The Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky [90]
After the Allies landed in Normandy and even after Paris was liberated, the Germans left behind a force of 25,500 troops in the southwest of France, mostly dug in so solidly along the Atlantic coast that their concrete bunkers can still be seen there today. De Gaulle attached considerable importance to flushing out this rear guard that was able to remain supplied by the Franco-controlled Basque ports of Spain. As the front shifted to Belgium and into Germany, FFI, the Guernica Battalion, and Moroccan volunteers fought the last battles in France.
Suddenly, from their bunkers German soldiers would hear a cry in a strange language, “Gora Euskadi!” and look through their concrete fortifications at an attacking army, at last with modern weapons in their hands, waving a red, white, and green flag, singing an indecipherable hymn, “Eusko gudariak gera,” We Are the Basque Fighters.
Once more the Basques, outnumbered, had waited to take their revenge, attacking the last of the rear guard. Driving the Germans from their bunkers and fortifications was their vengeance, but the Basques also believed that they were at last beginning the final great campaign of World War II. Franco would now go the way of Hitler and Mussolini.
April 14, 1945, three weeks before the end of World War II, the Guernica Battalion led a joint attack on the last Germans in the Gironde, the Bordeaux wine region on the Atlantic coast. With their former comrades of the Spanish Nationalist Union, a Communist Republican unit on one flank and the Moroccans on the other, they led an attack on 4,000 Germans of the Festung Gironde, fortress Gironde. The Germans were entrenched in Pointe-de-Grave, a point of land guarding the entrance to the mouth of the Gironde, the river that leads to Bordeaux.
Basques always said Mass before going into battle. Standing on a grassy field, bareheaded for prayer, Kepa Ordoki addressed his troops after the service: “The hour of battle has arrived, to defeat the enemy, to let the people of France know that the Basques know how to fight and die for freedom. Those of you who are veterans, take the young with you to victory. Avenge the dead of Euskadi. These are the same Germans who caused the deaths at Durango and Guernica. Do not forget that France will be proud of your example. Gora Euskadi askatuta!”
Long live free Basqueland!
Like medieval warriors, they unfurled their colors, the ikurriña, fastened their helmets on their heads, shouted back “Gora Euskadi!” and, singing their battle hymn from 1937, an ancient language of an ancient warrior people rolling over the budding vineyards, they began a fifteen-hour assault.
Liberated France wanted to give the Croix de Guerre, to the soldiers of the Guernica Battalion. But the Basque veterans refused, insisting instead that the medal go to the ikurriña itself. Only forty-two years after Sabino Arana’s death, the secret flag of his underground organization received full French military honors. When the medal was presented to President Aguirre by the commander of the Foreign and Moroccan Mixed Regiment, he told the Basque leader, “When we go to liberate your country, I will meet you under the tree at Guernica.”
Basque soldiers saying Mass before a battle, photo by David Seymour, 1937. The Ikurriña is in the foreground and pinned on some of the uniforms. (Magnum Photos, Inc.)
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11: Speaking Christian
And like the Basque poet who saw the immaculate snowflake disappear the instant he held it in his hand, I found myself with all my dreams turned to foam at the moment I possessed them.
—José Luis Alvarez Enparantza, a.k.a. Txillardegi,
HAIZEAZ BESTALDETIK (Beyond the Wind), 1979
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FRANCO, FOR THE most part, was a successful liar. Though few people completely believed his explanations of Guernica, subsequent generations of Basques, having grown up going to Franco’s schools, often believe the Guernica death toll to be far less than the staggering numbers