page_title: 11th Division (Spain)
section_title: Catalonia Campaign
hierarchical_section_title: 11th Division (Spain) / History / Last battles and end of the division / Catalonia Campaign
context_page_description: The 11th Division was a division of the Spanish Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War. It was formed in January 1937 in Madrid beginning with the 1st Mixed Brigade which in turn had originated in the Fifth Regiment.
  Nicknamed División Líster, it would become one of the elite divisions, as well as one of the most battle-hardened formations, of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces.
context_section_description: Following the Battle of the Ebro debacle the 11th Division retreated to the rearguard in order to recover and reorganize, being temporarily made part of the Republican Military Reserve. But not long thereafter, on 23 December, the rebel faction launched its final Catalonia Offensive and the 11th Division —which had been in need of a longer period of rest— was urgently deployed in the Segre Front, together with the remainder of the V Army Corps commanded by Enrique Lister, in order to close the gaps in the front where inexperienced groups of the Eastern Army had fled in panic before the fierce rebel assault, abandoning the lines they were defending at the Segre River. Enrique Lister set up his general headquarters at Castelldans and with his competent, battle-hardenend troops he was able to contain the Francoist onslaught for almost two weeks in the area near Borges Blanques. Finally on 3 January 1939 the rebels launched a powerful attack against Lister's divisions with armoured vehicles in the vanguard, so that even the men 11th Division became overwhelmed and had to abandon their lines of defence and the much devastated town of Borges Blanques fell to the Fascist Italian troops of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV). Later some of the Republican forces counterattacked and made some prisoners among the Italian Fascists, which were executed after having been interrogated. But in the face of the vehement Francoist offensive all Republican units had to retreat and left the area of the Segre Front, gradually withdrawing in a northeastern direction.
  Thus the Ebro Army covered the massive Republican retreat along the Mediterranean coastline until reaching Barcelona, where there had been plans to organize a strong resistance against the Fascist onslaught on the lines of the Defence of Madrid in 1936. But the option proved unrealistic, for the city's population was hungry and demoralized and the troops lacked arms and ammunition, hence the only option open for the exhausted Republican divisions of the elite V Corps was to abandon Barcelona to its fate and retreat towards the French border. By the beginning of February what remained of the units of the 11th Division arrived to the northern zone of Catalonia where, together with other retreating Republican units, they tried to establish a defensive line along the lower course of the Tordera River to halt the powerful advance of the rebel armies, but this effort quickly proved unsuccessful in the face of scathing enemy attacks.
  This last-ditch attempt had been part of a grand strategy of the Spanish Republic to resist the Francoist offensives until the deemed onset of a larger European War between the Fascist powers and the western democracies, in order to link the Spanish conflict with the wider European one. Thus Modesto and Líster saw the retreat to France of the remainder of the Ebro Army as part of a tactical evacuation, with the aim to regroup these units with the remaining units of the last area under Republican control in order to continue the resistance. The French government, however, would not allow the Republican units that crossed the border to be transferred to the remaining Spanish Republican territory, for all the veteran survivors of the 11th Division, together with all Republican military, were disarmed and swiftly interned in French concentration camps right after crossing its border. Thus the 11th Division, along with all units of the V Army Corps, was extinguished.
  Before its demise the 11th Division had briefly resisted, however, in the line of the Ter River on 5 February, and after crossing the Muga River on 8 February. Finally, in the early morning of 9 February the last units of the once mighty Ebro Army under Modesto crossed the border into France and the very next day all Spanish border posts fell into Francoist hands.
caption: Last area under Republican control after the Fall of Catalonia in February 1939. The French authorities would not allow the 11th Division to be transferred to this area after having entered France.