Coastal Defence Route
Coastal Defence Route
This itinerary includes a route through all the elements that are still preserved from the defence of the coast during the Spanish Civil War in the Maresme region, visiting all the machine gun pillboxes that are still preserved along the coast. A visit to impressive coastal artillery sites such as that of Montgat, or what is left of the Malgrat de Mar artillery site, as well as different types of fortifications. These include the Cavaió blockhouses or bunkers in Arenys de Mar or that of Sant Pol de Mar; as well as other pillboxes for light machine guns such as those of Montgat, El Masnou, Mataró and Santa Susanna, among others. It is also a route where you can see how these fortifications blend into the modern maritime landscape, while others are increasingly engulfed by the sea.
Sometimes these points are not accessible, so we tell you from where they can be seen.
Blockhouses
Blockhouses were more solid and larger constructions than pillboxes, and generally consisted of one or more spaces with loopholes that allowed their defenders to fire in various directions from within. In the defence of the Maresme coastline, there were blockhouses with different machine gun pillboxes and a corridor with loopholes, as is the case of Sant Pol de Mar or Arenys de Mar. In fact, in Arenys, in the Cavaió area and past the port on the road towards Canet de Mar, there are two unique Catalan coastal blockhouses. Each is large, with a corridor for access and leading to a large room with different loopholes through which the soldiers occupying them could fire in different directions. They are reinforced concrete constructions, very solid and robust, capable of withstanding enemy bombardment.
The pillboxes
A total of 701 machine gun pillboxes were built along the entire Catalan coast, 64 in the Maresme, distributed in such a way that, with their fire crossing, no place on the coast that could be expected to suffer a landing from Franco's troops was left unprotected.
A pillbox was a construction that protected a person using an automatic weapon (machine gun or light machine gun) and could be either single (for one machine gun) or double (for two machine guns). Depending on its layout and the building materials used, it could be made of masonry, brick, cement, metal, reinforced concrete or be a barbette (in the open, partially buried and usually with earthen sacks and loopholes for observation or shooting). They usually had one or more openings, called loopholes, to fire through, and the dimensions depended on the machine gun and the space the personnel handling the gun needed to move comfortably. A pillbox for simpler type machine guns was usually 3 metres by 3 metres and 1.90 metres in height, although they could be even smaller and less comfortable. The basic condition was marked by the installation of the machine gun, which required a platform of 1.8 metres by 1 metre set 0.75 metres below the loophole. The total cost of the construction of a single pillbox for one machine gun, as is the case of those of Mataró, Sant Andreu de Llavaneres and Santa Susanna, among others, was 36,177.87 pesetas of the time, which, added to the 4,764.78 pesetas of the camouflage, made a total of 40,942.65 pesetas.
Anti-aircraft positions
One of the deficits suffered by the Republican army in terms of armament was anti-aircraft weapons, which can deal with the various air attacks. The Catalan coastal populations had to suffer numerous air attacks. Apart from Barcelona, which had anti-aircraft emplacements, the need for this weaponry at the front meant that the Catalan cities and towns were practically defenseless in the face of bombing. Two of the few anti-aircraft emplacements found on the entire Catalan coast for this type of piece are located in Montgat, close to the sea and the railway tunnel. They are emplacements for automatic weapons, that is to say, for anti-aircraft machine guns, which with their rate of fire could, at least, defend a sector of the town. The sudden fact that these sites are built so close to the coast, this fact suggests that an immediate defense of the sector was attempted so that enemy planes would not try to enter further inland. Their importance today is paramount as they are the only emplacements for anti-aircraft machine guns built along the coast.
Coastal batteries
The establishment of coastal artillery batteries along the entire Catalan coast was an important factor in defending the Catalan coast. The aim was to protect the entire coastline, thus removing both the threat of naval bombardment and the possible landings of Franco's troops. On the other hand, the cannons that were installed in these artillery sites were obsolete pieces, many from the end of the 19th century and could therefore offer little protection against the modern cannons of Franco's ships.
Five coastal artillery sites were built in the Maresme, located in the towns of Montgat, Cabrera de Mar, Caldes d'Estrac, Calella and Malgrat de Mar. Many were armed with obsolete material and, due to the circumstances of the war, the pieces were removed and left on site during the spring of 1938, as is the case of Cabrera de Mar, Caldes d'Estrac and Calella. On the other hand, the other two remaining sites, Montgat and Malgrat de Mar, maintained their artillery pieces and equipment until the end of the war due to their strategic defence. In the first case, the battery of Montgat defended the city of Barcelona as well as a large part of one sector of the Maresme coast. In the second case, the Malgrat de Mar battery, which also defended a sector of the Maresme coast, was also the main defence for the strategic Tordera estuary.
Historical context:
The first naval bombardments and the threat of a possible landing of Franco's troops from Majorca at any point along the coast, caused widespread panic in all the towns on the Catalan coast, which felt completely undefended from this type of aggression. Thus began an important process of fortification. All the coastal towns in the Maresme region had numerous defences during the Spanish Civil War, with the sole aim of trying to prevent a possible landing of Franco's troops.
At the end of 1936, a network of observatories began to be set up to monitor any naval and air threats from the sea; militias were set up in all coastal towns, along with Carabiner forces, a specific coastal and border corps that had the mission of guarding the coast. But the most important part of the coastal defence came in the first half of 1937, when artillery sites were built in different places along the coast, and especially defensive positions such as pillboxes, trenches and shelters. Of all these defensive positions, the most important on the Catalan coast were the pillboxes, of which a total of 701 were built from Portbou to Alcanar.
The Maresme region was one that had most defensive positions. There were five locations for coastal artillery and 64 pillboxes distributed along the region's entire coast, from Montgat to Malgrat de Mar.
These defences were never used (except for some coastal batteries), as Franco's troops never made any landings on the Catalan coast during the war.