Battle of The Ebro - Background

Background

By 1938, the Spanish Republic was in dire straits. The Basque Country had fallen, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) had been crushed by the Stalinist Communist Party of Spain, and many foreign governments felt it was only a matter of time before the question of who would rule Spain would be settled in favour of the Nationalists.

In the winter of 1937/38 the Republican Popular Army had spent its forces in the Battle of Teruel, in a series of bloody combats in subzero temperatures around the city of Teruel, which ended up being taken by the Francoist army in February.

General Franco then launched his Aragon Offensive in March without giving his enemies a chance to recover. This would be one of the most decisive operations in the Spanish Civil War. Fighting in the middle of bitter winter temperatures, the exhausted Republican army could offer only feeble resistance. Rushing victoriously across the rugged mountainous terrain of Southern Aragon, Franco's troops reached the Mediterranean sea at Vinaròs on April 15. As a result, the Nationalist Nacionalista army conquered Zaragoza, Lleida and the hydroelectric dams that provided much of the Catalan industrial areas with electricity. This situation demoralized Republican leaders and proved the strength and decisiveness of the Nationalist armies in an area between Barcelona and Valencia, that leaving Republican territory split in two.

The Francoist armies attacked the XYZ Line north of Valencia with the intention of capturing the Republican capital, instead of advancing towards Barcelona, fearing that France would enter the war in support of the ailing Republic. In response to the situation, Spanish premier Juan Negrín approved a plan by Vicente Rojo Lluch to launch attacks against the main Nationalist Francoist forces advancing towards Valencia. The purpose of the attacks were to relieve the pressure on Valencia and Catalonia, as well as to show European governments that the Republican government was still viable.

Some scholars have argued that Negrín's "active war policy"—attacking rather than adopting strong defences and hoping for a wider European conflict or harrying the nationalist forces—was primarily driven by the PCE's desire for propaganda victories, and, as at the Ebro, destroyed the Republican army for no great purpose.