ABSTRACT
This chapter abandons the linear narrative to look at the war in Madrid to the autumn of 1938. After the hyper-eventful days of 1936, Madrid was besieged by the Nationalists and became prey to the monotony of a war of attrition, more redolent of the First World War than the Second. My team and I excavated a Nationalist base at the salient of the University Hospital and several Republican positions on the campus. Archaeology and archival documentation offer a fascinating picture of everyday life on a long-lasting urban front, which anticipated, in smaller scale, the fate of Leningrad or Stalingrad. This novel type of war included specific military tactics (such as mine warfare and underground combats) and terror against civilians (aerial and artillery bombings, clandestine centers of repression, murders), all of which have left archaeological traces.
