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I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When stories flowed
And updates (comparatively) frequent
I dreamed that Austen would never die,
I dreamed of Spanish Republicants.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And updates were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid
No thread undone, no tank untasted.

But the spammers came at night
With the Grauniad full of blunder
As they tore my hope apart
As they turned another page.

And still I dream it'll come to be,
That new Chapters will come together.
But there are dreams which cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather.

I had a dream this page would be
So different from these posts I'm seeing,
So different now from what it seemed.
Now Jape's post has killed the dream I dreamed....
 
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You were working on that one for a while Old Boy!

Only two to go now though...

Dury.
 
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The Mythbusters did prove that you can make a boat out of duct tape. The Royal Navy can look into that.
And they could use phone-books for armor!
 
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Chapter CIV: All the President's Men
Chapter CIV: All the President's Men

To understand the strategy of the Republican half of Spain it is necessary to look at the two opposing evolutions occurring in the political factions. At the low level the smaller militias and regional groups were merging together, lacking the cash to buy arms directly (and lacking the international reputation needed for credit) the factions were forced to join one of the main power blocs to feed and equip their troops. Those who resisted soon found their numbers dwindling as soldiers compared the relative merits of fine words versus a working rifle and artillery support, a comparison that rarely favoured the smaller groups. Sadly for the Republican cause this (enforced) co-operation did not extend to the main power blocs; the 'legitimate' Government, the anarchists, the hard left and the Basque. The string of 'accidents' over the winter had if anything driven an even larger wedge between the leaders, men who were already struggling to keep control as the low level mergers disrupted the balance of power inside their own factions. Overall, however, it was a case of one step back but two steps forward; four competing factions was still too many, but was a vast improvement over forty.

It is tempting to see the first fruits of this concentration of power in the Northern theatre, the plans of the hard left and the anarchists appeared to be co-ordinated; the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and the Partido Comunista de España (PCE, Communist Party of Spain) taking Burgos and sealing the 'Catalan Pocket' while the CNT-FAI (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, National Confederation of Labour - Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Iberian Anarchist Federation) aimed to capture Barcelona and liberate Catalonia. Unfortunately the reality on the ground did not match the lines drawn on the map by the staff officers of the Ejército Magnífico de la República (Grand Army of the Republic). The most obvious clue was the lack of any Basque involvement; the Eusko Gudarostea (Basque Army) was ideally placed to assist in taking Burgos and then holding it against the expected Monarchist counter-attacks, however the Basque leadership had no significant plans at all for the campaigning season. Instead they planned to conduct some limited operations to liberate the remaining Basque 'homelands' (using an increasingly broad definition of homeland') but remain on the strategic defensive and keep the army concentrated to repel any Monarchist offensive. While the other factions were disappointed they were not surprised; after the previous year's campaign no-one had expected the Basque to act outside their borders unless forced.

Less obvious but more serious was the fact that the two operations in the North were, in fact, entirely unconnected and any co-operation was purely coincidental. The POSE-PCE, chastened after the abortive drive at Madrid the previous year, had rejected the latest 'advice' from Moscow and instead selected Burgos as a target in and of itself, that it created a pocket in Catalonia was irrelevant. The decision to ignore Moscow had however been controversial, while it was impeccable on military grounds (the hard left lacked the men and material needed to take Madrid) politically it had opened up old ideological wounds, wounds the leadership of both groups had hoped to ignore until the war was won. Debates on whether Hispanic-Marxism–Leninism was a vital ideological tool to bring Communism to Spain or merely reactionary bourgeoisie heresy may well have been vital to the intellectual health and purity of the movement, but they were not especially helpful when trying to win a civil war.

The situation was not helped by the Soviet Catch-22; Madrid could not be taken without modern, heavy equipment which the POSE-PCE lacked, however Moscow would not supply significant amounts heavy equipment until Madrid had fallen. The original rational behind the demand for Madrid, the Bank of Spain's gold reserves, was somewhat moot at this point, they had long since been shipped to Britain, however the idea had become a point of principle of the Soviet mission to Spain, a failing the Soviet military advisers recognised but one their political masters in the commissariat refused to consider. Thus while the ideologues of the far left indulged in one of their favourite past times, splintering and factionalism, Burgos emerged as the best compromise amongst the military men. As the second city of the Monarchists it had a great propaganda (and material) value for the war effort but far weaker defences than the capital, moreover by taking the city and it's surrounding region Madrid would be surrounded on three sides, a gesture towards the pro-Moscow factions and indeed Moscow itself.

The other half of the supposed pocket, the CNT-FAI offensive into Catalonia, was somewhat ironically deliberately aimed at not producing a pocket. The offensive planned to stage out of Tarragona, first taking Barcelona, de-facto capital of the region, then securing the French border before driving on towards Burgos. A more conventional military strategy would have been to launch from Zaragoza and drive towards the French border, creating a giant pocket in which to trap the Monarchist Army of Catalonia and cut it off from supply and reinforcement. But this was to misunderstand the anarchist's objectives in the war, they were not fighting to save the old Spanish Republic, but for a new Spain they intended forge through revolution. The initial efforts at revolution in Tarragona had not gone well, while they had captured it the city had soon been flooded with government troops, officials and French 'advisers' who came with the influx of French aid and the matching Republican exports.

In contrast Catalonia was thought to be far more receptive to anarchist ideas and ripe for a revolution when liberated, though in truth almost every faction believed the ground they captured would be filled with grateful locals delighted to be 'liberated'. However in the case of Catalonia the CNT-FAI had spent the winter preparing the ground; the Catalan militias had been co-opted along with sympathetic politicians and plans had been made to begin the revolution the moment the Monarchists had been forced out. With these objectives in mind a plan aimed at rapidly capturing territory, as opposed to one aimed at actually defeating the enemy, is a far more rational choice. Whether it was a good plan for the war as whole very much depended on what you believed the overall war aims to be.

xdGgZfA.png

The main plans of the Republican Armies in the Spring of 1937. Aside from the offensives from three of the main factions the only other significant action was the Linares Breakout. The 4th Division under General Linares had pretty much been given up for lost by the Republican leadership, isolated in Salamanca it was expected they would be crushed early in the campaigning season, as indeed was the Monarchist plan. Linares himself had other ideas, a committed Republican he was determined to make it back with as many men as he could. Having fallen back from the south the previous year and with the bulk of Madrid's defences to his east he launched his force north in the early days of March.

We turn finally to the rump Republican government under President Azaña which had spent the winter carefully training and upgrading it's two aces; the Assault Guards and the new Armoured division. The new tank unit, naturally enough called the 1st Armoured Division, was entirely equipped with French tanks, specifically the Hotchkiss H35, and was organised along the lines of a French Division Légère Mécanisée (Mechanised Light Division, 'light' in the sense of being mobile not lightly equipped). As with their British and German counter-parts the French equipment had come with many advisers and trainers, both genuine and euphemistic, who were just as willing to blur the line between tactical advice and directing grand strategy. As before the choice came down to North or South, Madrid was well defended and the French advisers were adamant the H35 was not a breakthrough tank and would be wasted assaulting dug in and prepared positions (in French doctrine that would be a job for heavy tanks such as the Char D1 or D2, not mediums like the H35). Tactically the North was the better choice; flatter ground, and with no shortage of CNT-FAI militias to force the breakthrough and guard the flanks, an offensive towards Burgos and the plains of the North would play to the strengths of the H35, assuming of course the anarchist co-operated. Unspoken by the French was the other advantage of cementing Republican control of the French border and removing the Monarchist port of Barcelona that had the French merchant marine worried. Leaving aside the issue of co-operation the scheme did not appeal to President Azaña as it would not solve his biggest concern; supply. This did not just refer to the lack of inter-operability between the French and Spanish railways (in one of life's ironies the wider 'Iberian gauge' used in much of Spain was reputedly chosen to obstruct any French invasion attempts, making cross border rail a non-starter) but also to the diversity of Republican suppliers.

The winter had seen the Monarchist navy step up it's attempts at commerce warfare, attempting to seal the Straits of Gibraltar and running aggressive patrols out of the Balearic islands, legal arguments about the legitimacy of the Monarchist government's territorial claims generally being trumped by a battery of loaded 8" guns. For most neutral merchantmen it was a problem they did not want and weren't being paid to deal with. Sailing to Bordeaux and having their cargo transferred across France and then shipped into Tarragona by the French merchants was an easier and safer option. The sinking of the Soviet freighter Komsomol by the the Monarchist heavy cruiser Canarias only made matters worse; the Soviet Union temporarily suspended all shipments, leaving only the dwindling Republican merchant marine as an alternative to the French controlled Bordeaux route.

umvp1GS.jpg

The burning Komsomol sinking in the Balearic Sea in December 1936, having been shelled by the Canarias after her crew were evacuated. The Komsomol was either carrying manganese ore to Belgium or another company of T-26 tanks to Valencia, depending upon who's propaganda you believed, but was certainly within 6 miles of the Balearics and thus in Monarchist claimed territorial waters. While not a severe blow to the Republican government, Soviet supplies naturally enough ended up with the PSOE/PCE rather than the official government, the event had a further chilling effect on all neutral merchants. While the sinking certainly caused an international incident it also caused many a government that refused to recognise the Monarchists to unofficially advise their merchants to respect Monarchist territorial waters and stick to the supposed safety of international waters.

Azaña knew the French were abusing their control of his supply lines, shipments of American trucks could spend weeks being delayed while deliveries from Renault would arrive on the dot (it was joked that the delivery time was the only thing that was reliable about the Renault VT lorry). Having an an alternative port that foreign merchant marines could safely use (and which the Republicans could then use to control the PSOE/PCE by holding back Soviet shipments) would transform the Republican supply situation and put the government faction into a far stronger position. Thus it was that the Cadiz Campaign was born, an audacious attempt to claim an Atlantic port for the Republic and so secure an alternate supply line. Cadiz was the only sensible objective, given the port had to be on the Atlantic side of the Straits of Gibraltar it was the nearest major port that met that requirement. Less sensible was the choice of route, rather than staging out of Malaga or even Ciudad Real the start point was the town of Jaén just west of Murcia. Instead of heading straight for the objective from the nearest point the Republicans hoped to crush the Cordoba pocket, defeat the Army of Africa and only then start the drive to Cadiz. Such optimism can be attributed to one thing; the H35. Despite the lack of French enthusiasm for it, it had after all been rejected by both the infantry and the cavalry, for the Republicans it was a revelation. Being at least a generation superior to the FT-17 the new crews and commanders had the boundless faith of the fresh convert in it's abilities, the campaigns of 1937 would see that faith tested by fire.

---
An update at last! OK that one was a little longer than I intended (thank the lord I decided not to look at the factionalism in the far left in too much detail!).

General Linares in OTL became head of the Spanish government in exile, so it seemed reasonable he'd be quite a determined and loyal chap, good thing the game pushed him into that pocket all things considered.

The Komsomol was sunk by the Canarias in December in OTL, that picture is of the actual event, so I felt I had to work that in somehow.

To the actual plans, I believe the Republicans would either suffer 'Elite guard' syndrome and keep the tanks in Valencia or go mad and believe they were invincible. For all it's faults the H35 is now the best tank in Spain by a considerable margin and the Republicans are very much aware of that. Moreover, given how stingy the other great powers have been, it's also the second most numerous tank, after the countless variations of Light Tank Britain has been dumping on the Monarchists.

Up next the war itself and the aftermath. I may even have the time to write it and get it posted in less than a month this time! :eek:
 
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Good plan! Terrific, in fact. With a bit of luck, the main forces of three Republic war theathres would be maimed in this too ambitious and mad project and the Monarchist army will have little effort to brush aside the Republican remnants and the war will come to a swift end.

Very clever, Pip, very clever.
 
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Nathan Madien - If the Republicans had been sensible they probably wouldn't have ended up provoking a Civil War in the first place. Sure something was inevitable, but reducing it down to a choice between Stalin and Franco? Really? That takes some doing.

Kurt_Steiner - This is the Spanish Civil War! Nothing is swift, you should know this by now. :D
 
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Kurt_Steiner - This is the Spanish Civil War! Nothing is swift, you should know this by now. :D

Just take a look about how long took to finish the Reconquista...
 
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H35s against the Army of Africa...Well, this is not Faïd and the 1st Armored is certainly not DAK, but the results might still be interesting.
 
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The Republicans managed to put aside internal bickering and the purging of the ideologically impure long enough to formulate something which has the outward appearance of a strategy? The movement has truly lost its soul.
 
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Kurt_Steiner - I suspect the siestas are to blame.

Karelian - I hope it will be interesting, there's some intriguing matchups that will get resolved.

Zhuge Liang - It's only the outward appearance of a strategy. On the inside it's still scrappy and contradictory, they haven't sold out yet.
 
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Kurt_Steiner - I suspect the siestas are to blame.

Not really. I don't practice the ancient art of the siesta, and look at me...

In fact, the problem of the Spaniards is that they are too European. They love to quarrel like the Scottish clans -feuds never end here-, to drink like Germans, and to be better lovers and Italians and French -nothing too hard.

And they like to do that all at once. Of course, you find being needing a lot of time for everything. Ansd remember that the Muslim of Al Andalus were, somewhat, Spaniards too. Hence the delay.
 
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The drive on Cadiz sounds like a recipe for disaster--I guess no French advisors (or anyone else) are smart enough to suggest an envelopment, i.e. armored pincers meeting at Seville rather than a frontal assault on the tip of the Cordoba salient?

The northern campaign has a chance--though coordinating that many moving parts when one WANTS to coordinate is hard enough, never mind when it's all almost coincidental. ;-)
 
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Kurt_Steiner - This is the Spanish Civil War! Nothing is swift, you should know this by now. :D

The Spanish Civil War is legendary in the HoI realm for being really inconsistent from game to game. It can either end in a year or take forever.
 
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Dr. Gonzo - Funny you should say that, after a free afternoon today I've got the bones of an update now. Of course I've got completely distracted from what I intended to write, but what can you do?

Kurt_Steiner - Hmm, so what attributes does Spain try to take from Belgium? Actually I know that one, it's fighting amongst yourself as all the component parts want to be separate countries. OK what bits does Spain take from Portugal?

DonnieBaseball - The French advisers tried to push a sensible plan, but it got hijacked by revenge. Franco and the Army of Africa really weren't popular even before the war; Franco didn't get the nickname "Butcher of Asturias" by being gentle when putting down a miner's revolution. The chance to crush him and the AoA was too much for the Republican leadership to ignore.

In a sensible world someone would do something about the Northern campaign, but that would require a clear leadership structure and none of the factions feel like acknowledging the other as supreme.

Nathan Madien - Very true, certainly I've never seen it take the correct amount of time.
 
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Kurt_Steiner - Hmm, so what attributes does Spain try to take from Belgium? Actually I know that one, it's fighting amongst yourself as all the component parts want to be separate countries. OK what bits does Spain take from Portugal?

Hmmmm. Carpets?
 
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Hmmmm. Carpets?
There's not a lot of choice is there?

In other news, it's a good thing the Men of Tanks are absent at the moment as I fear we will not be heading straight to the land campaign. While I've got an update almost finished, I may have got a bit distracted by aeroplanes....
 
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