Paul Preston - Franco

On 8 March, the Black Flames division under the Italian General Amerigo Coppi broke through the thin Republican defences using the guerra celere tactics that had brought Roatta such success at Málaga. However, the Republic was better organized around Madrid than at Málaga. Moreover, as it became apparent by the evening of that first day that the Jarama front was quiet, the Republicans were able to strip that area unhindered and concentrate their forces against the Italians. As Coppi moved rapidly towards Madrid, dangerously exposing his left flank and over-extending his lines of communication, Republican reinforcements moved up unmolested by Orgaz’s troops. The Italian position was further endangered by the slowness of the Spanish columns on their right.

In general, the Black Shirts were surprised by the strength of Republican resistance and by the weather. Inadequately clothed, many dressed in colonial uniforms, they were caught in heavy snow and sleet. Their aeroplanes stranded on muddy improvised airfields, they made excellent targets for the Republican Air Force flying from permanent runways. Light Italian tanks with fixed machine guns were shown to be vulnerable to the Republic’s Russian T-26 with their revolving turret-mounted cannon. 22 Now desperate for the Spanish supporting attack from the south, Roatta sent violent protests to Franco who feigned powerlessness, informing him that he had had to exert all his authority to oblige Orgaz to make a token action on 9 March which would be followed by a full-scale attack on the following day. It was extremely implausible that Orgaz would oppose an order from Franco. Moreover, the attack which began on 9 March was on the tiniest scale and it was not followed up on either 10 or 11 March. On 11 March, Orgaz was replaced as overall commander of the armies around Madrid by Saliquet. On 12 March, Varela was replaced by General Fernando Barrón. On the same day, Roatta sent a message to Franco to say that, without the guarantee of some diversionary activity in the Jarama, he could not move since his advance was being blocked by Republican units taken from the Jarama front. 23

The Italians later discovered that, until well into the battle, Franco had refused to give the order for Orgaz and Varela to advance in the Jarama, despite the fact that Barroso pleaded with him to do so. Franco tried to obscure this by having Roatta and Cantalupo informed that he had relieved Orgaz and Varela of their immediate commands specifically as a reprimand for the inaction of the Nationalist troops on the Jarama front. A slightly placated Mussolini telegrammed Roatta ‘I hope that Saliquet will not imitate the immorality of his predecessor’. 24 However, there was no question of Orgaz and Varela being in disgrace. Varela was promoted to Major-General on 15 March and posted to take command of the Avila division and Orgaz was given the crucial job of cresting the new mass army which Franco needed. 25 The fact that Franco felt able to move them suggests that he did not view the promised attack from the Jarama as a major priority. * Having removed Varela and Orgaz, Franco and Saliquet promised Roatta an attack in the Jarama valley for 12 March. This also failed to materialize. On that day, Republican troops counter-attacked and the Italian advance was halted with heavy losses just south-east of the village of Brihuega. Finally, there were attacks on 13, 14 and 15 March but on a very small scale. 26

With the lines more or less stabilised, a much chastened Roatta accepted that the advance would get no further. Aware that his troops were at their best moving forward but easily demoralised when under attack, he was anxious to avoid a total debacle. Franco, however, avoided Roatta’s frantic requests for a meeting in Salamanca. Finally, during the afternoon of 15 March, the Italian general caught up with Franco, Mola and Kindelán at Arcos de Medinaceli near the front. Roatta requested permission to withdraw his troops from the attack. His hope was that the small advance made could now be defended by Spanish troops. He recognized the poor defensive qualities of his own men and suggested that perhaps they could continue to advance further outside the capital, from north to south. The Generalísimo refused outright.

Franco was either culpably deficient in hard information or else maliciously determined to use the Italians as pawns in his preferred tactic of attrition. Contrary to all the evidence, he insisted that the Republic was ‘militarily and politically on the verge of defeat’ and that ‘the complete solution be sought in the region of Madrid, with the continuation pure and simple of the operations in course’. Roatta argued that further operations on the immediate Madrid front were doomed to failure given the apparent paralysis of the Nationalist forces in the Jarama, the sheer scale of Republican resistance and the exhaustion of the CTV. Franco simply refused to budge. He had had to accept the imposition of a joint general staff, the deployment of autonomous Italian units, the humiliating insinuation that Mussolini could run his war better than he could and the possibility that the victory would be won by the Italians to the detriment of his own political ambitions. His reluctance to help Roatta, either by fulfilling his promise for the attack from the Jarama or by relieving his troops in the line, smacked of revenge. He was rubbing the Italians’ noses in their earlier arrogant confidence that they could take Madrid alone and that the advance on Guadalajara would be a walk-over. He certainly seemed to be determined not to make any sacrifices of his own troops and happy to let the Italians exhaust themselves in a bloodbath with the Republicans.

At loggerheads, Franco and Roatta reached an uncomfortable and ambiguous compromise by which the Generalísimo agreed to the Italians resting until 19 March but not deciding firmly what would happen thereafter. On returning to his headquarters, a still seriously concerned Roatta wrote to Franco that to persist with the original plan would simply consume their best troops to little avail. He proposed instead the abandonment of the present operations and a regrouping for a future decisive operation. Franco began a series of consultations with his own generals. 27 During the lull, the Republicans counter-attacked again in force on 18 March. Unaware that disaster was imminent, Roatta again visited the Generalísimo in Salamanca. They rehearsed the arguments of three days earlier, with Roatta insisting that the Italian contingent should be replaced while Franco, ever obstinate in terms of giving up territory or admitting any kind of reverse, remained adamant that the Italians should renew the attack on Guadalajara.

While Roatta banged the table and complained violently about the missing offensive in the Jarama, Franco continued to maintain, either misguidedly or malevolently, that the Italians were massively superior in men and materials to the Republicans. As Franco was explaining why the assault on Guadalajara must be continued in some form or other, news arrived of a massive Republican assault. 28 The Italians had not used the lull to strengthen their defences which was a culpable negligence on the part of Roatta. Nevertheless, the ease with which they were overrun proves Roatta to have been correct in his contention to Franco about the relative weakness of his troops. The Republicans recaptured Brihuega and routed the Italians. Roatta returned to see Franco again on 19 March requesting that his ‘shock troops’ not be kept in a defensive function but be allowed to regroup and be used elsewhere. The Generalísimo refused. After further attacks, a personal appeal from Cantalupo finally persuaded Franco to substitute the CTV with Spanish units. 29

Mussolini was outraged, declaring to Ulrich von Hassell, the German Ambassador in Rome, that he had informed the Italian command in Spain that no one could return alive until a victory over the Republic had wiped out the shame of this defeat. On the basis of Roatta’s reports, he also blamed the Spaniards for failing to fire a shot to back up his forces and, in a telegram to Ciano, denounced the deplorable passivity of Franco’s forces. 30 The reaction of Franco and his staff was a mixture of disappointment at the defeat and Schadenfreude at the Italians’ humiliation. Italian fascist songs were sung in the Nationalist trenches with their words changed to ridicule the retreat. Nationalist officers at the headquarters of General Monasterio’s cavalry in Valdemoro, including Monasterio himself and Franco’s friend, the artillery officer Luis Alarcón de la Lastra, had toasted ‘Spanish heroism of whatever colour it might be’. Yagüe made no secret of the fact that he was delighted to see the arrogant Italians brought down a peg or two. 31 Cantalupo advised Farinacci, who was still in Spain, that he ought not to risk returning to Salamanca. 32