A Battlefield Walk at Ciudad Universitaria

Graffitti in the Ciudad Universitaria - The fight continues 80 years later?

I attended on Sunday last week a guided battlefield walk organised by GEFREMA (a non-profit organisation fighting hard to keep the last remaining sites of the Spanish Civil War in Madrid) focused on the Ciudad Universitaria. It would not have been more timely after finishing our recent Chain of Command campaign Bloody November and the incoming publication of a related article in the TooFatLardies Christmas Special in December.

The visit was intrinsically interesting, but also provided a good feel of the battle terrain and a great understanding of the very deep changes operated in the landscape since the mid 30s. As a matter of fact, the site today has almost no resemblance with the topography of the war period as I will explain later.

I will support the narrative and photos included in this post with the attached map, scanned from the book written by Col Martínez Bande in the early 70s (La Marcha sobre Madrid) part of the official military history of the Spanish Civil War published before General Franco passed away in 1975.

(Click to enlarge)

To put you in the historical picture, the Nationalist troops arrived to Madrid in the first week of November. The attacking plan was to enter Madrid through La Casa de Campo park, cross the river Manzanares and penetrate trough the Ciudad Universitaria.

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