1947, a Big Year for the Maquis in Teruel

When it comes reconstructing the history of anti-Francoism, a significant role has to be accorded to the guerrilla struggle waged by the maquis which was at its most active during 1945-1947, especially in the Teruel district. The late Eduardo Pons Prades in his book Guerrillas españolas had no hesitation in stating that the province of Teruel “was without question one of the main focal points of guerrilla activity in Spain, whether measured by the presence of major bases in every single one of its mountainous areas, the size of the guerrilla bands or the duration of the guerrillas’ fight against the forces of order”. (op. cit. p. 111)

In fact, striking from operational bases in the Maestrazgo, the Cuencas Mineras and the Montes Universales, a number of guerrilla bands roamed the province. This was the case of, among others, the ‘Espartaco’ band, a libertarian band commanded by ‘Modesto‘, a miner from Armillas and its offshoots, such as the groups led by ‘El Zagal‘ (a young anarchist from Escucha), ‘El Macho‘ (Justiniano García) and ‘El Chaval‘ (Pedro Acosta), the latter pair being both libertarians and natives of Utrillas, or the socialist guerrilla band under the command of ‘El Soriano‘. Other guerrilla leaders included ‘Rabós‘ and ‘Petrol‘ (José Ramia Ciprés), both of them from Aguaviva, or ‘Paco el Serrano‘ (Francisco Serrano Iranzo) and his partner ‘La Pastora‘ (Teresa Plá), both of them from Castellote, ‘El Pinchol‘ (Florencio Guillén), a native of Gúdar, ‘Jalisco‘, or ‘Pepito de Mosqueruela‘, ‘Delicado‘ from Teruel itself, or the group led by Alcañiz anarchist Paco Antolín. By 1947, which saw maquisard activities in Aragon at a high point, the Communist Party-led Agrupación Guerrillera de Levante y Aragón (ALGA = Levante-Aragon Guerrilla Grouping), ‘Ricardo‘ (Pelegrín Pérez) stood out as possibly the best of the maquis commanders operating in Teruel province. 

The significance of maquisard activity in the province is evident also from the official sources. According to these, during this time the province of Teruel recorded: gun-battles with the forces of order (73), deaths among the civilian population (43), kidnappings (27), sabotage attacks (57), hold-ups (302), guerrillas killed (105), guerrillas wounded (32), guerrillas captured (67), guerrillas turning themselves in (10), guerrilla couriers arrested (812), fatalities among the forces of order (120) and security forces wounded (320). As we can see, there was a significant number of Teruel residents arrested for cooperating with the maquis, as well as in hold-ups, to which we have to add fines levied on police narks and informants. In addition to maquisard losses, to the figures for the dead we should add the executions of a number of police torturers or informers, local Francoist bigwigs such as the mayors of Villar del Cobo, El Cuervo, Tramacastiel or the Civil Guard sergeant and doctor in Mas de las Matas. Such operations merely served to trigger, under General Pizarro’s supervision, the very violent repression which was a feature of the anti-guerrilla drive in Teruel.

The main guerrilla operations in 1947 were the blowing-up and derailment of the central Aragon railroad between Barracas and Rubielos (7 May 1947), the hold-up of the payroll train in Caudé (July), an attack on two Civil Guard lorries on the road from Tragacete to Teruel (3 December), resulting in 12 deaths and several people wounded and a brutal retaliation, or the take-over of a number of towns like Sarrión, Foz Calanda or La Cerollera. In the case of La Cerollera, taken over on a date of great resonance for the dictatorship - 18 July 1947 [the 11th anniversary of the Francoist revolt] - the town was overrun by a group of guerrillas who passed themselves off as members of the Republican Army. Instructions were immediately issued to the effect that one person from every household should report to the square where, in front of a placard reading “Peasants: the guerrillas of Levante are your protectors”, portraits of Franco and [Falangist founder] José Antonio [Primo de Rivera] were burned and the tricolour flag of the Republic hoisted over the town hall. Later, in the cemetery, tribute was paid to a number of deceased maquisards: after a singing of the ‘Guerrilla’s Anthem’ and the firing of a volley of shots, the fighters then headed back to the hills, but not before they had shaken hands with the local mayor and justice of the peace. 

Not only was guerrilla activity discernible in the hills, among the scattered farmsteads and tiny mountain villages, but it reached also into larger conurbations like Alcañiz. In this town in Lower Aragon where there were underground (and active) groups belonging to the CNT, the ANFD (National Alliance of Democratic Forces) and Socialist Youth (JSE), republican bunting was put up on the eve of 18 July and the ‘La Monegal’ group, stop-gap leaders of the local CNT, acted as liaison with the guerrillas in the district. In fact, by August 1947 and the dismantling of the CNT, ANFD and JSE in Alcañiz, shortly after General Pizarro was appointed a civil governor of Teruel, a number of killings were carried out in Civán and later in Monroyo and three guerrilla encampments - including the La Cebollera camp - were smashed.

Whilst there is no denying that 1947 marked the high point of anti-Francoist guerrilla activity in the province of Teruel, it is equally the fact that the arrival of General Pizarro and the relentless crackdown that he unleashed against the maquis and its supporters, brought about a radical change in that situation.

GENERAL PIZARRO AND THE TERUEL MAQUIS

In view of the escalating anti-Francoist guerrilla activity in Teruel province, the regime appointed General Manuel Pizarro Cenjor civil governor of Teruel on 28 July 1947. Pizarro arrived in Teruel with express orders from Franco to snuff out the guerrilla movement, having previously done so in the provinces of León and Granada. And so Pizarro was accorded full civil and military powers in that, in addition to being civil governor and provincial boss of the [Francoist] Movement - a post he held until 1954 - he was also placed in command of No 5  Civil Guard Region.

A close collaborator of Franco’s and given to bragging that he was one of the few people who could casually address the dictator himself as ‘Paco’, Manuel Pizarro was a tough nut, a ruthless. authoritarian. I remember being told that on one occasion, Pizarro ordered an official from a town up in the Sierra de Cucalón to stand before him and eat a copy of the official Provincial Gazette because the general/governor considered that he had failed to implement one of the ordinances published therein.

But Pizarro adopted a much tougher approach in the fight against the maquis. Only months prior to his appointment as governor in Teruel, the regime had passed its Decree on the Eradication of Banditry and Terrorism (18 April 1947). And remember also that a circular from the General Security Directorate (11 March 1947) had formally banned the use of the terms ‘guerrilla war’ or ‘guerrilla’ and ordered that these be replaced by ‘banditry’ or ‘bandit’.  Pizarro was to seize upon this and once in possession of full powers he embarked upon what [historian] Mercedes Yuste has described as “a personal war on the maquis” whose members the general dismissed contemptuously as “outlaws”.

In his private crusade Pizarro could look to support from the substantial Civil Guard and Policía Armada units, volunteers from the Falange and from the Somatén militia; he sought to monitor the guerrillas’ natural havens in the mountains. To which end he ordered all of the farmsteads there to be evacuated so as to remove support and supply sources from the maquis and he employed new anti-guerrilla tactics (police posing as maquis to rob and torture indiscriminately) and a ‘scorched earth’ policy to undermine civilian support for the maquis. Under his mandate too out-and-out terror was waged against locals suspected of sympathising with the guerrillas, with tremendously severe methods being used: beatings, mock executions to extract confessions, poisoning of food supplies or ruthless enforcement of reprisals and of the notorious ‘ley de fugas‘, became commonplace. And as mute witnesses to all this suffering, mass graves were opened in Alcalá de la Selva, Mora, Monroyo, Civán and other locations. 

Pizarro’s big push started on 9 August 1947 with an assault on the La Cebollera guerrilla camp (operational base of the Sector 17 AGLA under Ángel Fuertes (aka ‘Antonio‘), which was attacked first using mortars before the pine forest where it was located was set alight. Some months later, on 18 December, the Civil Guard attacked the Monte Canarracho maquis camp near Cabra de Mora and, two days after that, Sector 11 AGLA’s training camp on Monte Rodeno in the township of Valdecuenca was targeted. 

Even though the AGLA mounted its so-called “spring offensive” in 1948, AGLA had been greatly weakened by Pizarro’s crackdown. Even so, the maquis kept up some activity up until late 1949 when Pelegrín Pérez (aka ‘Ricardo‘), the top AGLA official, was killed near Alcañiz, and on 7 November an important camp in Santa Cruz de Moya in Cuenca (which has since become an authentic memorial to the anti-Francoist guerrilla struggle) was attacked.

The province of Teruel, which had seen so much suffering during the civil war, as well as during the post-civil war crackdown and maquis years and where General-governor Pizarro left a trail of blood and flames, still owes a debt to those dogged anti-Francoist guerrillas, some of them known, others anonymous, and to all those civilian auxiliaries who, in very difficult circumstances, supported the guerrilla struggle in hope of opening up a new vista of freedom and social progress for Spain. 

[…]

José Ramón Villanueva Herrero

(Adapted) From www.elmasino.com/cazarabet/esi/53 [dead link]

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.