Belchite (Spain) History Siege, 1937

The Battle of Belchite refers to a series of military operations that took place between 24 August and 7 September 1937, in and around the town of Belchite (almost 4,000 inhabitants in 1936, decreasing to around 2,600 during the battle, from the repression and displacement of the first year), in Aragon during the Spanish Civil War, as part of a much bigger offensive to take Zaragoza, that continued until beginning of November 1937. Since the Offensive of Zaragoza failed, for propaganda reasons, the Republicans started calling it Battle of Belchite instead, so it looked like a victory, the journalists that came to report the victory, including Ernest Hemingway, contributed to this change of names. The Nationalists continued the confusion, since they exploited the "Numantine" defense of the town for propaganda too, to counteract the bad image of the bombing of Guernica.