The Spanish Civil War

by Hugh Thomas

  1. Solidaridad Obrera, 30 October 1936.

  2. Arman died as a general in the Second World War. The later Generals P. Batov and N. Voronov were also present in this day’s fighting, the first as military adviser to Lister (who, like Modesto, knew a little Russian), the second as artillery adviser. It seems that it was at Seseña that the so-called ‘Molotov cocktail’ was used for the first time, against the tanks by the legionaries (De la Cierva, Historia ilustrada, vol. I, p. 480). Lister tells us that the writer Ramón Sender acted for a time as his chief of staff in this battle but then abandoned the front precipitously (Lister, p. 82). See Batov’s account in Bajo la bandera, p. 223f.

  3. GD, pp. 123–5.

  4. Jesús Salas, p. 126. In these Russian aircraft, the pilots were Russian, but the bomb-droppers and machine-gunners were Spanish. The commander of this raid was a Russo-German, E. Schacht. See account by G. Prokofiev, Bajo la bandera, p. 378f.

  1. GD, pp. 123–5.

  2. Milch, the state secretary, saw off the first units on 6 November (Irving, p. 50). Sperrle had been responsible for all air operations, such as they were, under von Seeckt in the 1920s.

  3. The tanks were commanded by Colonel von Thoma, who had been in Spain for three months training Spaniards. The fighters were commanded, to begin with, by Major von Merhard. The German air force at this time disposed of something over 1,200 combat aircraft (see Irving, p. 52 fn.).

  1. Völkischer Beobachter, May 1939, qu. Toynbee, Survey 1938, vol. I, p. 358; Jesús Salas, p. 136.

  2. The late Noel Monks, then of the Daily Express, described this conference to the author. Dr L. de Jong, the author of The German Fifth Column in the Second World War (London, 1958), has traced a reference to the Fifth Column in Mundo Obrero of 3 October 1936. See Cervera, p. 139. But Lord St Oswald (at the time a reporter on the republican side) has a claim to have coined the phrase some weeks before, while the Army of Africa was still in the Tagus valley, and mentioned it in a dispatch (untraced) to the Daily Telegraph. He says the phrase was taken up by his fellow-reporters in the Telefónica in Madrid and from thence was carried to Mola across the lines by rumour. On the other hand, the phrase was also used about Russian supporters inside the fortress of Ismail beseiged by Suvarov in 1790.

  3. Two Russian fighter aerodromes were established near Madrid, one near Algete in the finca El Soto, under Major Richagov, and another at Alcalá de Henares; both were manned mostly by Russians, though there were some Spanish pilots, for example García Lacalle (op. cit., pp. 174–5).

  1. Valdesoto, p. 183.

  2. C. Lorenzo, p. 224 (Lorenzo is Horacio Prieto’s son). The four anarchists called on Horacio Prieto when they arrived in Madrid and asked for instructions; he said that the CNT was not the communist party, and would not seek to bind the ministers’ freedom of action (op. cit., p. 254). Horacio Prieto had resumed his secretaryship-general shortly before the war, having resigned after the Saragossa conference in May.

  1. The architect of the new University City in Madrid, Manuel Sánchez Arcos, was under-secretary.

  2. Carlos Pi Sunyer, La republica y la guerra (Mexico, 1975), p. 419.

  3. For example, Martin Blázquez, p. 298.

  4. General Cause, p. 371, quoting from direct testimony.

  5. Socialist Review (May–June 1938), vol. VI, no. 6, p. 17, qu. Cattell, Communism, p. 66.

  6. Peirats, p. 233.

  7. Federica Montseny in a speech in Toulouse (International Bulletin of the MLE-CNT in France, September–October 1945); qu. Richards, p. 59.

  1. Speech, 27 May 1937, qu. Peirats, vol. II, pp. 270–72.

  2. Peirats, vol. I, pp. 228–9; C. Lorenzo, p. 151.

  3. López Muñiz, p. 25f.

  1. Prieto, Convulsiones, vol. II, p. 316.

  2. The only under-secretaries left in Madrid were Fernando Valera, sub-secretary of communications, and Wenceslao Carrillo, of the interior (Lázaro Somoza Silva, El general Miaja, Mexico, 1944, p. 148).

  3. Federica Montseny, speech 27 May 1937, qu. Peirats, vol. II, p. 272. See also comment in Prieto, Palabras, pp. 324–5.

  4. Vicente Rojo, España heroica (Buenos Aires, 1942), p. 38.

  5. L. Fischer, p. 369.

  6. Koltsov, p. 189; Azaña (vol. IV, p. 860) records Miaja’s account to him.

  1. Somoza Silva, p. 139; Largo Caballero, p. 235.

  1. Barea, p. 174; Koltsov, pp. 184ff.; Ehrenburg, Eve of War, pp. 146–7.

  2. Rojo, p. 41. A detailed account can be found in Rojo’s Así fue la defensa de Madrid (Mexico, 1967).

  3. Rojo, España heroica, p. 44; Somoza Silva, p. 142. Text of this ‘document which saved Madrid’ is printed in Somoza Silva, p. 316.

  4. Somoza Silva, p. 316, prints the minutes of this meeting. The communists imposed a veto on the entry of the POUM into the junta and nothing the POUM leaders in Valencia could do could change this. Manuel Albar, socialist leader, told Enrique Rodriguez, the POUM responsable in Madrid, that the socialists had complained but had decided to accept matters ‘because of the importance of Soviet aid’. Julián Gorkin came from Barcelona to argue the POUM’s case—to no avail.

  1. Azaña’s view (op. cit., p. 732).

  2. Jaime Cervera, Madrid en Guerra, p. 89, thinks the overall figure of these murders between 7 November and 4 December 1936 was 2,000. His is the best analysis. He gives (p. 97) the names of four policemen who acted in the four prisons concerned. All were communists. Jesús Suárez Galíndez, Los vascos en el Madrid sitiado (Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 66; General Cause, p. 236; Koltsov, p. 192. G. Izaga, Los presos de Madrid (Madrid, 1940), p. 336, gives a horrifying nationalist account. Koltsov attributes the order to ‘Miguel Martinez’, who was, however, himself. Peirats blames José Cazorla (vol. II, p. 96). Christopher Lance, the English ‘Spanish Pimpernel’, had already brought about several successful escapes with great audacity, and would rescue over a hundred by using the ambulance unit financed by a Scottish philanthropist as a secret transport from Madrid to the coast. Lance was eventually caught and held for months in unpleasant gaols. See his ‘story’ in Cecil Phillips, The Spanish Pimpernel (London, 1960); and Delmer, p. 345.

  1. Alvarez del Vayo, Freedom’s Battle, p. 208; Borkenau, p. 196; Eduardo de Guzmán, Madrid rojo y negro (Buenos Aires, 1939), p. 300. Pedro Rico, the popular mayor of Madrid, was also turned back. Returning to Madrid, he took refuge in the Mexican Embassy. He was not made welcome by the right-wing refugees whom he found there. But he now could not return to the town hall. He was afraid to go home. Despite his enormous girth, he was fitted into the boot of the car belonging to ‘El Nili’, the banderillero of Juan Belmonte, and driven to Valencia. Prieto later secured his escape to France (De mi vida, vol. II, pp. 324–6). Prieto himself flew to Valencia.

  2. Ibarruri, p. 334.

  3. A portrait of Goriev appears in Castro Delgado, pp. 452–3. Louis Fischer (p. 377) describes him as ‘more than any one man … the saviour of Madrid’. See also Ehrenburg (Eve of War, pp. 146–7) and Barea (pp. 289–90). De la Cierva, Historia ilustrada, vol. I, p. 492, takes a different view. Writers have usually divided the laurels between Miaja and Goriev according to their own inclinations.

  1. Fuentes at first refused to see Voronov, then said that he could play no part since he did not know Spanish. Largo Caballero afterwards left Voronov with an equally bad impression, saying that republican Spain had no need of foreign arms (Bajo la bandera, p. 67). Voronov says that it was he who insisted that the republican artillery headquarters should be moved to the Telefónica (pp. 80–81), and he who protested against two hours being taken off for lunch by the artillery.

  2. Described as Colonel ‘Kodak’, because of his pleasure at being photographed. Twenty years previously Dumont and ‘Hans’ had been facing each other in the German and French armies on the western front.

  1. ‘At dawn on 8 November, leaving for the Sierra, I saw a battalion of the first International Brigade in the Calle Ferraz’ (Tagüeña, p. 140). So much for the strange stateme
nt by General Rojo (Así fue, p. 69) that these troops did not join the battle till 12 November. This distortion is discussed in R. Salas, vol. I, p. 584. See also Neruda’s poem beginning ‘Una mañana de un mes frío’, in Tercera Residencia (Buenos Aires, 1961).

  2. USD, 1936, vol. II, p. 603.

  3. Cox, p. 144; Fischer, p. 373. Cf. Castells, p. 100f.

  4. Fischer, loc. cit. For Fischer, see Radosh, pp. 107–20.

  5. Somoza Silva, p. 183. This Valenciano would in the 1970s be Prime Minister of the Spanish republic in exile in Paris.

  1. Voronov, in Bajo la bandera, p. 256.

  2. Malraux, p. 322.

  3. Jesús Salas, p. 133. Lieutenant Kraft Eberhard was the first German officer killed in Spain.

  1. Karlo Lukanov fought in the First World War, joined the communist party in 1919, fled to Austria in 1923 and went to Russia after a spell back in Bulgaria. After 1945 he was deputy prime minister of Bulgaria (1952–3) and later foreign minister. See, for this Brigade, Batov in Bajo la bandera, p. 228.

  2. Pacciardi, a member of the republican party in Italy, came from the Maremma in Tuscany, and was a veteran of both the First World War and several fights in 1920–22 against the fascists. Since 1926, he had been in exile in France and Switzerland. His nomination as leader of the Garibaldi Battalion was preceded by long discussions between him and the communists, sealed in a final agreement on 27 October, and marked by Pacciardi’s agreement to have a communist, Antonio Roasio, from Biella, as commissar.

  1. This was a famous battle, the most severe of 1936 in which 14 Fiats fought 13 Chatos over the Paseo de Rosales, and shot down several. A Russian pilot was lynched when he parachuted to Madrid, on the mistaken ground that he was a German.

  2. Durruti had been reluctant to go. See Paz, pp. 418, 422, for numbers.

  3. See Cipriano Mera, Guerra, exilio y cárcel de un anarcosindicalista (Paris, 1976), p. 86. Durruti was allocated a Russian ‘adviser’, known as ‘Santi’, whose real name was Mamsurov Jadji-Umar, a ‘Caucasian’, and future Russian general. They did not get on well. In view of subsequent communist behaviour towards anarchists at the front, Mera’s comment may well be a valid one. For speculation about Santi’s role, see Eduardo Comin Colomer, El comisariado politico (Madrid, 1937), p. 96.

  4. The Condor Legion also bombed Cartagena, the port where Russian supplies usually came in, on this day.

  1. Koltsov, p. 233.

  2. Gustav Regler, The Great Crusade, translated by Whittaker Chambers (!) (New York, 1940), p. 4.

  3. Antonio López Fernández, Defensa de Madrid (Mexico, 1945), p. 175.

  1. Peirats, vol. I, pp. 245–6. The various possibilities are summarized in Juan Llarch, La muerte de Durruti (Barcelona, 1973). There is a colder summary of various versions in Jaume Miravitlles, Episodis de la guerra civil espanyola (Barcelona, 1972); and in Paz, p. 497, where the anonymous reviewer of James Joll’s The Anarchists in The Times Literary Supplement, 24 December 1964, is taken to task. See also Angel Maroto, Actualidad Española (December, 1971).

  2. J. Salas, op. cit.

  1. In 1937, Sir F. Kenyon, former director of the British Museum, and James Mann, keeper of the Wallace Collection, visited republican Spain to report that the art treasures of the Prado were in excellent keeping.

  2. Delaprée, p. 14.

  3. Delaprée’s plane was probably attacked by republican aircraft. Delaprée died a few days later in Guadalajara Hospital. Delmer (p. 324) says that the plane was shot down by the republicans, since their counter-espionage wished to kill a suspected rebel agent, Dr Henry, of the Red Cross, who was also on board.

  4. ‘El café se le enfrió Y en Madrid no entró.’

  1. R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. I, p. 625, gives the very low figure of 266 dead, 6,029 wounded for the defenders. He may not have found documentary proof for more deaths, but the figure is likely to be higher. Returns of deaths cannot be counted upon.

  2. Koltsov, pp. 261–2. After this a false Embassy was opened under the national flag of Siam. The aim was to attract secret nationalists. Various persons (apparently only six) came to seek refuge. Their conversations were listened to by secret microphones, and they were later murdered.

  3. It seems he was murdered by anarchist members of the special services’ brigade of the ministry of war, then run by the anarchist Manuel Salgado, because of his activities as a spy (Cervera, p. 230; General Cause, pp. 162–3).

  4. In the beginning of this engagement Hans Beimler, the German commissar, had been killed—though probably not, as is sometimes alleged, liquidated by his communist comrades. See Gustav Regler, Owl of Minerva (London, 1959), p. 286, where his death is adequately described. The theory of murder is revived in Martínez Amutio, p. 240f. There it is bluntly stated that Beimler was killed for discrepancies with Moscow, and that nine members of the International Brigades were killed near Albacete to cover up his death. Beimler was replaced by Franz Dahlem, a communist deputy for the Reichstag in 1928, and German communist leader after the arrest of Thaelmann, described by Victor Serge as ‘the toiler without personality, the militant without doubts … the communist NCO’ (Serge, Memoirs, p. 162).

  1. López Muñiz, p. 56.

  1. Eight (out of the original eighteen) had been killed in their two previous actions, south-east of Madrid and in the University City. One of the survivors was Esmond Romilly, who shortly returned to England and who lived on to be killed fighting as a bomber pilot in the Battle of Britain. Romilly’s Boadilla (reprinted London, 1971) is an inspired description of this battle.

  1. A 13th International Brigade had also been formed and was at this time established before Teruel. It was chiefly composed of East Europeans. Its commander was a German communist, Wilhelm Zaisser, known as ‘General Gómez’, its political commissar a Pole (Ferry), and the chief of staff another German, Albert Schindler.

  2. Nathan had been in Ireland in the early twenties. It seems that he was attached to the Black and Tans, and was a member of the so-called Dublin Castle Murder Gang. As such, he was later identified as the murderer of the Lord Mayor and ex–Lord Mayor of Limerick (George Clancy and George O’Callaghan) in March 1921 (see Richard Bennett’s article in the New Statesman, 24 March 1961).

  3. Marcel Acier (ed.), From Spanish Trenches (New York, 1937), p. 113. For Ryan, see J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army (London, 1970), p. 189.

  4. Fox was aged thirty-six when he died. In an introduction to a memoir published in his memory, Harry Pollitt claimed Byron as Fox’s precursor in dying for a foreign cause (see Fox, p. 6). Byron seems to have been a preoccupation of Pollitt’s at this time. Having urged yet another poet, Stephen Spender, to join the communist party purely to be able to help over Spain, he advised him that the best way he could help the party was ‘to go and get killed, comrade, we need a Byron in the movement’.

  5. See Stansky and Abrahams, p. 384f., for an account of his death.

  6. Moreno, p. 303.

  1. See Tom Wintringham, English Captain (London, 1939), pp. 83–6. According, however, to the not very reliable José Esteban Vilaró (op. cit., p. 123) Delasalle had been a member of the Deuxieme Bureau in 1919 at Odessa and there tricked Marty in his first revolutionary exploit. See comments by Marty in the French Senate in March 1939, quoted by Pike, pp. 197–9. Delasalle was denounced by his commissar, the communist André Heussler, who was himself executed during the Resistance by his own comrades on a charge of treachery. See Delperrie and Castells, pp. 132, 163f, the best account of this incident. Marty was obsessed by spies but there were certainly some such. See, for example, the account by Henri Dupré of how he deceived Marty into giving him a post of confidence when he was in fact a Cagoulard in La ‘Légion Tricolore’ en Espagne (Paris, 1942). Dupré was shot in France as a collaborator in 1951. There were other spies: thus Leon Narvich, who presented himself in the Brigades as a Russian, an opponent of Stalin and the purges in Russia, was a provocateur of the NKVD. He was murdered in 1939 by the friends of those whom he had betray
ed in Barcelona.

  1. Mauricio Amster, a Polish volunteer, then a communist, told me (in Chile, in 1971), that ‘Kléber’ had sent for him and told him that he wanted a chief of staff and desired to put to him three questions: did your father come from the middle class, were you once a social democrat, and did you desire to be a priest when you were young? To the first two questions, Amster answered yes. To the last he had to answer no. He did not get the job. Years later, in Santiago de Chile, then an exile, he spoke with Durán, by then an official of the UN, and told him this story. Durán told him that he too had had this conversation with ‘Kléber’ but he had answered yes to all the questions. Such were the makings of a career in the world of ‘Kléber’. Durán had in the weeks before the civil war been a leading figure in ‘la Motorizada’, the motorized section of the socialist youth movement associated with Prieto.

  2. Tagüeña, p. 142. The Russian success was obtained with the armour-piercing shell soon adopted by Germany. Among those killed on 5 January was Guido Picelli, an Italian socialist, ‘hero of the giornata di Parma’ in 1922, at the head of two companies. See Spriano, p. 135, and, for a suggestion that he too was murdered by the communist police, Paz, p. 520, and Julián Gorkin, El proceso de Moscú en Barcelona (Barcelona, 1974), p. 54.

  1. Lise Lindbaeck, Internationella Brigaden (Stockholm, 1939), pp. 87–90.

  2. Not to be confused with the Polish General ‘Walter’. (Walter Ulbricht, also in Spain for some time in 1937, was also, confusingly, known as ‘Walter’.) Another international meeting at Las Rozas was that between the Russian Colonel Rodion Malinovski (‘Malino’), who came to the front as aide to General Kulik (‘Kupper’), with a White Russian, Captain Karchevski, who was fighting as chief of ‘servicios’ in the 14th International Brigade (Bajo la bandera, p. 15). (Karchevski was killed at Lérida in 1937.) Other White Russians, such as Colonel Boltin, accompanied by his ‘pope’, and Captain Rachewsky, fought for Franco.

  3. Acier, p. 82.

  1. Cunningham was a man of great physical strength, and, at a low level of command, possessed marked qualities of leadership. He was for a time nicknamed the ‘English Chapaev’—after the guerrilla leader of the Russian Civil War—and, thanks to the Russian film then on in Madrid, there could not at that time have been a greater compliment.