ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the most famous battle of the Spanish Civil War: the Battle of the Ebro. Unlike the offensives described in the previous chapter, the Ebro was the largest and most decisive battle of the conflict and for this reason the most remembered in Spanish collective memory. It raged during most of the second half of 1938, consumed staggering quantities of men and matériel (around 80,000 casualties), and ended with a crushing defeat for the Popular Army. After the Ebro, the Republic would not be able to recover and their chances to win the war vanished forever. The first part of the chapter summarizes research conducted on the different scenarios of the Ebro, from the Fayón salient, where Republican soldiers were besieged and exterminated, to the rearguard airfields and boot camps. It also tackles the problem of the ubiquitous human remains still littering the landscape. The second half of the chapter describes the last Republican stronghold in the Ebro, where we found powerful traces of the last day of combats.
