by Preston Paul
We would have cut off the Italians in Bermeo and along the western side of the Gernika outlet if we had had the aviation to deal with them. Considering the complete demoralisation and lack of order in the infantry of the last fortnight we resisted and counterattacked very well upon the new line, and with proper military elements we would have finished the offensive for ever.
Urging Noel-Baker to press Pierre Cot, the French Minister of Aviation, to breach the non-intervention agreement and send aircraft, Steer wrote revealingly: ‘And tell Cot that if he has any fears of English I.S. [Intelligence Service] men reporting his naughtinesses in Bilbao, they will be idle. I am the only trusted one here, and when the time comes I can deny it all more than thrice.’49
That his involvement could hardly have been greater is revealed by many passages in his book along the following lines: ‘I went up to Begoña to talk with the armoured car men. They were tired and angry. Our own artillery had fired on them and the infantry that afternoon in mistake for the enemy, causing heavy loss. We had been forced to withdraw to the right of the Casino in consequence, and that was the beginning of the movement that let the enemy in.’ Steer accompanied the Spanish delegation that went to the League of Nations in Geneva at the end of May in search of recognition of Axis aggression. The Spanish Foreign Minister, Julio Álvarez del Vayo, produced evidence of Italian intervention, while the Basque Government produced proof of German involvement. It was to no avail and Steer wrote to Noel-Baker that ‘Del Vayo was sold a pup’, as well as describing a highly unsatisfactory conversation that he had had with an infuriatingly complacent Roberts, head of the Western Department of the Foreign Office. Steer also visited the American Consul in Geneva and showed him a collection of photostats of documents proving German participation in the bombing of Guernica, including an annotated map. On 13 June, he even participated at the Hotel Carlton in a meeting of the Basque Government and military high command called by Aguirre to discuss whether to defend Bilbao to the last man. When the city fell, he covered the subsequent retreat westwards into Santander. He wrote a moving account of the evacuation of 200,000 people first on trawlers and then, when the Francoists had taken the port, on lorries along the road to the west, the refugees being bombed and strafed by the Condor Legion along the way.50
During these last desperate days in Bilbao, he assisted the British Labour Member of Parliament, Leah Manning, who was helping the Basque Government organize the evacuation of four thousand children to Britain. She later described Steer, and another British journalist, Philip Jordan, as ‘towers of strength and encouragement’.51 The Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson, wrote to The Times to commend Steer, whom he described as ‘your own heroic and extremely able correspondent, whom I had the privilege of meeting in Bilbao as the only British journalist at that time in that city’.52 Philip Noel-Baker wrote to Steer that his report on Guernica had helped change British Government policy, by which he almost certainly referred to the decision to permit the evacuation of four thousand Basque children to Britain.53
When the Basque Government left Bilbao on 18 June, Steer went to the deserted rooms of the president and took his pen and his last notepad on which to start writing The Tree of Gernika. He then finished the last bottle of champagne on the premises. At dawn on the following day, he walked west until he could find a driver ready to take him along the clogged road towards Santander.54 It was there that Steer wrote his last, long article for The Times, an elegiac account of Bilbao’s heroic last stand.55 At the end of June, having lost virtually everything he owned in the retreat from Bilbao, Steer managed to find his way to Paris. He went to the gracious apartment of his friend Thomas Tucker-Edwardes Cadett, The Times’ correspondent in France. At first, Cadett did not recognize the unshaven, malodorous tramp, in dirty clothes and alpar-gatas. When he realized it was Steer, he was alarmed to see that he was feverish and ‘pretty well at the end of his tether’. After a bath and a change of clothes, he began to write in Aguirre’s notebook.56 He could not, however, just cut himself off from his beloved Basques. Having interrupted his writing to seek more material, on 18 August, he made the dangerous flight across the Bay of Biscay to Santander, where they were cornered, facing superior Italian forces. He stayed with them for a few days, flying back before their ignominious end.57
Steer finished his book in a remarkably short time and it was published in early 1938. The text reflected his romantic commitment to the Basque part in the battle against fascism, a battle with which he had become involved in Abyssinia. It also reflected his contempt for the farce of British commitment to non-intervention. By the time it came out, Steer was in South Africa doing research for a book on German ambitions in Africa. On the day he left London, he wrote a scribbled note to Noel-Baker: ‘If you want me for any really major crisis of a warlike kind, you’ve only got to flash me.’58 Noel-Baker was one of the first people to read The Tree of Gernika, and he wrote enthusiastically to Steer:
What I have read I think quite brilliant. The Times gave it an extremely good review considering everything, and I am told by The Observer that it is a best seller, which I hope may be true. I lent it the other day to Morgan Jones for a speech he had to make about air bombing, and you will see he quoted it sensibly. The speech sounded better than it reads, but the best part of it was by you.59
The Tree of Gernika was described by James Cable, the historian of the siege of Bilbao, as
a work of passionate engagement, a vivid, moving, exciting justification of Basque nationalism, a shrewd if slanted, analysis of the circumstances and causes of their defeat, an urgent warning to his own country-men of the wrath to come. Steer was something of an artist and his book has a quality rare in the productions of even the most brilliant journalists. The historians who have followed his version of events, however, had more than the seduction of his style to excuse their choice. Steer had seen for himself much of what he described and, as a brave man driven to desperation by the recent loss of his first wife, he saw more than most, being particularly fascinated by the detailed conduct of military operations. Of course he also had the faults of his professional virtues. He was a journalist, not a historian, and he affected the omniscience of his trade, too often blurring the distinction between observation and deduction, evidence and hearsay. His facts are not always reliable, his judgements are occasionally hasty, his dates are slapdash. Nevertheless, anyone who takes the trouble to compare Steer’s guesses with the evidence of the documents is continually astonished, not at his inevitable errors, but at the frequency with which his assumptions were correct.60
The Tree of Gernika is a classic of Spanish Civil War historiography. Beautifully and incisively written, it is a moving defence of Basque Nationalism and a heart-breaking account of the reasons for its defeat at the hands of Franco. It was written as a warning to the democracies of what awaited them. Romantically attached to the Basque cause, Steer wrote of his own book: ‘it will, perhaps, be banned by the Basques when they get back to Bilbao’. He need not have worried. He became something of a Basque hero – and unable to see the book published in Euskadi in Franco’s lifetime, exiled Basques published the book in translation in Caracas in 1963. Only after the dictator’s death was it published in Spain.61 That was hardly surprising given its deep sympathy with Basques. He wrote in the preface to the book: ‘The Basques are industrious and the Spanish are idle. The Basques are all yeomen and the Spanish would all be gentlemen.’62
At the time, Steer’s sympathy with the Basques and criticisms of the Spanish Left were the focus of a less than fulsome review of the book by George Orwell. Opening with the words, ‘It goes without saying that everyone who writes of the Spanish War writes as a partisan’, Orwell went on to reflect his chagrin that the object of his own partisanship, the anti-Stalinist Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, had had little or no success in the Basque Country. He acknowledged that Steer had been right in observing that there was no social revolution among the conservative Basques. However, he we
nt on to comment:
Mr Steer writes entirely from the Basque standpoint, and he has, very strongly, the curious English standpoint of being unable to praise one race without damning another. Being pro-Basque, he finds it necessary to be anti-Spanish, i.e., to some extent anti-Government as well as anti-Franco. As a result his book is so full of gibes at the Asturians and other non-Basque loyalists as to make one doubtful of his reliability as a witness.
This was not entirely unfair in that Steer’s sympathies lay with the Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party), which was as hostile to the Left as it was to the Francoists, and much of what he wrote reflected that position. Despite his doubts, Orwell did recognize the immense authority with which Steer could write about Guernica.63
After the publication of his book, Steer remained in Africa throughout 1938, travelling and writing articles for various South African and English papers, including the Daily Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian, on the ongoing Ethiopian resistance to the Italians and on the Italian threat to poorly defended British colonies. He also collected material on German colonial ambitions, material he hoped could be used by Noel-Baker to undermine Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies. He also indiscreetly revealed to Noel-Baker, ‘for your ear alone’, that he would be reporting on what he found to South African Military Intelligence. Whatever else he was doing, Steer always kept his mind on the Basque cause. On 12 October 1938, he wrote to Noel-Baker to ask for advice as to whether it would be better for him to continue to work to keep the Nazis out of Africa or else
to come home in November and take part in any negotiations for mediation in Spain, my object being to press Basque claims. I think this is vitally important, if we are ever to have a point of concentration to resist Italo-German influence in Spain. Basque autonomy, Catalan autonomy, removal of the Italians from Majorca and the Germans from Morocco are essentials.
Not without arrogance, he added: ‘I don’t think anybody could press these points better on the War Office and the Air Ministry than I can.’64
Within a week, however, Steer had decided that Franco would never agree to international mediation and that the Spanish Republic was thus doomed. Accordingly, he wrote to Noel-Baker on 18 October: ‘Henceforward, I feel, our main job is not to save Spain or Ethiopia or China or even democracy, but something far more material – to get Chamberlain out. I promise you that I will do my best to help you do this.’ In another letter, he said: ‘Our job is to get Chamberlain out.’65
Steer was still destined to see much fighting. In 1939, he travelled in North Africa and wrote a book about the threat posed by the Italians in Libya to the Egypt and to the French Empire.66 Nevertheless, he also permitted himself finally to leave behind his grief for Margarita. On 14 July 1939, he married Esmé Barton, the younger daughter of Sir Sidney Barton, a friend since their days together in Addis Ababa. Esmé had been portrayed by Evelyn Waugh in his novel Black Mischief as the promiscuous ‘Prudence Courteney’, and her parents lampooned as the bumbling ‘Sir Samson’ and ‘Lady Courteney’. Outraged that he should thus repay her parents’ lavish hospitality to him, she had taken her revenge when she saw him in one of Addis Ababa’s two ramshackle nightspots, by hurling a glass of champagne in his face. As an old friend of George Steer, she had attended the funeral of Margarita and, seeing him distraught, decided that he needed looking after and began falling in love with him. When they finally got together, their wedding was a society affair, conducted at the King’s Chapel of the Savoy by the Bishop of London with three other clergymen assisting and reported in The Times. With George in a top hat and tails and his bride in an elaborate gown of blue crepe, it was a world away from the improvised ceremony through which he and Margarita had joked their way in the dusty legation compound in Addis Ababa. Among the guests was the head of MI5, Sir Vernon Kell, for whom Esmé worked as a secretary. On 14 May 1940, Esmé gave birth to a son. He was christened George Augustine Barton Steer in St Paul’s Cathedral on 8 June 1940, with the Emperor Haile Selassie as his godfather. On 13 October 1942, they had a daughter, Caroline.67
As a result of his work on Africa, Steer had been hired by the Daily Telegraph. The outbreak of the Second World War found him honeymooning in South Africa with Esmé. He soon headed north to cover the Russian invasion of Finland, once more drawn to describe the heroic resistance of a small nation faced by a totalitarian invader. In his reporting, he drew frequent comparisons with what the Germans had done in Euskadi.68 It was as if he was drawn always to the doomed struggle of small nations facing overwhelming odds. That commitment would lead to full-scale action when Britain became one of those small nations facing invasion. Steer remained in contact with the exiled Basque leadership in France. In the hope of getting them to England before they fell into German hands, he gave details of their whereabouts to Geoffrey Thompson, who knew Steer from his own time as Chargé d’Affaires at Hendaye during the Spanish Civil War. With the retreat from Dunkirk in full spate, Steer encouraged Philip Noel-Baker to try to persuade the British Government to bring José Antonio de Aguirre to Britain to be the focus of a Basque anti-Franco resistance.69
After the christening of his son, he joined his father-in-law Sir Sidney Barton, his friend Philip Noel-Baker and his son’s godfather, Haile Selassie, to discuss the possibility of hitting the Italians by encouraging the resistance in Abyssinia. The Negus was keen to return to his own country to foment revolt against the Italians. This coincided with the plans of Major General Archibald Wavell, the Commander in Chief of British Forces in the Middle East. Steer, as a result of an unusually imaginative decision, was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps on the basis of his previous experience in Addis Ababa during the Italian invasion. This was organized by Geoffrey Thompson, now of the Egyptian Department of the Foreign Office. Because of the importance of his mission, Steer, ‘who was of course well known to the Emperor, became a staff captain overnight’ and accompanied Haile Selassie to Khartoum.70 He did not remain long as the Emperor’s aide de camp, but transferred to Psychological Warfare Operations, producing leaflets in Amharic which provoked plenty of desertions among the native troops recruited by the Italians. In fact, Steer turned out to be a propagandist of genius. He also organized guerrilla raids on Italian outposts. He linked up with the eccentric Colonel Orde Wingate, a buccaneering officer who shared Steer’s enthusiasm for Haile Selassie. Wingate’s column of Sudanese and other irregular troops kept large numbers of Italian troops occupied and eventually liberated the capital. Steer was with the Emperor when he returned to Addis Ababa on 5 May 1941.
Steer relished the opportunity to attack the Italians with his typewriter. He showed a real flair for what came to be called ‘psychological warfare’. Some of his inventions aimed at rousing the Ethiopian factions were beyond what the Emperor Haile Selassie could approve, so Steer forged an imperial seal with which to issue his bulletins. This was honestly recounted in his book, Sealed and Delivered, and prompted Evelyn Waugh to publish a hostile review in which he went so far as to suggest that the military authorities should punish Steer for indiscretion.71 Waugh’s wish was not granted and, in fact, Steer was promoted. However, Waugh’s review was used by the odious Bolín as ‘proof’ that Steer was a habitual liar and had therefore lied about Guernica.72
Steer was posted to Cairo, where his wife had managed to get herself a job with British Intelligence. He served in the North African campaign until, in 1942, he was posted to Madagascar to take part in operations to prevent the Japanese taking over the island. There was considerable competition from several sections of the Special Operations Executive for his services. Then at the beginning of 1943, now Major Steer, he was sent to India, to take part in the campaign to recover Burma from the Japanese. His inventive use of propaganda and his active participation in a number of clashes with the enemy saw him promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He was killed, not in action but in an accident, on Christmas Day 1944, when his jeep went off the road when he was driving to wa
tch the Christmas Day sports at his training camp.73 It was a tragic irony that a man who had taken so many risks in such great causes should die in so banal a manner. The obituary in The Times recalled his exploits in Burma but not his service in Spain or Ethiopia, but commented on his books: ‘Combining the research of the scholar with the experience of the fighter and the faith of the idealist, he was as frank and accurate in his writings as he was vivid and he has left a record of service to his country the cessation of which will be regretted by fellow journalists and soldiers alike.’74
Despite publishing five important books and a military career that saw him compared with Lawrence of Arabia, Steer is remembered, most of all, for the crucial despatch from Guernica which blew the whistle on Nazi involvement in the Spanish Civil War. From the time that he became a war correspondent in 1935, Steer had made it his business to alert the world to the imperialist ambitions and ruthless aggression of fascism. During the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and in Spain, his commitment to an apparently lost cause led him to a level of involvement that went far beyond the duties of a war correspondent. Steer’s book is not just about the bombing of Guernica, but is a complete account of the entire Basque campaign. In that sense, it remains one of the ten or so most important books about the Spanish Civil War. It is also a crucial element of Steer’s series of books about fascist aggression and atrocity. The book is one of the most moving and authentic tributes to the Basque people, to their suffering and their courage in the fight against Franco and his Nazi and Fascist allies. Moreover, despite his empathy with the PNV, the words of Steer summing up the Basque part in the Spanish Civil War capture the tragedy and dignity of an entire people:
After all, the Basques were a small people, and they didn’t have many guns or planes, and they did not receive any foreign aid, and they were terribly simple and guileless and unversed in warfare; but they had, throughout this painful civil war, held high the lantern of humanity and civilisation. They had not killed, or tortured, or in any way amused themselves at the expense of their prisoners. In the most cruel circumstances, they had maintained liberty of self-expression and faith. They had scrupulously and zealously observed all the laws, written and unwritten, which enjoin on man a certain respect for his neighbour. They had made no hostages; they had responded to the inhuman methods of those who hated them by protest, nothing more. They had, as far as anyone can in war, told the truth and kept all their promises.75
