CHAPTER XVIII. The crossing of the manzanares river

In this chapter, like many others, we must confront contradictory accounts of Durruti’s activities. The first difficulty arises when we try to establish exactly when the Durruti Column reached Madrid. The claim that the Durruti Column entered Madrid on November 13 is very important for those who argue that the fascists were able to set foot in Madrid’s University City because the Durruti Column cowered before the enemy avalanche and allowed them to pass. From that, it is only natural to conclude that “CNT militias contributed nothing to the defense of Madrid and the Communist Party was responsible for the resistance.” One can find this outlandish assertion in the now “classic” works of endless “impartial” historians. But what if the Durruti Column actually arrived in Madrid on November 16? That simple fact would oblige historians—the honest ones, at least—to revise much of what has been written about the matter and to burden other parties with the nationalist’s entrance into the University City. This would put General Kleber’s “heroic legend” in doubt as well as the inordinate importance given to the squads of the Fifth Regiment. [681] Indeed, historians would have to focus more on the anonymous activists of the Construction Workers’ Union, who were the real heroes of Madrid’s resistance. For our sake, as iconoclasts, we shatter myths.

On November 3, Yagüe’s Regulars (one of the rebel columns attacking Madrid) occupied Getafe, thirteen kilometers outside the capital, and advanced up to the buildings in the outer perimeter of Carabanchel Alto. Largo Caballero did not want to leave Madrid without first implicating the CNT in the government. He argued with and almost imposed himself on Manuel Azaña in his effort to get him to allow the CNT to join the government. Four CNT ministers entered Largo Caballero’s second government on November 4. The next day, Largo Caballero argued that the government should leave Madrid and all the ministers took off for Valencia on November 6. General Miaja received orders to defend the Spanish capital and that night made Lieutenant Colonel Vicente Rojo Chief of his General Staff. He began to organize the city’s defense and prepare to fight the assailing columns with any means possible. At the same time, the people of Madrid rose up heroically and aided the soldiers.

It is at this juncture that the myth begins, as one can appreciate in the following account:

Generals Varela and Yagüe attacked at dawn on November 8: Asensio, Castejón (who was injured), and Delgado Serrano’s Columns all went in the direction of the Casa de Campo. Tella and Barrón pressed toward the Toledo and Segovia bridges in a diversionary movement. Meanwhile, the XI International Brigade paraded along the Gran Vía to delirious cheers. It was composed of the Edgar André, Paris Commune, and Dombrowski battalions (German, French, and Polish, respectively). General Kleber led the Brigade and Nicoletti [De Vittorio] served as its Commissar. There were about two thousand men. The Brigade took its position in the Parque del Oeste, but some of its units went into action in the Casa de Campo. The enemy attack was extremely intense there, and its air force bombed Madrid mercilessly. But Varela’s attack failed; all he managed to do was penetrate the Casa de Campo.

Mola took charge of the whole sector the following day. His forces occupied the strategic Garabitas Hill and mounted their artillery on it so as to fire on Madrid. They came close to the Manzanares River near the Los Franceses Bridge.

Tuñón de Lara [682] did not invent the preceding cliché; he just copied it from others, as others will surely copy it from him. This is how authors will continue to describe the first forty-eight hours of Madrid’s resistance. The account is correct in general and only inaccurate with respect to the IX International Brigade. Fortunately, Lieutenant Colonel Vicente Rojo gives us an exact account of where Kleber and his men were at the time: One can be sure that they’ll say what they want, all those books that relate the event in those or similar terms, as well as the brilliant journalists who announced the city’s imminent fall that day from their parapets in Madrid’s hotels. Kleber and his men (who fought valiantly and efficiently some days later, along with the twenty or twenty-five thousand others who heroically defended the capital) were simply sunbathing somewhere in the Tajo or Tajuña valley, where they couldn’t even hear an echo of the fighting.... and he didn’t meet with Berzin, Kleber, and General Miaja, as is often claimed, on November 8, 10, 0r 12 (dates that Hugh Thomas mentions) or any other day to find out where the attack on the capital was going to be repeated. [683]

The XI International Brigade went into action on November 12 and, despite fighting brilliantly, lost ground in the area that would become the Achilles heel of the University City:

The enemy Column managed to sink its first echelon into the Manzanares on November 13, between the Los Franceses Bridge and the Hippodrome. It established a front of approximately one thousand meters in length, although it did not cross the river. For its part, Column 4 moved in an eastward and northern direction, but without reaching the wall. The XI International Brigade fought brilliantly.[684]

The XI Brigade fought but gave ground. That would be a serious charge if one were speaking of troops from another political sector. What do the historians say about the Durruti Column’s first steps in Madrid? Robert G. Colodny describes it very colorfully:

On November 14, the Durruti Column of Catalan anarchists reach Madrid, and its 3,000 men, well armed, wearing beautiful green uniforms, paraded up the Gran Vía, their martial display evoking the same wild acclaim as that which greeted the International Brigade six days previously. Rojo and Miaja were elated with the arrival of the tough-looking fighters from Catalonia, little realizing that the Catalans would soon cancel the hard-won gains of the Madrid militia and the International battalions.

García Oliver, the anarchist Minister of Justice, accompanied Durruti to the War Ministry for an interview with General Miaja and Lt. Colonel Rojo. The anarchist chieftains demanded that the Durruti Column be given an independent sector of the front in order that their achievements not be claimed by other units. Miaja agreed and assigned Durruti the key sector in Casa de Campo.

“We will save Madrid and then return to the walls of Zaragoza,” said Durruti, as he agreed to attack in the morning and drive the rebels from the areas they still held in the park. The anarchist commander asked for an adviser from the International Brigades and was given “Santi” from the staff of General Goriev.

On November 15, Durruti demanded all the aviation and artillery in the city as support for his column. Artillery was concentrated from all the city sectors and the few tactical planes at the disposition of the General Staff flew over the Catalans, but the machine-gun from the rebel lines demoralized the anarchists and they refused, despite the threats of their valiant commander, to go into battle.[685]

Durruti, furious and ashamed, promised Miaja that the attack would be repeated in the morning. The President of the Madrid Junta of Defense then made a tragic blunder. He left the Catalans in the Casa de Campo, in the area directly in front of the University City.[686]

Robert G. Colodny is writing science fiction here, as he adapts himself to Koltsov’s “bible” and confuses and deliberately mixes up people and events. It was the PSUC’s Libertad-López Tienda Column marching in the military parade that he describes. Although they were Catalan, they were not the Catalans of the Durruti Column, who were still in Barcelona on November 13 (as we will show in the following chapter). And the Catalans who were soon going to “cancel the hard-won gains of the Madrid militia and the International battalions” were not the Catalan anarchists but the PSUC Marxists.

We previously noted that the Generalitat’s Ministry of Defense called a meeting of Column leaders to discuss Madrid’s defense. At that meeting, they decided that Durruti would address the Spanish workers by radio. Durruti gave this speech on November 4 and then returned to Aragón. The Generalitat’s Ministry of Defense held another meeting of Column leaders on November 11, which we will discuss in the following chapter. But important things happened in the interim, events in which we find all the biased “misunderstandings” about the “crossing of the Manzanares River.” Under the GPU’s wise counsel, the Communist Party (the PSUC, in Catalonia) went to war against the CNT. [687] One of the GPU’s recommendations was to speed up the shipment of troops to Madrid. Their goal was to counteract the effect that the possible arrival of Durruti and his men could have in the capital. [688] The PSUC thus threw together a Column, which it named Libertad-López Tienda. A member of this Column will help us understand the formation:

• In response to the request for more troops from Madrid’s Defense Ministry, the Libertad-López Tienda Column was hurriedly organized in barracks controlled by the UGT-PSUC. It left Barcelona for Madrid on November 9 and was composed primarily of the following elements:

• A majority were Marxists (or at least individuals with UGT or PSUC membership cards).

• Remnants of Marxist Columns that had broken up on the Aragón front, whose members had returned to Barcelona and joined the new Columns. Troops from the 1935 draft who could not go back to their residences after the dissolution of the army in 1936 and who were roaming around Barcelona.
  They also signed up, in part, because they’d heard that the conscripts were going to be mobilized and had discovered some of their old officers in the Column.

• A group of professional soldiers ... who joined because of the danger of circulating through Barcelona with military identification papers alone (not very well seen then). The UGT, for its part, did not stop them from enlisting, either because they were needed or because López Tienda, who had a certain prestige among them, imposed it.

As noted, the Column was put together quickly and divided it into Battalions.... There were more than 2,500 men in total. Professional soldiers commanded almost all the Battalions, Centurias, and Sections.

The men did not receive any military training, although they were equipped and uniformed in a regular enough way. (They weren’t armed, but received weapons on the way to Madrid.) It was the first unit—the only one, I think—in which the commanders wore insignia indicating their rank (that is, the stars).[689]

The Column received Czech weapons and a small quantity of ammunition in Valencia. “They continued marching to Albacete where, as indicated to López Tienda in Valencia, the Column would be armed completely.”

According to this witness, they received nothing in Albacete, although the officers were obliged to exchange the stars for the “bars,” the emblem designating commanders in the army that was being formed. There were several incidents during the march from Albacete to Madrid and part of the Column got lost.

López Tienda, the officers around him, and Miaja and Rojo were in constant contact. The following day, on the morning of November 13, the Column paraded on Madrid’s Gran Vía to the crowd’s cheers for the “Catalans coming to defend Madrid!” ... In the early afternoon, the Column took its positions in the upper parts of the Moncloa-Parque del Oeste, particularly in the previously opened trenches along Moret and Rosales avenues.

The Column was totally inactive ... during the day of November 14, [although] López Tienda and his immediate collaborators were quite busy. As Mr. Martínez Bande[690] says, he had been ordered to put his Column under Durruti’s command, who had arrived with the bulk of his Column (made up by anarcho-syndicalists) from the Aragón front. The Palacios Column must have received the same order. However, this order never existed more than on paper. The Libertad-López Tienda Column never joined Durruti’s forces.... López Tienda was personally opposed to putting himself under Durruti’s command and ceding his control over “his” Column; the professional soldiers also didn’t like the idea of reporting to a militia leader; and the Commissar and part of the Column [Marxist] categorically refused to fight under an anarchist like Durruti. So, the command never took effect and López Tienda continued to receive his orders directly from the Defense Council: that is, from Rojo and Miaja.[691]

Here we must interject: To save time, Durruti left his men in Valencia and traveled to Madrid with Manzana, Yoldi, and surely García Oliver. He had to tell Miaja and Rojo to prepare for the arrival of his Column. Rojo had planned a counter-offensive for the early morning hours on November 15 and, as Martínez Bande noted, put the Libertad-López Tienda Column under Durruti’s command the previous day, given that he had come to Madrid to be the general leader of the Catalans. López Tienda and the Marxists in the Column rejected this order. As we will see, the Durruti Column arrived in Madrid in the morning of November 15 and did not enter the battle until November 16, which means that neither Durruti nor his column had anything to do with what took place on November 15, which was when General Asensio’s rebels crossed the Manzanares River. The following statement on the issue is definitive:

On November 15, López Tienda gave the Column commanders the following order: “Advance and take positions along the banks of the Manzanares, especially in front of the Los Franceses Bridge,” where the nationals were attacking furiously in an effort to establish a bridgehead that would enable them to enter Madrid. The order noted that they had amassed large numbers of aerial and battleship forces as well as Moroccans. They must not cross the river anywhere, especially over the bridge.

The approximate positions that each Battalion would have to cover and hold were marked out on a map. Militarily speaking, they crossed the Parque del Oeste in a laughable and absurd way [remember that the Column lacked all military training, despite the presence of the professional soldiers]. This resulted in our first losses, even before we took the designated positions. There is no doubt that the nationalist forces launched a vigorous attack and that the Republicans held their ground. Dynamite had been placed on the Los Frances Bridge earlier, and we blew it up then, for fear that the nationalists might fight their away across. There were two tanks and Moroccan troops near the middle of the bridge when it exploded. They had almost forced through, since the Republican’s fire had diminished as a result of the shortage of weapons and ammunition, and also because the artillery was focused on the forces on the grounds of the Casa de Campo.

As an anecdote, in an interval in the fighting shortly before we blew up the bridge, a small group of Civil Guardsmen occupying an area on the right flank of the [López Tienda] Column left its position and approached the bridge. The national forces did nothing to stop them from crossing the bridge [had they been told to expect this?] and the Republicans, although somewhat surprised, also did nothing, wondering if it was a “maneuver ordered by the command.” They broke into patriotic cheers once they crossed the bridge and, joining the nationalists, began to shoot at their old position.

There was some subsequent fighting, but it less intense after we had demolished the bridge, except for sporadic and violent attacks under its ruins.

But this is all I can describe as an eyewitness. I was wounded in the early part of the afternoon and vacated from the front with many others. I received emergency care, then I was hospitalized, and then later evacuated. This is where my relationship with the Libertad-López Tienda Column and the Madrid front ends.

But, “apparently,” from what “I heard” before I was evacuated, and what a member of the Column “told me”—someone with whom I was connected throughout the war—the Libertad-López Tienda Column existed on paper alone after only forty-eight hours of operation.[692]

Given this testimony, Vicente Rojo’s explanation of the crossing of the Manzanares makes sense:

We had to stop their attack immediately, with all the resources that we had placed there during the preceding days, which were superior to those that we had anywhere else. But in this case, the enemy applied extreme pressure to a very narrow part of the front. They also managed to cause one of our improvised units to panic. This unit, which had come from other fronts and hadn’t experienced the city’s reaction to the crisis on November 7, hadn’t grasped the nature the struggle in Madrid.

That unit withdrew in disorder, which spread to our other forces. The enemy was thus able to overwhelm them and enter the University City. They occupied various buildings and got as far as the Hospital Clínico.[693]

Obviously, the Durruti Column was not an “improvised unit,” since it had been fighting in Aragón since July 25. We can thus infer that Rojo is not referring to the Durruti Column. Nonetheless, his work is confusing, particularly when he mixes up the “Catalans.” Fortunately Francisco Hidalgo’s insistence on the improvised nature of the Libertad-Lopez Tienda Column clears up any ambiguity.

Alcofar Nassaes was one of the first to see this matter clearly. He writes:

Today we know that the Romero Column defended the Los Franceses Bridge, which had absorbed the men of the old Francisco Galán Column. At its right there was the IV Mixed Brigade that Arellano led, which Romero took over after Arellano died in the University City that day. There was also the Catalan PSUC Libertad-López Tienda Column. We sincerely believe that these last two units were responsible for the passage of the nationalist forces to the other side of the river. But, then, where was the Durruti Column? Very possibly in reserve in Madrid. It didn’t enter into battle until that night.[694]