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Spanish Republican Wings
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Author:  Naixoterk [ May 12th, 2014, 2:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Spanish Republican Wings
Index Preliminary note: For this first period there are not FD drawings because the armament used was historically the same as in our timeline
Background, December 1937 - August 1939

In December 1937 the Republican side launched the offensive on Teruel (about which you can read read here) in order to defeat the nationalist troops trapped inside the bulgue of Teruel.

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Unlike in our timeline, the offensive was a decisive Republican success and it turned the tides of the war in favour of the Republicans because it stopped the nationalist advance, so, the situation after the offensive, at the end of February was this:

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And, after that offensive, in the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic (14th April) they launched a new offensive this time in the south of Madrid in order to relief the defenders of Madrid.

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It went ok and, the spring of 1938 was popularly known as the Republican Spring

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These two offensives stopped the nationalist initiatives and the Republicans owned the initiatives now.
Driven by the optimism of these victories the Republican HQ planned an offensive in Extremadura with the objective of crippling the nationalist army in two, leaving this way Andalucia ready be conquered:

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However the offensive was a failure and, fortunately for the Republicans they falled back in time minimizing their casualties.

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They lost some territories but they minimized their casualties so in the end it was a minor defeat.
Influenced by that defeat, the Republican HQ turned to be more cautious so they decided their next move to be not so maximalistic, so they aimed to conquest the cities of Zaragoza and Granada hoping that it's conquest would have a big moral impact in the nationalist side.

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In the end, they managed to conquest these two important cities and this is how the frontlines looked like:

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However it took a very big effort for the Republicans to take those cities and for nationalists to defend them so it exhausted both sides.
Due to the exhaustion of both sides, there were not more big battles, apart from some skirmishes.

As neither side could get an advantage to defeat their enemies, both of them decided to hold their positions expecting a bigger conflict in Europe to start (as it was common knowledge during those years that the beginning of a new war was only a matter of time) and that way to ally with their respective sympathetic supporting sides (with the axis in the case of the nationalists and the allies - and comintern - in the case of the Republicans).
Author:  Naixoterk [ May 12th, 2014, 2:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spanish Republican Wings
First Period: September 1939 - June 1940 - The Spanish continuation war

When Germany invaded Poland, two days later UK and France waged war on Germany.
One day later both sides allied with their respective supporters and, in the case of the Republicans this resulted to be in more supplies, specially in better airplanes and better trained pilots. That's how the International Air Brigades were founded, however they only had some Gloster Gladiator MK.I to use:

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The Gloster Gladiator probed to be an excellent aircraft, specially against the Italian Fiat CR.32 of the nationalist side.

The republicans expected the Frenchs to invade the Iberian peninsula by the nationalist side, however, they were more concerned about the Franco-German border and they didn't send many help, apart from opening their ports to Republican merchants in all their ports, and supplying some airplanes, like the Morane Saulnier MS.406, which, was not seen as a very good airplane:

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The nationalists, wanting to conquest Gibraltar (they were at war with the UK now that they were allied with Germany), launched a rather catastrophic assault to conquest it. Obviously they couldn't conquest it and they gave up on their efforts as they realized that they didn't have the ways to take the rock.

After Poland fell, the UK had prepared some Hurricanes to be sent to Poland, however they couldn't be released and they were sent to the Republican side where they played a brief, but very important role because they proved to be a very nice enemies for the nationalists:

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The British also sold some Handley Page Hampden which were used in the central front, in Guadalajara, just east of Madrid:

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Note: The inscription on this airplane reads "Bombas para los facciosos" which translates as "Bombs for the fascists"

Also, on this period of the war, in October 1939 to be more precise, the French 3eme division Marocaine (3rd Moroccan division) supported by the 2e régiment étranger de cavalerie (belonging to the foreign legion) invaded the Spanish protectorate in Morocco (controlled by the nationalist since the beginning of the war) encountering almost no resistance because most of the nationalist units of that area were fighting in the peninsula.
The French government tried to sell this as an important victory, however most of the French public opinion wondered if such movement was necessary and it created some unrest among the French generals.
Author:  Naixoterk [ May 12th, 2014, 2:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Spanish Republican Wings
Second Period: June 1940 - Early August 1940 - The German invasion of the Republican Zone.

The bad news for the Republic came when the Frenchs capitulated on 22nd of June and France was splitted in two, a theoretically neutral Vichy France (although pro-axis in reality) and the occupied zone of France, therefore one of the first measures to take the Vichy government was to seal their frontiers to the Republicans, and, due to the German-Nationalist alliance the German divisions entered into Spain from the occuppied France because their true objective was to seize Gibraltar, the conquest of the Republican area was seen as a secondary - albeit necessary - objective.

That's how the Germans sent the 10th Infantry division supported by elements of the famous 7th Panzer Division to conquest Gibraltar, while some other divisions were deployed along various fronts of Spain, like the 1st Mountain Division for instance which was deployed around the central front due to it's mountainous environment.

The colony of Gibraltar felt in just two days (it was officialy conquered on 15th July 1940 and the siege started on the 13th) and it had an important effect on the British war morale, because it closed their western access to the Mediterranean. Although this important strategic position was lost for the British, they managed to evacuate many materials and important personalities and families. The then, governor of Gibraltar, Sir Clive Gerard Liddell said to the press "The union jack shall wave again on the rock, because there are still monkeys living on it" (some monkeys were also evacuated to safe zoologicals in the UK and even in North Ireland) and, one of the first measures to take the Germans once they entered into Gibraltar was to annhilate all the monkeys living there. (if you don't know the legend behind the monkeys of Gibraltar read it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_ma ... _Gibraltar)
Despite the Nationalist diplomat effort they only could get a compromise from the German government to get the rock back when the hostilites ended (IE, when the war was over)

Back to the main fronts, the German 4th Panzer Division broke the front using the Blitzkrieg tactics (very innovative for that year) in the basin of the Ebro and crippled the Republican side in two, because they entered up to the Mediterranean up to Amposta. However, thanks to the chaos many Republicans, and Basque and Catalonians nationalists managed to scape to Algiers, Casablanca, Lisbon and, finally, London. Even before the complete fall of the Republican territory and even before the scape of the president Negrín, some kind of government in exile was set up in London.
On the first of August the Republican territory officialy fell, and the campaign of Spain was considered to be very easy by the Germans thanks, specially to their aerial superiority, however it doesn't mean that there wasn't any aerial activity on the Republican side.

On July 20th, after Madrid fell, the government was moved to Valencia, but some pilots, based in an air base in Guadalajara using their Morane Saulnier fighters decided to make a last stand against the German Luftwaffe despite their inferiority:

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obviously all the squadron was destroyed and every pilots except one (the one who told the history to the press) were killed or taken prisoner. This heroic action inspired the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (who made it to Malta and then to British controlled Egypt and didn't die like in OTL) to make a very famous poem called "El último vuelo de la gloriosa" (The last flight of the glorious one)*
It's notorious to note that this squadron chose to replace the red strip by the republican roundel and that they painted the republican air force insignia in the tail of their airplanes because they were not fighting agains other Spaniards but agains other foreign invaders.

Inside this period is worth to remark how the president Negrín scaped. Using a British supplied Supermarine Walrus:

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he made an illegal flight to Oran where he entered in contact with the British intelligence to rescue he, his family and his closest contributors. They were rescued by the British Submarine HMS Triton and made it to Southampton and then to London where he took control of the already set up Spanish Republican government in exile (set up by the General Miaja: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Miaja who, in a beginning, was considered as a coward for having fled to London when France fell)

After the fall of the republican territory the Spanish Morocco was given back to the nationalists but, however they lost Equatorial Guinea because a mixture of early Free Frenchs forces captured it.

As it happens usually in these cases, the winning side captured many material**:

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and they were used, in the considered low risk air fronts of the peninsula, IE, the mediterranean coast of Spain, while the German material (considered the best by the Nationalists) was used in the northen Atlantic coast of Spain and the Italian material was used to defend the South Western and south coast of Spain.

After the fall of the Republican territories, the Nationalist were given sovereignty over every Spanish land except for Gibraltar (which was kept under German military administration). They had sovereignty over the Spanish Sahara, and Canary islands. They entered negotiations with Germany to get sovereignty over the French Morocco and they eventually got it... in December 1940.

Back to the Republicans, the exiles had only two options, to try to reach the UK via Algeria, Morocco and Portugal, or to try to reach the British controlled Egypt. These two choices made that many Spanish republicans were present (with their own units) in the main fronts of the WW2.


*The Republican air force was nicknamed the Glorious one
**More post shall be dedicated to the nationalist air force
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