Iberia by James A. Michener
(Late in the editing of this manuscript friends brought to my attention the fact that an art cinema in Philadelphia was offering a French motion picture titled The Lovers of Teruel, which had won a top prize at the Cannes Film Festival of 1962. A Russian–French cast headed by Ludmila Tcherina had been photographed in marvelous color patterns by Claude Renoir, son of the painter, and the result had been highly regarded by critics. I took the long trip and was more than gratified. Poetic and surrealistic, the picture told of a grubby little traveling show which had set up its stage opposite the railroad yards of a small French town in order to present a mime-dance version of the Spanish legend, but the real-life actors were finding their personal lives paralleling those of Diego and Isabel. Scenery, acting, fantasy and movement were exceptional, and a splendid sense of the old legend was achieved, but unfortunately neither in the real-life nor in the inserted play was the overpowering simplicity of the original achieved. Diego died not of love but from the dagger of his rival. Isabel died from the same dagger. Great folk-sentences like ‘The year 1217, Don Domingo Celada being judge of Teruel’ and ‘There was a clatter at the Zaragoza gate’ were not caught, and I went away supposing that the legend was so primary that it could not be reproduced in art; but upon reflection I cannot believe this. I therefore draw attention to the legend, trusting that sometime within the next hundred years someone with talent will direct himself to it.)
Men of Teruel.
For a chain of happy days I wandered about the city, nodding to the bull on his pillar, revisiting the places I had known before and talking with groups of men wherever I found them. And then on the third evening as I was standing in the garden of the parador I felt a voice within me saying in an accusatory manner, ‘You didn’t come to Teruel to feast on entremeses or to wander about looking at bulls and mummies. Get to the main problem.’
What was the main problem? In 1932 I had seen, by merest accident, a Teruel which existed for all practical purposes in the sixteenth century. It was the most backward of the provincial capitals, and when judged by ordinary cultural indices, had least to commend it. But it had caught my fancy as typical of the problems of Spain, and during the years that followed, I kept it much in memory. This, however, would not alone have accounted for the striking significance of Teruel in my life nor for the fact that when I approached it from the Río Turia my hands were wet with perspiration.
For a brief moment, in the winter of 1937–38, the chances of history made Teruel the most important city in Europe, where decisions of great moment were in the balance. It became also, for men in all parts of the world; a source of moral anguish and has continued to this day to be a source of moral guilt. I doubt that many men live entire lives without incurring some sense of regret; for many of my generation their regret centered on Teruel, and the guilt which it evoked has never been discharged, not at Anzio nor at Guadalcanal nor at Bastogne.
The spirit of Teruel.
In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, I was at an age when it would have been relatively simple for me to have broken loose from my prosaic job of teaching in Colorado and come to Spain to fight in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, composed of Americans who wanted to help defend the Republic. Some of the men I respected most in American life were so serving, and when I thought of them doing the job that I should have been engaged in, I felt ashamed, for most of them knew nothing of Spain and had no spiritual connection to it, whereas I did know and the ties which bound me were strong indeed. I had watched at close hand the birth of the Republic and had seen its first faltering steps; I had spoken with the president and while he had not impressed me I had applauded many of the changes his party had introduced into Spanish life. I had read the brave words of his lieutenants and had picked out of the Spanish newspapers to which I subscribed the doings of this group of dedicated men. That change was overdue in Spain, I knew better than most, and when an army revolt arose to end that change I was desolate. Of all the young men available in America in those crucial years, I should have volunteered to defend the Republic, for I saw clearly what must ensue in Europe; I was convinced that a world war was upon us and that in the end my country would be involved.
Then why didn’t I fight in Spain? For three reasons. First, I was not invited. Recruiting campaigns for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were conducted mainly in the big cities, and although some of my friends were active, they were in New York and made no approaches to me, for they were seeking a different kind of person. In the absence of a specific opportunity to join, I was never confronted by a hard choice. Why didn’t I volunteer? In my life I have rarely volunteered for anything, nor sought anything, even though I have been willing to take unusual risks when they evolved, and I still find this a logical attitude. Second, since I was convinced that America would soon be at war and since I had taught my students that our survival depended upon its successful prosecution, even pinpointing Singapore and the Philippines as the spots where the war would probably begin (one student had asked, ‘How about Hawaii?’ and I had explained, ‘Impossible. The Japanese would never dare’), I was willing to wait until we made our entrance, satisfied that the Spanish Republic could hold out till then. Third, and I believe this was the most important, those men and women engaged in enlisting Americans for the Brigade, even those who were my personal acquaintances, were people whose general judgment in other matters I did not respect. For some years certain of them had been goading me to join the Communist Party, a step which I refused for the good reason that in Europe I had known many Communists and had found them ill-informed on politics, corrupt in personal judgment and ruthless in their attempts to force others into their orbit. In Europe they had posed a difficult problem for me, and now in America they did the same, for although I sympathized with many of their objectives, as did many of my generation who had watched the depression puncture pompous old verities, I was suspicious of their immediate judgment and their long-term intention. I was especially schizophrenic regarding the Communist relationship to Spain; as a sensible man I had to applaud the efforts of this long-misruled nation to achieve a modern government, but the manner in which my Communist friends proposed to dictate to that government disgusted me and I could not find it within myself to support them. Did I, in 1936 and 1937, suspect that they might have a goal beyond the apparent one of defending the Republic? Did I anticipate that their ambitions would quickly escalate to the point where their goal was no longer a Republic but a Communist dictatorship? I did not. Such conclusions would have required greater insight then I possessed. I believed that the Communist commitment was deeper than mine and that it was only this enthusiasm which caused them to say and do things which I considered nonsense. But in the latter months of 1938 I began to read in impartial journals reports which made me wonder if a serious change had not occurred in Republican ranks. The defense of a free democracy had been subordinated to the expanded goal of establishing a Communist government, and the intuitive suspicions that I had entertained in 1936 matured.
One obvious question must be asked. Are the three reasons cited above mere ex post facto rationalizations masking the fact that I was afraid to volunteer? In any sensible man fear of battle will always be a partial motive, and in my case it could have played a decisive role. On the other hand, in World War II, I was exempt from military service because I was a Quaker, but I joined the navy anyway. In Asia, I have seen a good deal of war, more than most, and I cannot recall ever having shied away from battle. I therefore conclude that the reasons cited above are not spurious and did actually govern my behavior.
View from Castielfabib.
It was with a sense of doom that I followed the news which began to come out of Teruel in late 1937. We have seen that in 1171 the city was founded because a fortress was needed to stabilize the battle line that existed between the Christians in Zaragoza and the Moors in Valencia. Now, almost eight hundred years later, Teruel found itself serving the same function, except that this time it was General Franco’s tr
In October, Franco’s army occupied Teruel and in forays from it began to cut the Republican lines. If the Republic were to survive, it must recapture this city, even though winter was approaching.
Teruel was defended by some ten thousand Franco troops under the command of a colonel bearing a French last name, Rey d’Harcourt, who had ordered the building of defense positions on all slopes leading up to the city. Teruel would be difficult to assault, but for the job the Republicans had assembled a force of a hundred and ten thousand well-trained men, and on December 15 they began the attack.
It coincided with the beginning of one of Teruel’s famed winters; for several weeks the thermometer dropped each night to zero degrees Fahrenheit, bringing some ice and much snow, which helped the Franco men inside the city. Nevertheless, the Republicans attacked, only to be repulsed by slanting fire. Again and again the Republicans tried to climb the sloping flanks, but had to retreat, leaving their wounded to die between the lines. Here in this significant city, which I had stumbled upon years ago, developed the most terrible battle of the war, and here the fate of the world, at least for this period, was being decided.
The Republican attack continued for twenty-four gruesome days, during which frightful crimes were perpetrated by both sides. Prisoners were shot. Bystanders were executed. Dead bodies were mutilated. Buildings were wantonly destroyed and vengeance was exacted on any enemy at hand. If the brutality of the two armies was about equal, so was the heroism. To storm the hills of Teruel over ice and snow and then to penetrate the rubbled defenses required courage of an absolute order, and this the Republicans had; to remain inside the city walls, with no water, no food and diminishing supplies of ammunition, while determined assaults came hourly, required of Franco’s men a determination which never faltered.
In America, I followed the siege with a sense of tragic despair. The hills I had tramped were the ones under contention and the city streets I had found so meaningful were those where the shellfire struck with such fury. Reports said that several columns of Franco’s troops were rushing south to relieve the handful of men inside Teruel, and I prayed that they would not arrive before the Republicans had won the city.
Shortly after January 8, 1938, I read with enormous relief that Colonel Rey d’Harcourt had surrendered Teruel to the Republicans. His men crawled down out of the rubble, looking like emaciated ghosts, and women who had undergone the siege and the bombardment appeared half dead as they begged for water. It was a tremendous Republican victory and aroused hopes throughout the eastern half of Spain. In Fascist capitals like Berlin and Rome, especially the latter, it caused despair, for it seemed the first of what might be many Republican triumphs. In America, I breathed deeply and looked at the new map. The great cities, Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, remained in Republican hands, and the war had obviously become a contest between the reactionary rural sections and the liberal metropolitan ones, and I could not believe that in an age of technical development rural areas could win a war.
But almost immediately the relief columns which Franco had set in motion toward Teruel began arriving to start a new siege. This time it was the Franco forces who had to attack up the dreadful slopes; it was the Republicans who were trapped inside the city, with inadequate food, water or ammunition. Only the cold remained the same. At first the ice and snow exacted more casualties than the bullets, but finally the Franco forces moved heavy Italian batteries into position and these began the systematic destruction of the city. Row after row of houses were pulverized. In early February the Republicans had to evacuate the commanding hill on which the Bull of Teruel had appeared, and it was soon occupied by an Italian battery which fired point-blank into the city.
Guardia Civil headquarters.
Throughout the middle weeks of February, in intense cold, the Franco forces inched their way forward, and it was during this fatal time, when the result of the battle was obvious, that the worst atrocities were committed. On February 20, Franco assault troops broke through to the first line of houses and bayoneted all in sight. On February 21 the Franco men swept into the heart of the city, took all the major buildings and began those reprisals which would permanently remove from Teruel any persons with Republican connections.
The battle had lasted sixty-nine days. Twenty thousand Republican troops were dead, ten thousand Franco men. Twenty-eight thousand prisoners had been taken and the number of wounded could not be calculated. Thousands of civilians were dead; on each side thousands had been assassinated under one pretext or another. But at last the battle was over and Teruel, almost totally destroyed, was permanently in Franco’s hands. The Republican lifeline from Valencia to Barcelona and to Madrid was threatened if not wholly cut, and the uprising of the rural areas against the cities had succeeded. Germany and Italy had won the first round in the test of arms, and a world war was inevitable. Of course, the war in Spain would struggle along for another year, with the terrible Battle of the Ebro still to unfold and the final siege of Madrid, but after Teruel sensible observers knew that the outcome was determined.
With the death of this mountain city I experienced a spiritual agony that has not diminished through the years. A noble effort of men to govern themselves perished with the collapse of Teruel, and not all the rationalizations of the postwar period can deny that fact. Now it is popular to describe the whole war in terms of white (the victorious forces) and red (the Communist), but when the war began this was not the distinction nor was it the commanding consideration at the Battle of Teruel. When I read, as I do in the book before me, that ‘finally the white forces of freedom triumphed over the Russian-led reds,’ I feel sick at my stomach. When I see official publications which seek to prove that all Republicans were Communists, that only Republicans slaughtered civilians, that only Republicans were guilty of heinous crimes, my reason balks. The war had begun on different principles, even though I do now admit that it ended in a debacle in which those original concepts were engulfed.
In March 11, 1939, Almería, Murcia and Cartagena surrendered and the long struggle ground to a halt. About 900,000 Spaniards were dead, of whom some 175,000 had been assassinated. More than 170 monasteries and convents were burned and nearly 1900 ravaged to the point where they could not be used. Some 3000 others were wrecked in part. More than 250,000 homes were destroyed, and nearly 400,000 Spaniards preferred exile in countries like Mexico and France to the reprisals that awaited them in Spain. Any rehabilitation of the country was made more difficult by the fact that 8,000,000,000,000 pesetas had been sent out of the country by the Republican government to purchase arms; 1,500,000,000,000 were subsequently recovered by the Franco government, but the remainder stayed abroad, mainly in Russia and Mexico. (The data in this paragraph come principally from Georges-Roux, La Guerra Civil de España, translated from the French, 1964.)
As to the number of priests and nuns assassinated in the early days of the war, the figures are uncertain, but at least fifteen thousand perished, including fourteen bishops, not one of whom would commit apostasy in order to escape martyrdom. In one town after another, where for the last two hundred years observers had reported that the citizens were above all else Catholics who loved their priests, one of the first things that happened when war started was the indiscriminate slaughter of clericals, and this occurred even in areas where Communists were not in control. On the other side, events such as those at Málaga, where eighty suspected Masons were garroted, were common.
Today, looking back at such evidence as has so far been made public, I must conclude that the apprehensions which kept me from volunteering in 1936 were sound. I was a better judge than I knew, for the seeds of the final Communist debacle in Spain began to mature fairly early in the fight, even though at the time I was not intelligent enough to identify them. I think that
But I had not returned to Teruel to exacerbate the feelings of guilt occasioned by its fall. I had quite a different purpose. During the war no city had given Franco’s army more trouble than this, and at various points in Spain I was warned not to bother with Teruel: ‘The victors are disgusted with it. They hated its stubborn people, and the Franco government would give the city nothing.’ Others said, ‘If you want to see Spain at its worst, go to Teruel. It’s a ghost town.’ In a well-produced volume called The Spain of Each Province, sponsored in part by the government, native sons write about and illustrate each of the fifty provinces, but apparently Teruel still produces no writers, for its essay is written by a man from Madrid. It is a beautiful thing, an elegy for a dead city, and the painting which illustrates it is a handsome, mournful black gash, recalling barbed wire and broken bottles. Because I had an affinity for Teruel, I wanted to see what had happened to it in defeat, for this would constitute a real test of contemporary Spain: How did the victors treat the vanquished?
First I went out into the country to see if it had changed much. I chose the remote village of San Augustín, on the border of Castellón Province, and there under a perfect July sky I walked for several miles through ripened fields where the reapers were at work according to a division of labor laid down prior to Bible times: a young man swung the large scythe; his strong wife gathered the fallen grain; an old man twisted stalks into a rope and tied the bundles. As I watched them I said, ‘The recurring sound of rural life has been the swish of the scythe over stubble and rocks, but no musician has been able to put it into music’ In the fields at least nothing had changed, and the trio at work looked just as poor and just as tired as their predecessors had looked thirty-four years before.