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<text> <title> (1930s) The Spanish Civil War </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights </history> <link 07775> <link 00068><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> The Spanish Civil War </hdr> <body> [Spain, a republic since 1931 under a democratic Socialist government, had by 1936 survived many political vicissitudes, including an attempted putsch. But the Socialists were being challenged by the Communists and moved leftwards to counter their growing influence, supporting peasant risings and violent strikes. The center and right parties reacted with a frenzy of anti-Red fear. The 1936 election resulted in a more or less even Right-Left split, and even though such a narrow plurality should have dictated caution, the leftist parties of the popular Front, who won the larger number of seats, initiated a radical program and anti-democratic moves. Random and passionate violence instigated by ultra-leftists resulted in church burnings, the wrecking of political offices and 269 political murders. The Right grew more and more alarmed. General Francisco Franco had hitherto opposed military coups, but saw the armed forces also becoming leftist-infiltrated. He was determined to move before the extreme Left brought the horrors of Stalinism to Spain.] (July 27, 1936) One afternoon last week telephone operators in Paris, Lisbon and Genoa kept telling people trying to get a line into Spain that the trunk lines to that country had all gone dead. They stayed dead for some 16 hours. Early next morning one short message came over the wire: "There have been incidents...The number of victims is not yet known." Something big was happening behind the silence and the heavily guarded Spanish frontiers. It was the climax to five months of Popular Front Government, of Socialist and Communist rioting, and of some 250 deaths by violence. What set if off was the brutal murder early last week of the leader of the Spanish monarchists, able, eloquent Deputy Jose Calvo Sotelo, onetime Minister of Finance under the late Dictator Primo de Rivera. Assault Guardsmen called on Calvo with a warrant, took him off in their police car, dumped his body, shot, mangled and bashed, at Madrid's Municipal Cemetery. Unwisely the Government refused to allow Calvo's body to lie in state anywhere, barred a mob of 30,000 Rightists from the cemetery where he was being buried. When the crowd gave the Fascist shout, "Up Spain!" Assault Guardsmen fired, killed five, wounded three. Forehanded, President Manuel Azana ordered the Army and Civil Guards mobilized in quarters, ordered a roundup of Rightist leaders, jammed them into jails. Talkative Rightists had begun telling about a great Army revolt that was due any day and that was to have set up Jose Calvo Sotelo as President of Spain. General Francisco Franco Bahamonde deserted his post on the Canary Islands, hastened to Melilla, took charge of some 20,000 rebellious Legionnaires, regulars and Moorish native troops. Within a day the rebels controlled all Spanish Morocco, a 200-mile strip of coast across from Gibraltar. When they began broadcasting from the Ceuta radio station, pretending to be the Seville station, announcing the surrender of Madrid to the rebels, sympathetic Army garrisons throughout European Spain joined the revolt. They were defeated in Barcelona and Seville but seized the southern ports of Cadiz and Malaga for a landing by the Moroccan rebels, skirmished in Burgos, Pamplona, Valladolid and Zaragoza. Government planes soared over strongholds dropping, first bombs, then leaflets urging soldiers to rebel against their rebellious officers. Manifestoed General Franco from Morocco: "Spain is saved!" The Provinces of Andalusia, Valencia, Valladolid, Burgos, Aragon, the Canaries and the Balearic Islands, with their garrisons and civil forces, have joined enthusiastically with us. Only Madrid made an exception in sending its planes to bombard cities and towns without defense, killing women and children...We will demand accounts from them as well as from those still on the fence..." Spain, however, was by no means saved for General Franco. What he needed most were Madrid and Barcelona. In both cities rebel regiments were shelled into surrender by loyal artillery and planes. The loyal Warship Cervantes sent shells whistling into Cadiz where a body of rebel troops had landed. Loyalists were further heartened by a report that General Franco had lost courage and radioed for a seaplane in which to flee. The Government's arming of a "Red militia" of workers was what definitely took this week's revolt out of the traditional formula of Latin coups d'etat and put it into the class of Russia's revolution of 1917. Last week 6,000 tough Asturian miners marched down from the North to Madrid's assistance, as the Army rebels marched up from the South. Declared the Spanish Government: "Spanish citizens! The movement in insurrection has been subjugated absolutely and it is necessary not to lose the fight." (August 10, 1936) Government troops held Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo and most of the fertile east coast. Rebel Generalissimo Franco was stymied in the south. Seville he held, and Cordoba and Granada. He had been able to move his headquarters from Morocco to Seville, to ferry about 300 soldiers a day by plane to the mainland. But he was unable to march against Madrid, and fiery-eyed Communist militia still kept him out of Malaga. Government forces, on the other hand, were still unable to capture Zaragoza, strongest military garrison. Vital spot in the civil war remained the snow-capped Guadarrama Mountains that guard Madrid on the north. There armies of 15,000 Loyalists under General Carlos Bernal and 20,000 Fascists under able General Emilio Mola sparred cautiously for a battle that may end the war. At week's end Fascist Mola was forced to withdraw many of his troops from the Guadarrama front to tackle a dangerous situation in his rear. San Sebastian and Bilbao were still in Loyalist hands. With hostilities ceasing in the Barcelona region. Loyalists might be able to launch an attack at his rear. Out of the ground to defend these Basque cities for the Loyalists poured the Communist miners of Oviedo, hurling homemade bombs of dynamite, slashing with knives. General Mola's attack was beaten off. (August 24, 1937) Spain's atrocity-spangled Civil War burned and butchered into its second month this week. At least 25,000 Spaniards had been killed and less than half of these had died on any battlefield. Night after night all over Spain men were torn from their weeping families, lined up and shot for what were supposed to be their political opinions. Scores of cities, towns and villages had been bombarded and burned. More than 200 churches had gone up in flames and over $40,000,000 in cash and Spanish Government bonds stripped from clericals. General Franco found himself surrounded in Seville last week not only by his Spanish staff but by individuals in Spanish uniform who obviously were Italians and Germans. Hitherto bombing by planes of the Franco-Mola forces had been so inaccurate that in London, famed Hector Bywater could write that thus far not a single Spanish ship seemed to have been sunk by air bombs. Two days later planes of the Revolution put the Government's best and biggest war boat Jaime Primero (James the First) out of action with 625-lb. bombs which scored direct hits on her forecastle head. This was not Spanish marksmanship and neither the planes nor the bombs nor the airmen were Spanish. [As the European democracies futilely tried to organize embargos on arms shipments to the belligerents, the non-democracies of both Left and Right moved in to help their ideological allies with massive amounts of manpower and materiel, including volunteers, like the U.S. Communist-dominated Abraham Lincoln Brigades, from dozens of countries. The siege of Madrid ground on, with equal ferocity on both sides. Rightist forces moved to quell the Basques, behind Rightist lines in the north. There took place the most famous incident of the whole war, later immortalized by Spanish Painter Pablo Picasso in his anguished mural, "Guernica."] (March 1, 1937) Rightist planes attacking Bilbao under General Emilio Mola were German Heinkel and Junkers bombers, proven inferior to the Russian planes called chato (snub-nosed) by the Loyalists. On the advice of German aviators and with the approval of Generalissimo Franco, General Mola ordered the stupidest move of his entire military career: a punitive air raid on Guernica, 12 miles northeast of Bilbao. Guernica, a village of 10,000 souls, has a small munitions factory and barracks on its outskirts. Guernica is also the traditional capital of the Basques. To this town Spanish sovereigns, including Ferdinand & Isabella, went to swear by the stump of an ancient oak tree to protect the ancient privilege of the Basque people. The tree of Guernica is prominent on the Basque flag. Basque deputies met biennially in their "Holy City" to legislate. Last week the German planes came over in waves, blasting the houses from their foundations with heavy bombs, loosing showers of glittering two-pound aluminum incendiary bombs to turn the "Holy City" to a furnace. Skimming the roof tops, fighting planes followed with all machine guns popping, harrying terrified peasants through the fields, sending them sprawling in their own blood. Over 800 men, women and children were killed. The munitions factory and barracks, untouched, were later seized by advancing Rightist infantry. Said Catholic Alberto Onoindia of Valladolid Cathedral: "I saw the bombing and burning of Guernica, one of the terrible crimes of this age. I walked through streets thick with blood, and saw bodies of the dead, many of them dismembered. There were bodies of old men, women and children. "And behind the carnage of German aviators I saw the blood- crazed Moors move through another town at night, raping wives and daughters of the innocent...Now I am going to try to see the Pope and beg him to intervene...in the hope that he can obtain a promise from the Rebels to renounce this warfare against the civilian population." [The storm of adverse publicity against the Guernica massacre drowned out the sounds of a civil war breaking out among the Leftists, mainly between the Revolutionary Marxists, or P.O.U.M., and the Stalinist Communists. It began in Barcelona.] (May 17, 1937) The Spanish spotlight, focused for the past month on the Basque capital at Bilbao, swung last week to Barcelona, greatest industrial city in Spain and chief port remaining in Leftist hands. Catalan Barcelona, like Basque Bilbao, is the capital of a group of Spain's 50 provinces, which since the Revolution have tended to become more & more autonomous. Unlike Bilbao, Barcelona has not been seriously threatened by Rightists since the first weeks of the civil war. Rugged individualists like most Spaniards, the Barcelonians have decked their buildings with many a discordant banner; the five-barred red-and-yellow flag of Catalonia, the red-yellow-and- purple of the Valencia Republic, the red flag of Communism, the black-and-red banner of Anarcho-Syndicalists. There are a number of other parties of varying opinions,all demanding a share in the Government. Nowhere else in the world are Communists so decisively ranked among the conservatives. That is because in Catalonia, Communists believe in discipline, as opposed to the free-for-all philosophy of the pure Anarchists, largest and most troublesome group in the state. The main reason that government is possible art all in Catalonia is due to the extra ordinary talent for compromise of Catalonia's president, excitable Luis Companys. Suddenly last week the Company's technique did not work at all. Late at night telephone communications with France were mysteriously cut. Hours later the story began to filter out of Barcelona that Anarchists had revolted against the Companys Government. Almost instantly jumbled barricades sprang up along the treelined Ramblas. The streets echoed with the Carong! Carong! of machine guns, the Hahp! of light artillery. Immediate objective of the Anarchist Black-&-Reds was the Barcelona telephone exchange, a building almost as imposing was the telephone skyscraper of Madrid. This they seized and held for seven hours. Hero of the revolt then became Barcelona's Police Chief Rodriguez Sola, who personally led a frontal attack on the building, captured the first floor, methodically started mopping up from stair to stair. Loudly President Companys called for peace and unity to face the common foe, warned that the Catalans were leaving the way open for a raid from General Franco's Rightists. No such raid came, but before peace was restored over 300 people had been killed according to reports the Valencia Government, to police Barcelona, had had to withdraw 12,000 badly needed troops from the Aragon front. [As part of a new Loyalist government, a Communist Interior minister, aided by Soviet N.K.V.D. agents in Madrid, carried out a Stalin-style purge of the P.O.U.M. Its leader, Andres Nin, was implicated in a faked plot, arrested and tortured to death, along with thousands of other non-Communist leftists, including many foreigners. Among those who managed to escape were British Writer George Orwell, who recounted his experiences in Homage to Catalonia, and future German Socialist Chancellor Willy Brandt. Little accurate information about the slaughter leaked out, because Republican sympathizers, including American reporters like Ernest Hemingway, were afraid to undercut Western support for their side. With the fall of the Basque city of Bilbao and the slow collapse of the northern front in mid-1937, the civil war settled down to a slow, dreadful attrition. Through the terrible winter of 1937-8, the long line of the front, stretching from the Pyrenees and the French border on the north to the Mediterranean coast, wavered and dipped like waves lapping on a shore. Mostly, the pattern showed a rising tide for Franco. But not everywhere and not all the time.] (December 27, 1937) In blinding snow & wind that sometimes reached a velocity of 50 miles an hour the Spanish war suddenly burst into action last week at Teruel, tip of the long Rightist finger which points down from Aragon at Leftist Valencia. While the world awaited Rightist drive, Leftist troops under General Sebastian Pozas took the offensive. Surging forward through a blizzard in a surprise attack, the Leftists avoided a frontal assault on Teruel itself, heavily fortified by the Rightists for over a year. Instead they sent from north & south two columns accompanied by tanks and planes to nip the line of communications behind the city. By the fourth day Teruel was surrounded, despite counterattacks from the garrison of 60,000 Rightists, despite attempts of Generalissimo Franco to force relief troops through. Into the snowy streets of Teruel marched ten hostages released by the attackers to carry a promise of amnesty to all civilians and Rightists who would surrender by 9 a.m. on the following morning. Nobody surrendered. Through the day Leftist troops continued to fight from house to house, ever farther into the city, kept the attack going through the night with searchlights. For the first time the new trained army of Leftist Spain had been able to carry a properly planned campaign through four successive days of attack. (January 10, 1938) If the object of the drive on Teruel was to pull down the full force of Franco's armies on leftist heads, it succeeded last week beyond measure. With his toughest general, Miguel (siege of Oviedo) Aranda, and his ablest General, Jose Fidel (capture of Bilbao) Davila, leading the counterattack. El Caudillo himself reportedly took charge of the campaign from field headquarters 75 miles northwest at Calatayud. To retake one small town he massed 500 field guns on a 25-mile front, sent some 200 planes into the grey and icy sky and poured Spaniards, Moors, Foreign Legionnaires, Italian Blackshirts into the lines. The Leftist high command did not hold back either. Playing the psychological angle for all it was worth in the early days of the battle, Barcelona boasted that the fanatical defenders of Teruel's seminary, bank and cathedral would be given every opportunity to surrender with honor in contrast to General Franco's notorious mass executions in territory he has conquered. All this was forgotten as the full force of El Caudillo's war machine rolled closer. To make as short work as possible of the Rightist defense within the city, miners blew the remains of the Bank of Spain branch sky high, burying an unknown number of men, women and children in the debris. Soon the Battle of Teruel became a battle of all nations as the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Battalion and other foreign battalions moved into the Leftist lines. New Year's Eve saw Spaniards, Italians, U.S. citizens, Moors, Germans, Czechs and Frenchmen all fighting for a town on a river bank about the size of Emporia, Kans. (February 28, 1938) For the first time last week Leftists holding the battered city of Teruel which they captured at Christmas time seemed to be in danger of losing it. Rightist troops using the springboard of a recent advance to the Alfambra River, drove on Teruel itself from three sides, then purportedly cut the last rutted Leftist soldiers. But the garrison resisted stubbornly. This week, as men of both sides fought hand to hand on Teruel's outskirts, Rightists opened a bombardment of the city with their heaviest artillery, sent a bombing fleet over it. Thereupon the Leftists took to the air, staged one of the most exciting airplane battles in months. While Rightists claimed the capture or destruction of thousands of Leftist soldiers and began to hail the battle as the turning point of the war, a series of explosions suddenly shook the city's outskirts. Leftists, answering the Rightists' bombardment from above, were blowing up Rightists from below, were believed to have mined the entire city. (March 7, 1938) Francisco Franco, again busy over staff maps with his big soft pencil, directed last week the Rightist recapture of Teruel, bloody "Spanish Verdun." Inside this little city, Valentine Gonsalez, a picturesque Leftist Army leader known as El Campesino ("The Peasant"), was busy dynamiting such civic buildings as were not already in ruins, while the 20,000 Leftists holding Teruel clung grimly to their posts. Rightist columns by this time had completely surrounded Teruel. Rightists poured in explosives, made things hotter in the town than any place has been in Spain since the Siege of the Alcazar. The Peasant, lending Leftists in a furious effort to fight their way out, was reported killed in an armored truck. It was then bayonet against bayonet in what experts rated the most savage, large-scale battle of Spain's present civil war. Two days later the official results were announced. According to the Leftist Government; their forces had withdrawn from Teruel in perfect order and taken up strong positions nine miles back. According to General Franco; 16,000 Leftists had been taken prisoner, 9,000 buried. Striking an average, neutrals guessed that the Leftists had given a good account of themselves, had succeeded in fighting their way out with heavy losses. (April 25, 1938) French truck drivers, drawing triple pay, were going out of Leftist Spain last week sporting gold wrist watches, silk socks & shorts, smoking the best cigars. At restaurants just inside the French border they could be seen swizzling champagne, ordering such delicacies as speckled trout, fresh asparagus, vieux cognac. These lusty lads have been driving an average of 200 heavy trucks per day from Republican France over the officially closed frontier into leftist Spain. The 2,000 tons they took in daily were mostly passed as "agricultural implements" or "foodstuffs." A truck careening down the road at Montauban overturned last week, the French driver was killed, four large cases of "foodstuffs" broke open, and out rolled war plane motors. At Honfleur, France, an overloaded winch, lifting huge cases out of a steamer flying the flag of Panama which had arrived with "agricultural machinery" for Leftist Spain, broke down. This accident smashed against the side of the dock cases which broke open, spilled out six-inch gun carriages and a sub-machine gun. Meanwhile, in groups large and small many Leftist Spanish soldiers came half-famished through the crags of the Pyrenees, stumbling over crests white with eternal snow. They straggled down the valleys, handed their guns to French frontier guards, entered refugee camps where there were no champagne or speckled trout, only spring water and stew dipped steaming from a bucket. Unsympathetic with these soldiers who had stopped fighting, pugnacious Novelist Ernest Hemingway filed a hard-boiled dispatch from Leftist Spain's sunny seacoast: "In the afar north, under the shadow of the Pyrenees, General Franco's troops have advanced steadily north and eastward in a country where positions could be held by determined graduates of any good girls' finishing school!" If the Leftist flight in the Pyrenees sector continues, the Rightists will soon have detached Leftist Spain from France, cut off the flood of French and Soviet munitions through France. This is Rightist Objective No. 1, would almost certainly decide the war. Last week Rightist Objective No. 2 was to complete the drive to the sea and definitely cut Leftist Spain in twain, although to all intents & purposes Generalissimo Francisco Franco accomplished this when Italian Facist Militia fought down the Ebro River Valley, besieged the town of Tortosa. (October 31, 1938) Aching hunger, rather than lack of munitions, has become Leftist Spain's gravest problem. Leftists can point with pride that their troops have held their own for the last three months. Now Leftists are handicapped by this summer's poor harvest, the cutting in two of Leftist territory, the feeding of 3,000,000 refugees who fled before Rightist advances, difficulties of transportation, ceaseless bombing, sinking of food ships bound for Leftist harbors. It appeared last week that all these things combined have produced a food scarcity which, if not remedied, may very well force Leftist Spain to agree to a "Munich" mediation if not outright surrender. For more than a year to each gnawing stomach of 900,000 Madrilenos have been rationed only a few daily scraps of bread, a handful of rice, and occasional potato or orange, rancid olive oil, no sugar, mud-like coffee, little meat. Trees have been cut down, furniture broken up, destroyed houses and buildings, whittled away to provide fuel for an undernourished population that feels now more than ever the wintry blasts that sweep down from the Guadarrama Mountains. In primarily industrial Catalonia, her population swollen with refugees, her few railroads and highways glutted with military supplies, the possibility of famine was so urgent last week that Barcelona's press bureau sent cables to the U.S. Leftist sympathizers appealing for food. Should France and England grant belligerent rights to Rightist Spain--an increasing probability--and thus enable Generalissimo Francisco Franco legally to blockade Leftist ports, little food from the outside could get to Leftist Spain. [The Leftist fought on bravely, sometimes regaining lost ground, but slowly, inexorably, the cause was lost.] (January 23, 1939) Generalissimo Franco's hour of final triumph seemed near at hand, while for the Spanish Republic the clock struck eleven. The Loyalists' attempt to divert the crushing offensive of superior Rebel equipment by offensives of their own, first in Extremaudura, next to Brunete, finally near Toledo, petered out. For the first time, the Rebels refused to be diverted. Refugees from southern Catalonia feeling before the Franco advance clogged all roads as the Loyalist Army retreated. Hundreds of Rebel planes bombed and strafed roads and bridges. For the Loyalists there was one slight consolation in the battle for Catalonia: their retreat was orderly, they allowed no great number of their soldiers to be taken by the Rebels, few Loyalist supplies were left behind. (February 6, 1939) The armies of Rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco marched up to Barcelona on three sides last week and, with no more than a sniper's fusillade, the biggest city in Spain fell. No European military action comparable to it had taken place since the Prussians took Paris in 1871, and according to all calculations, the Spanish Rebels like the Prussians, had won their war. When General Juan Yague's troops reached the 600-foot-high hill of Montjuich commanding Barcelona's harbor they saw a white flag flying from the fortress. When General Garcia Valino's soldiers climbed the summit of Tibidabo, on the west, and looked down upon the city gleaming in brilliant sunshine, they saw white sheets, towels and Rebel red & gold bunting flying from windows and housetops. Armored cars cautiously went forth to explore the city. They returned to report that no one had fired on them, that no one seemed likely to. Early in the afternoon Rebel troops began cautiously to make their way through the streets. They reached the Plaza de Cataluna, Barcelona's centre, at 4:30 p.m., occupied the entire city by nightfall. The radio which had blared fort defiance in the morning changed its tune for the evening, played the Rebel anthem, announced: "Barcelonians, do not fear. The Red rulers who have cheated you will never return." People soon poured into the streets to welcome their new masters. On the Rambla girls flung their arms around the Rebel soldiers. Men who had long ago acquired the habit of clenching their fists and saying "salud!" in approved Leftist style gave the Fascist salute of the upraised arm and yelled "Viva Espana!" The people who had long shaken their fists angrily at Rebel bombers rejoiced at the sight of Rebel soldiers. People took out their now useless Loyalist pesetas and made bonfires of them in the streets. Electric lights burned that night in Barcelona for the first time in many months. Trucks laden with bread, milk, rice, foodstuffs of all sorts began to arrive, and soup kitchens were opened. Rebel blue-shirted military police replaced Barcelona's old municipal guards. Immediately released from the three jails were some 6,000 political prisoners left behind by the Loyalists. They were overjoyed, but meanwhile military courts--such as have followed every previous Rebel occupation of a city--were set up in Barcelona to try those Loyalists who had been guilty of "crimes": against the Rebels. On the Franco "blacklist" are said to be some 2,000,000 names, some of whom must have been caught in Barcelona. Those ardent Loyalist workers, union officials, Government employees still remaining in the city faced probable execution, at best long prison terms. (February 13, 1939) Its communications cut, its food supplies gone, its ammunition exhausted, the Loyalist Army disintegrated almost overnight into a disorganized rabble. As the Rebels pressed relentlessly on, a wild churning wave of soldiers and civilians, rushing for the border, rolled before them. Veterans of Belchite, Teruel, the Ebro campaigns carried their rifles, hauled machine guns and field pieces, even drove tanks up to the frontier, where they were confiscated. They were determined not to let General Franco capture any war weapons. At one point alone 4,000 were crossing the French border every hour. At another point a Loyalist Army band played patriotic Spanish airs while the bedraggled and defeated army crossed into France. (February 20, 1939) By the time the Rebel advance contingents had reached the border posts last week more than 100,000 civilian refugees had made their way into France. The 150,000 defeated Catalonian soldiers swelled the refugee ranks to far more than the backward, rural Pyrenees district of France could handle. Camps had been built for the internment of the Loyalist fighting forces but these make-shift shelters were able to hold only 100,000. The rest of the soldiers and most of the civilians were forced to camp in the open. The men foraged for food and wood to keep bonfires going, their only protection against the misty cold. There were no hospital facilities to take care of the 20,000 wounded. Soldiers and civilians injured in air raids wandered around, their wounds festering after days of inattention, looking for aid. Correspondents roaming through the refugee region sent back countless vignettes of human suffering: one crazed refugee, his arm blown off by an air raid, carrying his baby under his good arm, was looking for his wife and remaining children, who he did not know had been killed in the same air raid; new born babies nestling beside new born lambs; soldiers and civilians sleeping among flocks of sheep for warmth. (April 3, 1939) Heavy snow was falling in Madrid early this week. The city was without fuel, disease was rampant. 1,000,000 Madrilenos were half-starved. No restaurant served meals, no bars had drinks. Lentils and dried beans were all anyone could get to eat, and precious little of them. A daily average of 2,000 were reported dying of hunger and sickness. Communications with Valencia, Alicante, Cartagena--warmer cities on the coast--had broken down. No railroad trains ran for there was no coal. No buses moved, for the gasoline supply had given out. Order, direction, organization had broken down. The lingering hope of the dispirited defenders of Madrid was for an honorable, merciful peace. But from General Franco's headquarters in Burgos had come no promise of quarter, only a repeated demand for unconditional surrender--the white flag over Madrid. Then, last Tuesday morning, white flags began to flutter wanly over the ramparts of Madrid, the last symbol of Spanish resistance to the advance of Fascism. From the 15-story La Prensa (Press) Building, a great white flag was hoisted. From the 16-story Telefonica, Madrid's tallest building, the red-&-gold banner of the old Monarchy, now the Franco flag, invited the conquerors in. The weary Loyalist defenders backed out of their trenches, leaving their arms behind. From scattered balconies draped old Monarchist flags, mantillas with Bourbon emblems. By noon the occupation of the city had begun. In the van were the Italian legion, behind them came the Civil Guard in their famous three-cornered hats, and behind them--truck loads and truck loads of food. General Jose Miaja, the "Savior of Madrid," his war minister, Segismundo Casado, political and trade union leaders and others who feared reprisals had fled to Valencia. Over the Madrid radio Foreign Minister Julian Besteiro, British-backed negotiator who was largely responsible for turning the face of Madrid from defiance to surrender, counseled: "Madrilenos!...The moment has arrived for avoiding further bloodshed...Let us all be calm and serene, at present, accepting the surrender of Madrid as the best means of salvation...Viva Espana!" Thus ended, after two years, four months and 21 days, one of the most heroically defended sieges in history. [As in most civil wars, the carnage had been terrible. Atrocities on both sides were about equal. War casualties included 90,000 Nationalists killed in action and 110,000 Republicans; 10,000 dead in air raids; 25,000 from malnutrition; 130,000 murdered or shot behind the lines; 500,000 in exile. The victorious Franco regime proceeded to execute tens of thousands of Republicans for various crimes and jailed several hundred thousands more, many for long terms.] </body> </article> </text>