Пол Престон – The Destruction of Guernica (страница 2)

The operational details were hammered out at meetings held on 24 and 26 March involving General Alfredo Kindelán, as head of Franco’s air force, General José Solchaga and General José López Pinto as field commanders, Vigón as Mola’s chief of staff and Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, the Condor Legion’s chief of staff. Richthofen explained to his Spanish counterparts the novel strategy of ‘close air support’, using aircraft for sustained ground attack to smash the morale of opposing troops. Accordingly, arrangements were made at these meetings for continuous and rapid liaison between the headquarters of the Spanish ground forces and the Condor Legion. Two hours before any attack, the air force commanders would inform the ground headquarters in order for the necessary coordination to take place. It was also agreed at these meetings that attacks would proceed ‘without taking into account the civilian population’.¹²

Mola gathered a large army consisting of African Army units, of the Carlist militias or requetés now fully militarised as the Navarrese Brigades and of mixed Spanish-Italian brigades. It was backed by the air support of the small but well-equipped Condor Legion and of units of the Italian Aviazione Legionaria under Richthofen’s command.¹³ After Guadalajara, the Germans were keen to show their superiority over the Italians and to practise and develop their techniques of ground attack from the air. In this context, the relationships between Mola and Sperrle and between their chiefs of staff, Vigón and von Richthofen, were constant and close if not exactly cordial. The German government had made it clear in late October 1936 that the commander of the Condor Legion would be solely responsible to Franco. Sperrle was meticulous about observing that hierarchy and, in consequence, enjoyed generally good relations with Franco.¹⁴

In practice, however, the need to integrate joint air/ground operations on an hour-by-hour basis rendered liaison with Salamanca impracticable. So, content with Sperrle’s deferential manner, Franco allowed him a free hand to liaise directly with Mola and Vigón, except on major issues. Franco was delighted to be able to consider the crack Condor Legion as part of his forces and to sit back and take the credit for its achievements. In the field, Mola and Vigón were also happy to accept the help and advice of Sperrle and Richthofen and the consequence was that, with Franco’s conscious acquiescence, the Germans had the decisive voice in the campaign. Sperrle wrote in 1939, ‘All suggestions made by the Condor Legion for the conduct of the war were accepted gratefully and followed.’ While the advance was being planned, von Richthofen wrote in his diary on 24 March, ‘we are practically in charge of the entire business without any of the responsibility’ and, on 28 March, ‘I am an omnipotent and effective commander (Feldherr) … and I have established effective ground/air command.’¹⁵

On 31 March, Mola arrived in Vitoria to put the final touches to the offensive that was to be launched on the following day. He began by deploying the weapon of mass fear which had been so effective for Franco in the advance on Madrid of the African columns. He issued a proclamation that was both broadcast and printed in a leaflet dropped on the main towns. It contained the following threat: ‘If your submission is not immediate, I will raze Vizcaya to the ground, beginning with the industries of war. I have ample means to do so.’¹⁶ In a similar spirit of crushing enemy morale, he ordered the execution of sixteen prisoners in Vitoria. The fact that among them were several popular local figures including the Alcalde, Teodoro González de Zárate, provoked protests from the local right.¹⁷ This act of gratuitous violence was followed by a massive four-day artillery and aircraft bombardment of eastern Vizcaya in which the small picturesque country town of Durango was destroyed by two bombing attacks carried out by four bombers and nine fighters of the Italian Aviazione Legionaria. Unlike Guernica, after the bombing, Durango remained under the jurisdiction of the Basque Government until 28 April. This permitted an investigation to identify the victims. As a result, the government published the figure of 258 civilians, 127 died during the bombing and at least a further 131 who died shortly after as a consequence of their wounds. Among the dead were fourteen nuns and two priests. Subsequent exhaustive research by Jon Irazabal Agirre reached the figure of 336 dead, of whom 276 could be identified and a further 60 who could not. As was later to be the case with the more notorious bombing of Guernica, Salamanca denied that the raid on Durango had taken place and attributed the damage to the Basques themselves.¹⁸

Rebel progress in the first three days of Mola’s campaign was so slow that Sperrle sent a report to Kindelán in which he complained that ‘if the troops do not advance faster, we will not enter Bilbao’. Sperrle believed that Franco had retained too much artillery and infantry on the Madrid front.¹⁹ On 2 April, Sperrle and Richthofen complained about this to Mola. Equally anxious to speed things up, Mola suggested to Sperrle that the industries of Bilbao be destroyed. When the German commander asked why it made any sense to destroy industries which it was hoped to capture shortly after, Mola replied: ‘Spain is totally dominated by the industrial centres of Bilbao and Barcelona. Under such a domination, Spain can never be cleaned up. Spain has got too many industries which only produce discontent’, adding that ‘if half of Spain’s factories were destroyed by German bombers, the subsequent reconstruction of Spain would be greatly facilitated’. In response to the notion that Spain’s health required the elimination of the industrial proletariat, Sperrle pointed out that the German air forces in Spain would attack factories only when Franco gave them specific orders to do so. According to Richthofen, Mola told Vigón to issue the order. Richthofen said that it had to come from a higher authority. Mola then signed orders himself for attacks on Basque industrial targets. Richthofen agreed to bomb the explosives factory at Galdácano on the ‘next free day’. Sperrle and Richthofen, however, informed Franco and awaited his permission to carry out Mola’s orders. Sperrle even offered to put an aircraft at Franco’s disposal for him to come to Vitoria to discuss the situation.²⁰

In expecting the entire north of Spain to fall in under three weeks, Franco and Mola had underestimated the determination of the Basques. They were both disconcerted by the slowness of the first stage of their advance towards Bilbao’s unfinished ‘iron ring’ of fortifications. By 8 April, the rebel forces had completed only the first part of their planned offensive. After intense bombing on 4 April, they occupied the village of Otxandio (where the Basques had temporarily established their field headquarters) and the heights to the north, which they had intended to do on the first day. Steep, wooded hills, poor roads and heavy rain and fog had held up the advance of General Solchaga’s troops. Franco visited the front, ostensibly to witness the triumph, but in fact to resolve the differences between Mola and Sperrle.²¹ While he was in the north, Mola announced that it would be necessary ‘to destroy systematically the war industries of the province of Vizcaya. To this effect, on 9 April we will begin the complete destruction of the power station at Burceña, the steelworks of Euskalduna and the explosives factory of Galdácano.’ It seems that Franco had given permission for the partial implementation of the order signed by Mola on 2 April.²² The dogged Basque retreat continued to exact a high price from the attacking forces but the terror provoked by artillery and aerial bombardment and political divisions within the Republican ranks ensured the gradual collapse of Basque resistance.²³

In the early days of the Basque offensive, on the evening of 4 April, Franco received the Italian Ambassador Cantalupo and explained with surprising candour the philosophy of his war effort: ‘Ambassador, Franco does not make war on Spain but is merely carrying out the liberation of Spain … I must not exterminate an enemy nor destroy cities, nor fields, nor industries nor production. That is why I cannot hurry.’²⁴ Franco had no doubts that the ‘liberation’ of his ‘Spain’ signified, as his actions showed, the thorough-going repression of all liberal and leftist elements. However, his remarks suggest that he doubted the wisdom of Mola’s manic determination to annihilate Basque industry on which Sperrle had consulted him. The differences between Franco and Mola over the appropriate targets in the northern campaign do not indicate humanitarian preoccupations on the part of the Generalísimo. For Franco, ‘Spain’ had an entirely partisan meaning. He was reluctant to damage the material interests of his ‘Spain’ and that included the Basque industrial base, arms factories and mineral wealth.²⁵ Franco explained to Cantalupo the destruction of Durango four days previously by aircraft of the Condor Legion flying at his orders. ‘Others might think that when my aircraft bomb red cities I am making a war like any other, but that is not so. My generals and I are Spaniards and we suffer in fulfilling the duty which the Patria has assigned to us but we must go on fulfilling it.’²⁶