Spain – July-December 1936
Following the events of July 7th the Fascists in Spain, having failed to secure a smooth transition of power, instantly went on the offensive. They had 3 main objectives: the destruction of the pocket of Basque Republican forces in the north, to prevent the invaluable yet isolated industrial centre of Seville from falling into Republican hands by launching an offensive with all their armor towards the city and to seize the new capital of the Republic in Valencia by marching through the industrialized region of Guadalajara
The armored offensive in the South, led by General Franco, was an outstanding success for the Nationalist army as the German and Italian made tanks smashed though the not so insignificant Republican defenses to reach Seville by the start of August. Upon reaching the city Franco’s tanks had to fight off a large Republican infantry assault a few miles to the east of the city. At the battle the Fascist armor was almost beaten by the infantry of the Republic after several hours of fighting when the Fascist reinforcements arrived from the north to save Seville and deal a terrible blow to the Republican army. Following the saving of Seville the precious Nationalist armor was ordered northward to lend assistance to the offensive towards Valencia which was beginning to run out of steam. The Nationalist advance towards Valencia in the opening months of the war was one of the bloodiest engagements of the entire Spanish Civil war as brutal attrition saved the Republic in the end. As the Nationalist army moved into the region just to the east of Madrid (Guadalajara) they faced a seemingly never ending horde of Republican militiamen (recruited from the Trade Unions) who launched a never ending stream of counterattacks over the course of 2 entire months despite being defeated in almost every major battle this human wave strategy had managed to prevent the Nationalists from advancing any meaningful distance towards Valencia. However the arrival of Franco’s armor in mid September seemed to finally break the militiamen as the Fascists advanced dozens and dozens of miles in a very short period of time, almost reaching Valencia itself by the end of September. But it was here where Franco and his tanks finally met their match as an entire division of well trained British ‘volunteers’ equipped with heavy anti-tank weaponry all but destroyed Franco’s armor in a single battle 5 miles north-west of Valencia. This battle caused a Nationalist withdrawal back to Guadalajara where the Republican counterattack was halted by entrenched Fascist infantry divisions and the remnants of Franco’ tanks. Finally in the far north a mixture of staunch Basque resistance and mountainous conditions meant that the large Nationalist army could only advance at a snails pace but by the start of October they had managed to take Bilbao and were positioning their armies for the siege of Oviedo (the main Basque stronghold left).
In early October defeat looked very likely for the fledgling Republic as only one major Industrial centre (Valencia) remained Republican whilst, even with British and Soviet help alongside the recruitment form the Trade Unions could not make up for the Nationalist’s heavy numerical and qualitative advantage. Just as the Nationalists began the siege of Oviedo in the north the Republican Generals planned one great offensive that would either save the Republic from imminent destruction of tire its armies out to such an extent that defeat would be certain. At this point the Republic controlled 2 armored division (one from Britain the other form the Soviet Union) whilst the Nationalists had 3 (one German and one Italian one under Franco and one of the former Spanish army in Catalonia), this offensive would require all the Republican tanks available.
In mid October a huge offensive involving some 100,000 Republican soldiers and spearheaded by a British tank division smashed through the Fascist lines at Huevla. After almost reaching the Portuguese border the offensive split with the British tanks and several divisions of militiamen advancing all the way to the coast, thus cutting off Seville and the rest of the army (supported by the Soviet tanks in Malaga and several infantry divisions in Jaen) attacked Seville. The battle for Seville lasted almost an entire week, at the end of which more than 30,000 Fascist infantry men had surrendered. After victory in the initial part of their offensive the Republican armies were shifted northward in preparation for an offensive into central Spain, sadly however the Basques were finally beaten in Oviedo only a few days after Seville fell to the Republic.
As Autumn began to turn into Winter both sides prepared for the final blows of 1936 as the Republican armies prepared to advance north in hope of retaking Madrid whilst the less ambitious Nationalist army in Catalonia looked to cast the Republicans from the extremely left-wing lands of the Catalans.
The Fascist offensive began first and drew in large numbers of Nationalist troops who would otherwise have been south of Madrid as a heavily entrenched Republican army of infantry fought desperately hard for almost 3 weeks before the finally abandoned Tarragona and with it Catalonia in early December. Meanwhile 120,000 Republicans attacked 90,000 Nationalists in Badajoz and Guadalajara in a huge offensive aimed at seizing Madrid. The sheer scale of the attack initially surprised the Nationalists who suffered several early defeats, however after a tough fighting retreat form the Fascist armies the Republicans were in no position to cross the river line and attack the heavily fortified city of Madrid and instead decided to settle down for Winter.
In early December 1936 a system of trenches began to create a frontline that would become extremely familiar to observers of the Spanish Civil War as it would barely change for over a year, despite the best efforts of both sides in the early stages of the conflict the Civil War became a trench war not too dissimilar to the Western Front during the Great War. At this stage the Nationalists had a narrow advantage in industry but over time this narrow advantage would translate into a considerable difference in war production allowing the Fascist army to grow at a faster rate than the Republican army thus increasing the gap between the 2 armies.