The End of the Spanish Civil War : Alicante 1939

The Spanish Civil War ended in Alicante. After Catalonia fell to the Hitler and�Mussolini backed military rebellion of Franco's Nationalists at the outset of�1939, the legitimate Republican government of Dr Negr�n was faced with a�choice between apparently futile resistance or unconditional surrender to the�triumphant Nationalists. Choosing the path of continued defiance until they�could force concessions or at least implement a mass evacuation of those�Republicans most at risk in Franco's new Spain, the government withdrew to�Elda in the province of Alicante. However, their plans were thwarted by a new rebellion of Republican officers,�led by Colonel Segismundo Casado, who resented Negr�n's reliance on the�Communist Party and the USSR and believed themselves better equipped to�negotiate a peace settlement with Franco. They were misguided, Franco had�no wish, and ultimately no need to negotiate. Meanwhile, faced with the�imminent risk of arrest by the new junta, the Prime Minister and his cabinet�were forced to abandon Spain from the tiny aerodrome of Mon�var. A relatively quiet port on the eastern, Mediterranean coast of Spain, Alicante�had remained at some distance from the frontlines throughout the fighting on�the ground, but swiftly became a target for Italian bombers operating out of�bases in the Balearic Islands. In May 1938, at the height of the air offensive,�Italian bombers attacked the marketplace, causing a massacre as tragic as the�events in Guernica, yet largely ignored by historians. As the war drew towards its conclusion, Alicante became increasingly�significant as attention focused on the plight of the defeated Republicans. In�the second half of March 1939, the fronts collapsed, and Madrid finally fell to the�insurgents. Tens of thousands of refugees descended on Alicante in the forlorn�hope of rescue by French and British ships that had been promised but which�failed to materialise. Amid the tragedy, as the British and French governments�declined to engage in any humanitarian intervention that might offend Hitler and�Mussolini, a single hero emerged; Captain Archibald Dickson, the Welsh master�of the Stanbrook who ditched his cargo and transported 3,000 refugees to�safety in North Africa. On 30 March 1939, Franco's vanguard, the Italian `Volunteer' Corps under�General Gastone Gambara, occupied a town already under the control of the�Fifth Column. Two days later the General�simo issued a communiqu� from his�headquarters in Burgos, declaring that the war was over. The bulk of the�Republicans surrounded and captured in the port were marched to an�improvised internment camp, known as the Campo de los Almendros (Field of�Almond Trees). They were then transferred to the infamous concentration camp�at Albatera to share the fate of defeated Republicans across Spain and to�undergo the programme of ideological cleansing of the new fascist authorities.