With blood and fire

This is the position in which the forces of the Amuategui Battalion are situated, within a distance of only a few tens of metres of the enemy. Aircraft were not able to operate in the area due to the proximity of the positions, so that the action was based particularly on mortars, rifles and even hand grenades. The few metres that separated the two positions were no man’s land, and the two sides created a system of fortifications reinforced with barbed wire, ditches etc., which can still be seen today.

The different battalions defending Eibar went by bus as far as Usartza by night and from there continued on foot to this position at Akondia, where they stayed in shifts of two days in a state of constant vigilance. It was the most fiercely contested stable position of the war front in Euskadi.

Militia fighters from the Amatuegui Battalion at the Santa Cruz position. In the background, Mount Karakate. © Eibarko Udal Artxiboa. Cándido Eguren Collection.

The trenches covered the entire central area to prevent attack from the top of Akondia, although the second zone of machine guns of the Amuategui battalion was directed towards the Arrate road. At the rear, under the trenches and hidden from the view of the enemy, a tunnel was dug in an attempt to dynamite the positions of the insurgents. The tunnel can be visited today and measures 29 metres in length by two metres in width and the same in height. A group of a dozen Asturian miners who had fled their homes in the first weeks of the war were stationed in Eibar to advise the Amuategui Battalion on issues relating to the handling of explosives and tunnel construction, assisted by miners from Somorrostro and Gallarta.

In the air strikes on 24 and 25 April 1937 Eibar will be severely punished by the German and Italian aircraft, suffering casualties of 74 dead and 97 wounded. In terms of aviation, the General Plan of Operations for Bizkaia was the responsibility of the German Chief of Staff Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen and of the logistics service of the Condor Legion. With the approval of the Francoist Colonel Juan Vigón various “premises for the action of the Condor Legion” are established, by which “Forces will attack the local reserves and those in the sectors, WITHOUT CONSIDERATION FOR THE CIVIL POPULATION.”

List of the streets and door numbers of houses destroyed in Eibar. © General Archive of the Basque Government - Eusko Jaurlaritza.

After the fall of Eibar on 26 April 1937 the IV Brigade of Navarre drops down from Elgeta, climbs up from Eibar and Ermua to Mount Urko and then via Mallabia reaches Bolibar, a similar path to that which only hours before the troops defending Eibar and the surrounding mountains had followed. As they climbed to Urko and continued via Iruzubieta, the former defenders of Eibar saw how the supporters of Franco dominated Mount Oiz, despite the opposition from the defenders of the Republic. The final destination of the militiamen fleeing in disarray from these places is Gernika, where they will suffer the German bombing of 26 April. In their flight, after abandoning the positions of Santa Cruz, Urko and Akondia, the members of the Amuategui battalion cross Aginaga, which they pass without using the two bunkers that they had built, and which are still standing, and suffer the bombing of the Italian aircraft.

Cross in memory of Francoist captain Matías Zaragozano, who died beside the summit of Akondia. In the image you can see the rebel trenches. The cross was destroyed in 2014.

The areas in Eibar most affected by the destruction are around the parish church of San Andrés, the beginning of the Calle Arragüeta, the convent of the Concepcionistas de Isasi and the Plaza de Unzaga. The Directorate General of Devastated Regions listed 140 private buildings destroyed and a total of 840 homes destroyed, mainly between the streets of Calle Isasi and Paseo de Urkizu. Reconstruction of the old town began, though it was now designated a village again after Franco’s decision to withdraw the title of “town” for its “betrayal” of the regime established following the military coup. And so began the long, dark and sad period of the physical and psychological reconstruction of Eibar, which would nonetheless emerge from the ashes in the following decades.

Reconstruction of St Andrew’s Parish Church.

Main image:
General Mola and his troops arrive in April 1937 to the destroyed Unzaga Square, symbol of the Second Republic since April 1931. © Kutxateka Kutxa. Author: Pascual Marín.