It is four decades since a comprehensive history of the Brigaders’ exploits in the Spanish civil war was last published in English. Giles Tremlett sets out to fill this gap
often be written by the victors, but that has never applied to the Spanish civil war. The standard version tells of the Republic’s heroic but doomed struggle against the nationalist forces of Francisco Franco—whose triumph was made possible by Hitler and Mussolini, while Britain and France stood idly by.
Only a handful of the volunteers had military experience and many, particularly the anarchists and the more Utopian socialists, had unrealistic notions of martial discipline. Despite a largely British myth that they were all leftish intellectuals, most came from working-class backgrounds, often sent to Spain by local Communist parties on orders from the Comintern in Moscow. Many were unemployed or refugees from other parts of Europe—Germany and Italy, but also Poland and Hungary.
Success in the battle for Madrid flattered to deceive. The Republican militias and the International Brigades had shown that they could doggedly secure a position against nationalist attack. The largely defensive battles of Jarama and Guadalajara in 1937—in which the Brigades, taking heavy losses, had played a vital part—were also seen as Republican victories. But prosecuting an effective offensive against a well-equipped professional army was a different matter.
When the Brigaders staged their farewell parade in Barcelona, only 7,100 were still fit enough to march. The casualties they suffered in two years of combat are disputed, but estimates suggest nearly 10,000 died and about 8,000 were counted as missing. Mr Tremlett reckons one in five of the volunteers became, in Hemingway’s words, “part of the earth of Spain”.
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