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Madrid : became the capital of Spain in 1561, in the reign of Philip II, & developed rapidly in 18th century under the Bourbon kings. At the beginning of the Peninsular War a popular uprising against the French took place at Madrid on 2 May, 1808. Madrid played a heroic role in the Civil War of 1936-39, resisting 29 months of siege by Fascist forces of Spain, Italy & Germany led by General Franco, suffering heavy bombardments & surrendered only late in March 1939. ― José Miaja Menant (1878-1958) entered the Infantry Academy at Toledo in 1896. First posted in his native town Asturias, he was transferred to Melilla (Morocco) where he served in the Moroccan War of 1900. He rose to Major Commandant in 1911, General in 1932, when the Civil War broke out, he was stationed in Madrid. On November 6, 1936, when the duly elected Republican Govt. of Caballero evacuated the capital & moved to Valencia, execu¬tive powers for the capital were conferred upon the Junta de Defensa de Madrid, renamed Junta Delegada de Defensa de Madrid on November 31. This Junta was placed under Miaja to defend the city at all costs. He managed to halt the Fascists’ onslaught at the river Manzanares at the Battle of Madrid. As a Commander of the Central Zone, he also directed the battles of the Jarama, Guadalajara (q.v.) & Brunete. As overall commander of the People’s Republican Army, Miaja’s task was helped by the arrival of contingents of International Brigades formed by volunteers from Europe & USA. With comparatively few military professionals at their disposal, the Republic had to call on common folk to enlist in the militias organized by trade-unions which it armed. As a result Communist & Socialist organizations became de facto powers in main centres of Republican Spain. Together with the press & the radio, posters were one of their principal means of gaining support. At the front, the fascist armies made slow but steady progress. For the Republic, the conflict was more often than not a defensive war. In Republican cities, soldiers returning home were asked not to share information about the battle front, since members of the Fifth Column, as the clandestine supporters of the enemy were described by a Fascist general, were involved in informal espionage. ― On 13 December 1936, the Fascists attempted to cut the Madrid-La Coruna road to the north-east of Madrid. After suffering heavy losses the offensive was brought to an end over Christmas. On 5 January 1937, the attack was resumed. In the next four days they gained 10km of road & lost 15,000 troops while the International Brigades too suffered heavy losses. Pressed by his allies Hitler & Mussolini, Franco decided to use 30,000 Italians & 20,000 of his troops to attack Guadalajara, 40 miles NE of Madrid. By the start of 1938 Franco had already become dominant. In the Battle of Teruel which belonged to the Republicans at the beginning of the battle, fell to the Fascists in January. The Republicans recovered the city but the Fascists finally conquered it for good by February 22. On April 14, the Fascists broke through to the Mediterranean Sea during the Aragon Offensive, cutting the government-held portion of Spain in two. The government tried to sue for peace in May, but Franco demanded unconditional surrender, & the war raged on. The Republicans launched an all-out campaign from July to November to distract the Fascists from their attack on Valencia & to reconnect their territory in the Battle of the Ebro. Although the campaign was militarily successful at first, it was fatally undermined by the Franco-British appeasement of Hitler in the Munich Agreement. The concession of Czechoslovakia destroyed the last vestiges of Republican morale, by ending all hope of an anti-fascist alliance with the great powers. The Republicans were eventually defeated & withdrew in November 1938. The Fascists conquered Catalonia in an inexorable whirlwind campaign during the first two months of 1939. Tarragona fell on January 14, followed by Barcelona which resisted courageously until it fell on January 26 & Girona on February 5. Five days after the fall of Girona, the last resistance in Catalonia was broken. Only Madrid & a few other strongholds remained for the government forces. On February 27, the governments of the United Kingdom & France recognized the Franco’s regime. Now Miaja, then commander of all military forces in central & southern Spain, became increasingly concerned about the ability of the Republican Army to win the war. When Prime Minister Juan Negrin refused to negotiate a peace agreement with the Franco, Segismundo Casado, commander of the Republican Army of the Centre, Cipriano Mera, commander of the 4th Army Corps, & Julián Besteiro of the Socialist Party, established an anti-Negrin National Defence Junta. On 6th March 1939, Miaja joined the rebellion by ordering the arrests of Communists in Madrid. Negrin, about to leave for France, ordered Luis Barceló, commander of the First Corps of the Army of the Centre, to try & regain control of the capital. His troops entered Madrid & there was fierce fighting for several days in the city until Mera’s troops managed to defeat the First Corps. 12th to 25th March, Casado tried to negotiate a peace settlement with Franco who demanded an unconditional surrender. Soldiers of the Republican Army still left alive were no longer willing to fight & Franco’s Army entered Madrid virtually unopposed on 27th March. The next day, with the help of pro-Franco forces inside the city (the “fifth column” General Mola had mentioned in propaganda broadcasts in 1936), Madrid fell to the Fascists. Miaja fled to Valencia which had acted as the seat of the Republican government for most of the war, it fell on March 30, along with Spain’s fight for democracy, & Miaja immigrated to Mexico. On April 1, 1939, General Franco proclaimed victory & the Church anointed him dictator for life. Perhaps among his first decrees was arrests, imprisonments, & executions of Republican defenders, among which were up to 200,000 people who were defending Madrid. Partly or mainly because this celebratory crackdowns went on until 1943, Franco could not or did not spare as many of his forces as demanded by Hitler & Mussolini in the 2nd World War. The Siege of Madrid became an almost mythical subject in the popular imagination during the Spanish Civil War. The besieged capital of Spain, with the enemy so close, yet unable to take the city for years on end, became the subject of songs, such as Los Emboscados – a version of Si me quieres escribir, & poems like renowned poet Rafael Alberti’s Madrid, corazón de España. [Columbia Encyclopedia, 1950; Encyclopedia Brit.; Images of Revolution & War by Alexander Vergara; &c. Glimpses of Sri Aurobindo’s occult intervention in the defence of Madrid using Miaja as his instrument are found in A.B. Purani’s & Nirodbaran’s the notes of Sri Aurobindo’s talks of 1938 & 1939, esp. 14Dec.’38, 12Jan. & 7Feb.’39]