The Year of Preparation
Part 4: Operation Scipio III, February 12 – February 20, 1938
The eight days of middle February shaped how the rest of the war thereafter was fought, and what it was fought for. During these days, operations influenced the situation to such an extent that old, improvised and territory-specific war aims for this phase had to be thrown out as they were not realizable any more. By the 20th, the end of the war was clearly in sight, and with it the vindication of Mussolini’s maritime strategy.
The 12th saw more changes to the operational plan, as Pintor continued to expand the operational area. Gambara’s new overall objective was simply to push as far northward as possible, and certainly beyond Valencia. As already related, Caracciolo di Feroleto had as his objective Cagunto, a seaside town just north of Valencia. The hope was that the Nationalists would not move and thus be isolated from the rest of Spain. It was to be a symbol of Mussolini’s pique against Franco, given Nationalist-induced failure of linking the beachheads. Nicolosi’s division was given the objective of Teruel, nearly directly north of Valencia but some distance away. Frattini’s objective was Albarracin, a town whose importance lay with the fact that its capture by the Italians would split the remaining Republican territory in twain. Due to Messe’s long delay at Hellin, his division essentially dropped off the face of the operational plan. His division was simply too far behind the front to be directly relevant to it even though it was on this day that he finally won at Hellin, as previously noted.
Continuously expanding operations in eastern Spain.
As all this was occurring, Roatta’s corps was standing still in the western beachhead. Roatta was coordinating with Quilicci to evacuate his troops from there and redeploy them to Cartagena. The lack of supply was not yet hitting his corps too hard as they were able to disperse and live off the land, paying for food in the territories they had conquered and stabilized from the chaos of civil war. Everyone along the chain of command had forgotten Mussolini’s diplomacy of the previous December and that Italy held transit rights through Nationalist territory. Due to this oversight, Roatta’s corps had already sat for over two weeks and was to sit for more time to come. They were out of the war, and out on the beaches of southern Spain.
Roatta’s corps, neglected and isolated.
By the 16th a solid front had formed in the north along the towns of Tarazona de la Mancha, Casas Ibáñez and Requena. Caraccioli di Feroleto had engaged a Republican division of 6,000 mountain troops at Segerbe. Nicolosi was advancing on undefended Sinarcas, from where he would make his final push toward Teruel. Frattini, holding the northern flank, was advancing north from Tarazona de la Mancha toward Cuenca and thence onward to Albarracin. The Nationalists were also sweeping northward, albeit with only one brigade, as far as Italian intelligence could infer. To the north they had already reached the Mediterranean Sea at the mouth of the Ebro, and were pushing southward. Conquerable territory was quickly beginning to vanish.
Pintor and Gambara were throwing their divisions as far northward as they could.
By the 19th, Nicolosi had run into resistance in front of Teruel, as a headquarters unit began fighting back. This was a different headquarters from the one the Italians ran into earlier in the campaign. The battle was a short affair: not twenty-four hours later the corps headquarters was forced to withdraw. It had suffered nearly 140 casualties, as opposed to two Italians. To the south, at Segerbe, however, Caracciolo di Feroleto had run into some difficulties as the defense by the Spanish mountaineers proved difficult to crack. In fact, the Italians were actually losing ground to the Spanish, albeit slowly. Unfortunately for Pintor’s plans and Mussolini’s pique, the Nationalists were taking advantage of this period of grace to break out of Valencia to the north. It was already beginning to look like Valencia would escape the fate of isolation. Frattini was advancing toward Albarracin.
The battle of Teruel and surrounding areas.
By the evening of the 20th, Frattini had reached Albarracin. The Republicans were, however, using that as the highway connecting their western armies to their eastern armies. Albarracin represented the link up between Italian and Nationalist forces in the north. The Spanish attacked in relative force, deploying three brigades against Frattini’s two and pushed westward. By the end of the day the situation was not dangerous, but additional Republican forces in the area could easily throw the defense off balance. Furthermore, Cuenca was the only Italian-occupied road to Albarracin, and it was undefended. Frattini was at the end of an unprotected salient. Fortunately, Nicolosi had put the Republicans at Teruel to flight and was on the march.
The battle of Albarracin.
This period of eight days from the 12th to the 20th saw the death knell of the Republican cause as their armies were split in two by the Italian push northward. With this division of territory, the remainder of the war would degenerate into nothing more than a hurried land grab as the Nationalists and Italians attempted to take all the territory they could. The first Italian littoral operation was soon to come to an end, having achieved most of what it had set out to do, despite being quite undisciplined in its aims.