by Hugh Thomas
2. Regler, Great Crusade, pp. 219–41; Koltsov, p. 303. Koltsov’s own role with the tanks in this battle seems to have been considerable. During this battle died Pablo de la Torriente Brau, a Cuban communist writer who had taken a part in the struggle against Machado in his own country. See Teresa Casuso, Cuba and Castro (New York, 1960), p. 81.
3. López Muñiz, p. 64. Martínez Bande, La lucha en torno a Madrid (Madrid, 1968), estimates 6,000 republican casualties (dead 500) and 1,500 nationalist, in these battles.
1. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, pp. 20–23. Orwell reached Barcelona at the end of December and joined a POUM column on the Aragon front, with whom he stayed till April. He returned to the front a month later but finally returned to England in June.
2. Evidence of Francisco Giral.
1. Junod, p. 114.
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1. These efforts are described in García Venero, p. 197f. See Southworth, Antifalange, p. 145f., where José Antonio’s last interview with a foreign journalist (Jay Allen) is published (reprinted from the Chicago Tribune, 9 October 1936). See also Jackson, p. 339, for what seems to have been another effort to save José Antonio, earlier on.
1. Letter to Martínez Barrio, quoted in F. Bravo Morata, Historia de Madrid (Madrid, 1968), vol. III, p. 208.
2. Ximénez de Sandoval, p. 617.
3. Monzón was a communist of good family from Navarre who earlier in the war had saved at least one old friend and ideological enemy, the Carlist conspirator Lizarza, from death.
4. Largo Caballero, p. 21.
5. Abad de Santillán, p. 21, wrote: ‘Spaniards of this stature, patriots such as he, are not dangerous, and are not to be found in the ranks of the enemy … How much would the destiny of Spain have changed if an agreement between us had been … possible, as Primo de Rivera desired.’
1. The cabinet had shown itself equally ineffective two months earlier when the radical ex-minister Salazar Alonso had been unjustly condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal. The cabinet reprieved the condemned man but then went back on their decision, as a result of the judge’s intervention.
2. The magistrate at the popular tribunal was Federico Enjuta Ferrán, a career magistrate. Years later he became a professor in Puerto Rico and was thrown by his pupils out of the window of a lecture hall and killed. This murder was never fully explained.
1. The novelist Pío Baroja, saved from execution by Carlists led by Colonel Martínez Campos, fled from the republic to nationalist Spain, which he also abandoned.
2. He was reported as saying this in an interview in Le Petit Parisien of that date. On 12 August, the government of Madrid had deprived Unamuno of his rectorship for ‘disloyalty’, and on 1 September the Burgos junta had confirmed it.
3. Quoted Aurelio Núñez Morgado, Los sucesos de España vistos por un diplomático (Buenos Aires, 1941), p. 169f.
4. This prelate, it seems, had already used the word ‘crusade’ to describe the nationalist movement, in a pastoral letter of 30 September, Las dos Españas (see Abella, p. 177).
1. Unamuno was at this time seventy-two. Next day, the Salamanca papers published the speeches of Pemán, Heredia, Francisco Maldonado and José María Ramos, but made no mention that Unamuno had even spoken.
1. See Unamuno’s Last Lecture by Luis Portillo, whose version of Unamuno’s remarks this is. Published in Horizon, and reprinted in Cyril Connolly, The Golden Horizon (London, 1953), pp. 397–409. For another account see Emilio Salcedo’s recent Vida de don Miguel (Madrid, 1964), p. 409f. I am grateful to Ronald Fraser for advice on details. There will never be full agreement on what was said and the tone in which it was said. I discussed this version with Luis Portillo, and with Ilse Barea, who translated it. But see Pemán’s account ‘La Verdad de aquel dia’, ABC, 12 October 1965. One may well wonder why the Falange were present in such strength.
1. Miguel García, Franco’s Prisoner (London, 1972), p. 25.
2. Luis Bolin, the ex-journalist of ABC, looked after the foreign press, along with Captains Aguilera and Rosales. All three were free with threats of execution to journalists whom they accused of being spies; others who worked in this section included the obscure writer Vicente Gay, who succeeded Millán Astray; Agustin de Foxá, a clever falangist writer; José Ignacio Escobar and Eugenio Vegas Latapié, both monarchist writers.
3. See Admiral Juan Cervera’s Memorias de guerra (Madrid, 1968), pp. 33–4, and Bolin, p. 219.
1. See for this José Bertrán y Musitu, Experiencias de los servicios de información del nordeste de Espana (SIFNE) durante la guerra (Madrid, 1940). The SIFNE had been founded with a base in Biarritz in August 1936 by Mola and had, as its chief organizers, Quiñones de León, Colonel Bertrán y Musitu, and the Conde de los Andes. By the end of 1936, it had a good organization in Catalonia, based partly on ex-members of Primo de Rivera’s Somaten, the old civil guard of Catalonia. Other organizations of espionage included several groups in France, such as the ‘Mapeba’ group directed by Nicolás Franco, several private persons and several effective organizations in Madrid such as the ‘Organización Antonio’, headed by Lieutenant Antonio Rodriguez Aguado, and several individuals in Miaja’s headquarters, the military hospitals and later the School of Officers at Barajas. (See Vicente Palacio Atard, La quinta columna, in his Aproximación histórica a la guerra civil española, Madrid, 1970, p. 241f.) See also the recent work of Angel Bahamonde and Jaime Cervera.
1. Bolin, p. 223.
2. Payne, pp. 145–7.
3. By October 1937 it had 711 branches; in October 1938, 1,265, and in October 1939, 2,847. It was a ‘voluntary organization’, though of course backed by the authorities.
1. See description of a visit in Julian Amery, Approach March (London, 1973), p. 99.
2. The above derives from Fal Conde’s Archives, Seville, which I was able to consult thanks to the late Melchor Ferrer. See also del Burgo, p. 692.
3. GD, p. 189.
1. This story may be apocryphal but, even if so, it expresses Carlist sentiment in this ‘Fourth Carlist War’, as they thought it.
2. De la Cierva, Historia ilustrada, vol. I, p. 440.
1. The words of Federico de Urrutia, quoted in Abella, p. 109.
2. See Abella, p. 119, for other diverting instances.
3. Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was rendered Mongol Fury in Berlin.
1. A. de Castro Albarrán, Este es el cortejo (Salamanca, 1941), pp. 101–3. See also J. Luca de Tena, Mis amigos muertos (Barcelona, 1971).
1. Ruiz Vilaplana, p. 191.
2. Montero, p. 287.
3. Speech on 14 September 1936.
4. GD, p. 267.
1. Cardinal Gomá, El caso de España (Pamplona, 1936), p. 12.
2. Lisón Tolosana, p. 232. Of course, as he dourly adds, by then many non-communicants might have fled or been shot.
3. Letter published in El clero vasco, p. 365f.
4. See Monsignor Múgica’s apologia, Imperativos de mi conciencia (Buenos Aires, 1945).
5. See Iturralde, vol. II, pp. 384f, 414. The names of the 14 were first published in nationalist Spain by Father Montero in 1961 (op. cit., pp. 70, 77). Two subsequent shootings (Father Ituricastillo and Father Román de San José) occurred.
1. Monsignor Múgica’s second letter to the Pope is on p. 389 of El clero vasco, vol. II.
2. It was also said that the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela denounced the crimes of the falangists in Galicia.
3. Cantalupo, p. 130.
1. Testimony of Johannes Bernhardt. The only persons to whom Franco showed mercy were his brother, the aviator, Ramón, sometime republican conspirator against the King, who was military attaché in Washington in 1936, and who delayed two months before throwing in his hand with the rebels; and Manuel Aznar, the editor of El Sol in Madrid, who had done much to help Azaña in 1931–2 and who, seen in militia uniform early in the war, later escaped to Saragossa, where he was arrested. Ramón Franco became commander of the air base at Palma, Aznar esca
ped being shot and, after much war journalism, ended up an ambassador of Spain. See García Venero, p. 243f. His military history, though Francoist, is the best of its kind. On good authority, Hills (p. 254) argued that Franco was inclined to shoot the leaders, pardon the followers, on the ground that the former should have known what they were doing.
2. O. Conforti, Guadalajara (Milan, 1967), p. 32.
3. As General Burguete said in a similar context in 1917. Cf. Dionisio Ridruejo, in Sergio Vilar, pp. 482–3.
1. These and other instances can be seen in the diary of Father Gumersindo de Estella, in El clero vasco, vol. II, p. 289f.
2. See El clero vasco, vol. II, p. 144f.
1. Abella, p. 128.
2. Hedilla, in García Venero, Falange.
3. Evidence of Johannes Bernhardt. The English firm of Bradbury and Wilkinson, which usually printed Spanish money, had been approached and refused. Thereafter, all currency in the republican zone was regarded as, and where necessary stamped as, invalid.
1. I was grateful to Mr Norman Cooper for help on these matters.
2. In case the point was missed, one poster called out: ‘Spaniard! Do not shake the hand of a man or woman who, after ten months of war, still wears a gold wedding ring which the country demands of her. That person is not a Spaniard.’
1. See, for a discussion, Glenn T. Harper, German Economic Policy in Spain (The Hague, 1967), pp. 32–59.
2. See article in Cambio 16, 15 September 1975.
30
1. Zugazagoitia, p. 406.
2. Hidalgo de Cisneros, vol. II, pp. 317, 361. Barea (p. 720) wrote ‘young officials of the various ministries … ambitious young men of the upper middle class who now declared themselves communists … because it meant joining the strongest group and having a share in its disciplined power’.
1. C. Lorenzo, p. 155.
2. Castro Delgado, p. 475.
3. José Díaz, Tres años de lucha (reprinted Paris, 1970), pp. 289–90. The figure given by Díaz was 249,140, of which 87,660 (37.5 per cent) were industrial workers, 62,250 (25 per cent) agricultural workers, 7,045 (2.9 per cent) intellectuals and professional men.
4. In Sergio Vilar, Protagonistas de la España democrática, la oposición a la Dictadura (Paris, 1968).
1. Federación Catalana de Gremios y Entidades de Pequeños Comerciantes e Industriales. Figure given in Frente Rojo, 21 October 1937, qu. Bolloten, p. 83.
2. See Bolloten, pp. 192–3.
3. José Díaz, Por la unidad, hacia la victoria, speech of March 1937 (Barcelona, 1937), pp. 50–51.
4. Radek, Piatakov, and others were tried in Moscow between 23 and 30 January.
1. La Batalla, 27 January 1937, qu. Bolloten in Carr, The Republic; and La Noche, qu. Payne, The Spanish Revolution, p. 289.
2. For example, Nin appointed as state prosecutor in Catalonia a semi-pistolero named Balada, ‘who conducted trials as if he had been a slaughterman’. See Benavides, Guerra y revolución en Cataluña, p. 226.
3. For this party, see above, p. 132.
1. The Estat Catalá plot of November 1936 remains an obscure matter. See Benavides, Guerra, p. 244, where it is said that Reverter was executed on the ground of having had his mother-in-law shot. See Payne, The Spanish Revolution, and Martínez Bande, La invasión de Aragón, p. 296.
2. See Azaña, Obras, vol. III, Artículos sobre la guerra de España, p. 508.
1. Peirats, vol. II, p. 163.
2. See below, p. 934.
3. Borkenau, p. 185.
4. See Juan López’s speech on 27 May 1937 (qu. Peirats, vol. II, pp. 248–52).
1. Bosch Gimpera, Memorandum No. 1, sent to the author, 1962.
2. Peirats, vol. II, pp. 262–3.
3. See Bricall, Generalitat, p. 48. Bricall’s table gives 100 as January 1936, 98 as June, 63 for November, and 69 for December. Other tables in this study suggest a drop in the industrial use of electricity in Catalonia from 40 million Kwh in June to 33 million in December (30 million in March), though household use of electricity was less markedly down in January 1937 as compared with 1936 (10.7 million Kwh in January 1936, 9.7 million in January 1937).
1. Diego Abad de Santillán, After the Revolution (New York, 1937), p. 121.
2. Table in Bricall, pp. 116–17. Taking 1930 as 100, January 1936 was 161.5, June 162.6 and subsequent months were: July 165; August 167.9; September 172.9; October 182.3; November 191.1; December 197.6; January 1937, 209.7; February 227.1; and March 242.2. The spiral continued frighteningly throughout the year.
3. For this debate, see C. Lorenzo, pp. 257–8.
4. See Leval, pp. 277ff.
1. Bricall indicates that the building industry, related to the wood trade, had dropped to 32 points in January 1937, in relation to 100 on the index in January 1936, and 69 in June.
1. See L’Oeuvre constructive de la révolution espagnole (November 1936).
2. Semprún-Maura, p. 94.
3. Bricall’s figure (op. cit., p. 79): with January 1936 as 100, the figures were 71 in June and 60, 42, 54, 58, 41, 56, 49 and 40 in subsequent months, to February 1937.
4. Souchy, Colectivizaciones, p. 71.
1. Bricall (p. 79) has January 1936 as 100, 67 for June 1936 and 85, 76, 96, 108, 70, 123 and 119 for subsequent months, these figures being kept up until the spring with its political crises. Chemicals were down by nearly 50 per cent in the winter of 1936–7 in relation to 1935–6.
2. Peirats, vol. II, p. 261.
1. Zugazagoitia, p. 197.
2. Nenni, p. 171.
3. Malinovski, in Bajo la bandera, p. 21.
4. Azaña, vol. IV, p. 589.
1. This letter was published for the first time in the New York Times on 4 June 1939, by the by then anti-communist Araquistain, ambassador in Paris, 1936–7. When this letter arrived in Largo Caballero’s office, no one could read the illegible signatures. Codovilla, the Comintern agent, was summoned. He could not read them either. It took a member of Rosenberg’s staff of the Russian embassy to decipher the names of Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov (Gorkin, Caníbales politicos, p. 85).
2. This conversation was plainly heard outside the door by Largo’s staff. See Ginés Ganga, in Hoy, 5 December 1942, qu. Bolloten, p. 273. See also Largo Caballero, p. 195.
3. Prieto speech in Mexico, 1946, qu. Bolloten, p. 223.
1. Prieto, loc. cit.
1. Largo Caballero, p. 225.
2. See the letters quoted by Bolloten, op. cit., p. 118. The Asturian united youth reached a working alliance afterwards with the anarchist youth.
3. Figures in Education in Republican Spain, 1938.
1. Leval, p. 169.
2. Libro de Oro de la Revolución Española, qu. C. Lorenzo, p. 115.
3. Leval, p. 296.
4. Peirats, vol. III, p. 187.
5. See the editorial of Solidaridad Obrera on 13 January 1937 (qu. Peirats, vol. II, pp. 116–17).
1. Qu. ‘Berryer’, Red Justice (London, 1937).
2. García Oliver’s speech, 27 May 1937 (Peirats, vol. II, pp. 252–8); see Cabanellas, vol. II, p. 1118.
1. Interview with Kaminski, Ceux de Barcelone, pp. 68, 74.
2. Report of Colonel Buzón Llanes, head of the 2nd section of the staff of the Army of the North, 21 November 1937, qu. Martínez Bande, La guerra en el norte, p. 247. The cheese was no doubt from Cabrales.
1. Del Burgo, p. 700.
2. García Venero, Falange, p. 151n.; see Southworth, Antifalange, p. 124, and Steer, p. 110.
3. R. Salas, vol. I, pp. 369–70.
1. This comment ignores the unsuccessful Basque offensive in Alava mounted by General Llano de la Encomienda in December: it was held off by Colonels Iglesias and Alonso Vega. For the Basque experiment, see Stanley Payne, Basque Nationalism (Reno, 1975).
2. See for example ‘Auca de la Lluita i del Milicia’, No. 1, Edició del Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
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1. For the creation of the Mixed Bri
gades, see Michael Alpert, El Ejercito republicano en la guerra civil (Barcelona, 1977). The Mixed Brigades were not numbered necessarily in order of completion but of commencement of organization: hence, at the end of December 1936, fifteen were in full service: the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th (International), 12th (International), 35th, 37th, 39th, 40th, 41st, 43rd, 44th, 50th and one unnumbered (E). Of these, four were commanded by militia leaders, the rest (except for the Internationals) by regular officers. The missing numbers were only contemplated. But soon militia commanders came forward.
2. 4,000 as a maximum.
3. R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. I, pp. 528–30.
1. Martínez Bande, La invasion de Aragón, p. 274, who published an unsigned report for the Catalan front; the junta of defence of Madrid on 12 December 1936 heard a report from Isidro Diéguez to this effect (see Alpert’s thesis).
2. Orwell, Selected Writings, vol. I, p. 325. Orwell joined the army in Barcelona. A small detachment of English volunteers for the POUM had been formed in England by Bob Edwards, mainly of ILP members. Of these men twenty-five arrived in Barcelona on 12 January.
3. Conscripts were twenty to twenty-five years old in 1936, volunteers often younger.
1. Orwell, Collected Essays, vol. I, p. 523. Alpert comments, ‘perhaps dirt and scabies, or gonorrhea, from a quick trip to the city, were more characteristic than sodomy’.
2. Peirats, vol. I, p. 283. Acracia was Peirats’s paper.
3. Martín Blázquez, p. 296. The pay in 1937 of an ordinary soldier was 10 pesetas a day; of a second-lieutenant, 25; a captain, 50; a lieutenant-colonel, 100.
1. C. Lorenzo, p. 188.
2. Nosotros, qu. Bolloten, p. 268. See also Fernando Claudín, ‘Spain, The Untimely Revolution’ in New Left Review, No. 74. The communist position is put in Guerra y revolución en España 1936–1939 (Moscow, 1966), 3 vols. The anarchist case is to be found in Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, where the dilemma is summed up as ‘The “people in arms” won the revolution: the “people’s army” lost the war.’
