The second battlefield we visited was Madrid itself - perhaps one of the view battlefields that can bevisited by Metro. After a reconnaissance in which the Montana barracks was rejected as a viewpoint (not a stone of it remains standing despite the fact that it held 8000 men in 1936), the following tour was decided on. We travelled out from Atocha station to the Casa de Campo by Metro then walked north up the Nationalist front line trenches (clearly visible amongst shell pocked ground). After about a mile we emerged onto a small east facing knell, criss-crossed with support and communication trenches, which gave a dominant view of Madrid's western skyline. Everything was visible from the University City via the site of the Model Prison and the Don Juan Barracks, down through the WestPark and back to the telephone tower (at that time Madrid's only skyscraper) from which the Red Army's Colonel Voronev controlled the Republican artillery's fire.

From this stand I described the assault of Varelas's columns of the Army of Africa, only 12,000 strong, against a city swollen by refugees to a population of over one million. The discipline of the Moors and Legionnaires against the revolutionary fervour of the defending militias made for a bitter fight in the now peaceful Casa de Campo park and soon reduced the Nationalist attackers by 50%. The only evidence of the bitterfighting except collapsed trench lines and shell holes we could find was a solitary Mauser empty case stamped FNT (Fabrica Nacional Toledo?).

To get to the second battlefield viewpoint we crossed the Manzanares river by footbridge just south of where the Moors waded across and, passing the line of three solid bunkers marking the south face of the Nationalist salient in the West Park, made our way to the Fare (lighthouse) viewing tower. This towering modern construction, whose glass viewing gallery is reached by high speed lift, could not be better sited to gain a birds-eye view of the heavily fought over University City. From it we were able to look straight down on the whole area that became the Nationalist salient (Franco's "dagger thrust into the heart of Madrid"). We could see the Faculties of Medicine and Philosophy, the Casa Velasquez where the Poles of the International Brigade died to the last man and the vast seven floor Medical Clinic which swallowed a battalion of the Spanish Foreign Legion. Its echoing corridors saw, perhaps the most savage fighting in the city, floor to floor and room to room and it marked the Nationalist salient's high-water mark. From our birds-eye view the tiny size of the salient, especially its 200 metre 'neck', became apparent. It is certainly the dearest viewpoint from which to study a real example of what the Army calls FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas) that I have ever seen. From there we caught the Metro from beneath Franco's Triumphal Arch, back into the city centre.

A Battlefield Tour of the Madrid Front

Introduction
Siege of Alcazar
Battle for Madrid
Battle of Jarama 1937
Battle of Guadalajara 1937
Battle of Brunete 1937
Other Places of Interest