The insurgents eager to conquer Republican Eibar

Faced with the threat that the insurgents might enter Eibar in those final days of September 1936, the evacuation of the civilian population is decreed, only those involved in its military defence and ancillary services remaining in the town. Finally the front will stabilise in the vicinity of Eibar, a town that will suffer the state of siege on a daily basis, with artillery fire from the mountains of its north-eastern slope, especially from Arrate and Karakate, and aerial bombardment. In January 1937 air strikes intensify and the order for the evacuation of civilians is given again. On this second occasion the siege is resisted once more and it will not be until the bombardment of 24 and 25 April 1937 that the definitive evacuation of Eibar occurs.

Instructions issued by a German commander with details of the bombing of Eibar by the Italian Legionnaire Air Force on 25th April 1937. More than 7 tons of bombs were dropped on the city that day. © Ministry of Defence. Air Force Historical Archive.

On 29 September 1936 the Carlists of the 4th Company of the Regiment of Navarre are ordered to climb via Elgoibar to Arrate, but on the way a section must divert to Kalamua in response to the Republican attack. The defenders of Arrate, whose most notable assets are the Valero mortars of 50 and 81 mm, which are located on the hillside which slopes down from Arrate to the hermitage of San Pedro, defend fiercely, causing the assailants to give up attempts to take Arrate and turn instead to the conquest of the summit of Kalamua. After taking Arrate and Kalamua the next objective will be to oust the Amuategui Battalion from the top of Akondia.

Militia fighters from the Amuategui Battalion in the Akondia Subsector.

The front of Gipuzkoa and the east of Bizkaia extended from the sea to the valley of Aramaio, the latter excluded, and the foremost sectors of the defence were Lekeitio, Markina, Eibar, Elgeta and Elorrio. Arrate, home of the patron saint of Eibar, was a symbolic place, and the insurgents will reach as far as Krabelin by road and via the hills to the top of Akondia and the base and summit of Kalamua in their attempt to advance to Markina. Meanwhile, members of the socialist Amuategui Battalion of Eibar and components of other battalions of different ideologies such as the San Andrés, Tomás Meabe, Octubre, Karl Liebknecht, and two companies of the Ertzaintza (Basque police force), will be placed over the next few weeks in the forward positions at Usartza, the hillside of Akondia and the church and hermitage of Santa Cruz. On the front of Kalamua, battalions such as the Rosa Luxemburgo, or “Arrosa”, the San Andrés, the Avellaneda, and the Celta will defend Markina, with outposts on the slopes of Kalamua, to stop the advance towards the conquest of the important iron industry of Bizkaia, a key to winning the war. Similarly, containment of the advance in the Intxortas, together with Elgeta, will allow the constitution on 7 October 1936, in Gernika, of the first Basque government in history, fruit of the Statute of Autonomy.

Image of Elgeta destroyed by the fighting.

Main image:
Overview of Arrate. At the bottom on the right two soldiers are observed. Winter 1936-1937. © Archivo Municipal de Bergara. Author: Toribio Jauregi.