[9] The battle was one of the bloodiest actions of the war, with the city changing hands several times by first falling to the Republicans and eventually being retaken by the Nationalists.

Republican military leaders thought that Teruel was not strongly held and sought to regain the initiative by its capture.

[12] Indalecio Prieto, the Republic's Minister of War, wanted a spectacular victory to reflect well on his tenure and to show how the army could function under his reorganization.

[12] A victory at Teruel would also aid the government of Prime Minister Juan Negrín in its quest to take over the industries of Catalonia from their workers.

West of the town, the Calatayud highway runs up a slight gradient to a pancake-flat plain around the village of Concud, about 3 mi (4.8 km) away.

Saravia wanted the coup de main against Teruel to be an all-Spanish operation without the assistance of the International Brigades.

[21] Lister's Republican division attacked Teruel without any preliminary aerial or artillery bombardment while snow fell on December 15, 1937.

Ernest Hemingway and two journalists, one being The New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews, accompanied the troops entering Teruel.

[24] Rey d'Harcourt, the Nationalist commander, pulled his remaining defenders back to an area in which he could make a last stand in the southern part of the town.

By Christmas Day, the Nationalists still occupied a cluster of four key points: the Civil Governor's Building, the Bank of Spain, the Convent of Santa Clara and the seminary.

The Republicans' Radio Barcelona announced that Teruel had fallen, but Rey d'Harcourt and the remnants of the 4,000 man garrison still held out.

The Nationalist counterattack began on schedule on December 29, with the experienced Generals Antonio Aranda and José Enrique Varela in command.

[27] Then, the weather actually turned for the worse, with the start of a four-day blizzard in which 120 cm of snow fell and temperatures of -18 °C occurred.

The Nationalist advances stalled because of the weather, and finally, on 8 January Rey d'Harcourt surrendered with Anselmo Polanco, the Bishop of Teruel, at his side.

Just over a year later, the Republicans, in one of their last acts of the war, killed Rey d'Harcourt and the bishop, along with 41 other prisoners in February 1939.

Two days later, the Republican leadership finally gave up its scruples about the Battle of Teruel being an all-Spanish operation and ordered the International Brigades to join the struggle.

The US communist-sympathising singer Paul Robeson sang for them on Christmas Eve with a repertoire that included L'Internationale and ended with Ol' Man River.

A massive cavalry charge, one of the last in the history of warfare (there were one or two exceptions near the Caspian Sea during World War II), broke the Republican defences and scattered them.

On 20 February, Teruel was cut off from the former Republican capital in Valencia, and with the Nationalists entering the town, Hernández Saravia gave the order for withdrawal.

[37] On the other hand, the Nationalists concentrated the bulk of their forces in the east and prepared to drive through Aragon into Catalonia and the Levante.

One anarchist observer reported, "Notwithstanding lavish expenditures of money on this need, our industrial organization was not able to finish a single kind of rifle or machine gun or cannon...."[39] Franco's retaking of Teruel was a bitter blow to the Republic after the high hopes that had been engendered by the city's capture.

One of them was the Soviet spy Kim Philby, who was nominally a correspondent for The Times covering the war from the Nationalist side.

[45] Near Teruel in December 1937, a shell hit an automobile in which Philby and three other journalists (Bradish Johnson, Eddie Neil and Ernest Sheepshanks) were riding.