The War in Spain: Month Two
At midnight GMT on 21 May, First Army Group HQ, Second Army, the 29th and 30th Infantry Divisions, and the 2nd Blackshirt Legion were ordered to land at Ibiza.
Later that day, a law proposing limitations on the citizenships and rights of those Italians of Jewish heritage or religion was struck down, in light of the original suggestion for the law coming from Germany pre-Anschluss. Mussolini, in his explanation of his decision before the Grand Council of Fascism, said that such laws would make Italy more like Germany and would be contrary to the goals of fascism. (Or something like that, I basically pulled that out of thin air. This is my explanation for modding the savegame so I do get to keep Enrico Fermi, since he left Italy in 1938 due to anti-semitic laws passed by the Italian government at the suggestion of Nazi Germany.)
Two days later, the 12th Division "Sassari" was upgraded to modern standards and First Army Group (consisting of the aforementioned units) landed at Ibiza without resistance. This was hardly surprising since the nearest Spanish forces were on Mallorca. Transport Squadrons A and B were the same day ordered to return to their home bases of Genoa and Taranto respectively. On 25 May Ethiopia cancelled two trade agreements, and on 26 May the 21st and 32nd Infantry Divisions, in addition to the 3rd Blackshirt Division, were loaded aboard Transport Squadron B.
On 27 May, a battle in the Gulf of Gabes resulted in a flotilla of Spanish destroyers and a flotilla of Spanish transports being sunk. The next day Sardinia Air Command was ordered to establish air superiority over the Gulf of Leon in response to Spanish bombardment of the Italian forces on Ibiza.
29 May - Sardinia Air Command intercepts Spanish bombers above Gulf of Leon
On 1 June, a design for a new aircraft carrier class was presented to Comando Supremo, and the decision was made to see how the currently building aircraft carrier to be named Aquila performed compared to the specifications of the new design. A more useful, however, application of this research was that several G.50 Freccias and Breda Br. 65s had been modified so as to be usable from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, and these versions of these planes were selected to be used as the first carrier air group to be produced by Italy. Production, however, was not to begin until the stress on Italian industry could be lessened, if possible. Also on 1 June, Generale di Corpo d'Armata Dalmazzo (Lieutenant General, in other words) was put in command of the 32nd Infantry Division before an assault on Murcia was to begin.
At 600 GMT the battle began, and lasted until 1000 GMT the next day. Unfortunately, the Italians lost yet again, much to the chagrin of Mussolini - Comando Supremo began to suspect that the Spanish might have been better prepared for war than Italy, having just won a war shortly before the Italians declared war on them, as well as possibly being better organized (but what else to expect from amphibious assault on fixed positions?) but they kept their suspicions to themselves.
The Battle of Murcia - 600 GMT
The Italian forces that had failed to take Murcia were sent to Menorca, and landed without resistance there on 6 June. However, an hour after the three divisions unloaded, they were attacked by the Spanish divisions on Mallorca, and ordered back into their transports.
On 8 June, Transport Squadron B was ordered to the Central Gulf of Leon, with Comando Supremo having in mind keeping the troops aboard it as a reserve. However, Transport Squadron B of the light cruiser RM Bartelomeo Colleoni, two flotillas of destroyers, and three flotillas of transports met five Spanish vessels - the battleship ARE Jaime I, the heavy cruiser ARE Baleares, and the light cruisers ARE Libertad, ARE Republica, and ARE Mendez Nunez. 2nd Squadron was ordered to the Central Gulf of Leon, with a projected ETA of 18:00 GMT.
Begining of the battle
Ten hours later...
The result?!
(Just how losing two transport squadrons counts as a victory is beyond me, but I suppose it's better than losing the entire Transport Squadron...)
And this is the annoying part - the battle ended one hour before 2nd Squadron would have been on the scene, or at least in the same sea zone - which I was hoping would mean that all of the Spanish ships would be sunk by my shiny new Littorio, or at least they would recieve a good pounding from long range.
SEE HOW CLOSE IT WAS?!
2nd Squadron was ordered to patrol the Western Mediterranean to prevent any surprises by Spanish capital ships being visited upon, say, another shipment of troops. The next day, 9 June, saw the submission of a report to the Government by Societa Montecatini on improving oil refining techniques. FIAT began recieving money from the Government for researching improvements into computing machines the same day.
Spanish submarine flotilla meets Transport Squadron A - 13 June 1938
Battle of Mallorca - one hour after it began, 14 June 1938
After a 16-hour battle, at 21:00 GMT 14 June the Spaniards managed to defeat the Italian forces. Three days later, on 17 June the Spanish recaptured Menorca which had been captured about ten days earlier by Italian forces before they were driven off by the Spanish, and a Spanish submarine flotilla was sunk in the Gulf of Salerno.
The Economy, 21 June 1938
At the highest echelons of the Italian Government - okay, it was actually separately considered by Comando Supremo and the King - there was discussion of how to continue the war, after having lost 8 divisions to superior Spanish forces in the area, and whether a peace should be striven for or whether the war should continue - but the current goings-on were a bit too reminiscent of the Great War for some tastes... The populace at large remained ignorant of these musings, however, and merely read the newspapers or listened to the radio broadcasts or watched the newsreels - all, naturally, controlled by the government, which tended to emphasize the naval victories over the land defeats.
At midnight GMT on 21 May, First Army Group HQ, Second Army, the 29th and 30th Infantry Divisions, and the 2nd Blackshirt Legion were ordered to land at Ibiza.
Later that day, a law proposing limitations on the citizenships and rights of those Italians of Jewish heritage or religion was struck down, in light of the original suggestion for the law coming from Germany pre-Anschluss. Mussolini, in his explanation of his decision before the Grand Council of Fascism, said that such laws would make Italy more like Germany and would be contrary to the goals of fascism. (Or something like that, I basically pulled that out of thin air. This is my explanation for modding the savegame so I do get to keep Enrico Fermi, since he left Italy in 1938 due to anti-semitic laws passed by the Italian government at the suggestion of Nazi Germany.)
Two days later, the 12th Division "Sassari" was upgraded to modern standards and First Army Group (consisting of the aforementioned units) landed at Ibiza without resistance. This was hardly surprising since the nearest Spanish forces were on Mallorca. Transport Squadrons A and B were the same day ordered to return to their home bases of Genoa and Taranto respectively. On 25 May Ethiopia cancelled two trade agreements, and on 26 May the 21st and 32nd Infantry Divisions, in addition to the 3rd Blackshirt Division, were loaded aboard Transport Squadron B.
On 27 May, a battle in the Gulf of Gabes resulted in a flotilla of Spanish destroyers and a flotilla of Spanish transports being sunk. The next day Sardinia Air Command was ordered to establish air superiority over the Gulf of Leon in response to Spanish bombardment of the Italian forces on Ibiza.
29 May - Sardinia Air Command intercepts Spanish bombers above Gulf of Leon
On 1 June, a design for a new aircraft carrier class was presented to Comando Supremo, and the decision was made to see how the currently building aircraft carrier to be named Aquila performed compared to the specifications of the new design. A more useful, however, application of this research was that several G.50 Freccias and Breda Br. 65s had been modified so as to be usable from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, and these versions of these planes were selected to be used as the first carrier air group to be produced by Italy. Production, however, was not to begin until the stress on Italian industry could be lessened, if possible. Also on 1 June, Generale di Corpo d'Armata Dalmazzo (Lieutenant General, in other words) was put in command of the 32nd Infantry Division before an assault on Murcia was to begin.
At 600 GMT the battle began, and lasted until 1000 GMT the next day. Unfortunately, the Italians lost yet again, much to the chagrin of Mussolini - Comando Supremo began to suspect that the Spanish might have been better prepared for war than Italy, having just won a war shortly before the Italians declared war on them, as well as possibly being better organized (but what else to expect from amphibious assault on fixed positions?) but they kept their suspicions to themselves.
The Battle of Murcia - 600 GMT
The Italian forces that had failed to take Murcia were sent to Menorca, and landed without resistance there on 6 June. However, an hour after the three divisions unloaded, they were attacked by the Spanish divisions on Mallorca, and ordered back into their transports.
On 8 June, Transport Squadron B was ordered to the Central Gulf of Leon, with Comando Supremo having in mind keeping the troops aboard it as a reserve. However, Transport Squadron B of the light cruiser RM Bartelomeo Colleoni, two flotillas of destroyers, and three flotillas of transports met five Spanish vessels - the battleship ARE Jaime I, the heavy cruiser ARE Baleares, and the light cruisers ARE Libertad, ARE Republica, and ARE Mendez Nunez. 2nd Squadron was ordered to the Central Gulf of Leon, with a projected ETA of 18:00 GMT.
Begining of the battle
Ten hours later...
The result?!
(Just how losing two transport squadrons counts as a victory is beyond me, but I suppose it's better than losing the entire Transport Squadron...)
And this is the annoying part - the battle ended one hour before 2nd Squadron would have been on the scene, or at least in the same sea zone - which I was hoping would mean that all of the Spanish ships would be sunk by my shiny new Littorio, or at least they would recieve a good pounding from long range.
SEE HOW CLOSE IT WAS?!
2nd Squadron was ordered to patrol the Western Mediterranean to prevent any surprises by Spanish capital ships being visited upon, say, another shipment of troops. The next day, 9 June, saw the submission of a report to the Government by Societa Montecatini on improving oil refining techniques. FIAT began recieving money from the Government for researching improvements into computing machines the same day.
Spanish submarine flotilla meets Transport Squadron A - 13 June 1938
Battle of Mallorca - one hour after it began, 14 June 1938
After a 16-hour battle, at 21:00 GMT 14 June the Spaniards managed to defeat the Italian forces. Three days later, on 17 June the Spanish recaptured Menorca which had been captured about ten days earlier by Italian forces before they were driven off by the Spanish, and a Spanish submarine flotilla was sunk in the Gulf of Salerno.
The Economy, 21 June 1938
At the highest echelons of the Italian Government - okay, it was actually separately considered by Comando Supremo and the King - there was discussion of how to continue the war, after having lost 8 divisions to superior Spanish forces in the area, and whether a peace should be striven for or whether the war should continue - but the current goings-on were a bit too reminiscent of the Great War for some tastes... The populace at large remained ignorant of these musings, however, and merely read the newspapers or listened to the radio broadcasts or watched the newsreels - all, naturally, controlled by the government, which tended to emphasize the naval victories over the land defeats.
Last edited: