The Extremadura campaign was a campaign in Extremadura, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. It culminated in the Battle of Badajoz in August 1936, from which the troops of the Army of Africa under the command of Francisco Franco moved quickly to begin the march to Madrid. Background After the victory of the Popular Front in February 1936, the new government promised to start the land reform, but the agricultural unemployment was very high and the peasants started to illegally occupy large states. On 25 March 1936, 60,000 landless peasants in Badajoz led by the socialist's land union, the Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de la Tierra or FNTT, took over 3,000 farms and started to plough. The government decided to legalise the land occupations. By June 1936, 190,000 landless peasants had been settled in the southern Spain. Many landowners left for the cities. In August 1936 the Nationalists, with the aid of Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy, managed to transport to the Peninsula thousands of soldiers of the Spanish Army of Africa. Then Francisco Franco decided to advance to the north, and occupy Extremadura, in order to connect the two nationalist held zones and start the advance towards Madrid. The July's coup had succeeded in the Caceres province but in the Badajoz province the armed forces had remained loyal to the government. Opposing forces Nationalists The Nationalists had a force of 8,000 men of the Spanish Army of Africa, mainly members of the Spanish Legion and the Regulares (Moroccan mercenaries), backed by Andalusian Requetes, under the command of the Colonel Juan Yagüe. This force was organized in five motorized columns of some 1,500 men each (a bandera of the Legion and a Tabor of Regulares with one or two batteries of 75mm), led by the colonels José Asensio, Francisco Delgado Serrano, Fernando Barron and Heli Rolando Tella and the Major Antonio Castejón. This force had the air cover of eight Italian Sa-81 bombers flown by Italian pilots and nine Junkers Ju 52 flown by German pilots and CR.32 and He-51 fighters. Republicans Opposing the Nationalists, the Spanish Republican Army had a force of 13,000 militiamen and soldiers. Most of them were militiamen, for example in the city of Badajoz there were 500 soldiers and 2,000 militiamen. The members of the Republican militias had no military training and were poorly armed, there only was one rifle per three men, and one