15. The Military Struggle under Giral, and Caballero¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 15: The Military Struggle under Giral, and Caballero
The Giral government, which held power from 19 July to 4 September 1936, possessed $600,000,000 in gold reserves and enjoyed a month’s grace before the arms embargo took effect, yet it purchased almost nothing, preferring compromise with the fascists. The militias and sailors’ committees, distrustful of Giral, secured the Republic’s only significant gains: the Catalan march into Aragon, propelled by land socialisation, and the navy’s harassment of Franco’s Moroccan troop transports. Irun fell because Giral provided no ammunition; Blum’s France deliberately held up Catalan munitions trains until after the defeat.
Under Caballero, Prieto became Naval Minister and promptly ended operations off Morocco, recalling the fleet from Majorca. In mid-September, almost the entire fleet was ordered from Malaga to the Biscayan coast, leaving the Straits undefended. Franco then landed troops at Algeciras unhindered. The fleet later anchored at Cartagena and remained inactive. This policy was dictated by the pursuit of Anglo-French goodwill; an aggressive naval campaign might have crushed Franco but risked war with Italy and Germany, which Anglo-French imperialism wished to avoid. Malaga was left defenceless and fell on 8 February 1938, after the general staff abandoned it without warning. The government also offered France and England concessions in Spanish Morocco, rather than inciting insurrection there as Berneri had urged.
On the Aragon front, CNT, FAI and POUM troops won victories and by late October were positioned to take Huesca and Saragossa. But from September onward, the government systematically withheld planes, heavy artillery, rifles and ammunition from this front, sending supplies only to Stalinist-controlled centres. This boycott was designed to prevent the CNT militias from gaining prestige, which would obstruct plans to liquidate the militias into a bourgeois army. The Stalinists denied sabotaging the front, then claimed arms sent there were diverted to the fascists by ‘Trotskyists’. The POUM had at most 10,000 men on this front; the CNT was the dominant force. George Orwell, who fought there, described infantry armed with worn-out Mauser rifles jamming after five shots, roughly one machine gun per fifty men, and one pistol per thirty. He concluded that a government sending boys of fifteen with forty-year-old rifles while keeping its best men and newest weapons in the rear feared revolution more than fascists.
On the Northern Front, Basque capitalists, backed by socialists and communists, retained their factories and had no intention of fighting to the death. San Sebastian was surrendered intact to Franco in September 1936, with CNT militiamen expelled and armed guards left to protect buildings. The Basque government later negotiated an armistice, with British agents promoting local truces. The CNT was persecuted, its regional committee imprisoned and its presses turned over to Stalinists. Only Asturias was active; miners besieged Oviedo but were denied planes and artillery because they had collectivised property and intended to proclaim the Commune of Asturias.
Franco thus dictated the war’s course. Madrid became the key front. In dire necessity, the Stalinists temporarily abandoned bourgeois methods, sanctioning workers’ committees, house searches, and barricades. Once the immediate danger passed, they reverted to ‘normal’, suppressing mass initiative, seizing POUM radio and presses, and releasing fascists while arresting workers. The sole military victory was Guadalajara in March, but failure to coordinate offensives made lifting Madrid’s siege impossible.