Posted on 07/29/2008 5:26:23 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The Republicans yesterday reached positions a few miles north of Gandesa, about twelve miles south of the Ebro. This will give an idea of their progress since they crossed the river Monday.
There was heavy fighting in the Gandesa area today. The latest news was that the Insurgents were now holding firm.
[Government troops admitted having lost their foothold in Gandesa, according to an Associated Press dispatch from Hendaye. They clamed, however, to have wrested back in the past four days 240 square miles, a sizable slice of Catalonia inside a sixty-five-mile curve of the Ebro from Ribarroja to Cherta.]
Although the Insurgents continue to minimize the Republican counter-offensive, aimed at relieving pressure on the Sagunto [coastal] front, it is clear that the Republicans sprang a big surprise at many points along the Ebro Monday and Generalissimo Francisco Franco was forced to rush up men and artillery from various parts of Aragon to stem the thrust.
During the last three days men and guns have been rushed by the Rebels from Saragossa Province through Caspe and Alcaniz toward Gandesa, which was threatened from the north and east. Gandesa is a strategic position on the main Tarragona-Alcaniz road, and its loss to the Republicans, who held it until the end of March, would have a big moral effect.
Insurgent reinforcements are also moving to the Fayon and Mequinenza sectors, north of Gandesa, which were among the points where the Republicans, after crossing the Ebro, had overcome resistance and established themselves.
Insurgent bombing squadrons during the last three days have continuously bombed and machine-gunned hastily constructed bridges and Republican positions on the Ebro’s west bank from Mequinenza to near Gendesa and greatly harassed the Republican lines of communication.
The Republicans’ nearest base for supplying their forces in their new positions is the town of Falset in Tarragona Province about twenty-four miles away across the Ebro. Thus it will be difficult to consolidate their new positions and push attacks toward, say Gandesa, Caspe and Alcaniz. It may be several days before the importance of these Ebro valley operations can be truly estimated.
The Republican attempt to cross the Ebro near its delta at Amposta seems to have ended in failure. But farther up the river the Insurgents had weakened their lines, apparently for their drive on Sagunto and Valencia, and were trusting to the stream as a natural defense.
Although both sides are making much of their counterstrokes in Estremadura Province in South-western Spain and on the Ebro, the battle in the east for possession of Sagunto and Valencia remains the major operation of the civil war. The Republicans are still stubbornly resisting attacks and yielding little ground. It is now known that, during an intense Insurgent attack north of Segorbe last week-end, which seems to have slacked off with the Republican offensive across the Ebro, General Franco suffered several thousand casualties.
There was a momentary check yesterday when the Ebro’s waters rose several feet when sluice gates were opened at the big dam at Seros, across the Segre River a few miles above its confluence with the Ebro. The waters have already begun so subside.
According to tonight’s communiqué, fighting was still proceeding in the neighborhood of Gandesa, Bot and Villalba. Six hundred more Insurgent prisoners were reported rounded up.
The Insurgents, having received reinforcements, are now attacking. They continue to concentrate their air force, which is being used with telling effect both in the field and in the back areas.
Tarragona, Reus and other east coast towns were heavily bombed today. Sagunto was shelled by two Rebel warships.
In the sector between Mora de Ebro and Fayon, thirty to fifty miles up the river, the Insurgents claimed they were continuing to clean up all Republican forces remaining in small isolated clusters on the western side of the river.
Among more than 400 Republican dead whom the Insurgents say they buried near Asco today there were reported to be a large number of foreigners belonging to the Fourteenth International Brigade.
The same night the Republicans crossed the river and infiltrated at Mequinenza, Fayon, Ribarroja, Flix and Asco, they are reported to have exacted a terrible revenge on the inhabitants of those five villages whom they accused of having been secretly sympathetic to the Insurgents even before General Franco’s Spring drive carried him as far as The Ebro’s west bank. Hundreds of civilians are said to have been shot, while the homes of others were burned.
As soon as the Republican troops crossed the river, the Insurgents say, Rebel aviation destroyed all pontoon bridges before any artillery, munitions or supplies could be taken across in trucks. So with their backs to the widest section of the stream and without any motor transport at their disposal, it is declared, the Republicans suddenly were obliged to defend themselves against heavy reserves sent with plenty of artillery and aviation toward the captured outposts along the river.
The Insurgents are reported to have made further advance today in the Province of Valencia below Mount Salada.
“The enemy, reinforced by troops from other fronts, counter-attacked in the Gandesa zone,” said the communiqué. “The attacks were completely repulsed and the enemy forced to withdraw to the first houses of the town.”
The Kellwyn recently had arrived from Marseilles, France, to discharge a cargo of sugar and coffee. It sustained only slight damage in the raid.
One of those killed aboard the Kellwyn was Albert Moyell, Danish agent of the Non-Intervention Committee. The other was the ship’s Chinese cook.
The Kellwyn, a 1,464-ton vessel registered at Cardiff, Wales, is owned by the same company as the freighter Dellwyn, sunk yesterday by a lone air raider at the British-operated port of Gandia.
Non-intervention carries its own risks.
"The Spanish Republicans’ offensive across the Ebro River is still making headway, although its progress has slowed down in the last forty-eight hours.
"The Republicans yesterday reached positions a few miles north of Gandesa, about twelve miles south of the Ebro."
Very cool! Thanks. I checked out a current road map of Spain and found just about all the place names mentioned in the article. They are all found on the road that runs from Tortosa to Saragossa. Since your map shows that area already in Insurgent hands in May ‘38 the fighting described in this story must have been a rear-guard, last-ditch sort of action.
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