: own photos)
During the next four days, there was intense fighting around the main street (Calle Mayor) and the central square of Plaza Viejo. By 4th September, there were still two pockets of resistance, the town hall at Plaza Nueva and the church of San Martín in the eastern end of Belchite. On the 5th September, the San Martin church was taken with major casualties. The rest of the town fell on September 6, when exhausted Francoist forces ran out of food and water and finally surrendered. A small number of fascist troops were able to escape, but most were killed on the way to Zaragoza. About 80 survived the journey.
The Battle of Belchite took place in a space not much larger than a city park. It cost the lives of some 5,000 people, including 2,800 Republic forces and 2,000 Nationalists. The total number of wounded exceeded 6,500. A total of 2,411 were taken prisoner, including Belchite residents. The fleeing Francoists had not attempted to dispose of their dead; they left hundreds of decaying corpses stacked in various buildings. The dead Francoists were buried in a well for storing olive oil (called a trujal), near the Calle Mayor and the hospital. A commemorative monument to them was erected and can be viewed to this day.
The trujal where the Francoist dead were initially burried (Source: own photo)
The aftermath of the battle was as distressing as the battle itself. Belchite was eventually recaptured by Nationalist forces in another grissly battle on March 10, 1938. The last Republic soldiers to leave Belchite were members of the Lincoln-Washington Brigade.
Franco paid a personal visit to Belchite, where he promised to rebuild the town. But he never did. Instead, he put up an iron cross to commemorate the fallen fascists and then ordered that Belchite be left as a permanent memorial to the wanton destruction wreaked by the enemies of fascism and as a humiliation to Belchite’s residents.
Franco's cross for fallen fascists (Source: own photo)
Words inscribed on the door of the San Martin church read: "Pueblo Viejo de Belchite, boys no longer haunt you, you will no longer hear the jotas that our fathers sang". Against the wishes of Belchite’s inhabitants, Franco had a new town built nearby using 1,000 Republican prisoners as slave labour. They were housed in a concentration camp nearby called “Little Russia“.
Inscription on the door of San Martin church (Source: own photo)
The Battle of Belchite was the Republic victory that lost the war. The fighting took far longer and was much costlier than expected. This, combined with a failed tank assault at the Battle of Fuentes de Ebro in October 1937, made it impossible for the Republic to liberate Zaragoza, which was bombed, but never taken.
Two unexploded bombs from the Spanish Civil War adorn a pillar in Catedral-Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza (Source: own picture)
By November 1937, the Zaragoza Offensive had ended in failure. Francos assault in the north was able to continue and Santander fell, even while the Battle of Belchite was still raging. The failure of the Zaragoza Offensive paved the way for further Francoist advances, which culminated in the Battle of the Ebro from July to November of 1938. The Republic army was destroyed and its air force ceased to be an effective force. The Spanish Civil War was, to all intents and purposes, over.
The End
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