In memoriam. La quinta del biberón

Although it sounds more like a generation of footballers, the bottle fed group refers to some recruits who fought for the 2nd Republic at the end of the Spanish Civil War. As can be expected, the name comes from their young age, which was no older than 17.

Halfway through 1938, the situation for the Republic was desperate. The fronts were falling and the need for fighters was ever increasing so the Republican leaders did not think twice about using around 30,000 of these novices, who could have been “bottle fed”, as the anarchist Minister, Federica Montseny, is supposed to have said. This is where their name comes from. They took part in the war’s most important and decisive battles, such as the Battle of Jarama, the bloody Belchite or the decisive Battle of the Ebro, which brought an end to the Republican resistance.