Battle of the Merida pocket

Battle of the Mérida pocket
Part of the Spanish Civil War
Date 20 - 25 July 1938 Location Extremadura, Spain Result Nationalist victory
Belligerents
Spanish Republic	Nationalist Spain
Commanders and leaders
Ricardo Burillo	Andrés Saliquet Gonzalo Queipo de Llano
Strength
45,000 men	65,000 men
Casualties and losses
6,000 killed, missing, wounded	550 killed, wounded

The battle of the Mérida pocket, also known as the closing of the Mérida pocket (Spanish: Cierre de la bolsa de Mérida),^[1] was a military engagement which took place during the Spanish Civil War in July 1938 in La Serena zone of Badajoz Province, Extremadura.

The Nationalist command engineered an offensive which aimed at wiping out a large Republican salient, potentially threatening the only railway line connecting rebel-held León and Andalusia. The Nationalists planned a pincer movement from the north and from the south of the salient. They grouped 7 infantry divisions against 4 divisions of the Republicans. The campaign was carried out successfully during 5 days and with no major battle having been fought. It left one Republican division trapped in the pocket and few others suffering significant losses.

The engagement was neither among the largest battles of the Spanish Civil War nor the one which became a milestone in its history.^[2] The Nationalists removed a threat to their logistics and seized some 5,000 square km, though the battle did not turn into a major breakthrough which decided the fate of the conflict. Its relevance was soon eclipsed by the onset of the Battle of the Ebro, which started when the Merida pocket was being closed and which turned into the largest battle of the war.^[3] However, the Battle of the Mérida pocket merits attention as a unique example of pincer strategy employed during the war, since most offensives of the conflict were carried out by means of a frontal assault.