nieto was out of his fucking depth during this battle, and nearly lost his marbles entirely, ordering a bizarre withdrawal which two of his brigades actually ignored (to his benefit, since those brigades managed to seize their objectives with significant losses).

this irked nieto even as it saved his career - had those brigades obeyed the sudden withdrawal order, franco's forces would have curbstomped the remaining elements from other divisions in the city, and nieto probably would have been shot for incompetence.

in particular, nieto had it out for the 84th Mixed Brigade, one of the three brigades under his command in Teruel. the 84th had fought through a nasty winter while taking 25% casualties and dislodging the francoists from a stronghold bank building in the city.

after seizing those strategic positions, the battered brigade was granted temporary leave behind the front lines for rest and medical treatment. they marched out to a position around 60km away to begin their vacation of at least two weeks, with most arriving on January 17th of 1938.

but franco had actually been using Teruel as a trap, sacrificing a handful of defensive units to pull the republicans into the city before slamming them with several more divisions before republican forces could properly entrench.

facing the loss of the city, republican commanders issued an emergency cancellation of leave, and ordered everyone (including the 84th) back to battle immediately on January 18th. the men of the 84th were in no condition to conduct another 60km winter march just to go back into battle, and several of its component battalions refused.

nieto realized that he was faced with a potential rebellion (which would make him look bad), but that he could not directly discipline the men, since they were still armed and were unified.

so, he devised a downright JINXIAN plot, announcing that men who were too tired to rejoin the battle could instead deposit their weapons and board a fleet of outbound trucks, and travel further away from the front.

the men who took that deal were driven away into the night, where the trucks suddenly stopped in an isolated forest area and gunners in other trucks shot them with machine guns. 46 of them were executed at the scene; another 80 were sent to forced labor/prison camps. two men managed to escape into the woods and later tell the story.

nieto reported to his commanders that he had successfully identified and dealt with a francoist cell within the brigade, and high command - though skeptical - could not afford to pull any commanders out of Teruel, and accepted his narrative.

Teruel was eventually lost to franco, but nieto kept ascending, making his way to full colonel during 1938 after some successes in the levante offensive.

but things did not go so well for republican forces after that point. franco pushed at the republican fronts until they cracked in various sectors, finally splitting their territories into two separate isolated zones in 1939.

cagey jinxian that he was, nieto correctly saw two important facts: 1. the war was lost for the republicans, and 2. franco's forces would kill him if they caught him. so, he abandoned his men and made a daring and successful escape to the UK, where he was embraced during the incipient days of WWII as an anti-fascist exile.

however, he never really liked england or the english, and he began to make inquiries in the late-1950's about a return to spain. franco was embroiled in cold war politics by this point, and wanted to demonstrate his capacity to rule a united spain which included all former parties from the civil war.

in exchange for endorsing franco and denouncing his republican past, nieto was granted passage back to spain, where he was given a modest but comfortable retirement home in the canary islands (far enough away from madrid to keep him isolated if he turned out to be a subversive, but enough to keep him happy).

he remained happily in the canaries until he died of old-age in the 1970's. allegedly, franco's security services stopped a couple of assassination attempts against him from his former republican compatriots, but he was never openly or successfully attacked.

that's your bedtime story for the night. a sociopathic boss who slaughtered his own men, got away with it, fell upwards in life, and managed to live out his days in peace.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869763&forum_id=2E#49905904)