John Modesto

Juan «Modesto» Guilloto León (El Puerto de Santa María, province of Cádiz, Spain, September 24, 1906 - Prague, Czechoslovakia, April 19, 1969), commonly known as < b>“Modesto” or Juan “Modesto”, was a prominent Spanish soldier during the Spanish Civil War and a member of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). Coming up the militia ladder, by the end of the war he had risen to the military rank of brigadier general.

Commanding the V Army Corps, he carved out his image as a tough and competent soldier, especially during the Republican offensives in Brunete and Belchite. However, he reached his military halo in the summer of 1938, when he became head of the Army of the Ebro and personally led the Republican offensive in the Ebro. At the end of the war he went into exile to the Soviet Union along with other Republican military affiliations communist, as well as the main leaders of the PCE. There he was stationed at the Frunze Military Academy for a few years, furthering his military and General Staff studies. Some time later he retired to Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, where he would spend his last years of life until his death in 1969. His dizzying rise within the militias and the Popular Army, until he reached the rank of general, can only be explained by his own circumstances. of the civil war, his exceptional personal merits and the support that the Communist Party gave him.

Biography

Youth and training

He was born in El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) into a family of working class extraction, workers in the wine cellars of the area. He was a classmate of the poet Rafael Alberti who recounts in his book La arboleda perdida his reunion in republican Madrid and in Alicante, the last stage of his exile from Spain. A sawyer by profession, he was deeply influenced by the events and ideas of the October Revolution in Russia and ended up joining the PCE in 1930.

In his youth he moved to Spanish Morocco to join the Regular Corps, in which he was active for a few years. It was here where he gained his first military knowledge and was promoted to Regular corporal, although he would later be demoted and expelled from the corps. After the proclamation of the Second Republic, he was sent by the party to the Soviet Union to receive military training in the Frunze Military Academy of the Red Army, where the subjects were based on operational-tactical discipline, Marxism-Leninism, history of the CPSU, military history, foreign languages, etc. He also learned some Russian, a language that would be very useful to him in retrospect.

He returned to Spain and from 1934 he took part in the organization of the communist militias, the so-called Workers and Peasants Anti-Fascist Militias (MAOC), created for the protection of the communist leaders and as a force to defend local sections and militants against aggressions of violent groups like the Falange. He also took part in the organization of the Various Trades Union and the Spanish section of Socorro Rojo.

According to Santiago Carrillo, the pseudonym Modesto was adopted by Guilloto as a "nom de guerre" while he was carrying out clandestine activities.

Spanish Civil War

When the civil war broke out, he was in Madrid, where he had been preparing for the coup since days before July 18. When the rumor spread through the capital that the Cuartel de la Montaña had joined the military uprising, he went there together with communist militiamen from the MAOC, taking part in their subsequent siege and final assault on the building. The communist militias occupied the school-convent of the Salesians located in the district of Tetuán and they turned it into their headquarters where the 5th Regiment of Popular Militias was born, a communist militia that with the passage of time would become famous and achieve great influence for its military efficiency compared to other militias. The truth is that the 5th Regiment became a school for future military leaders and officers of the future People's Army of the Republic, such as Líster, Etelvino Vega or Modesto< himself. /i>, among others. Juan Guilloto was one of the organizers and first commanders of the 5th Regiment, of which he became commander in October 1936. During these first weeks of the war, he distinguished himself He went into operations in the Sierra de Guadarrama under the command of the communist militias, later moving south.

The battles around Madrid

At the end of August he moved to the province of Toledo, where he led a battalion trying to contain the Francoist advance towards Madrid. He distinguished himself especially in the fights with the troops of the Army of Africa along the Tagus River during their advance towards Madrid, highlighting his interventions in Talavera, Santa Olalla, Toledo or Illescas. During the fighting in the Talavera-Santa Olalla area, he revealed himself as a true military leader by managing to coordinate the actions of the militias and regular units (Assault Guards) under his command. In the month of November he stood out again during the defense of Madrid.

He had initially commanded the 18th Mixed Brigade during its training period. On December 31, 1936, General Miaja entrusted him with command of the 4th Division, located to the west of the capital. It was his division that fully received the new Francoist offensive towards the La Coruña highway on January 3, 1937. The Modesto division suffered heavy casualties and the mixed brigades integrated into it ended up losing cohesion among themselves, but In the middle of the month, the strength of the Francoist offensive was finally exhausted and the Republicans managed to maintain their positions. At the beginning of February, the Francoists attacked again, this time in the Jarama area, to the south of the capital. The Republicans were surprised by this new offensive and did not expect an attack with such fury as the one carried out by García-Escámez's column. Modesto is sent to Jarama to support the defense together with his division. The coordination of the Republican units dependent on the command of Modesto once again revealed his ability to command, while the Francoist offensive even crossed the Jarama but was stopped and finally failed. After the fighting in Jarama and his outstanding participation, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and the On March 22, he was assigned command of the recently created V Army Corps, newly created. The later famous V Corps was the group where communist divisions would be framed such as the 11th of Líster or the 46th of The Peasant.

On July 6, Modesto and his army corps (made up of the 11th, 46th and 35th divisions) participated in the republican offensive of Brunete, whose objective was to encircle the Francoist divisions that were besieging Madrid from the Casa de Campo and the Ciudad Universitaria. The Republican advances were important but by the 15th the Republican offensive was halted and a few days later the Francoist counterattack began, which managed to recover ground and the operations were terminated. The losses of the V Corps were very high, although it managed to retain some reconquered towns.However, Modesto's performance during the battle received praise from some Republican commanders, such as those made by Colonel Menéndez López in his report:

"...I respect the chiefs of Militias, the only one who knows how to read a plane is the so-called "Modest". Others (Líster, Mera or CampesinoBesides not knowing, they think they don't need it.."

Aragon Front

A month later, Modesto and the V Corps were sent to the Aragon Front, where they intervened in the Zaragoza offensive (August 26), having an outstanding performance in the first days, although the Republican advances were quickly stopped and the operation fails miserably. What initially began in the fight for Zaragoza ended up becoming a Battle for Belchite, a town of some importance that had been surrounded on the first day of the offensive and that maintained an implacable resistance against the best of the Popular Army. On September 6, the last defenders of Belchite surrendered and the operations were completed. Modesto would intervene in the last phases of the Battle of Teruel. This square had been conquered by the Republicans on January 7, 1938, after two weeks of surrounded by their troops. At the end of February, Franco's armies counterattacked and surrounded some Republican units in the city, such as the 46th Division of El Campesino. Valentín González later accused Modesto and Líster of having abandoned him to his fate, an accusation that was denied by the Republicans.

After the fighting in Teruel, the great Francoist offensive in Aragon took place and the consequent withdrawal of all the republican divisions towards Catalonia and the Levant. The units under the command of Modesto managed to stop Franco's troops in Tortosa, although they were surrounded in Catalonia and separated from the rest of the Republican zone.

In command of the Army of the Ebro

Army distribution in front of the Ebro at 00:15 on 25 July.

On April 30, 1938, he was placed in command of the Ebro Autonomous Association, a new military formation that brought together the Republican units that had been surrounded north of the Ebro. The following month, this formation was restructured and the Army of the Ebro was created, under the command of "Modesto". The new army was made up of the V, XII and XV Army Corps and directed respectively by officers Líster, Vega and Tagüeña. offensive of all those they had organized during the war: the idea was that the republican units in the south of Catalonia, the Ejército del Ebro, would cross the river and alter Franco's communications with the east, paralyzing their operations in this zone. If possible, they should head south, towards the rendezvous of their comrades in the Army of the Levant, reuniting the two isolated Republican areas with each other, although this was a long shot.

On the night of July 24-25, with a moonless sky, the Republican forces began to cross the Ebro on a front of more than 50 km. that went from Mequinenza to Amposta, near the mouth of the river. In a quick movement, they manage to establish several bridgeheads and advance deep into the interior, where they collide with very strong resistance in Gandesa. Once their advance was stopped, the troops began to dig trenches. Lieutenant Colonel Modesto had planned to bombard Gandesa but the Republican aviation (as it had done since the first day of the offensive) still did not appear in the Ebro sector, with great indignation for the Republican infantry part. The impact of the Republican offensive was enormous both in Spain and in Europe, since it was believed that it was almost impossible that an offensive of this caliber could be carried out by an army that was considered defeated. The joy and joy in Republican Spain were immense, as were the congratulations to Modesto for his competent leadership during the operations, being awarded the promotion to colonel. For General Franco, the challenge posed by this Republican offensive It was not something that he could assume politically, and consequently, he went to the Ebro Front with his best military units, willing to eliminate this threat. In a san gritty fight of almost four months, both armies were holding a long list of battles from which the Francoist Army finally emerged victorious. Modesto, however, displayed his best organizational and leadership skills during the battle, but he could not prevent the end result and in mid-November, he and his men had to cross the river again.

On December 23, Franco's final offensive against Catalonia began, encountering great resistance from some Republican units. The truth is that by this time the Army of the Ebro was greatly depleted in both human and material strength, although it maintained a resistance to the best of its ability (without being able to prevent the fall of Barcelona). At the beginning of February the remnants of the Ejército del Ebro arrived in northern Catalonia, where they tried to organize a line of defense taking advantage of the new military material that was arriving on the other side of the French border, although it was impossible.. Modesto proposed to evacuate the remnants of the Army of the Ebro to France to, once there, transfer them to the central area, where they would continue the fight, but it was an idea completely out of place for the real circumstances. By February 9, he and most of his men were already across the French border.

End of Contest

After the fall of Catalonia, he went to France, from where he returned to the central zone together with other communist leaders and soldiers. There was President Negrín in the so-called Yuste Position, in Alicante, where he and his government had settled, as well as the main leaders of the PCE. At the beginning of March he was promoted to the rank of general and, according to some authors, it was expected that he would be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Center, although there are discrepancies regarding this last point. At that time, on March 5, the Coup d'état of Colonel Casado took place. In moments of uncertainty before the coup, Modesto was playing chess with Minister Julio Álvarez del Vayo, without really knowing what would become of him or those who accompanied him. Finally, along with President Negrín, Líster, and other Republican or PCE leaders, on March 6 he left Spain by plane for exile.

Exile

At the end of the war, and taking refuge in his militancy in the Communist Party of Spain, he managed to move to the Soviet Union along with other Spanish military members of the PCE such as Enrique Líster, El Campesino, El Esquinazau, etc. The Soviet authorities recognized their ranks acquired in the People's Army of the Republic. During his stay, he was once again assigned to the Frunze Military Academy to further his studies. When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, he and other Spaniards who took refuge requested their incorporation to the front, a request that was rejected by the Soviet authorities. Stalin argued that they should be reserved for "his future fight in Spain", so he continued to serve at the Frunze Academy. Later in the war he was stationed in the communist Bulgarian Army which fought the Nazis alongside Red Army troops during the German retreat from the Balkans in the fall of 1944.

After the war, he continued to be a member of the PCE but would be defeated in the internal struggles between the different factions of the Communist Party of Spain to gain control of it, later retiring to Prague (Czechoslovakia's capital). He was there when he was surprised by the events of the so-called Prague Spring of 1968, a wave of democratic and liberal changes to the rigid communist system in Czechoslovakia. The Soviets feared that these changes would mean a weakening of the communist system in Eastern Europe, known as the Warsaw Pact, so troops from the communist countries invaded the country to stop the process and ensure the Czechoslovak permanence in the Eastern Bloc. Like many Czechoslovaks, Modesto opposed the entry of Soviet tanks into Prague. The following year he wrote his memoirs I am of the Fifth Regiment , published in Paris, although that year also coincided with his death.

Personality

The historian Hugh Thomas described Modesto as a "sarcastic and despotic Andalusian, sometimes brutal and rarely sincere" For his part, Javier Reverte, author of the fictionalized biography of Modesto El tiempo de los héroes, criticizes that Thomas uncritically took the assessments of Manuel Tagüeña, who personally hated Modesto. However, in his military qualities he was a true military leader, lacking political ambitions but endowed with ample qualities command and strategy. Although Modesto and Líster had been comrades in arms from the first hour, they generally maintained tense relations and had strong differences between them, as was also the case with the communist leader Dolores Ibárruri or the also military Valentín González. In his work on the People's Army of the Republic, the military historian Ramón Salas Larrazábal recognizes his military skills and his commanding abilities, since in a short time he went from being a militia commander to being a general of the Republican Army, the only case that occurred in the Spanish civil war with officers who had left of the militia cadre. Historian Michael Alpert says of him:

The figure of Juan Modesto is outstanding. It was not only the highest-ranking Militias officer, who was a colonel since July 1938 and promoted to general in the last month of the war, but also the authors of memories about that time care not to criticize him.

The head of the Central Republican General Staff, General Vicente Rojo, was strongly impressed by his qualities. During the battle of Teruel, in February 1938, he wrote to Indalecio Prieto that Modesto "inspired great confidence in him."

Works

• Modesto, Juan (1978). I am from the Fifth Regiment: notes of the Spanish War (3.o, 1.a in Editions of pocket edition). Editorial Laia. ISBN 84-7222-363-9. OCLC 5221402.