• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 779 0

did not begin with industry. He began using artillery and aerial bombardment to destroy Durango, a rural town by the jagged, rocky gray crests of southern Vizcaya. And so began this new kind of warfare, a war waged against civilians. Durango was a town of ancient churches, rambling cobblestone streets with a river running through it lined by buildings with flower boxes. Once during the Carlist wars, it had served as Don Carlos’ headquarters. This traditional town was attacked at 7:20 A.M. while the churches were filled for mass. The air raid lasted thirty minutes. Two hundred and fifty-eight civilians were killed. Franco’s headquarters in Salamanca denied that the attack had taken place. But Durango was undeniably leveled. The Basques must have done it to themselves, headquarters explained to the international press. Communists must have attacked the churches and killed worshippers, they claimed.

The Germans were still displeased with their ally. After three days of attack, little ground had been taken. Mola proposed destroying the factories in Bilbao. The Germans asked him why he would do this, when he needed the industry and would soon capture it. Mola’s reply to this pragmatic German question was redolent with all the festering hatreds of nineteenth-century Spain. First was the military resentment of Basques and Catalans: “Spain is totally dominated by the industrial centers of Bilbao and Barcelona. Under such domination, Spain can never be set right.” Then came the Carlist hatred of urban industry: “Spain has got too many industries which only produce discontent.”

It seems never to have occurred to Mola how a war machine such as the one placed in his hands was built and maintained. Sperrle replied that he would only bomb industries under direct and specific orders from Franco. But Franco wanted to preserve the industry for his future use. While the commanders argued over targets, an air and artillery campaign of terror was moving across Vizcaya. Franco and Mola had expected a three-week campaign. But they had not understood the determination of Basque resistance nor the long Basque history as outnumbered guerrilla fighters. All the Basques could do was retreat, but they did so slowly and made every foot of territory cost rebel lives.

Franco was perplexed at why this dazzling new force, more power than he had ever imagined commanding, made such slow progress. The Germans too were perplexed. After Durango, Ochandiano was bombed. As the ground forces advanced, town after village was destroyed. The Germans were trying a new tactic of warfare that could later be used elsewhere in Europe. But it wasn’t working. Basque history and character had not been factored into the German equation. To the Basques, the bombardment was new and it was terrifying, but it was not breaking their morale. To the Basques, this was a new variation on an old story—the invader, more numerous and better armed, trying to take their land.

Frustrated by the slowness of their advance, Mola and Franco’s headquarters started talking about razing Bilbao. The army was bogged down, but the air force could chose its targets with impunity because the Basques had little defense against airplanes. At command centers, angry Spanish and German officers looked at maps to pick the town to destroy next.

The Basques, with their bolt-action rifles, having been pounded daily by artillery and aircraft, were in an increasingly disorganized retreat in the Guernica area. Franco, Mola, and the Germans agreed on the need to cut off the Basque retreat. But they wanted more than that tactical victory. They wanted to carry out Mola’s threat, to symbolically “raze Vizcaya.” Later, all parties tried to distance themselves from the decision, but given the scale of the operation, it is all but certain that the attack on Guernica, like all other attacks in the Basque campaign, was a joint decision of Franco, Mola, the Germans, and the Italians.

GUERNICA WAS, AND still is, a market town where the farmers of the region sell their produce on Mondays along the riverfront in the