The Year of Strategic Crisis
Part 3: Operation Valeria Victrix II, January 27 – February 19, 1941
During the three weeks that covered the last days of January and the first nearly twenty days of February saw Italian efforts in Iberia producing results as they brought large amounts of force to bear on their opponents. With three armies in Iberia and the Spanish too incompetent to take advantage of their greatest, or indeed any of their, chances the end was not in doubt.
Fighting in the south was largely limited to Roatta’s front, where at Vicar his corps routed the Spanish defenders and inflicted heavy casualties upon them before pushing on further to thrash the Spaniards again at Guadix. In the north, Gambara’s corps met resistance at Lleida but relatively easily overcame it. By the 2nd of February, however, the Spanish had, however, managed to throw two or three divisions-worth of troops northward in an attempt to hold Gambara’s expansion, which by that time had established an all-encircling buffer zone around Tarragona. The Spanish dedicated numerous units to an attack on Messe in Cambrils, though this would peter out in four days with heavy Spanish casualties. Gambara was dedicated to enlarging his bridgehead, though logistical limitation precluded him from operating in his preferred style of maximum maneuver. Instead, his logisticians operating Tarragona’s port could never guarantee more than was necessary to reach the next major town. This was a difficulty that the Italians would run into everywhere in Spain, not simply in the north.
Gambara’s corps, having established itself around Tarragona.
Also, only on February 2nd did Bastico’s army finally pry the Spanish out of Valencia. This battle, thus far the most difficult of the Second Iberian War, resulted in over five hundred Italian casualties—more than all other engagements so far combined—and over one thousand Spanish deaths. However, his 2a Armata was finally ashore and could begin influencing events. This he began doing the very next day. He ordered one corps, under the command of Aymonnino, to attack toward Requena, and the other under Ago to begin heading northeastward toward Gambara’s corps. His army was, by virtue of its placement, to take the central and central-north stage against the Spanish forces, with Gambara in the far north and Grossi and Roatta in the central-south and southern reaches of the front. Italy now fielded three armies in Iberia, all falling under Nasi’s command as part of his army group. This army group totaled twenty-two combat divisions and ten headquarters of various levels and represented more than half of Italy’s entire army.
Bastico’s 2a Armata ashore and on the move.
By the 6th of February, the Italians were fighting for Segerbo on Bastico’s front and Ponts on Gambara’s. In the south, Roatta was in the process of throwing a division toward the sea, in what would be a successful attempt to isolate, encircle and then finally destroy a Spanish mountain division against the coast. Despite these successes, if the Spaniards had a competent high command they could still heavily damage Italy’s effort. Spanish forces were still poised like a dagger, pointing toward the heart of the Italian position in Spain: Cartagena. They were, indeed, nearly at the very door of the cluster of headquarters around that city. There was no front there; Grossi’s army was split by this penetration, three divisions north of the divide and two south (and, of course, two in Gibraltar). A determined Spanish thrust could throw Pintor’s and Grossi’s army headquarters into complete disarray, as well as Nasi’s army group headquarters
and result in the capture of Cartagena, Italy’s most important port there—as Valencia’s harbor had been sabotaged by the withdrawing Spanish and earlier damaged in the fighting—and indeed held Italy’s western Mediterranean radar post! A determined push would isolate Roatta’s corps and two divisions of Gonzaga del Vodice’s corps south of Cartagena with no supplies, and would place the one and a half armies north of Cartagena on what thin line of supply could be wound through Valencia’s broken port. Fortunately, the Spanish did not seem to have the intrepidity to attempt such a common sense operation.
The overall situation in Iberia, with the potential to be ruinous for the Italians.
Also by the 6th, the Germans were throwing a collection of units southward down the thin strip of French littoral which they own and which would constitute their own long and tenuous line of supply into Spain. by the 7th, two German divisions were already in Spain and another five were milling about the French littoral. The war had become a race between the two major Axis powers to see who would the most of Spain. If nothing else, Germany’s contribution had the salutary effect of drawing off Spain’s reserves further, though by this stage it amounted to only a single brigade.
German formations intervening in the Second Iberian War.
More battle won and further gains made everywhere by the 10th of February, Grossi felt secure enough in his tenuous position to move out of it. He had decided upon straightening out the frontline, in removing the dagger poised at the heart of the Italian position in Iberia. Thus, one division of Gonzaga del Vodice’s corps would cut into the undefended southern base of the salient, while the entirety of Pirzio Biroli’s corps would break through its northern base. This would have the effect of encircling a Spanish brigade outside Cartagena, the remains of what once might have been a terrible danger to Nasi’s army group. As Grossi was eliminating this salient, to the north Aymonnino’s corps was pushing forward and had broken through the Spanish main line of resistance. Indeed, he was exploiting his position by, on the one hand, throwing forces forward to keep the Spanish unbalanced and, on the other, throwing forces southwestward in an attempt to being an encirclement of the Spanish main line though by the 19th the Spanish had begun redeploying their forces to some effect. Finally, in the central-north area, units of Ago’s corps had linked up with Messe’s division, though this connection was not to last. In the far north, Italian units had reached the Vichy frontier.
The main situation on the 19th of February.
By the end of the 19th, the apparent danger situation in which the Spanish could ruin the Italian bridgehead in Iberia had disappeared and, indeed, the Spanish line seemed on the verge of a catastrophic break. Despite this, they still had a large amount of valor left within them and would continue the fight.