Italian Mapmakers in the Spanish Civil War (1937–1939)

ABSTRACT

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the Italian government gave firm cartographic support to the forces of General Francisco Franco. In the first phase, they undertook to engrave and print in Italy a significant collection of military maps urgently needed by the Francoist army. Later, from May 1937, the Italian High Command sent to Spain a cartographic unit, the Sezione Topocartografica, that eventually printed more than half a million maps at several different scales. The Italians effectively redesigned the Mapa topográfico de España at the 1:50 000 scale and selectively edited its topographical content to obtain the road map at the 1:200 000 scale.

Pendant la Guerre civile espagnole (1937–1939), le gouvernement italien apporta un ferme soutien aux forces du Général Francisco Franco dans le domaine cartographique. Dans un premier temps, les Italiens entreprirent de graver et imprimer en Italie un ensemble considérable de cartes militaires dont l'armée franquiste avait besoin d'urgence. Plus tard, à partir de mai 1937, le haut commandement italien envoya en Espagne une unité de cartographes, la Sezione Topocartografica, qui imprima plus d'un demi-million de cartes à diverses échelles. Les Italiens redessinèrent efficacement la Mapa topográfico de España à l’échelle du 1:50 000 et achevèrent avec soin un travail de généralisation topographique pour obtenir la carte routière à l’échelle du 1:200 000.

Während des Spanischen Bürgerkriegs (1936–1939) unterstützte die italienische Regierung General Francisco Francos Streitkräfte im Bereich der Kartographie. In der ersten Phase ließ sie eine bedeutende Zahl von Militärkarten, die die Franco-Armee dringend benötigte, in Italien gravieren und drucken. Später (ab Mai 1937) entsandte das italienische Oberkommando eine kartographische Einheit, die ‘Sezione Topocartografica’, nach Spanien, die dort mehr als eine halbe Million Karten unterschiedlicher Maßstäbe druckte. Die Italiener kompilierten die Mapa topográfico de España im Maßstab 1:50 000 neu und leiteten von ihr die Straßenkarte im Maßstab 1:200 000 ab, wobei sie die Topographie besonders sorgfältige generalisierten.

El gobierno italiano prestó un firme apoyo en materia de cartografía a las fuerzas del general Francisco Franco durante la Guerra Civil española (1936–1939). En una primera fase, se efectuó en Italia el grabado y edición de una colección significativa de mapas militares que el ejército franquista necesitaba con urgencia. Posteriormente, a partir de mayo de 1937, el Alto Mando italiano envió a España una unidad cartográfica, la Sezione Topocartografica, que llegó a imprimir más de medio millón de mapas de diferentes escalas. Los cartógrafos italianos realizaron un eficaz rediseño del Mapa topográfico de España a escala 1:50 000, y llevaron a término un cuidadoso trabajo de generalización topográfica para obtener una carta itineraria a escala 1:200 000.

KEYWORDS:

• Military cartography
• Istituto Geografico Militare
• Sezione Topocartografica
• Corpo Truppe Volontarie
• Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

Acknowledgements

Work for this article was carried out within the framework of the research project 2007 EBRE 2 financed by the Agència de Gestió d'Ajusts Universitaris i de Recerca de la Generalitat de Catalunya. We wish to thank Professors Vladimiro Valerio (University of Venice) and Aldo G. Ricci (superintendent of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome) for the information they provided. We are also indebted to Colonel Antonio Lucio Finizio and Lieutenant Giovanni Orrò (both of the Istituto Geografico Militare, Florence) and to the personnel of the Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito, Rome.

Notes

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. The bibliography on the relationship between war, geographical knowledge and cartography is extensive. Worth mentioning are recent works by Marie-Anne de Villèle, Agnès Beylot and Alain Morgat, Du paysage à la carte. Trois siècles de cartographie militaire de la France (Vincennes, Ministère de la Défense, 2002); David Buisseret, The Mapmakers’ Quest: Depicting New Worlds in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003); Vladimiro Valerio, ‘L'occhio mutevole: militari e mappe tra rivoluzione e restaurazione’, in La cartografia europea tra primo Rinascimento e fine dell'Illuminismo, ed. Diogo Ramada Curto, Angelo Cattaneo and André Ferrand Almeida (Florence, Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2003), 229–44. See also Francisco Quirós and Juan Carlos Castañón, Madrid 1808. Guerra y territorio. Mapas y planos 1808–1814 (Madrid, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 2008).

2. On the concept of the Plan Directeur and its introduction during the First World War, see Michael Bacchus, ‘L’établissement des plans directeurs pendant la guerre de 1914–1918’, in Villèle et al., Du paysage à la carte (note 1), 128–34.

3. Peter Collier, ‘The impact on topographic mapping of developments in land and air survey 1900–1936’, Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29:3 (2002): 155–74.

4. The bibliography on the Spanish Civil War is considerable. For a general view, see, for example, Anthony Beevor, La guerra civil española (Barcelona, Crítica, 2005). For military questions, see Gabriel Cardona, Historia militar de una guerra civil. Estrategias y tácticas de la guerra de España (Barcelona, Flor del Viento, 2006).

5. The internationalization of the Spanish Civil War is considered in Enrique Moradiellos, ‘The allies and the Spanish Civil War’, in Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century, ed. Sebastian Balfour and Paul Preston (London, Routledge, 1999), 96–126; and in Michel Alpert, Aguas peligrosas. Nueva historia internacional de la Guerra Civil Española, 1936–1939 (Madrid, Akal, 1998).

6. For the Italians in the Spanish Civil War, see John F. Coverdale, Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975), with its Spanish translation La intervención fascista en la Guerra Civil española (Madrid, Alianza Universidad, 1979); Paul Preston, ‘Mussolini's Spanish adventure: from limited risk to war’, in The Republic Besieged. Civil War in Spain, 1936–1939, ed. P. Preston and A. L. Mackenzie (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 21–51; Paul Preston, ‘Italy and Spain in civil war and world war’, in Balfour and Preston Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century (see note 5), 151–84.

7. To understand the state of the Spanish topographical map before 1936, see Luis Urteaga and Francesc Nadal, Las series del Mapa Topográfico de España a escala 1:50.000 (Madrid, Instituto Geográfico Nacional, 2001); and Ángel Paladini Cuadrado, ‘Notas para la historia del Mapa Topográfico Nacional de España’, Militaria. Revista de Cultura Militar 3 (1991): 83–100.

8. The task of the republican cartographic services is related in Luis Urteaga and Francesc Nadal, ‘La sección cartográfica del Estado Mayor Central durante la Segunda República (1931–1936)’, Hispania (in press). For a general view of the cartography in the Spanish Civil War, see Carme Montaner, Francesc Nadal and Luis Urteaga, eds., Los mapas en la Guerra Civil española, 1936–1939 (Barcelona, Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya, 2007).

9. Our study originated in the Monés Collection, a cartographic collection consisting of maps, aerial photographs, diagrams and some reports by the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, kept at the Cartoteca de Catalunya of the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya (Barcelona). All these materials are downloadable at http://cartotecadigital.icc.cat. We also made use of original documents preserved at the Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito in Rome, Fondo Oltremare Spagna (hereafter ASME-FOS).

10. Report by General Roatta to the War Ministry, 16–17 November 1936. Reproduced in Alberto Rovihi and Filippo Stefani, La partecipazione italiana alla Guerra Civile Spagnola (1936–1939), 4 vols. (Rome, Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito, Ufficio Storico, 1992–1993), 4: I: 78.

11. On 21 December 1936, one day before the first Italian volunteers disembarked in Cadiz, the brigadier general Toraldo di Francia, sub-director of the Istituto Geografico Militare, compiled a report, at the request of the Italian Military Information Service of the Ministry of War, estimating the costs of, and time needed for, the redrawing and printing of these maps: the project anticipated more than 120 days’ work, with a preliminary month for the assembly of all necessary raw materials: photographic plates, acid, sheets of zinc, and paper. In fact, the work took five or six months from the start of production. The envisaged cost of preparing the plates was 60,000 liras. The printing costs estimated 0.60 lira per sheet, for the 1:50 000 map, and 1 lira for each sheet of the 1:200 000 map, provided a minimum of one thousand copies was made of each sheet. Letter from Toraldo di Francia to the War Ministry, 21 December 1936 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R47, 8).

12. The Colonel sub-chief of the Servicio de Información Militar, Angioj, to the War Ministry, Rome, 5 February 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F16, R47, 8).

13. R. Bianchi d'Espinosa to the War Ministry. Florence, 14 February 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F16, R47, 8).

14. Colli to the War Ministry. Cabinet, 1 February 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R47, 8).

15. Colonel vice-chief of the Military Information Service to the War Ministry, 30 April 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

16. The formation of the cartographic section of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie did not entirely end the Istituto Geografico Militare's activity in Florence as a publisher of Spanish maps. On 8 September 1937, Bianchi d'Espinosa announced to the War Ministry the start of a new run of maps of Spain ‘at a feverish pace’ (R. Bianchi d'Espinosa to the War Ministry, Florence, 8 September 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R47, 8). On 19 October of the same year, notification came of the urgent printing of sheets 912, 913, 914, 934, 935 and 956 corresponding to the Topographical Map of Spain at 1:50 000 scale (Colonel Castellani to the War Ministry, Florence, 19 October 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

17. For a preliminary note on the cartographical consequences of the battle of Guadalajara, see Luis Urteaga, Francesc Nadal and José Ignacio Muro, ‘La cartografía del Corpo di Truppe Volontarie, 1937–1939’, Hispania (Madrid) 62:1 (2002): 283–98.

18. General Doria to the War Ministry, April 19th 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

19. See also Cuartel General del Generalísimo. Estado Mayor. 5a sección, Memoria del Servicio Cartográfico Militar. Campaña 1936–39 (Burgos, May 1939), signed by Comandante de Estado Mayor, Jefe de la Sección, Carmelo Medrano. Typescript preserved at Centro Geográfico del Ejército in Madrid; Istituto Geografico Militare, La Sezione Topocartografica dell'Istituto Geografico Militare in terre di Spagna con el Corpo Truppe Volontarie, Vitoria, maggio 1937–aprile 1939. Anno de la Vittoria (Florence, Istituto Geografico Militare, 1939).

20. Carlo Traversi, Storia della cartografia coloniale italiana (Rome, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1964); Istituto Geografico Militare, L'Istituto Geografico Militare in Africa Orientale, 1885–1937 (Florence, Istituto Geografico Militare, 1939).

21. Pietro Dossola, Promemoria, October 12th 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

22. Pietro Dossola, ‘I rilevamenti topografici dell'I.G.M. sull'Appennino Tosco-Emiliano’, L'Universo (Florence) 18:5 (1937): 1–11.

23. Report of the Istituto Geografico Militare to Comando Corpo S. M., May 17th 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

24. Head of the Gabinete del Ministero della Guerra to the Ministero degli Affari Esteri. Rome, May 21st 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5). Envisaged payment for Giovanni Campanella and Luigi Manzini was 80 liras per day.

25. Luis Urteaga, ‘La cartografía del ejército franquista (1937–1939)’, in Montaner et al., Los mapas en la Guerra Civil (see note 8), 47–81.

26. ‘It should not be forgotten’, wrote Bianchi d'Espinosa, ‘that the maps already exist [in Spain], so that rather than genuine topographical operations (on the other hand impossible to carry out in enemy territory), these are modest cartographical tasks of various types, and minor operations of assistance to the artillery’. Report of R. Bianchi d'Espinosa to the War Minister, 23 June 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

27. Brigadier General O. Toraldo di Francia to the War Ministry, 15 February 1938 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

28.R. Bianchi d'Espinosa to the War Ministry, 30 June 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

29. The initial shipment included fifty 70 × 100 cm sheets of zinc, 10 kg sodium bisulphate, 10 kg potassium carbonate, and a quantity of photographic plates and printing paper which we have been unable to determine. This supply soon proved to be insufficient. We have found requests for additional material, analogous to those already cited, dated 2 September and 7 November 1937, 10 February 1938, and 8 March 1938 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

30. Carme Montaner, Francesc Nadal and Luis Urteaga, ‘El servicio de cartografía de la Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro durante la guerra civil española’, Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles 52 (Madrid, 2010): 273–94.

31. Felipe Fernández, ‘Aerial photography in the Spanish Civil War’, in Montaner et al., Los mapas en la Guerra Civil (see note 8): 84.

32. Major Pietro Dossola to the Directive of the Istituto Geografico Militare, 13 July 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F6, RN3).

33. Ermenegildo Santoni is the author of more than 40 patent applications for photogrammetric devices and aerial-photography cameras. From 1918 he was employed by the renowned Galileo Company, founded in 1866 for the production of scientific instruments but working up to the end of World War II mainly as a military industry. See K. B. Atkinson, ‘Ermenegildo Santoni (1896–1970)’, in Photogrammetric Record 8:46 (1996): 615. Manual of Photogrammetry, edited by the American Society of Photogrammetry (New York and Chicago, Pitman, 1944).

34. Istituto Geografico Militare, Directive to Major Cav. Pietro Dossola, Florence, 10 August 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F6, RN39).

35. Report of Lt. Col. Commander of the Topographical Section of the CTV Pietro Dossola of 3 September 1938 (ASME-FOS(see note 9), F6, RN39).

36. A number of manuals in Spanish dealing with sketch mapping had been available in print from the beginning of the century. See, for instance, Luis Gonzalez de la Vera, El croquis panorámico: aplicaciones militares del dibujo del paisaje (Burgos, Imprenta de Marcelino Miguel, 1912).

37. The Military Archive of Ávila contains a large number of panoramic sketch maps made by the armies taking part in the Spanish Civil War. They now constitute valuable documentation for the study and evolution of landscape.

38. See Bacchus, ‘L’établissement des plans directeurs pendant la guerre de 1914–1918’ (note 2).

39. The Monés Collection contains some manuscript panoramic sketch maps signed by ‘Suñé’ which go beyond the cartographic document and constitute a work of art (Montaner et al., Los mapas en la Guerra Civil española (see note 8), 64).

40. La Sezione Topocartografica dell'Istituto Geografico Militare in terre di Spagna (see note 19), 133.

41. M. Garda, Comandante General Divisione Aerea. Comando Aviazione Legionaria to Comandante del C.T.V., 9th December 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

42. Lieutenant Colonel Pietro Dossola to General Bianchi d'Espinosa, 11 December 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

43. Lieutenant Colonel Pietro Dossola to Lieutenant Colonel Giacomo Zanussi, vice-chief of Staff of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, Vitoria, 26 March 1938 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R40, 5).

44. Lieutenant Colonel Pietro Dossola to the Direzione dell'Istituto Geografico Militare, 11 November 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R47, 8).

45. Colonel Fernando Gelich, chief of the Italian Delegation before the ‘General Headquarters of the Generalísimo’, to the Corpo Truppe Volontarie Comando, Burgos, 15 November 1937 (ASME-FOS (see note 9), F18, R47, 8).

46. Montaner, Nadal and Urteaga, Los mapas en la Guerra Civil (see note 8); Francesc Nadal, Luis Urteaga, and José Ignacio Muro, ‘Los mapas impresos durante la Guerra Civil española (I): Cartografía republicana’, Estudios Geográficos (Madrid) 64:251 (2003): 305–34; Francesc Nadal, Luis Urteaga and José Ignacio Muro, ‘Los mapas impresos durante la Guerra Civil española (I): Cartografía del Cuartel General del Generalísimo’, Estudios Geográficos (Madrid) 64:253 (2003): 655–93.