The Battle of Guadarrama (, also known as Batalla de Somosierra) was the first battle in the Spanish Civil War involving troops loyal to the Second Spanish Republic in the Guadarrama Range. The battle took place in the last week of July and in early August 1936. The Nationalist side sent by General Mola was attempting to cross the mountain passes of the Sierra de Guadarrama and reach Madrid by the North, but the Republican side, made up of militiamen and troops disbanded by the government left Madrid to stop the Nationalists. The Republican side was successful and the Nationalist troops did not manage to cross the mountain passes. Background General Emilio Mola, the director of the military coup that sought to end the Popular Front government used a coordinated uprising of compromised garrisons to implement a state of war in the demarcations, starting with the army from Africa. Mola realised that it would be difficult for the coup to succeed by itself in Madrid under the command of General Fanjul, so it was planned that Mola would lead a column from the North to support the uprising in Madrid. Should this fail, General Franco would go from the Moroccan Protectorate across the Strait of Gibraltar and advance on Madrid from the South and West. Operations On 19 July, after Mola seized control of Navarra after proclaiming a state of war, he sent Colonel Colonel García Escámez to the south at the head of a column to support the coup in Guadalajara. When the column was around 30 kilometres from its objective it learned that the coup in Guadalajara had already failed and was in the hands of Government forces from Madrid. Colonel García Escámez decided instead to go to the pass of Somosierra, the easternmost pass from the North Plateau to Madrid that crosses the Sierra de Guadarrama. He met a group of royalists from Madrid including Joaquín Satrústegui and Carlos Miralles who were defending the railway tunnel against the government forces that had taken Guadalajara. On Wednesday July 22, Escámez's column managed to secure control of the pass, vital for the advance towards Madrid. At midnight on Tuesday, July 21, another rebel column made up of two or three hundred men, commanded by Colonel Serrador left Valladolid "amid scenes of indescribable enthusiasm." General Sanjurjo continued with the mission of occupying the other important pass in the Sierra de