This is the 86th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Ebro.
Conceived and meticulously planned by General Vicente Rojo, it began with the crossing of the Ebro River into fascist territory on 24/25 July 1938 and ended with the remnants of the Republican army retreating back across the Ebro in November 1938.
As on each anniversary, we remember the brave men who fought there, especially the thousands who gave their lives.
There are also broader considerations, as set out below by Paul Preston in ‘The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge’:
The Republic had lost its army [in November 1938]. The last despairing effort had seen the Nationalists gain a decisive victory. The Republic would never recover and the Francoists would soon sweep into Catalonia.
And yet Vicente Rojo had secured several of his objectives, preventing the offensive against Valencia and tempting the principal Francoist forces to engage in a battle in a terrain which prevented their material and numerical superiority from having their expected impact. Great losses had been inflicted on the enemy albeit at a huge cost, and the war had been prolonged in accordance with [Prime Minister] Negrín’s hope of seeing the democracies wake up to the Axis’s aggressive ambitions.
It was Munich [in September 1938] that fully turned the Ebro into a resounding defeat.
Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini at Munich, September 1938.
With thanks to Nancy Phillips for the quotation.