Fifth Regiment

Fifth Regiment Quinto Regimiento
Fifth Regiment soldiers parading through Madrid in 1936 shortly before the Siege of Madrid began
Active	1936 (1936)–1937 (1937)
Country	Spain
Allegiance	Second Spanish Republic
Branch	MAOC
Type	Elite corps
Role	Model military unit
Size	20,000 (est. November 1936)
March	El quinto regimiento
Engagements	Siege of Cuartel de la Montaña Battle of Guadarrama Battle of Talavera Siege of the Alcázar Defence of Madrid
Disbanded	20 January 1937
Commanders
Notable commanders	Enrique Castro Delgado Vittorio Vidali Enrique Líster Juan Guilloto León
Insignia
Emblem
Badge

The Fifth Regiment (Spanish: Quinto Regimiento, full name Quinto Regimiento de Milicias Populares), was an elite corps loyal to the Spanish Republic at the onset of the Spanish Civil War. Made up of volunteers, the Fifth Regiment was active in the first critical phase of the war and became one of the most renowned units loyal to the Republic.

The number of soldiers in the Fifth Regiment quickly rose from about 6,000 in August to over 20,000 in November 1936. This loyalist elite corps lasted only until the Spanish Republican Army was reorganized in the second year of the civil war, but in barely half a year it had managed to become one of the most famous units of the whole conflict.

The Fifth Regiment used the desecrated building of the Church of San Francisco de Sales in Madrid as its headquarters. The mouthpiece of this military unit was the Milicia Popular newspaper and its anthem the El quinto regimiento song.

Shortly after the 1936 coup of the pro-Fascist generals, the Republican Government took the radical decision of defusing the Spanish Republican Armed Forces by granting unlimited leave to all military personnel and arming the trade unions. The measure was taken in order to ward off further rebellions of officers by depriving them of troops at their command. In the face of the void thus created, the Communist Party of Spain led the implementation of a policy that sought to replace the spontaneous and disorganized bands fighting for the Spanish Republic with loyal, disciplined and militarized units.

Finally the Communist-led Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC) formed five battalions that took an active part in the Siege of Cuartel de la Montaña on 20 July 1936. One of these battalions became the "Fifth Regiment" (5º Regimiento de Milicias Populares), a military unit intended as a model for other military units to follow in the initial chaotic period of the civil war. Its first commander was Enrique Castro Delgado. Later the Fifth Regiment would take an active part in the battles of Somosierra and Guadarrama, as well as in the Battle of Talavera and the Siege of the Alcázar, ending up becoming one of the crucial military units engaged in the Defence of Madrid.