Front and rearguarrd route
Front and rearguarrd route
This route aims to visit the most emblematic places and buildings of the rearguard and the front in the Maresme. We can locate some of the factories in Mataró where war material was manufactured and the Salesian school, which was hospital to the International Brigades in the same city. In other towns, such as the church of Sant Vicenç de Montalt, we can still see a projectile in the façade from the fighting against Italian troops at the end of the conflict, the large anti-aircraft shelter of Calella or the mines of Malgrat de Mar, which were used as a gunpowder magazine.
Many shelters were built by the civilian population itself, following instructions from the Passive Defence Board of Catalonia, which indicated both how anti-aircraft shelters should be built and how the civilian population should behave in the event of aerial bombing.
Hospitals
With the first fighting after the coup and the combats on the different established fronts, a network of health centres was needed to assist all the wounded fighters, without neglecting the care of the civilian population. Throughout the conflict, the problems of the health services were aggravated by the injuries from the air bombings and the care that had to be given to the refugee population.
With the aim of creating a whole network of hospitals, classified into different types according to their distance from the front, Front Line or Division, Classification, Evacuation and Rearguard hospitals were created. The last of these, due to their distance from the front, were those located in the Maresme region, and among these, there were rearguard hospitals specialising in certain pathologies or treating the sick and wounded. In many cases, these hospitals had to be improvised in premises that had other uses, such as schools. One such example is the case of Mataró, where two hospitals were set up: one for the soldiers of the International Brigades in the building of the Salesian School and another for the soldiers of the People's Army of the Republic in the Marist school building.
Churches
With the outbreak of the revolutionary period that emerged from the defeat of the military coup in Catalonia, the repression in the republican zone was present during the early months of the conflict. Revolutionary groups exercised justice on their own account against all those considered to be class enemies: from businessmen, landowners, politicians and right-wingers to religious people or those associated with the Catholic Church. The left-wing forces had always seen the Church as an ally of the capitalist and more reactionary classes, so actions against religious and ecclesiastical property were taken during the revolutionary period. There was also constant violence against religious and documentary artistic heritage and was suffered by different religious buildings of the Maresme. This was the case of the parish of Sant Cristòfor in Premià de Mar, which was set on fire, or of the church of Sant Genís in Vilassar de Dalt, which was also set on fire and was so severely damaged that it had to be demolished in 1941, a new church being raised in 1943.
Not all churches were burned during this first revolutionary period of the war, and many were put to other uses, such as the basilica of Mataró, which was used as a market and grocery store. One curious case is that of the church of Sant Vicenç de Montalt, where still today a small projectile can be seen embedded in the façade, bearing witness to the offensive of Italian troops on their advance through the Maresme at the end of January 1939.
Civil buildings
With the beginning of the Civil War and the revolutionary period that was lived in the republican zone, the confiscation of goods and properties was a constant during the first months of the conflict. Many properties of the Church, of people of right-wing ideology, landowners, etc., were confiscated by the new revolutionary committees, which were the ones that exercised real control of the situation. In this way, many buildings completely changed their function. Manor houses or estates, as well as religious properties or properties belonging to right-wing political parties, served as schools, headquarters of the different left-wing parties and unions. Some were set up as barracks or military units or even to accommodate refugees. And it is that the combats that were taking place in other parts of Spain made Catalonia, and specifically El Maresme, become a place of reception for refugees, especially children. Thus, many boys and girls from Madrid and Andalusia, above all, were welcomed in different refugee colonies that were set up on these confiscated farms, such as those found in Argentona, Premià de Dalt or Premià de Mar, among others.
War industry
In 1936, when the Civil War began, Catalonia had practically no industry of a war nature and only a few factories and workshops began to improvise and change their production towards the war industry. To alleviate this problem, on August 7, 1937, the War Industries Commission (CIG) was created, headed by the Minister of Finance, Josep Tarradellas. The CIG confiscated factories and coordinated and organized war production. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 people worked there from its creation until it was intervened by the Republican government on August 11, 1938. In total, about 500 workshops and factories were under the direction of the CIG with various results. This activity focused especially on the production of weapons or equipment and on obtaining raw materials and semi-finished products.
In the Maresme there were different confiscations and collectivizations of factories that changed production and were converted into war industries. This fact caused them to be a target of Franco's aviation, thanks to the existing espionage service. One of these cases was, for example, that of the Llobet-Guri Factory in Calella, which on April 4, 1937 suffered an aerial bombardment that caused significant material damage.
Anti-aircraft shelters
In the early months of the conflict there was never any fear of an air or naval attack on the Catalan rearguard, as the war was taking place at the fronts and the rearguards were believed to be quiet and safe places. But that perception soon changed, especially when the first sea and air bombing of coastal cities began. To protect the civilian population from such attacks, a series of protection measures were established which were known as passive defence, or defence of the territory without aggressive response.
Thus, the first passive defence measures were developed, which were mainly anti-aircraft shelters, built above all by individuals. All these works were subsequently coordinated by the Passive Defence Board of Catalonia created on 9 June 1937.
Anti-aircraft shelters were underground spaces located in the streets, with several spaces inside and more than one access, aimed at providing shelter to the population in the event of an air attack. They had to be able to withstand the impact of bombs weighing more than 100 kg, so they had to be built at a depth of between 8 and 10 metres. The initial planning of the shelters required the construction of mine galleries between 1.80 and 2.20 metres high, and 1.40 to 1.60 metres wide, with the gallery walls lined with cement, flat bricks or formwork and with several zigzag entrances to reduce the shock wave of the bombs that exploded nearby.
In the Maresme region there were numerous anti-aircraft shelters in each town or city, such as those in Arenys de Mar, Canet de Mar, El Masnou or Calella. It is precisely in this last town where there is the Parc Dalmau shelter with a main gallery of 66 metres, 2 metres high and 2 metres wide, which branches into three transverse galleries, each more than 20 metres long.
Historical context:
The towns of the Maresme region remained in the rearguard for most of the war, but they still played a very important role in the conflict. In fact, the military garrison in Mataró, the Light Artillery Regiment No. 8, rose up and was part of the military coup, although its fate followed the failure of the uprising in all of Catalonia. The revolution of the early days of the war also led to the burning of some ecclesiastical buildings in different parts of the Maresme. With the beginning of the conflict, many Maresme militiamen went to the different battle scenarios, such as the operation on the Balearic Islands and especially the Front of Aragon. Later, with the creation of the People's Army of the Republic, many men from the different towns of the Maresme were called up and took part in defending other fronts, such as the Segre or the Ebro.
In the rearguard towns of the Maresme, hospitals and refugee reception centres were set up and some factories changed their production to adapt it to the needs of the war. Like other towns in Catalonia, the towns of the Maresme suffered aerial bombing, which led to the construction of anti-aircraft shelters in order to protect the population.