Battle of the Nations

Battle of the Nations

In bitter cold and driving snow, into its 17th day last week moved the greatest battle Spain's war has yet produced.

On any war map Teruel is the nail on a narrow finger of Rightist territory pointed at Leftist Valencia and only 75 miles from the Mediterranean, though those 75 miles include territory as difficult as any that a modern army could be asked to cross. Leftist General Rojo's capture of all but a few buildings in the centre of Teruel (TIME, Jan. 3 et ante), and the driving of his lines some six miles beyond the city, meant no more than the nipping of that fingernail. In another sense, it was a major victory of the war, for it took the initiative away from General Franco just as he was about to launch his long-planned drive and induced him to pour his reserves of men and munitions into the battlefront chosen by his opponents. Apparently it ended the danger of a surprise Rightist offensive at any other point for months to come. Psychologically it was just as important to Leftist morale. By a swift, well-executed triple-column movement Leftist arms had captured the strongest point yet in the Rightist line, a town elaborately fortified by its garrison for over a year.

If the object of the drive on Teruel was to pull down the full force of Franco's armies on Leftist heads, it succeeded last week beyond measure. With his toughest general, Miguel (siege of Oviedo) Aranda, and his ablest General, Jose Fidel (capture of Bilbao) Davila, leading the counterattack, El Caudillo himself reportedly took charge of the campaign from field headquarters 75 miles northwest at Calatayud.

To retake one small town* he massed 500 field guns on a 25-mile front, sent some 200 planes into the grey and icy sky and poured Spaniards, Moors, Foreign Legionnaires, Italian Blackshirts into the lines.

The Leftist high command did not hold back either. Playing the psychological angle for all it was worth in the early days of the battle, Barcelona boasted that the fanatical defenders of Teruel's seminary, bank and cathedral would be given every opportunity to surrender with honor in contrast to General Franco's notorious mass executions in territory he has conquered.

All this was forgotten as the full force of El Caudillo's war machine rolled closer. To make as short work as possible of the Rightist defense within the city, miners blew the remains of the Bank of Spain branch sky high, burying an unknown number of men, women and children in the debris. Soon the Battle of Teruel became a battle of all nations as the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Battalion and other foreign battalions moved into the Leftist lines. New Year's Eve saw Spaniards, Italians, U. S. citizens, Moors, Germans, Czechs and Frenchmen all fighting for a town on a river bank about the size of Emporia, Kans.

Four important highways join at Teruel (see map). Down the one from Sagunto and Valencia through Puebla de Valverde the Leftist offensive drove to capture Mansueto Hill, most important height above the city. Upon the tough rock of the city itself, the Leftists converged, one wing sweeping round Villastar and Campillo to half way between Concud and Caudete, another wing reaching Sierra Palomera at the height of its drive, off TIME'S map and 18 miles away.

Down the Saragossa highway the Rightist counterattack drove through drifts of snow to recapture Concud, win La Muela, another strategic hill not quite so important as Mansueto, and reach the gates of the city itself by Saturday night. At this point, exuberants in Salamanca were proclaiming a complete Rightist victory, publishing detailed descriptions of the relief of the garrison who had doggedly fought for their lives in the Cathedral, the Seminary and the Civil Government Building. Actually the Rightist wave broke at the city gates. Generalissimo Franco, following Leftist tactics in reverse, sent another column cross-country to retake Campillo and Villastar. Thus at week's end the battle moved into its second phase. The snow stopped, hundreds of stranded trucks dug themselves out for the relief of both lines, and Benito Mussolini, taking no chances, landed 4,000 more Blackshirts from Morocco.

*Before the war, little Teruel was known chiefly as the home of Spain's Romeo & Juliet, the lovers Juan de Marcilla and Isabel de Segura who died of grief in the 13th Century, whose remains were put on view in the Church of San Pedro; there they remained last week still undamaged by shell fire. Most famed drama on their tragedy is Los Amantes de Teruel, by the Spanish son of a German cabinetmaker, Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch.

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