¡NO PASARÁN!
International Brigade Memorial Trust l 2-2024 l £5
Remembrance at Jarama
Photo: Andrew Wiard
¡NO PASARÁN!
Magazine of the International Brigade Memorial Trust
No.66 ● 2-2024
t The memorial to the members of the British Battalion who died at the Battle of Jarama in 1937. Behind it are supporters gathered for the annual Jarama commemorations in February.
6 New voices in North West England
● Robbie MacDonald on how younger supporters are inspired by the Brigaders.
8 Harry Addley
● Trinity Buckley delves into her family history to learn about her Brigader grandfather.
11 The Loughborough Conference
● Richard Baxell looks back at the 1976 meeting on the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.
15 David Mackenzie
● Mike Arnott shares stories about Brigader David Mackenzie from Spain and Scotland.
17 Tschapaiew Battalion
● Nancy Phillips reflects on a lesser-known battalion that embodied the spirit of the Brigades.
19 Books
● Reviews of ‘Perfidious Albion’ and ‘Soldiers in the Fog’.
22 Final word
● Tabitha McGowan presents two poems she recited for members in Stockton-on-Tees last year
¡Nopasarán!(formerly the IBMTMagazineand the IBMTNewsletter) is published three times a year. Back numbers can be downloaded from the IBMTwebsite. All content is the © of the IBMT and credited contributors and cannot be reproduced without written permission. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the IBMT.
Editor: Helen Oclee-Brown
IBMT, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU 07865 272 639 admin@international-brigades.org.uk
International Brigade Memorial Trust www.international-brigades.org.uk
Glasgow’s Pasionaria memorial to the International Brigades overlooks the Clyde. The sculpture by Arthur Dooley was unveiled in 1980.
Scottish TUC applauds work of the IBMT
Delegates at the Scottish TUC conference in Dundee on 15-17 April voted unanimously in support of a motion from Aberdeen Trades Union Council praising the work of the IBMT.
The motion also calls on the Scottish government to promote ‘the story of International Brigades in the curriculum of our schools, colleges and universities’.
This is the full text of the motion: That this Congress supports the good work of the International Brigade Memorial Trust in keeping alive the memory and spirit of the 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland who volunteered to defend democracy and fight fascism in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.
Congress applauds the International Brigade Memorial Trust for the events it organised in December 2023 to commemorate the International Brigaders on the 85th anniversary of their return to Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland.
In recognition of the work of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, Congress asks the STUC General Council to have dialogue with the Scottish Government and the relevant educational Trade Union affiliates with a view to promoting the story of International Brigades in the curriculum of our schools, colleges and universities.
Congress notes that 2026 will be the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. We therefore ask the STUC General Council in liaison with its Black Workers’ Committee to recognise this in its plan for the 2026 St Andrews Day anti-racist/anti-fascist March and Rally.
The conference was chaired by the Mike Arnott, the IBMT Scotland Secretary, in his capacity
as a representative of Dundee Trades Union Council on the STUC’s governing general council.
Support needed for national memorial
The IBMT’s national memorial in Jubilee Gardens on London’s South Bank is undergoing urgent repairs. The Trust hopes to raise £1,980 to pay for this much-needed work and prevent further damage.
Created by Ian Walters and erected in 1985, the memorial is an important piece of public art and is regarded as a fitting tribute to the International Brigades.
Donations can be made via PayPal on the IBMT’s website, adding the code NatMem in the note box. Send cheques to 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU.
Foreign Office silent on Fuencarral
The British government has so far made no representations to the Spanish authorities about the potential disturbance of British International Brigaders' graves on a site in Madrid where construction work is planned.
In an answer given to a question from Beth Winter (Cynon Valley, Labour) the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office says it is aware of the plans by Madrid city council and will continue to monitor the situation.
Among those believed to be buried at Fuencarral cemetery are the poet Julian Bell (nephew of Virginia Woolf), Samuel Walsh (a cook from Newcastle), Arnold Jeans (a commercial traveller from Lancashire) and Edward Burke (a journalist and Unity Theatre actor from Croydon).
Madrid city council has now frozen its plans pending the outcome of an archaeological survey.
CONTINUED OVERLEAF
The International Brigade Memorial Trust keeps alive the memory and spirit of the men and women who volunteered to fight fascism and defend democracy in Spain from 1936 to 1939
International Brigade Memorial Trust
37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU
Executive Officer: Helen Oclee-Brown 07865 272 639
admin@international-brigades.org.uk www.international-brigades.org.uk
Registered charity no.1094928
President Marlene Sidaway
president@international-brigades.org.uk
Chair Jim Jump chair@international-brigades.org.uk
Secretary Megan Dobney secretary@international-brigades.org.uk
Treasurer Paul Coles treasurer@international-brigades.org.uk
Scotland Secretary Mike Arnott scotland@international-brigades.org.uk
Wales Secretary David McKnight wales@international-brigades.org.uk
Other Executive Committee members
David Chanter, Alex Gordon, John Haywood, Jonathan Havard, Alan Lloyd, Dolores Long, Luke O’Riordan
Founding Chair Professor Sir Paul Preston
Patrons Professor Peter Crome, Professor Helen Graham, Ken Livingstone, Len McCluskey, Christy Moore, Jack O’Connor, Maxine Peake, Baroness
Royall of Blaisdon, Mick Whelan
Historical Consultant Richard Baxell
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
This follows a campaign in which the IBMT, along with other International Brigade memorial groups, protested to the council about its project to build a rubbish depot on top of the unmarked graves.
Crowds mark Jarama anniversary
February saw the annual programme of events to mark the anniversary of the 1937 Battle of Jarama, south east of Madrid, organised by the Madridbased AABI (Friends of the International Brigades).
As always, the high point was the Memorial March, this year held on 24 February, with some 400 supporters from around the world marching to honour the Brigaders. Among the stop-off points was the newly unveiled memorial to the British Battalion volunteers (see cover photo).
Other events included visits to Almansa, where several Yugoslav volunteers trained in an artillery battery, and Albacete, which was the main base of the International Brigades from October 1936 to April 1938, when it moved to Barcelona.
Contingents from Britain and Ireland also visited Tarancón, where there is a memorial to the Scottish volunteers who fell at Jarama. Another group toured the Brunete battlefield, stopping where the XV Brigade fought.
Members honour writers in Madrid
In addition to this year’s Jarama commemorations (see above), IBMT members Rob Hargreaves and Stephanie Turner visited a plaque memorialising Los Cinco Escritores Británicos, the five British writers: Julian Bell, John Cornford, Ralph Fox,
Charlie Donnelly (who was, in fact, Irish) and Christopher Caudwell who were killed in Spain.
The plaque is in Madrid’s Residencia de Estudiantes, once a student residential building, now an arts centre.
In a ceremony arranged by AABI, Hargreaves and Turner were joined by members of the Serbian International Brigades memorial association, who laid flowers at the plaque.
‘We felt very humbled by their presence,’ said Hargreaves, who recited one of Caudwell’s antifascist poems. He continued: ’Like the others, Caudwell, who died at Jarama, was an idealist who backed up his words with action.’
The plaque was unveiled under the auspices of the British Council in 1996 in the presence of Brigaders Frank Graham, Jack Jones, Sam Lesser, Bob Peters and Wally Togwell.
No to National Memorial Arboretum
The IBMT has decided not to pursue proposals for a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) in Staffordshire, with trustees voting seven to three against joining with other groups to apply for permission to raise a memorial.
A statement issued after the trustees’ meeting said it had been a difficult decision, with persuasive and sincerely held opinions for and against the idea. The Executive Committee’s deliberations followed a vote at the IBMT’s annual general meeting in October 2023 that requested the executive to ‘explore the possibility’ of supporting a memorial at the NMA.
The proposal had been under consideration
Joe Solo on stage at the Black Box, Belfast,on 26 April in an event organised by the IBMTaffiliated International Brigade Commemoration Committee to mark the 87th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika/Guernica by Hitler’s Condor Legion.
for more than two years. In August last year an IBMT delegation,comprising President Marlene Sidaway, Secretary Megan Dobney and Historical Consultant Richard Baxell, visited the site.
The 150-acre NMA is run by an arm of the Royal British Legion, a charity providing support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces and their families. The site itself is home to some 400 memorials, including many to the Armed Forces and police.
The executive recalled that some veterans, including Jack Jones and Sam Lesser, had been against IBMT involvement in remembrance activities organised by the British Legion. Trustees also noted that there is a prohibition of ‘political’ messages on NMA memorials.
IBMT joins Aragón protest
The IBMT has added its name to a letter of protest to the right-wing coalition regional government of Aragón against its decision to repeal a Law of Democratic Memory. Among other things, the law allows funding for the excavation of mass graves of the victims of Franco during the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship.
Aragón is run by a coalition of the rightwing PP and far-right Vox parties. Last year’s elections saw the socialist PSOE-led administration, which had enacted the law in 2018, removed from office.
Many International Brigaders were killed in Aragón and their remains lie in unmarked graves.
More than 150 British and Irish lives were lost.
According to historian Paul Preston’s ‘The Spanish Holocaust’, 8,523 supporters of the Spanish Republic in Aragón were executed behind Francoist lines between 1936-39.
An unknown number of Republican soldiers were also killed in the province, which straddles the Ebro in north-east Spain.
The letter of protest to the authorities in Zaragoza, the regional capital, was coordinated early in April by AABI, the Madrid-based Friends of the International Brigades. Besides the IBMT,
other signatories included International Brigade memorial associations from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Serbia and the US.
Southampton memorial renovated
With generous support from Unite branches SE6236 and SE6217, the Southampton memorial has been cleaned up, renovated and returned to its position next to the city's Cenotaph in front of the Civic Centre.
IBMT Trustee Alan Lloyd – who is also the IBMT Archivist – arranged for the plaque to be removed in February after rust bubbles and flaking paint appeared on it.
p Clapton CFC’s women’s first team and many supporters in the crowd in the colours of the Spanish Republic at their home match against Brentford at the Old Spotted Dog Ground on 14 April to mark the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the Second Spanish Republic. The Clapton CFC kit also features the three-pointed star of the International Brigades and the slogan No pasarán.
Clapton
p The newly restored memorial to the International Brigaders from Southampton.
Your local IBMT affiliated memorial group
The IBMT supports the work of affiliated local International Brigade memorial groups. Annual IBMT affiliation costs £40. You can affiliate through our website: www.internationalbrigades.org.uk/membership.
DIRECTORY
l Aberdeen XV International Brigade Commemoration Committee
Contact: Tommy Campbell tommy.campbell01@outlook.com
l Belfast International Brigade Commemoration Committee
Contact: Ernest and Lynda Walker lyndaernest@btinternet.com
l IB Cymru
Contact: Mary Greening ibcymru1937@gmail.com facebook.com/groups/314892162181123
l Hull International Brigades Memorial Group
Contact: Gary Hammond thehutpeople@gmail.com
l North East Volunteers for Liberty Contact: Tony Fox NEVolunteersforliberty@gmail.com
l North West International Brigade Memorial Group Contact: Dolores Long doloreslong@fastmail.fm twitter.com/ibgtrmanchester
l Oxford International Brigade Memorial Committee
Contact: Colin Carritt colin.carritt@tiscali.co.uk
l Sussex Brigaders Remembered
Contact: Pauline Fraser pbf262@myphone.coop
International Brigade Memorial Trust
www.international-brigades.org.uk
NEXT GENERATION
u Lewis Ashworth, a history graduate from the University of Central Lancashire, speaking at Manchester Central Library in February at the North West International Brigade Memorial Group’s annual Battle of Jarama commemoration.
New voices in
ROBBIE MACDONALD reports from Manchester on how younger supporters are taking up the mantle to honour the Brigaders and spread their pro-democracy and anti-fascist message.
Lancashire men and women who volunteered with the International Brigades or supported the Aid Spain movement in the Spanish Civil War were highlighted by a University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) graduate at an IBMT regional event in February.
Lewis Ashworth, a history graduate from UCLAN in Preston, spoke about the volunteer soldiers, nurses and activists from towns including Colne, Nelson, Accrington, Burnley, Blackburn and Preston who went to Spain, along with their supporters at home in Lancashire.
He is encouraging others, including students and younger people, to explore the history of their own communities. He believes
it is important not to underestimate or overlook the important contributions and progressive values of individuals and communities in smaller British towns and villages during the Spanish Civil War – and at other times too.
Lewis gave an illustrated talk at the North West International Brigade Memorial Group’s annual Battle of Jarama commemoration held at Manchester Central Library – the venue is where the city’s International Brigade memorial is currently housed. Lewis contributed an article with in-depth profiles of different Pendle volunteers for ¡No pasarán! magazine’s January 2023 issue.
Lewis, who lives in Barrowford in the borough of Pendle, near Nelson, had help with his own
research from local Spanish Civil War campaign groups, libraries and museums, and he used local Lancashire newspaper archives too.
Regarding his university studies, Lewis highlighted Dr Máirtín Ó Catháin at UCLAN. He was Lewis’s advisor for both dissertations and supported his research on the Spanish Civil War.
Speaking after the Jarama commemoration, Lewis said:
The Spanish Civil War is an interesting topic to me as it was a fight for democracy against fascism. It was a direct predecessor to the Second World War and its outcome was a product of non-intervention and appeasement towards fascist Germany and Italy.
Particularly inspiring for me was the significant levels of support expressed by many in the UK and throughout the world towards the Spanish people.
Aware of what was happening in Spain, many ordinary working-class people sought to do something, whether that was through volunteering in Spain or organising at home to raise funds for various humanitarian causes such as Spanish Medical Aid or through
testament to the significance of the Spanish Civil War that it led people of all backgrounds to have the desire to do something, even in small towns such as those that I researched. Many perhaps would be surprised by the level of involvement that took place.
Local media in Lancashire including the Lancs Live website and Lancashire Telegraph, print and online, have published reports on
‘Most British towns and communities had at least some level of response to the Spanish Civil War and I would encourage others to research their own local communities.’
Lewis’s activity. These include details of the men and women he spoke about.
Other young participants at the Manchester event included singer Alan Percy from the Rad Trad folk music network. After the library talks, songs, poetry and memorial speeches, there were more Spanish songs and music at the Briton’s Protection pub, near Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall concert venue.
The North West International Brigade Memorial Group is keen to engage with young people in many ways. It has links to various networks and organisations with younger members and is keen to build these relationships.
Building engagement with younger people was also discussed at the IBMT’s annual general meeting in Stockton-on-Tees last year. Ideas included considering opportunities to discuss current affairs or contemporary topics alongside history or legacy issues from the Spanish Civil War.
To discuss any initiatives or events in the North West area, write to Dolores Long at doloreslong@fastmail.fm.
North West England
attempts to change the British government’s policy towards the conflict.
The same principles held by so many people back then are relevant now, especially as millions organise worldwide for causes such as that of the Palestinian people to raise awareness about what is happening, to provide funds for humanitarian causes and to influence their own government’s stance towards the conflict.
Most British towns and communities had at least some level of response to the Spanish Civil War and I would encourage others to research their own local community’s involvement. It’s a
u International Brigade memorial in Manchester, currently in the Central Library during renovation work to the Town Hall.
q Singers Alan Percy, left, and Michael Burns at the Jarama commemoration in Manchester in February this year.
HARRY ADDLEY
First, I want to thank Tom Millard and the students of Dover Grammar School for Girls from the bottom of my heart for their dedication, time and effort in bringing the story of Harry Addley and his comrades to life. In doing so, they have connected so many dots between my grandfather and me.
My father was just five years old when his father, Harry, left for Spain. So when I was born in 1963, 27 years had passed since my grandfather died, and my grandmother had remarried twice. My father was given the name of her second husband, Rogers, and consequently so was I.
It was not until I was in my 20s that my father spoke of a book, telling me that there was a character in it called Harry Addley who also had the nickname ‘Tich’ and that he was a relation of
TRINITY BUCKLEY describes how she learnt about her grandfather, Harry Addley (pictured), who fought and died in Spain. This is what she said at the unveiling of a plaque in Dover to Addley and the other volunteers from south east Kent in December last year.
mine. Other than that, my father never spoke of his past. He passed away in 2012.
As I grew older I became more curious. Sadly, my nana, Harry’s widow, passed away in 1989, but, even though I had a lovely relationship with her, it was not until after she died that I realised I had so many questions to ask her.
During the 1990s, I discovered that Harry was actually my paternal grandfather, and therefore I should have been an Addley. Fast forward to 2017 and, love it or hate it, Facebook is an incredible thing. I discovered a Facebook group called ‘Are you an Addley?’. So I joined and posted on there, asking if anyone knew Harry Addley, who died in the
Bringing the story of Harry Addley to life
t History teacher
Tom Millard, with pupils from Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar School, Canterbury, who played ‘The Internationale’ at the Dover plaque unveiling. Tom led the research project at Dover Grammar School for Girls for an exhibition at the Urban Room in Folkestone in 2022 about the local volunteers who fought in Spain. This led to contact being made with Harry Addley’s family.
Spanish Civil War in 1936, adding that he was my granddad.
A whole year after posting the question, I heard from someone called Kevin Addley. It turned out that Kevin’s grandfather was Harry’s brother, so Kevin was my second cousin. He also gave me a lot of information on Harry’s mother and maternal grandparents, who were Romany Gypsies.
New Zealand
Kevin lives in New Zealand and earlier this year, for my 60th birthday, my husband surprised me with a trip out to meet him in person. I suddenly had more family, but also more questions. What I couldn’t understand was why my grandfather left his wife and young family to go and fight in Spain. What drove him to take that action?
Life moved on and questions remained unanswered, until this year.
As it happens, I live in Spain. On 1 July, I was sitting inside hiding from the summer heat and for some reason, we had a different radio station on. It was a BBC London radio station and the DJ [Robert Elms] mentioned that he was going to be attending the annual commemoration of the International Brigade Memorial Trust honouring those who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
I immediately started researching. I found names and email addresses, and the email trail eventually and quite quickly led me to Tom Millard, and also to the book my father had spoken of all those years before. The book is called ‘Boadilla’ by Esmond Romilly. I bought two copies, one for myself and one for Kevin.
I had a strange mixture of feelings when I read ‘Boadilla’. It was wonderful to read about the actions of my grandfather, and reading the conversations he had with his comrades made me feel quite close to him.
This is where Esmond Romilly writes a brief description of Harry …
Harry Addley was so small that his men automatically called him Tich. That was when he was a sergeant in the Buffs in the World War. The name stuck – he was called Tich when he was a group leader in the Thälmann Battalion in Spain.
u Trinity Buckley (right) with her cousin Kevin Addley.
u Eric Segal (seated) and Mike Sargent of the South East Kent Trade Union Council, whose support, along with that of the RMT, facilitated the raising of the plaque to the local International Brigaders.
During four days of the greatest slaughter in history – the Battle of the Somme –thousands of Englishmen lay dead and dying in No Man’s Land. Tich was able to climb into a shell hole. It was all he could do, for a piece of shrapnel was lodged in his thigh. He was there all the four days.
After the war, he kept a restaurant in Dover. ‘Harry’s’ was well known; it and its owners were well liked. All of Tich’s organising ability went into it. He did the cooking. His partner, Arthur ‘Babs’ Ovenden, was his greatest friend. This man had gone
CONTINUED OVERLEAF
‘It is incredible to think that almost 87 years after his death we are still talking about him and his comrades, and also that his name features in so many places, digitally and physically.’
Stuart Brock
HARRY ADDLEY
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
into the war as a pilot at the age of seventeen.
Both were communists. They did not have a sudden impulse to go and fight in Spain –they thought it all out carefully before they decided that their experience would make their services some use to the Spanish people. They took their own boots and their own uniform with them
However, it was quite harrowing to read about what my Tich, Babs, Romilly, Jeans, Birch, Messer and so many others had to endure throughout the few months they were fighting.
And even though I knew that Tich did not survive beyond Boadilla, I was almost willing him to keep his head down. Then, when the fascists took hold of that battle, I felt like I lost my grandfather all over again.
Death
Business partners to Spain
According to Esmond Romilly, who fought alongside Harry, my grandfather died in battle at Boadilla del Monte on 20 December 1936, fighting for what he believed in, and I feel immensely proud to share the same bloodline. There are certainly many characteristics of him that live on in me.
It is incredible to think that almost 87 years after his death we are still talking about him and his comrades, and also that his name features in so many places, digitally and physically.
And the truly amazing thing for me is that, through all of this – and with the help of some serendipity – he is bringing his family, spread across New Zealand, the UK and myself in Spain, together.
The memorial and unveiling of the plaque mean so much to me, and especially to get a feel for what drove Harry to take the course of action that he did.
I feel so incredibly proud and grateful that this now exists on behalf of Harry and all the comrades who fought and lost their lives for the cause.
‘Even though I knew that Tich did not survive beyond Boadilla, I was almost willing him to keep his head down.’
Henry ‘Harry’ Addley was born in Folkestone in 1896 and ran a fish restaurant, ‘Harry’s, in the town, with friend and business partner Arthur ‘Babs’ Ovenden (1899-1982).
In October 1936 they travelled to Spain to join the fight against fascism. This was before the British Battalion had been established, so they were assigned to an English-speaking zug (company) in the newly formed German Thälmann Battalion.
Babs (pictured right) returned from Spain after Harry was killed at Boadilla del Monte in December 1936. In 1939, he was running a café in Exeter.
Their exploits are described in ‘Boadilla’ by fellow zug fighter Esmond Romilly, published in 1937. Romilly was a nephew of Winston Churchill. A pilot in the Second World War, he died in 1941.
p Plaque to the International Brigade volunteers from south east Kent at Maritime House, offices of the RMT union in Dover. The plaque was unveiled on 13 December 2023.
q Harry’s seafront restaurant at 1 Dover Street (now Harbour Way) in Folkestone.
Stuart Brock
THE LOUGHBOROUGH CONFERENCE
RICHARD BAXELL
looks back at the 1976 Loughborough conference that marked the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.
When old soldiers met
In popular memory, the summer of 1976 is remembered mainly for the prolonged heatwave, which placed severe restrictions on the use of water and led to the infamous slogan, ‘Save Water, Bath with a Friend’. However, on 31 July 1976 there was scant sign of a heatwave in the Nottingham village of Stanford on Soar, just north of Loughborough. Instead, a typical British drizzle was falling.
Fortunately, the weather was of little concern to the mostly retired men and women arriving at Stanford Hall, an 18th century grade II listed country house. The elegant building, home to the Cooperative College, was to host an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. It had been organised by the Manchester committee of the International Brigade Association, with the bulk of the work undertaken by the committee’s treasurer, Nellie Edgar, and Bessie Wild, a director of the cooperative college and the wife of the former British Battalion commander in Spain, Sam Wild.
While attendees were asked to pay for their board and lodging, much of the cost was raised by donations from sympathetic organisations across the left, a sign of the enduring affection and respect in which the veterans of the war in Spain were held.
It was an appropriate moment for a reunion,
for dramatic changes were underway in Spain. Since the death of Franco the previous November, the Iberian country had begun its slow and tentative transition to democracy. The new Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez, had announced on 16 July – two weeks before the beginning of the reunion – that free and democratic elections would be held the
‘Minds began to turn to the importance of preserving the legacy of those who had fought for democracy in Spain.’
following year. The prospect of what the veterans had long fought and campaigned for led to the IBA going through its own small transition.
Minds began to turn to the importance of preserving the legacy of those who had fought for democracy in Spain. While a number of veterans had written memoirs and IBA Secretary Nan Green was making heroic efforts to establish an archive in the Marx Memorial
Library, no official history of the volunteers had been written since Bill Rust’s 1939 ‘Britons in Spain’. Nor was there a national memorial, though plans were in place to erect a monument in Glasgow. The reunion allowed veterans an opportunity both to take stock and to consider how the IBA might evolve in future years.
The week’s events began with an official welcome from Walter Frost, President of the Norwest Cooperative Society, before participants were entertained by that staple of 1970s social functions: the cheese and wine party.
The following day, the serious business began with an introductory talk on the background to the war in Spain by Aberdeen communist Bob Cooney, who had served as a political commissar in Spain. Over the following days talks were given by Tony McLean, the one-time censor in Spain, then a lecturer at the University of Kent; by Bill Alexander, another former political commissar and also one of three commanders of the British Battalion to attend; by IBA Secretary and former administrator at Valdeganga hospital, Nan Green; and the week concluded with a lecture on the significance of the war by the influential labour historian, Professor John Saville.
Each of the talks was followed by a
Marx Memorial Library
u Nine volunteers at the conference, from left to right: Garry McCartney, Bob Cooney, Alex Ferguson, William Kelly, Peter Kerrigan, Arthur Nicoll, Sid Quinn, Unknown and George Drever.
Pictured above:
1. Bobby Walker
2. Tony McLean
3. Fred Copeman
4. Peter Kerrigan
5. John Tunnah
6. Albert Charlesworth
7. Bob Cooney
8. Eddie Frow
9. John Peet
10. Unknown
11. Bernard McKenna
12. Sid Booth
13. George Leeson
14. Jim Brown
15. Maurice Levine
16. Alex Ferguson
17. Sid Quinn
18. Bil Feeley
20. Joe Norman
21. Sam Wild
22. Albert Cole
23. Harry Fraser
24. Pat Curry
25. Bob Doyle
26. Mrs Jim Brown
27. Joyce Bellamy
28.Winifred
29. Nellie Edgar
30. Kath Hadden
31. George Drever
32. Mary Levine
33. Arthur Nicoll
34. Elsie Booth
35. Harold King
36. Mrs John Tunnah
37.
19. Bill Alexander
Sandford (Bates)
Margaret McLean
Mike Wild
43. Isobel Brown
44. J Oscar Yates
45. Thomas Fanning
46. Tommy Hadwin
47. Tom Hurley
discussion, though comments mainly echoed what had been said by the speakers and there were few dissenting voices. Several took the opportunity to push back against some of the hostile claims and myths that surrounded the International Brigades and the war in Spain, such as the (then) popular notion that Spain was a ‘poets’ war’.
One (unidentified) speaker criticised George Orwell for having been ‘a political romantic’. He attacked the revolutionary interpretation of the civil war by the Partido
‘It was foreign intervention which determined the outcome of the war. Non-intervention strangled the Spanish Republic, Bill Alexander explained bitterly.’
Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). To loud applause, he described the conflict as an invasion, rather than a civil war.
Above all, speaker after speaker angrily denounced the role of the British government.
‘It was foreign intervention which determined the outcome of the war … non-intervention strangled the Spanish Republic,’ Bill Alexander explained bitterly.
But it would be wrong to suggest that there were no criticisms. Liverpudlian Pat Curry insisted that it was important to face up to the manifest weaknesses, problems and failings in the Brigades, singling out the ‘appalling’ conditions in the barracks at Albacete. A number of other veterans raised the poor standard of many recruits, some of whom were inveterate drunks: ‘They were sending people out who had no bloody right to be in Spain at all,’ one former volunteer complained.
However, when the truculent former battalion commander Fred Copeman complained in typically blunt fashion that, ‘if this is going to be a historical conference, we
THE LOUGHBOROUGH CONFERENCE
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
want the truth, not bloody dreams’, his remark was met by a deafening silence.
Yet while the lectures and consequent discussions formed an important part of the week’s activities, the key purpose of the event was ‘not just to exchange reminiscences and greet old comrades, but to produce a taped archive for future historians’.
Consequently, teams of interviewers led by Bill Williams of Manchester Polytechnic and Margaret Brooks of the Imperial War Museum were present to record not just the lectures and discussions but, crucially, to interview those who had been involved in the struggle.
Over the course of the week more than 75 hours of interview material was recorded, providing invaluable accounts from the participants themselves of what it was like to be involved in the fight for Spanish democracy. As the Morning Star pointed out, the interviewing of the
veterans was an ‘unprecedented pioneering effort’, creating a resource on which historians have been relying ever since.
The reunion also marked the beginning of a fruitful period for the publication of accounts of British men and women in the war in Spain. Two of the speakers at Loughborough – Tony McLean and Bill Alexander – were both working on what would become important and influential histories of the volunteers and the Aid Spain movement.
Furthermore, members of the audience, such as Maurice Levine from Cheetham, would be inspired to write their own memoirs. Judith Cook, who was there as a reporter, later went on to write ‘Apprentices of Freedom’, based on her own interviews.
The event also had another, longer-term consequence, for it probably provided the spur for another veteran, David Goodman, to set up his long-standing Spanish Civil
War summer school in the Staffordshire village of Barlaston. While the passing of time meant there were inevitably fewer and fewer veterans around to be interviewed, the summer school otherwise followed the Loughborough format, with talks and lectures on the war, followed by informed discussions.
The summer school was still going in 1999, offering a (then) young PhD student the vital opportunity to meet and talk to veterans and historians. It was an opportunity for which I am forever grateful and my work on the involvement of British men and women in the Spanish Civil War undoubtedly owes much both to the reunion at Barlaston, and to its forerunner held at Stanford Hall in Loughborough, almost 50 years ago.
Richard Baxell is the IBMT’s Historical Consultant. His latest book is ‘Forged in Spain’, published last year by The Clapton Press.
t Women at the conference, from left to right: Isobel Brown, Nellie Edgar, Rose Kerrigan, Mary Levine, Kath Hadden, Elsie Booth, Mary Slater, Winifred Bates, Mrs John Tunnah and Mrs Jim Brown. Marx Memorial Library
DAVID MACKENZIE
Back to life in Scotland
MIKE ARNOTT recounts a mission to uncover the fate of Brigader David Mackenzie and overleaf shares the late MORAG PARNELL’s childhood memories of David.
David Mackenzie joined up while a student (of Medicine at Edinburgh University) and was one of the first British volunteers in Spain. He had been reported as killed in action, but surprised colleagues in Edinburgh by later turning up in the city very much alive.
On 8 February 1937, there was a report in the Dundee Courier of a public meeting of 3,000 in the Caird Hall on Spain the previous evening, addressed by David Mackenzie, son of Rear Admiral Mackenzie; Bob Stewart, Communist Party; and Mr W Sawyers, ILP.
At a public meeting in Coatbridge the previous month, Mackenzie was quoted as stating that
‘The son was a confirmed communist; the father, a rear admiral in the Royal Navy, epitomising the very model of imperial militarism. The rift was irreconcilable.’
weapons provided for the Spanish government forces by the Soviets were those left behind by the invaders of the Soviet Union, including Britain, in 1919-1921. Mackenzie had arrived back in the UK on 5 January 1937, so he seems to have gone pretty much straight onto the propaganda circuit on behalf of Republican Spain.
But back to Spain. Scottish Ambulance Unit driver Thomas Watters was often called upon to undertake what might be considered 'special duties'. On one such occasion in November 1936, he was asked to accompany the Scottish Ambulance Unit's Commandant Fernanda Jacobsen to the headquarters of General Emilio Kleber. Their mission was to discover the fate of a certain Scottish volunteer, a young medical student
u David Mackenzie on the front page of the Daily Worker on 28 December 1936, soon after his return from Spain.
who had forsaken his studies to serve the Republic. His distraught mother had read of his death in the fighting around Madrid's University City and she had asked Sir Daniel Stevenson (Glasgow philanthropist and organiser of the Scottish Ambulance Unit) to intercede for her and find out if the report was accurate or not.
The interview with General Kleber confirmed that he was still alive but had no wish to have anything further to do with his family. That being the case, the general felt that he had discharged his obligation and could assist no further.
Prior to his leaving Scotland the young Mackenzie had had an acrimonious confrontation with his father. Their political positions were diametrically opposed. The son was a confirmed
communist; the father, a rear admiral in the Royal Navy, epitomising the very model of imperial militarism. The rift was irreconcilable.
Despite the general's ruling, Commandant Jacobsen had her own agenda. She was resolved to find the young man and teach him his filial duty. She instructed Tom Watters to get ready very early the following morning so that they might go to the sector where he was serving. This they did, but finding the precise location of his group proved difficult.
After several misdirections, they had the good fortune of picking up one of his comrades who was able to take them directly to him. Then, after subjecting the rear admiral's son to a lecture in
DAVID MACKENZIE
Morag Parnell on the Brigader who came to Ballachulish
Iwas a child at primary school in Ballachulish in the Scottish Highlands when the Second World War happened. Some time into the war my parents had a visitor: David Mackenzie came to stay. He needed a quiet, caring place to recover from his exertions in the Spanish Civil War. He had, in fact, been left for dead, but someone noticed he was still breathing.
David was a Cambridge graduate and the son of a high-ranking military father (a Rear Admiral) who had disowned him when he went to Spain. He was a source of great interest in our village.
My memory is of David sitting at one side of the red chenille-covered table tapping out on his portable typewriter, recording his Spanish experiences and me at the other, doing my homework. What a privilege!
Later, a house was found in the village for David and he brought his wife and baby daughter to join us. They had a little son after they left us. I remember the very expensive clothes his mother sent to his wife.
He also brought three goats. My father and friends built a goat shed up on the hillside and I was
recruited to milk the goats – after I had rounded them up from the hillside after school.
The village of Ballachulish has an interesting industrial slate quarrying history. My forebears were very much involved in the many disputes. Some of this was recorded by Howard Kirk in his book 'Custom and Conflict in the "Land of the Gael": Ballachulish, 1900-1910'. I have tried to recall some of that history for my children, as told to me by my father.
In addition to the intense political activity in our house, and the village, my father and David started a Socialist Sunday School. After some time, complaints started to roll in from the Christian sections of the village. In a small village, such antagonism was untenable, so the school was run down. It was great while it lasted. We did, however, have the first-ever colourful May Day parade through the village.
DrMoragParnell(1926-2023)workedasaGP,a radio presenter and broadcaster. She spent much of the 1970s and 80s campaigning on issues such as nuclear disarmament and was a co-founder of the Women’s Environmental Network.
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
which she described his mother's distress, Jacobsen succeeded in extracting a promise from him that he would write to her and put her mind at rest.
It is very likely that as a consequence of this meeting, contact was made. Mackenzie returned to Edinburgh, his revolutionary Marxist zeal undiminished.
On 12 December, the DailyWorker confirmed that the rumours of his death had indeed been exaggerated. David Mackenzie was thereafter known as 'back from the dead' Mackenzie. He had been serving in the ranks of the French Marseillaise Battalion's machine gun section in which group he had distinguished himself.
In his book 'Boadillia', an autobiographical account of his service with the German Thä lmann Battalion, Churchill's
‘Sitting at another table was David Mackenzie, who said: I've come to deny the reports that I've been killed.’
nephew Esmond Romilly describes an encounter with Mackenzie while on leave in Madrid:
Sitting at another table with a group of English journalists was David Mackenzie; he was a member of the British machine-gun group attached to the Marseillaise Battalion. 'I've come to deny the reports that I've been killed,' I heard him saying:
We compared a few experiences together. They had been in the Clinic building (in Madrid's university campus) while we were attacking the White House…'I know all about you' he told me, 'from one of our chaps who knows you.'
'Who's that?'
'John Cornford.'
I met John Cornford when I was 15 and trying to start a public schoolboys anti-war paper at Wellington College. Mackenzie told us that all their group had asked for a transfer from their battalion to join us. They thought the Germans were easier to get on with than the French. I thought the reverse, but I didn't say so.
Mike Arnott is the IBMT Scotland Secretary.
David Mackenzie, pictured farming in the Western Isles.
TSCHAPAIEW BATTALION
Fighters from 21 nations
NANCY PHILLIPS on a lesser-known battalion that embodied the internationalist ideals of the International Brigades.
It was at the Battle of Jarama commemoration of 2022 that I first heard about a battalion of the Dombrowski Brigade that was composed of Brigaders from 21 nations. I was floored. Here was a battalion of the International Brigades that actually embodied its international ideals. Could such a battalion actually have existed? And functioned?
As I learned, it did exist and it did function, superbly. It was called the Tschapaiew Battalion and there was actually a book about it: ‘Tschapaiew: Das Battalion der 21 Nationen' edited by a man named Alfred Kantorowicz.
The story of the Tschapaiew Battalion began in November 1936, when it was founded at the headquarters of the International Brigades in Albacete as part of the XIII Brigade. The battalion was named after the legendary Bolshevik guerrilla killed during the Russian civil war. It fought in the Spanish Republican Army through the places of fiercest fighting up to the Battle of Brunete, when it was essentially wiped out and then disbanded.
The history of the XIII Brigade is unique among the International Brigades, according to Kantorowicz, first, because the XIII Brigade fought on isolated fronts since its foundation. All the other International Brigades had, until August 1937, been engaged in the defence of Madrid, but the XIII Brigade was engaged in offensive fights on other important fronts: Teruel, Málaga, the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, Granada, Pozoblanco, until, with the other International Brigades, it participated in the Brunete offensive.
Second, the other brigades were, leaving aside the first months of the war, basically formed by two or three dominant nationalities. But, the XIII Brigade, from the beginning until its dissolution, contained 25 nationalities in all. And, one of its battalions, the Tschapaiew, was the most international
battalion of the entire Spanish Republican Army.
In the Tschapaiew Battalion, there were often 20 nationalities, sometimes more. Until the end there was a very strong Polish contingent, which at some point became as large as the German: specifically the 2nd Company of the battalion, which was always a Polish company, whose officers were mostly Polish and whose newspaper was written in Polish. The MachineGun Company was made up mostly of Austrians and Spaniards.
But the most international company of all was the 3rd Company. Alongside the Spaniards and Germans, were many Hungarians, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Yugoslavs, Luxembourgers, Swiss, Norwegians, Italians, French and Ukrainians. In the 1st Company, Germans, Swiss and Spanish predominated, and with
‘Language difficulties were overcome by Brigaders’ consideration of one another’s differences and by exemplary comradeship.’
them were groups of Czechs and Palestinians. This extraordinary internationality is what made the Tschapaiew Battalion unique.
In June 1937, the composition of the
Tschapaiew Battalion was as follows: German 79; Polish 67; Spanish 59; Austrian 41; Swiss 20; Palestinian 20; Dutch 14; Czech 13; Hungarian 11; Swedish 10; Yugoslavian 9; Danes 9; French 8; Norwegian 7; Italian 7; Luxembourg 5; Ukrainian 4; Belgian 2; Russian 2; Greek 1; Brazilian 1.
The Tschapaiew’s Battle Commissar, Ewald Fischer, did not try to minimise the difficulties in welding together this ‘language Babylon’ into a functioning military unit: translating orders from one language to another three or four times, balancing out national differences. But Fischer maintained that these difficulties were overcome by Brigaders’ consideration of one another’s differences and by exemplary comradeship; as a result, all agree that the Tschapaiews fought with great success on various fronts up until its dissolution after Brunete.
During the eight months of its existence, the battalion was always at the front, without relief or rest. Battalion members endured great hardships: the deaths of comrades, long transfers from one front to another, supply difficulties, scorching heat in the south and freezing cold on the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada.
Now, to the origin of ‘Tschapaiew: Das CONTINUED OVERLEAF
p The cover of Alfred Kantorowicz’s book, ‘Tschapaiew: Das Battalion der 21 Nationen’.
TSCHAPAIEW BATTALION
Battalion der 21 Nationen’. Alfred Kantorowicz, its editor, came to the Spanish front from exile in Paris – he had fled Germany as a Communist Party member in March 1933. In Paris, he had worked with others on ‘The Brown Book on the Reichstag Fire and Hitler’s Terror’. In Spain, he was instrumental in founding the front-line magazine of the International Brigades, Le Volontaire de la Liberté , published in German, French and English.
While still editor of the magazine, he was sent to the Córdoba front as information officer to the Tschapaiew Battalion. He found increasing dissatisfaction in the battalion with its continuous deployment to the front without leave or hope of relief. By the time Kantorowicz arrived, the volunteers’ spirits had reached a low point.
As Kantorowicz discovered, they felt forgotten, unacknowledged. He came to believe that they had to be convinced through black and white evidence that their sacrifice, their sufferings, were remembered, that their victories were not erased, that their dead were not forgotten. He began to plan for a book that would provide the evidence in the form of authentic documents and a body of narrative texts. All nationalities would be involved.
In putting the book together, Kantorowicz selected and assembled testimonies from 78 Brigaders of 13 nationalities. The book contained around 200 articles, accompanied by photographs, portraits, maps, caricatures from the wall and battalion newspapers and drawings. The Brigaders’ writings were unedited, and it is this that makes them so interesting and so moving.
‘Tschapaiew: Das Battalion der 21 Nationen’ was first published in Madrid in February 1938. It was not intended for a large number of readers but rather for the narrow circle of the surviving comrades Kantorowicz also wanted the book to convey to the German-speaking comrades of the other international units the achievements and sacrifices of this ‘forgotten’ XIII Brigade, which had distinguished itself since its foundation.
Over the years he came to believe, and I must agree, that the history of Tschapaiew Battalion is really the history of all the fighters of the International Brigades and part of antifascist history. It is, also, a wonderful book of the Spanish Civil War from the perspective of the Republican fighters.
u Illustration taken from the book showing the route taken by the XIII Brigade.
On the Málaga front
Extract from ‘Tschapaiew: Das Battalion der 21 Nationen’ by Alfred Kantorowicz …
These days of reorganisation [in Requena in January/February 1937] were full of concern for the fate of Málaga. When it was known that Málaga had fallen – it was learned at the same time that the alarm order was given for the [Tschapaiew] Battalion – no comrade had any other thought or desire than to go to the threatened South Front to plug the gap. (…)
The battalion advanced singing after a long journey in trucks; they sang as they entered the newly bombed Almería and sang as they marched along the Almería-Málaga road.
What they found: on this road was an unfathomable mass of people fleeing to the East: tens of thousands, mothers with children in their arms, old people barefoot, militiamen who were alive but shattered, lying down, staggering, crawling, fleeing in front of the fascists, whose beastly hordes were coming after them.
Hundreds, thousands of these people lay in the ditches along the road, fainting from hunger and weakness, killed or injured by machine guns and bombs and the planes that were crushing, without stopping, this current of the poor and poorest.
Seeing this, the songs of the comrades fell silent. Then our voices rose again, but in a very different way. We understood what we were seeing, and we sang without the slightest joy, as a means of transmitting our own understanding, our own strength. The morale
effect was great. This battalion that walked singing against the enemy, hundreds of disciplined soldiers, returned confidence and strength to those who were fleeing.
From the mountains to which they had fled, some of the inhabitants of the coastal villages returned to the homes that they had abandoned. Many who were on their way to Almería, turned around. Hundreds of militiamen asked to be part of our battalion, and soon showed that they did not lack courage or military capacity, that they had not fled out of cowardice or the superiority of the enemy, but because they had been betrayed, sold out, abandoned and had panicked.
In Albuñol, we found the outposts of the Republican Army, the 6th Brigade, which, alone and unshakable, kept its guard there. (From this comes the close friendship between the VI and the XIII Brigades, which later, when we were shoulder to shoulder on the Pozoblanco front for a long time, continued and was reinforced.) Assured by the 6th Brigade, the battalion advanced a few more kilometers along the coastal road, consolidated our right flank in the mountains, and captured the important city of Calahonda from the fascists.
On 11 February the battalion was removed from Requena, on the 13th it arrived at the Southern Front and on the 18th it took up advanced positions against Motril, in anticipation of possible attacks on the right flank that were planned by the fascists from the Granada front.
However, the impression of these few days spent on the Málaga front remain unforgettable for all comrades and have a special place in the history of the battalion.
‘Perfidious
Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War’ by Paul Preston (The Clapton Press, 2024).
Paul Preston’s latest book is a collection of seven essays covering aspects of the relationship between Britain and the Spanish Civil War. Although some previously appeared in academic journals, their republication in this volume – along with others which are new – is very welcome, making them available to a wider readership. Although the title refers to the contrast between the high-minded claims of British government support for non-intervention and the reality of a policy which favoured the military rebels, the collection discusses a range of British responses to the conflict. The first three chapters, focussing on government policy, complement each other: the first explores the motives behind tacit support for Franco’s rebels, while the two succeeding chapters examine policy towards the Republican administrations in Catalonia and the Basque province of Vizcaya.
Class
While appeasement has often been seen as an attempt to avoid a European war, Preston points to other motives. He highlights the class interests of the Conservative party and British government, stressing the similar backgrounds and common educational experiences of British and Spanish elites. The establishments in London and Paris were, as he puts it, ‘inclined to let their class prejudices take precedence over British and French strategic interests.’ Among British diplomats who shared this hostility towards
Britain’s hostility to the Republic laid bare
the Republic were several of those in key positions – Sir Henry Chilton, the Ambassador; Norman King, Consul-General in Barcelona; and Sir Robert Hodgson, appointed British Commercial Agent to the Franco regime in November 1937.
King’s dispatches to London reveal his hostility to the Catalan President, Lluis Companys, portraying him as an accomplice (or puppet) of the Anarchists, a reflection, no doubt, of the views of the right-wing circles in which he moved. Whether deliberately or otherwise, he completely misinterpreted the complex political situation in Catalonia in 1936-37, failing to recognise that, along with Companys, both the Catalan nationalist Esquerra and the Catalan Communist Party (PSUC) were growing more powerful and were marginalising supporters of revolution. Preston contrasts King’s denigration of
‘While appeasement has often been seen as an attempt to avoid a European war, Preston points to other motives.’
Companys with the more nuanced views of the right-wing hispanist, Alison Peers. As the author points out, there was, in 1936-37, wide sympathy in Britain for the plight of the Basques. Until retirement in late 1937, Ambassador Chilton passed the war in the French resort of San Jean de Luz, from where he sent dispatches based on the views of his friend, Major Julian Troncoso, the Francoist governor of Irun. The isolation of Vizcaya after August 1936 made shipping routes into Bilbao crucial. Francoist claims to have established a blockade of Bilbao raised questions of freedom of navigation and the role of the British navy in enabling Britishregistered vessels to trade.
Failure
If the role of Chilton and King indicate the influence which diplomats could have on their governments, their views were shared by the British government. In the case of the Bilbao ‘blockade’, however, Preston details the role of The Times journalist George Steer and his friend the Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker in
p IBMT Founding Chair Paul Preston at the IBMT’s annual commemoration in Jubilee Gardens, London.
‘Bullets
for Spain / Bullet for Chamberlain’: protests against the
When the theatre went to war
FSoldiers in the Fog’ by Antonio Soler, translated by Kathryn Phillips-Miles & Simon Deefholts (The Clapton Press, 2023).
rom the beginning of his posting to a new unit, the young soldier Gustavo Sintora has written of his experiences in notebooks, and it is this account that feeds most of the story of the ‘Soldiers in the Fog’.
The notebooks had been given to the former commander of the unit, Corporal Soler Vera, by Sintora, who remained friends with other survivors too, long after the war had ended, and they had been passed down to Soler Vera’s son, who remembers meeting the ageing Sintora as a regular visitor to his home.
At first, the Mobile Entertainment Unit seems to be a fun place to be. Its members are mostly in charge of the repair and maintenance of the lorries that take supplies to other units, but they also ferry the members of the Entertainment Unit around the country, and they are all billeted in a large, comfortable house, with the owner ever present – we never know whether he’s a prisoner or someone who might be useful at some point.
Also, nearby is a factory where uniforms and other clothes are made and distributed from – and this is where Sintora meets his life-love, Serena Vergara, who it transpires is married to the most mysterious and frightening man in the whole unit.
I know that soldiers often say that the worst thing about fighting in a war is the boredom and the waiting and wondering if the next battle you’re involved in will be your last – or if you will be
‘When things are desperate for the Republic, there is the deep sense of loss and grief, which as we know lasted for many years to come.’
strong enough to stand up to the challenge and the danger.
However, for most of the time the soldiers in the book aren’t too bothered about this aspect of war,
British government’s policy of non-intervention in London on May Day in 1938.
BOOKS
PAGE 19
exposing the false claims of the rebels (Basque trawlers adapted as minesweepers ensured that the estuary of the Rio Nervión was clear of mines and coastal batteries defended territorial waters). They also highlighted the Royal Navy’s failure to ensure British-registered ships could safely navigate in international waters. Pressure from the newspapers – the Daily Herald asking, ‘Why Have a Navy?’ – from the public, and from Noel-Baker and others in parliament forced a change in policy and the navy was ordered to assist British merchant shipping on the high seas.
Medics
Contrasting with this picture of the duplicity and hypocrisy of the British government, the volume includes two chapters examining the selfless work of three doctors: Len Crome, Reggie Saxton and Norman Bethune. These provide further evidence of the importance of British and other foreign medical staff to the Spanish Republic.
Bethune played an important early role in the development of an effective and efficient blood transfusion service which saved many lives but Preston focusses on his witnessing the bombardment by the Francoist navy and Italian planes of the refugees fleeing towards Almería from Málaga after its fall in February 1937. A brief edited version of this chapter was published in the January 2024 edition of ¡No Pasarán!
Like George Steer’s account of the destruction of Guernica and Jay Allen’s dispatch describing General Yague’s massacres in Badajoz, ‘The Crime on the Road Málaga-Almería’, Bethune’s hastily written pamphlet, helped to reveal the
‘This is a volume full of assorted delights. It should be on the bookshelves of anyone seriously interested in modern Spanish history.’
brutality of the Francoist forces and their allies to the outside world. In common with them, of course, it failed to fundamentally alter British policy towards the war.
Orwell
The final two chapters examine the influence of four writers on British perceptions of the war. The inclusion of Preston’s article on George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’, originally published in 2017, is particularly welcome.
which seems to be very far away.
The entertainers are a motley group of circus performers, including singers, dancers, dwarves and magicians. And the soldiers who travel around with
As Preston points out, ‘Homage to Catalonia’ is for many people ‘the only book on the Spanish Civil War that they will ever read.’ All of them should read his assessment of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. The former – Orwell’s eye for detail and his descriptive ability – are acknowledged, but Preston stresses the author’s lack of background knowledge and understanding of Spain, his ignorance of the causes of the war and the limited experience on which the book is based.
His critique is particularly effective since he uses Orwell’s later writings – notably the 1942 essay ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ – where Orwell himself recognises some of his earlier errors.
The final chapter examines the work of Orwell and three other writers – Gerald Brenan, Burnett Bolloten and Herbert Southworth – in relation to the efforts of two institutions – the Congress for Cultural Freedom (financed by the CIA) and the Information Research Department of the British Foreign Office – to influence the writing of Spanish Civil War history in the context of the emergence of the Franco regime as an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union.
It should, by now, be apparent, that this is a volume full of assorted delights, rather like a box of your favourite chocolates. It should be on the bookshelves of anyone seriously interested in modern Spanish history.
CHARLIE NURSE
them on buses and lorries as well as the workers in the factory are also part of that strange mixture of people who are only brought together because of a war, which at first seems very distant. The characters are often funny and their stories entertaining but most have lived hard lives even before the war made things much, much, worse.
Towards the end of the war, when things are desperate for the Spanish Republic, they are sent to fight at the Ebro, and suffer many casualties and injuries.
These chapters are horrific and disturbing, and when the Fascists declared victory and it is obvious that the only choice they have is to get away, back to their homes, or take the long march to the unwelcoming French border, there is the deep sense of loss and grief, which as we know lasted for many years to come.
T o sum up, ‘Soldiers in the Fog’ is a good read, entertaining, insightful and an honest account of what it was like to be fighting against an enemy at home.
MARLENE SIDAWAY
p Members of La Barraca mobile theatre group, with Federico García Lorca (second from left, front row); this book features a similar group of touring entertainers.
WORD
Inspired to put it in verse
One Year On *
I see them
These proud parents
Of shiny, smiling kids all bright and ready for First Day of Big School
Who laugh at the reports of another shipwreck in the Med and happily type
‘Good, one less load of vermin over here’
As the photos of drowned babies are shared around the world
These patriots
Upholders of British values and protectors of their womenfolk
Who cannot quite decide if I’m too ugly to be touched
Or deserve to be raped until I bleed
And then I’ll be sorry
These men
Who read my words then consider and carefully craft their response
‘You’re fat.’
‘I bet you eat cake. LOL.’
TABITHA MCGOWAN, a Stockton-born playwright, performance poet and author, presents two poems she recited at the 2023 IBMT annual general meeting on Teesside.
(And for the record, yes I do. Cake is great.)
These historians
Who inform me that Antifa are the real Nazis and Hitler was a socialist
Whilst the ghosts of the trades unionists
The communists
The leftists
First to be consumed in Dachau’s maw
Quietly weep
And Johnny Longstaff** turns
Restless in his gentle grave
These scholars
Who state that there is no racism in ‘Are Cuntry you stupid bitch’
As they let loose their pantheon of gorilla emojis and wittily-misspelt slurs to creep past the censor
And smirk as they write about ovens that could not have cooked so many loaves of bread
These family men
Who assure me they don’t have a
Epitaph for the Brigaders International Brigade
May the olive groves build your catafalque
May they give their branches to raise you
From the terracotta dust
May the lizards, the otters, the larks
File past your bier in silent benediction
May the clouds pour down their libations
May they cleanse your phantom form with soft rain
May the sweet orange blossoms fall
Around your head
A wreath from the Earth herself
May the cicadas sing your requiem
May its susurrus be carried on the breath of the Cierzo
Carried to the ears of those who have forgotten
Those who still mourn
Those who have not heard a single word
Of your ultimate act of love
racist bone in their body sweetheart
Because they have a Pakistani mate and their cousin married a man from one of them Arab countries
And once they worked with this fella who used to love the Black and White Minstrels and he was black himself so what do you think about that snowflake?
And circling around their profile picture
(The only time I’ll kneel is when I’m holding a Really Big Fish)
Are the banners proclaiming EDL NFSE White Lives Matter
I see them.
We glibly call you monsters at our peril
For monsters are rare creatures
Freaks of nature
Who emerge fully-formed from their lairs and can be vanquished by heroes
They are not us
But you are us
You are human
Born and raised and nurtured on our own soil
You look like us
You talk like us
And every Brownshirt was somebody’s baby
Oh, I see you
We see you
And we kneel together
And stand together
Brothers, sisters, siblings
Or else we fall apart
My Stockton-born feet are planted in our shared earth and I continue the cry of ¡No pasarán!
Louder than your fear
Louder than your hate Louder than the silence of a coward’s complicity
*Thispoemwaswrittenforthefirst anniversaryoftheBlackLivesMatter protestsof2020.
**JohnnyLongstaffwasoneofthe volunteers from Stockton.
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Spanish Civil War postcards: Collection of 20 cards based on designs originally made in 1937 by the Sindicat de Dibuixants Professionals. Produced in collaboration with art reproduction specialists Past Pixels.
£12 plus £3 p&p.
Scotland International Brigade
tote bag: This tote bag remembers the 549 Scottish volunteers who fought fascism in Spain. Produced by radical merchandise specialists Red Molotov.
£11 plus £3 p&p.
Wales International Brigade tote bag: Celebrate the 184 volunteers from Wales who fought fascism in Spain with this tote bag. Produced by radical merchandise specialists Red Molotov.
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British Battalion t-shirt: Based on the original British Battalion banner brought back from Spain towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. Design comes in full colour or monochrome. Produced by merchandise specialists Red Molotov. Available in sizes: XXL, XL, L, M, S £20 plus £3 p&p.
Ireland International Brigade tote bag: This tote bag combines the Spanish Republic’s flag and the starry plough of the Irish Citizen Army. Produced by radical merchandise specialists Red Molotov.
£11 plus £3 p&p.
Tin-plated badge: With three-pointed red star of the International Brigades and the background in the colours of Republican Spain.
2.5cms diameter.
£2 plus £3 p&p.
Felicia Browne t-shirt: A tribute to the women who volunteered to support the cause of anti-fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Based on a sketch of a militiawoman by Felicia Browne, a British artist who was herself a militiawoman in Spain. Produced by merchandise specialists Red Molotov. Available in sizes: XXL, XL, L, M, S £20 plus £3 p&p.
International Brigades greetings cards: Featuring five different pieces of International Brigade-themed artwork. Produced in collaboration with art reproduction specialists Past Pixels. 10 cards and envelopes per pack.
£10 plus £3 p&p.
performs the famous song of the British Battalion, plus Maxine Peake delivers La Pasionaria's emotional farewell speech to the International Brigades with a dub backing from The Urban Roots.
£6 plus £3 p&p.
Tote bags: High quality cotton canvas tote bag with designs based on the British Battalion banner, the International Brigade emblem or celebrating Irish, Scottish or Welsh volunteers (see designs of the respective t-shirts). Available in a range of colours. Produced in collaboration with Red Molotov. 38 x 42cms.
£11 each plus £3 p&p.
International Brigades mug: 2,500 volunteers from Britain and Ireland joined the legendary International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. This quality ceramic mug features the emblem they wore with pride. Produced by radical merchandise specialists Red Molotov for the IBMT.
£9 plus £3 p&p.
British Battalion mug:
This quality ceramic mug features a design based on the original British Battalion banner brought back from Spain towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. Produced by radical merchandise specialists Red Molotov for the IBMT.
£9 plus £3 p&p.
Jarama Valley/Brigadista Reprise CD single: Billy Bragg
Help us inspire new generations with the story of the men and women who fought fascism and defended democracy in Spain from 1936-1939. Please consider leaving a legacy to the IBMT. To make a donation now go to: www.international-brigades.org.uk/ donation-page
International Brigade Memorial Trust
37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU
07865 272 639
admin@international-brigades.org.uk www.international-brigades.org.uk
