THE EBRO BATTLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 17

THE EBRO BATTLE

RESULTS ANALYSED

ESCAPE OF FRANCO'S MEN

AIDED BY BOMBERS

The battle of the Ebro was the fourth major attempt of the.Spanish republican (Government) command to wrest the initiative from the Spanish nationalists, wrote the Barcelona correspondent of "The Times" on. August 19. The others brought destruction on Brunete, Belchite, and Teruel, the last two oil which were recaptured. The Ebro attack, supported by the Albarracin drive west of Teruel, was intended to save Valencia. The republican staff ventured on one of the most hazardous operations of war. Negligence on the part of the enemy gave the opportunity. The gamble went forward on a 60-mile front from Mequinenza to Amposta. The great winding trench formed by the Ebro, cutting its way through hilly country, was thinly held. With a river running deep and anything from 100 to 200 yards wide, with precipitous banks and no bridges, the nationalists made light of an attack in force. Nevertheless it came, curiously enough after an Italian wireless station had announced it the day before. For the troops in line it proved a tremendous and irresistible surprise. Sunday night, July 24, was dark and oppressive, full of strange rumblings as hundreds of lorries crept as near as possible to the water's edge with boats requisitioned from tranquil Mediterranean beaches. Carefully camouflaged pontoons were dragged out of hiding places. Coils of wire, pulleys, and posts to establish ferries and ropeways also appeared. Everything had been meticulously rehearsed, and the leading platoons were swimmers.

A PERILOUS CROSSING.

The remnants of the International Brigade took a prominent part in the attack, the 15th Brigade of English, Canadians, and Americans on the Mora del Ebro front, the 14th Brigade of French and Belgians at Amposta. Some of the besl Spanish divisions were behind them with Campesino's and Lister's Communists. It was the last show of the International Brigades as such, for the acceptance by the Government of the Non-intervention proposal of the withdrawal of volunteers had sounded their doom as separate units. Already to bring them up to strength they had a high proportion of Spaniards in their ranks. The Brigades fared unequally. While at Vinebre and Mora they romped across and by nightfall of the first day had reached a point marked on the staff time-table as the objective of the third day, below Tortosa they were bloodily repulsed. From Benifallet right* up to the confluence with the Segre and Cinca below Mequinenza the enemy gave way, and the republican forces advanced joyfully. The only reaction by the nationalists was in the air, but that w%s violent in the extreme. Sweating sappers toiling at the bridges showed the utmost gallantry, i Anti-aircraft batteries kept the enemy at a great height, so that aiming was impossible; but quantity made up for inaccuracy. Great plumes of water arose as bombs plunged to the silty river-bottom; deadly, splinters flew, as they crashed on rocks. No Press correspondents saw the first crossings, but many have borne witness since to the intensity of bombing day after day.

RESISTANCE STIFFENS

Although the International Brigades i were in the van, they were only a part perhaps one-fifth, of the troops, some 30,000, sent across, and the Spanish divisions were as keen as lihey. It was several days, or rather nights, before artillery and tanks came up, and by then the Nationalist resistance was stiffening. With motorised units Gandesa might have been rushed forthwith. Such a break through with a road behind it might well have resulted in j the fall of Valdealgorfa, Alzaniz, and Caspe, the objectives on the northern sector of attack, but the bridges, maintained with difficulty, proved inadequate. & There was another, even greater objective—a moral one. As rumours of dissension in the Nationalist back areas I grow, the Republicans dream of a collapse of enemy morale and of a rising of the "proletarian brethren oppressed by Fascist rule." That is the hope (they call it certitude) at the base of the whole policy of "Resistance" which Dr. Negrin propagates with such energy and success. In this connection the. Ebro attack offered distinct possibilities in a wider field than to relieve pressure in the Levante. The civilian population at Asco and Fayon actualy did help. Five thousand prisoners were taken, but only one battery of artillery. Materials collected for bridge-build-ing were found collected on the righl bank. Gandesa was outflanked but could not be captured. Progress down the road from Gandesa to Cherta was blocked. Masaluca village resisted, preventing through communications with Fayon, and thus leaving isolated the upper bridgehead gained between the points where the Segre and Matarrana join the Ebro.

THE SALIENT REDUCED,

This source of weakness has enabled the Nationalists to attack and reduce the northern salient. In the southern though they gained a field, the Republican troops showed once more the inability to manoeuvre that continues to be their weakness, the same that brought disaster to the Tremp" offensive last May. ! General Franco might have taken the I blow on the chin, sent a couple of divisions to consolidate the new line at Gandesa, and proceeded with the campaign in the Levante. Instead he has, to all appearances, postponed the offensive on Valencia ,and, utilising his interior lines of communication, is massing in force on the Catalan front. In this General Franco, as at Teruel, remains true to his promise never to abandon a foot of ground rescued from "Red domination." On such determination his prestige rests. In the circumstances General Hernandez Sarabia, who commands the group of armies of the East, unless he has some other surprise up his sleeve, may order retreat, to stand as before on the defensive. What then would General Franco do? It will be a momentous decision, the culminating point it would seem in the war. The choice will be, as in April after Lerida, whether to stake all on a decisive on Valencia, and, utilising his incentre of Government of the enemy or to return to the piecemeal Reconquista de Espana. Then the Republican Army exhausted and demoralised by retreat, was not ready; now, reorganised and entrenched, it is better prepared. Therefore unless the collapse foreseen by the Republicans in the Nationalist ranks overtakes themselves, it does not seem too much to surmise that the greatest battle of the war still lies ahead. Through the invention of a deepsea diving dredge large quantities of ocean bottom can be brought up from depths of 700 feeL