[1] Owing to the loyalist territory having been split in two by the rebels, General Rojo saw the need of establishing two army groups in order to coordinate the specific defence requirements of each zone.

Right from the moment of its inception the Eastern army group saw action at the Segre Front where there were constant battles along a long defensive line of Republican positions and fortifications.

[3] To complement the battles in western Catalonia the high command quarters of the Republican Armed Forces, led by General Vicente Rojo, were planning a large-scale operation with the aim to reconnect the two isolated enclaves in which the Spanish Republic had been recently divided.

[4] After establishing some bridgeheads, loyalist forces advanced against the rebel-held towns of Gandesa and Vilalba dels Arcs, where after weeks of intense combats the Republican counteroffensive lost steam.

As a consequence of these simultaneous victories towards mid-January it became evident for the Republican armies that they were unable to halt the sheer avalanche of rebel troops that pressured their resistance lines.

[11] Following the Fall of Barcelona on 27 January, Juan Hernández Saravia was relieved of his duties as leader of the Eastern Region Army Group, allegedly for his "defeatism" (derrotismo), but the real motives went far deeper.

Cold, ill-equipped and hungry both the troops and the average citizens were exhausted and had stopped listening to the official propaganda telling that a victory against Fascism was at hand; fear was the pervading mood and what most hoped was not to be treated too badly by the advancing Francoists during the purge of the conquered territory.

[14] Since Barcelona was already in rebel hands the most that Jurado Barrio could do was to try to limit the chaos of the desperate withdrawal of the long civilian and military columns towards the border and to evacuate the demoralized Republican troops in a manner as orderly as possible.