Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Spanish Civil War - Battle of Brunete (5)
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July 18, 1937
Central Spain, Brunete Sector, West of Madrid
Colonel Model went around to each unit, collecting the operational plans drafted by their commanders. Three days later, the counterattack began.
“Forward, forward, forward!”
The countless single shots of bolt-action rifles and the roar of machine guns firing relentlessly assaulted my ears.
“Look out!”
“Aaaaargh!”
A long, slender plane, reminiscent of a pencil, fell burning from the sky. The terrified soldiers scrambled to get away just before it slammed into the ground and exploded.
That must be one of our Do 17 bombers. Surely that couldn't be Lieutenant Colonel Richthofen...
He was a competent pilot and a key figure in the Luftwaffe of the Second World War, so he wouldn't die in a place like this, but I couldn't help but worry when a high-ranking commander needlessly flew on the front lines.
While we launched a fierce assault on the ground, more than a hundred planes danced in the sky.
A fierce battle raged on, with planes engulfed in smoke and flames plummeting from all directions.
I'd heard our side was deploying eighty aircraft for the operation, but it seemed the Republicans had dozens of their own.
It was clear that both the Republicans and the Nationalists had staked everything on this.
“Watch out!”
Sergeant Kocher tackled a new recruit to the ground, and a moment later, a fighter's machine gun raked the spot where the soldier had just been. Just as I let out a breath of relief at the heart-stopping sight—
A Bf 109 closed in behind the enemy fighter and opened fire.
The enemy plane, now on fire, failed to gain altitude and crashed into the ground, shattering into pieces.
“Ugh, Captain! You'd need more than a few lives to survive this!”
“Ha, just do your best to dodge! If you're lucky, you'll live!”
This was the first time the Condor Legion had taken the lead in an offensive. The sweltering heat and the tension of the battlefield felt like they were scorching my throat and mind.
Stay sharp. One wrong move and I'm dead.
At least as a commander, I was in a position to observe and command the men charging the enemy defenses from the rear.
Not that I hadn't heard the chilling sound of bullets ricocheting off cover right next to me a few times...
Right before my eyes, Panzer I tanks frequently fell victim to the main guns of ambushing enemy tanks or to artillery as they tried to break through the defensive line.
“Ah, aaargh! Aaaaaaaargh!”
A tankman, trying to escape through the hatch of his burning tank after it was hit by a high-explosive shell, writhed in agony, clutching his cooked hands, before going limp. The sight was horrific, a plume of smoke rising with the sizzling smell of burning flesh.
They say a tank might look safe, but it's really just a moving coffin, don't they? Dammit, I never wanted to end up like that.
“Clemens, halt the 3rd Platoon! They've pushed out too far!”
“Yessir!”
While Clemens sent a runner, I hastily unfolded the operational map to check.
Since Colonel Model's arrival, the operational plans had been drafted with astonishing precision.
Until now, the Condor Legion had always operated based on the German mission-type tactics, where a goal was set, and the execution was left to the commander's discretion. Colonel Model was the complete opposite.
He devised meticulously detailed plans and ordered an offensive that was to be carried out exactly as he commanded.
Furthermore, the fact that he prepared and sent separate contingency plans for every foreseeable variable bordered on paranoia.
What surprised me was that the attack route for our company heavily incorporated the plan I had drafted and submitted.
If I wasn't the only one, did that mean Colonel Model had managed to consolidate the opinions of all the unit commanders and create such a detailed operational plan in just three days?
Casualties were mounting, but the overall situation seemed to be progressing according to the offensive plan. The enemy's losses were severe, even from a front-line perspective, and their defenses were riddled with holes, making them flimsy at best.
Deafening artillery fire rained down from both the front and rear, but thankfully, the gods of war seemed preoccupied with each other, so direct shelling on our position wasn't that common.
“Sigh, if we still had the 88s, we could be taking it a bit easier in the back...”
Hearing Clemens grumble, I let out a dry laugh. Knowing Colonel Model, that was probably why he'd reassigned them.
Just before the offensive, he had formed a separate unit called the ‘Multi-Purpose Support Artillery Detachment,’ requisitioning all the 88mm anti-aircraft guns and their crews from the companies and assigning more infantry in their place.
His talent for ‘creating and deploying reserves from the front line,’ which involved mercilessly breaking up even divisions to throw them into the fight if necessary, was already beginning to show.
The 88mm gun, being an anti-aircraft weapon by design, was bulky and slow to tow, making it genuinely difficult for infantry to drag along during an offensive. And normally, anti-aircraft gunners wouldn't be assigned to an infantry company.
Such a strange mixed formation was a peculiarity of the Condor Legion, typically used only for defending strongpoints or for testing new equipment.
Although it was for the sake of an efficient and rapid advance, it was still a matter of messing with each unit's organization, so complaints arose. Even Lieutenant General Thoma, who usually left such matters to his chief of staff, was reportedly reluctant.
But Colonel Model dropped his good-natured, dad-joke-telling persona and, with the fierce eloquence of a non-commissioned officer, persuaded Lieutenant General Thoma and silenced the other commanders.
Thanks to him, here I was, leading by example, risking my life to command the advancing troops from the very front.
It was an extremely rational and efficient way to manage the units, but it still feels bad when something you were given is taken away.
There was definitely a reason so many officers disliked this man.
...Great commander or not, I'm going to hold a grudge, Colonel Model.
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July 20, 1937
Central Spain, Madrid, the Capital of Spain - Republican Headquarters
“This is absurd! How... how could everything have failed so completely!”
General Miaja slammed his fist on the desk, looking as if he were about to foam at the mouth, but the colonels all kept their mouths shut, merely gauging his mood.
“The division in the best shape has forty percent losses? There's another with over sixty percent casualties! What kind of attack did you even launch? Have we ever suffered losses like this before?”
General Miaja ranted passionately, but it was he himself who had rejected Colonel Casado's request to call off the attack on Carabanchel. Casado, dispatched in place of Colonel Jurado who was down with heatstroke, had assessed the situation and reported that the objective was unattainable.
And it was the colonels present here who had flattered him, goading him on by calling Colonel Casado a defeatist and insisting such an opportunity might never come again.
And they were half right.
The Republicans would probably never again have the chance to lead such a large-scale offensive. Their capacity to do so had been utterly shattered in this battle.
After pushing forward with the offensive even as more than twenty percent of their forces died or collapsed from heatstroke and dehydration, the Republicans were now completely broken and facing a Nationalist counterattack.
The Nationalists had pulled in units from the Basque front and were attacking simultaneously from three directions. The Republican forces, with no strength left to resist, were rife with insubordination and desertion.
Even a significant portion of the International Brigades, the strongest force the Republicans had deployed, had grown weary of the pointless, showpiece offensive and deserted the front, declaring they would return to their home countries.
Even the ardent democrats and communists, who had cried out for freedom and justice and fought fearlessly on the fiercest battlegrounds of Jarama—places dubbed ‘Suicide Hill’—had turned their backs, disgusted by the incompetence of the Republican high command.
“What is this! What in the world is this!”
General Miaja threw the telegram from Líster in the face of Colonel Modesto, whom he had summoned from the front.
Enrique Líster, commander of the 11th Division, had repeatedly requested a halt to the offensive or a retreat from his direct superior, Colonel Modesto. When his requests were denied, he bypassed the chain of command and sent a telegram directly to headquarters.
“He's asking for confirmation of the order to hold Brunete despite forty percent of his division being casualties and half his tanks lost? What is this! What happened to the reports I had on the 11th Division!”
Colonel Modesto's face contorted. Líster, that son of a bitch. He actually did it.
“At your request, I pulled the air force from Carabanchel, where things were already tight, and sent them to you! Sixty planes, a full sixty planes! And what results do you have to show for it! You even lied about your losses?”
There were none. Absolutely none.
The Nationalists had deployed an overwhelming number of aircraft, far exceeding the sixty planes the Republicans had scraped together. Among them were new German fighters that were clearly superior to the Soviet models.
Whether at Carabanchel or Brunete, the air force would have been powerless.
Everything about this battle had been unexpected. The Republicans had never anticipated a situation where their armored units and air force, which they believed superior to the Nationalists', would be rendered ineffective.
But what was the point of making such excuses now?
Should I have mentioned Líster's initial request for a flanking maneuver? It would have been ignored just the same, but at least then it wouldn't have been my responsibility.
When they missed the window for the offensive due to the wildfire and Líster again requested to call off the attack, if I had accepted it then, we would have had enough forces to hold Brunete, even if the army at Carabanchel was annihilated.
Of course, he had ignored Líster's request and ordered the attack to proceed only after seeing Colonel Casado get branded a defeatist and forced to attack at Carabanchel for making the same request.
‘Well, my promotion to general is out of the question now.’
He couldn't escape responsibility for this failure. If he had at least made a show of resisting the high command, who were intoxicated by the swift capture of Brunete, perhaps things would be different, but he hadn't.
“We pushed the attack too hard in the heat, the enemy unexpectedly used anti-aircraft guns as long-range anti-tank weapons, and the Germans were actively involved...”
“Enough! Be quiet!”
Only now, as the battle was drawing to a close, did the Republicans learn from their spies with the Nationalists that the ‘anti-tank field gun’ that had so horrified them was, in fact, the 8.8cm Flak, the 88mm anti-aircraft gun the Germans had been using all along.
They also confirmed that Walter Model, the new chief of staff of the Condor Legion, had been heavily involved in the Nationalists' operation. Not that knowing any of this now made a difference.
“Are those filthy fascists trying to become Germany's slaves! Why are they letting the Germans interfere with their strategy! And why the hell does a so-called volunteer force have a chief of staff in the first place!”
Both Italy and Germany had dispatched forces to the Nationalists that far exceeded the scale of ‘volunteers,’ but no one dared to speak of that grim reality.
Besides, the Republican high command had just finished grinding their own troops to dust in an operation designed to curry favor with the Soviet Union.
“And what’s this about a first lieutenant proposing it? Ha! Are you telling me our Republican armored corps was annihilated because of some idea a mere lieutenant came up with on a whim?”
As the enraged General Miaja slammed his fist on the desk, all the colonels averted their gazes.
“That can't be true! It's just an excuse! An excuse to hide your own incompetence!”
He, who had ground his soldiers to pieces in this reckless offensive under the extreme heat, was the very picture of an incompetent supreme commander.
But among the Republicans, where political officers were the majority, everyone was too busy hiding their own faults to point out the reality of the situation.
He glared at the colonels with bloodshot eyes and spat out his words.
“The reality is that Líster's 11th Division, which has damnably lost forty percent of its strength, is the most intact unit we have. Tell him to hold Brunete. And tell the other units from the offensive to gather their remaining troops and head to Brunete as well!”
Everyone present knew full well that even if they scraped together every last remaining soldier—let alone just Líster's 11th Division—and threw them into Brunete, they wouldn't even match the strength of one of the three Nationalist armies currently counterattacking.
“We must hold Brunete at all costs! Whatever it takes!”
But no one spoke of that reality. If, by some chance, they managed to hold Brunete, they could at least cover up their responsibility by claiming a minimal victory.
Everyone in the high command just wanted to escape this grim meeting as quickly as possible.