l this was big and the defence was uncoordinated. The civilians and the villages were a permanent target in the fascist advance to Santander. In Barreda and Torlavega -industrial areas- (Torlavega is the second big city of the country) the resistance was high, but not for much time. The columns of Cantabrian refugees (elder, women and children most of them) started to moved to the west, and many were cowardly attacked by fascist airplanes.
The rest of the Cantabrian Army started to concentrated in Santander waiting to defence the city and fight there with the fascist. Dozens of thousand of soldiers and militia men wait for an opportunity to fight properly the enemy. Many of course not, but even that they were there.
The generals and some government members flee to Asturias in a submarine two days before the arrival of the first fascist troops. And just before that the Basque Government and the fascist leader were rescue from Santander by a ship of the Royal Navy. The Cantabrian army was left behind by it high officials, the new government and generals. That this is not the only thing.
In secret, with no knowledge of the Cantabrian soldiers and militias a representative of the Police, a high rank office and a Basque official went to meet the fascist out the city. They give them all the military information pointing them the battalions that were going to fight to dead. Then the 26 of august of 1937 Santander was captured. Thanks to the traitors the fascist make the biggest number of prisoners of the “Civil War”. More than 60.000.
But many soldier and fighters managed to escape to the west. A defence line was made from the Coast line to the Cantabrian Cordillera. The resistance was still going. The first of September Unquera, a village in the west coast was captured by the fascist, but the valleys of Polaciones and Liebana resist. In Asturies the fascist were moving forward to the coast.
It was still fights Asturias but the resistance started to move to the mountains. Less than 5.000 defenders (many came from Asturias) were fighting again 33.000 fascists, well armed, with warship firing from the coast with planes bombing all the day. During the resistance was created a new Cantabrian Brigade (called Highlander at that time) and also were battalions named like the “Blood of October”… all decided to fight to the end.
The last resistance and fights were around two peaks of the Cantabrian cordillera: El Mazucu y Peñas Blancas. The fight was hard. The environment and the conditions were very difficult for all.
In the official history said that all North Front (Asturias, Cantabria, Euskadi) collapsed and the antifascist troops were defeated the 20 of October, when Gijon - the second Asturian city- was captured.
But the fight in Peñas Blancas last to the 22 of October. Till that day the resistance continue with Red flag in the top of the peak. After this day all Cantabria was military in hands of the fascist, and the long and dark night of the fascist dictator ship started.
The first years of occupation were really dramatic. With no doubt the Cantabrian People, specially the working class and poor peasants suffer a brutal genocide.
Thousands of Cantabrians were killed, many dozens of entire families disappear, even kids and elder people were put in front of firing squad. Is record in the Santander graveyard that as young as 9 and as old as 83 were murdered by them. We don’t know of the un-record killings. But its know that even heavy pregnant women were killed without mercy. That was the bloody price that Cantabria and its People had to pay in the defeat
Dozens of Concentration Camps were settled all across the territory and the prisons were full. The justice of the invaders was merciless. Hundreds of more Cantabrian (from communist to democrats or even apolitical) were to be killed in front of firing squads and other hundreds in the hand of uncontrolled fascist, or by the torture and the conditions in the prisons and concentration camps. And all this happened not for month but for years.
The fascist used POW as slave workers, spe