Remains of the Days

 We are in Battle of Ebro country.  Through the summer and early autumn the Republican armies laboured over a territory which was very unforgiving for any caught in it. The rocky nature of the terrain turned the land into a factory for producing splitters when any shell landed on it.  






We stayed here in 2008, during the 70th Commemorations. I thought I recognised the road and the junction we come to confirms it.  We stayed in a farm which had been a casualty clearing station during the battle.  The place was littered with the remains of the war, human and material. An unexploded shell was on the landing and a Reichsher gas mask container.  On the patio was a glass ossuary for the distangled bones of the fallen.  This did not unphase our five year old.  A week later we were earnestly asked if it would worry him to see plastic bones in a museum.  Not really, he seen the real things.








The nature of the rock preserves many of the fortifications.  Just off the road is Les Devees, a preserved part of the trench lines.  Oscar wrote ‘A clear testimony of one of the most devastating chapters of the Spanish Civil War and, I would say, one of the most important enclaves where the Republicans faced the National Movement. Les Devees, the rearguard of the Republican army, served to stop the Francoist advance, giving the Republican soldiers time to retreat. It is a historical space that can be visited freely or with a guide... recovered and rehabilitated in part, it makes it easier to better understand the magnitude and reality of the Battle of the Ebro. Being respectful of the space and taking care of the area is everyone's job. @s those who visit it.’



We are off road from here on.   There are the remains of Refugis, shelters from the firing line.  Many are cut into any available rock face.



So we follow the track until we reach the road again.


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