Unexploded ammunition from the Spanish Civil War, over 80 years ago is often coming to light, but a shell from the 1870s?
The shell unearthed and dealt with by the Guardia Civil corresponded to a Krupp C80 (80mm) cannon, used by the horse artillery. This artillery piece was used in the Boer War for example, and up to the First World War.
The Spanish Civil war was a desperate fratricide conflict where for the Republic obtaining war material was not easy, denied the purchase of weaponry by Britain and France – the facist forces under Franco had no such problem as they were amply supplied by Hitler and Mussolini, not only with weapons, but also soldiers and air units.
It shouldn’t be so surprising, for this reason, that this kind of cannon would be flung into service by the Republican government.
The shell was unearthed by recent rainfall in the Llanos de Silva area of Albolote, which was an area where opposing forces had dug in and faced each other. It was a hiker that came across the projectile on the 2nd of March whilst exploring the civil-war-period trench works. He contacted the Guardia Civil who sent out their bomb-disposal unit Tedax.
They first thought that it was a typical artillery shell from the 1930s as the defensive works was heavily bombarded by opposing artillery. Only after closer inspection did they realised that the 80mm shell dated back to 1879. It was gingerly dealt with because even though it was well over 140 years old, the fuse and charge were intact.
(News: Albolote, Vega, Granada, Andalucia)