The Spanish Civil War

[Sam Cox]

Hola Sierra

Thanks for the response
I have some pics of horse cavalry from both sides but actually need,want information on saddles and tack and any specialised clothing used by mounted troops

For Whom The Bell Toll (movie ) has some cool action stuff with Falangist cavalry but the gear (saddles and tack ) is mostly US

If you have any pics let me know and i can share

Regards

Sam

 

[Sierra Charriba]

Hi, Sam
Here some photos of cavalry units, Francoist and Republican. They are not very explicit, if you are looking for saddle details, but I haven't close-ups. Perhaps the two drawings that I have added can help you.
Regards

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Republicano2.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Republicano1.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Nacionaldibu2.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Nacionaldibu1.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Nacional3.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Nacional2.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m308/sierracharriba/Nacional1.jpg

 

[Sam Cox]

http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/...rent=NatCavalry.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch1

http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/...rent=Repcavalry.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch2

http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/...=MoorishCavalry.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch3

 

[nightandthecity]

This prompted me to do a google on SCW cavalry. Hundreds of references, but after the first few pages I gave up as there seemed to be little of any substance. Good old Cucaracha did yield this picture however……which conveniently acommpanies a chronology of events for Sept 1936

http://lacucaracha.info/scw/diary/1936/september/index.htm

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Why buy a book on SCW. This thread is all you need ... :eusa_clap :eusa_clap Thanks guys.

bk

 

[Air Boss]

Robert Capa, the legendary war photographer who took part in the D-Day landings, made his name during the Spanish Civil War.

See his work from this conflict here:

http://tinyurl.com/erel9

Among the photos he took during the campaign is this extremely famous one:

http://tinyurl.com/5by8a

I came across the 2nd photo in grade school and it haunted me for years. I wondered if the fighter had a family, did they know how he died, etc. This has been an incredible thread and thanks to you Loungers I have a few new books to read.

 

[nightandthecity]

It's a very famous picture. I believe it is known who he was, I'm sure I've read about somewhere. I'm sure if you google around a bit you'll find the full story somewhere.

 

[Salv]

I came across the 2nd photo in grade school and it haunted me for years. I wondered if the fighter had a family, did they know how he died, etc. This has been an incredible thread and thanks to you Loungers I have a few new books to read.

He has been identified as a 24-year-old millworker from Alcoy in the Cordoba province, Federico Borrell García. He had a younger brother who recognised him in the photograph. There is an article here with research carried out by Richard Whelan (who wrote a biography of Capa) that was published in Aperture magazine in 2002.

 

[Salv]

BTW I'm currently drafting a post about the recruitment and training of the International Brigades - I should have it finished in the next couple of days, but since it was the subject that sparked my interest in the Spanish Civil War, and a subject about which many English language books were written, I have quite a lot of material to condense down.

These include Anthony Beevor's recent history of course, but also:
• Bill Alexander's British Volunteers for Liberty;
• Hywel Francis' Miners Against Fascism: Wales and the Spanish Civil War;
• Peter F. Carroll's The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War;
...and a couple of personal American memoirs:
• John Tisa's Recalling The Good Fight; and
• Bill Yates' Mississippi to Madrid.

 

[Air Boss]

Thank You!

He has been identified as a 24-year-old millworker from Alcoy in the Cordoba province, Federico Borrell Garc??a. He had a younger brother who recognised him in the photograph. There is an article here with research carried out by Richard Whelan (who wrote a biography of Capa) that was published in Aperture magazine in 2002.

Salv -

Thank you very much. I did not know that there was so much controversy over the picture. It is still a haunting picture.

 

[Salv]

Salv -

Thank you very much. I did not know that there was so much controversy over the picture. It is still a haunting picture.

I seem to remember that the first time I saw the photo it was as part of an article about propaganda, which claimed it was set-up and that the Falling Soldier hadn't actually been shot. The article also published this group photo showing the dead soldier at the far left

and suggested this was taken after the Falling Soldier photo. Personally I think it's real, and Whelan's detective work is convincing - sometimes the camera is just in the right place at the right time.

 

[PADDY]

Really enjoying following this thread...blimey, it's an education!

I knew little about the 'ins & outs' of the Spanish Civil War. My French teacher at school, Raoul Larmour, went to fight for the Republican side in Spain with an Irish Battalion when he was a young idealistic man. But I never heard him mutter one word about that time.

Thanks for educating me on this guys. I love Spain/Espana and the people and the culture there, but this will allow me to look at it in a different light at times.

 

[Salv]

Irish volunteers...

Paddy - you may find this interesting - a site dedicated to Irish volunteers and general irish involvement, including both Republican volunteers and Nationalist volunteers (the ill-fated Bandera of Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts).

The Irish volunteers on the Republican side were originally attached to the British Battalion, but many of them were IRA members and they refused to serve with the Brits. These IRA members formed up into an unofficial unit known as the Connolly Column which was attached to the American Lincoln Battalion.

 

[nightandthecity]

I found this page recently on former IRA leader Peadar O'Donnell in Spain. I'd always thought of him as just another Stalinist hack, but it seems an Anarchist spirit lurked within.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/rbr5/peader.html

Another great site for SCW images is the Hulton Getty collection.

http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/product.aspx?p=4&e=0&pg=1&am=-1

Because of the way it works I can only link to the home page, but if you do a search for "Spanish Civil War" it will show hundreds of stunning photos, some of the best you'll ever find, including several of Irish volunteers on both sides. Be warned, the first page on muy search was mostly of post-war franco momuments, so perservere.

There are a few pics of General O'Duffy there. In fact I recommend you also do a seach for "O'Duffy" as there are several pics of him, all proving that it was as possible to be badly dressed in the Golden Age as now. There's a wonderful early shot with Liam Mellowes and others, with his trousers several inches above the ankle. And he doesn't seem to have found a hat that fitted at any stage of his life. All of which may go some way to explaining his failure as a charismatic fuehrer.

 

[Salv]

The formation and training of the International Brigades

The subject that first sparked my interest in the Spanish Civil War - due to the international interest in the Brigades there's a huge wealth of English language material available, in marked contrast to the amount of English language material dedicated to the Republican armies and militias. As a result the ordinary Spanish Republican fighter has all but been ignored outside Spain, and I apologise in advance for concentrating so much on the make-up of the - relatively few - International Brigades and appearing to ignore the Spanish fighters. The Brigades made up only a small proportion of the total number of Republican army units (although they were more often than not in the vanguard of any attack and were among the last to withdraw) but until a thorough study of the Spanish Republican armies appears in English my knowledge will be limited. Sorry.

Additionally, if there are any English language studies of volunteers from countries other than Britain and the US, I haven't managed to get hold of them, so apologies also for concentrating on the Brits and Americans.

The International Brigades first saw action, as mentioned above, in the early days of the battle for Madrid in November 1936.

They had been created on the orders of the Comintern as a direct reaction to the presence in Spain of German and Italian troops, with recruitment to be undertaken by local Communist Party organisers. Their formation was formalised in a Comintern resolution dated 18 September 1936, which called for "the recruitment of volunteers with military experience from the workers of all countries, with the purpose of sending them to Spain."

There were already several hundred foreign volunteers fighting for the Republic in Spain, many of them having arrived in Barcelona for the Peoples Olympiad just as the revolt started. Some of these were to form the Thaelmann centuria, the first organised foreign volunteer group, which was under the control of the PSUC in Catalonia. Others would fight with the POUM (including George Orwell) and the CNT. In total up to 35,000 foreign volunteers would join the Brigades with another 5,000 non-Brigade foreign volunteers.

Paris was chosen as the main recruitment centre, and some of the earliest volunteers to arrive were Eastern Europeans fleeing from their own countries dictatorships: Poles, Hungarians and Romanians followed by Yugoslavs and even White Russians. German and Italian volunteers were numerous, as were French volunteers. American volunteers started to arrive in early 1937, with the first group sailing from New York on Cristmas Day 1936. Volunteers would also arrive from Canada, Cyprus, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Eire,
Egypt, South Africa, Hong Kong, Finland, the Netherlands and China. The British volunteers were directed first to the CP HQ in London then sent on to Paris. By early January 137 groups of British volunteers had used this route, but on 9th January the British Government threatened to prosecute any volunteers for Spain under the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870. This had the effect of slowing down recruitment, but the only real change for the volunteers was that they had to be more careful when travelling; no volunteers were ever actually prosecuted. In February 1937 the Non-Intervention Committee banned volunteers from entering Spain and set up border checkpoints, but again this did not stop recruits entering Spain. Fortunately there was strong popular support in France for the Spanish Republic so ways to cross the border were found easily enough.

Although the Spanish people was generally very welcoming there were some highly placed dissenters: Largo Caballero, the Prime Minister, tried to stop recruitment believing that the Brigades were destined to be used as an instruement for a Communist takeover, while the Minister of Defence, Indalecio Prieto, regarded them as Foreign Legion who had no real place in the Republican Army.

Groups of volunteers crossing the Pyrenees were mustered at Figueras, then placed on trains to the Brigades base at Albacete via Barcelona; other groups of volunteers arrived by ship, principally at Barcelona, from Marseilles and other southern French ports. All made their way to Albacete where plans to form XIII, XIV and XV International Brigades were under way. XV Brigade was to be formed from English speaking volunteers and was incorporated into the Republican Army on 31 January 1937. As more volunteers arrived Albacete proved too small, so the XV Brigade was moved to villages nearby, with the British going to Madrigueras, then eventually establishing a permanent base at Tarazona de la Mancha. Each of the Battalions adopted a name for themselves, usually taken from a national hero of whichever nationality was dominant. The Americans formed two Battalions, the Lincoln and Washington, although after heavy losses during the battle of Brunete these were amalgamated into a single Lincoln Battalion; the Canadians formed the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion; and the British chose to name themselves after Shapurji Saklatvala, a leading figure in the Indian nationalist movement and an early Communist MP in Britain. The name never seemed to catch on and the Battalion was always known simply as the British Battalion.

It has often been claimed that the members of the Brigades were, to a man, Communists, but this is far from the truth. Although the Brigades themselves were formed and administered by Communists, and Communists were in the majority, they never seemed to form more than 60% of the total number of Brigaders. Indeed, Party meetings were called but the Political Commisars at Albacete prevented them taking place, preferring to emphasise the international anti-fascist character of the Brigades.

One major problem facing the organisers of the Brigades was instilling some form of military discipline on the volunteers, many of whom had experience of the intense debating and dissent of the labour movement. At the same time they didn't want the volunteers to lose their individuality, so military and
political leaders worked together to ensure the volunteers were properly trained without forgetting why they were there. Therefore, most Brigade units had political commisars who worked alongside, and held the same rank as, the military commanders. This occured at all levels in the Brigades, even to the extent that some rifle sections had their own political delegate, and also applyied to hospital, training and transport staff. Given the Communist background of the Brigades this could seem like Stalinist intervention, but the commisars role was described in the 1938 Book of the XVth Brigade as:

Their role is to inspire their unit with the highest spirit of discipline and loyalty to the Republican cause ... [teach] the recruits that victory depends on carrying out unquestioningly and unwaveringly whatever order the military command may issue ... A soldier who knows the importance of the military objective and also the reason for it can be trusted to put up a much better fight for it ... The Commisar never forgets the interests of the soldiers and civilians are the same ... The Commisar co-operates closely with the Military Commander at whose side he is appointed ... Orders and reports are signed jointly by the Commander and Commisar ... 'First to advance and last to retreat' is the slogan of the Commisars

Given the scarcity of weapons, training was difficult, and rifles were generally first issued to Brigaders as they were heading off to the front. Progress was made though, and when Soviet 37mm anti-tank guns arrived they were issued to the British who became experts in their use after brief training. These would prove to be very adaptable guns, and were used as short-range anti-personnel artillery, and in street fighting where their accuracy could put a shell through a particular window to eliminate machine gun or sniper positions.

The predominantly Franco-Belge XIVth Brigade first saw action in December 1936 when they were sent with a contingent of Spanish Republican units to help prevent a Nationalist breakthrough in the area around Andujar in southern Spain. The XIVth weren't up to strength so their numbers were increased by the addition of the British No. 1 Company from the XVth. Once in position the Brigade made an attack on Lopera, hoping to gain back lost ground, but the attack failed with heavy losses to the Brigade leaving the survivors in a badly chaotic and disorganised state. The Brits kept their morale high due to solid leadership from Ralph Fox, and although they too suffered casualties they fought well and only retreated when their flanks became exposed after the rest of the Brigade fell back. The Brigade commander, Delasalle, would be arrested and charged with cowardice - he was court-martialled and shot. Due to Fox's leadership, and the spirited fight put up by No. 1 Company, The Franco-Belge Marseillaise Battalion would be renamed the 'Ralph Fox'. The Republican forces were shortly reinforced and the Nationalist offensive was halted, releasing the XIVth Brigade who then were rushed northwards to Madrid where a further Nationalist offensive had cut the main Madrid-Corunna road. They suffered further losses but managed to force the Nationalists back during an attack with tank support, and were relieved in mid-January when deep snow made fighting almost impossible. The survivors had two days leave in Madrid and then returned to Albacete to a hero's welcome.

The XVth first saw action as a complete unit in the Jarama valley - the Nationalists had broken through Republican lines to the south of Madrid, threatening the Madrid-Valencia road, and many Republican units, including XI, XII, XIV and XV International Brigades, were rushed forward to stop the advance. Jarama was a major battle and deserves a post to itself.

The International Brigades would suffer heavy losses throughout the war, and as the flow of volunteers slowed down the Brigades' numbers would be made up of Spanish soldiers until eventually the Spanish were the majority nationality in the Brigades. The Brigades saw action in every major Republican offensive and were a vital part of the Republican war effort. They were eventually disbanded in September 1938 when Juan Negrin (by then the Prime Minister) announced that the Republic would repatriate all the foreign volunteers, in the vain hope that this would put pressure on the Nationalists to withdraw their German and Italian allies. There was a farewell parade for the Brigades in Barcelona on 29th October 1938, but the bulk of the British volunteers would not leave Spain until 6th December. Many of the European volunteers had no homes to return to, and they remained in France for the next 6 years, trying to evade capture by the Nazis during WW2, and forming and assisting French Resistance groups. Many volunteers were still held in Nationalist prisons and concentration camps and the survivors would not be released for many months yet.

 

[Lincsong]

Spanish Civil War Re-Enacted in Fight over Franco's Legacy

From the Wall St. Journal, Monday December 4, 2006 page 1

Recently, the obituary sections of Spanish newspapers began publishing some unusual entries. One death notice honored grandfather "murdered by fascists while defending the legitimate government of the Republic." Days later, another paid tribute to a relative "vilely murdered by the vicious Red hordes." Both men died in 1936.

The last shots of the Spanish Civil War were fired in 1939, but Spain is suddenly fighting the battle all over again. Ordinary Spanairds are unearthing the memory of grandparents slain in the brutal three year conflict. Current-events shows are dedicating entire programs to the topic. And a bill is winding its way through Parliament seeking to rewrite history by officially reassigning blame in the bloody war.

The Civil War that tore Spain in half, as immortalized in books by Orwell and Hemmingway began witha 1936 military uprising by Gen. Francisco Franco and led to a 40 year right-wing dictatorship.

 

[Story]

George Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA
An essay
http://newcriterion.com/archives/25/02/orwells-catalonia-revisited/

and his book
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201111.txt

 

[Story]

70 Years Later, Guernica Holds Secrets

By PAUL HAVEN
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 22, 2007; 5:18 PM

GUERNICA, Spain -- Itziar Arzanegi can still hear the roar of the German warplane overhead, and see the old woman shaking her fists at the foreigners destroying her town. She remembers the look of horror on the woman's face as the plane swooped low, opened fire and cut her down.

It has been nearly 70 years since German and Italian fighter planes backing the fascist forces of Gen. Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War leveled this historic Basque town on April 26, 1937.

Myths and misinformation have shrouded the bombing from the outset, starting with the death toll, which historians have been gradually revising downward for decades. But Guernica has come to be seen as a foretaste of the aerial blitzes of World War II, immortalized in Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," one of the most iconic paintings of the 20th century.

But while the images of destruction are etched indelibly in the world's consciousness _ and in the minds of a dwindling number of survivors _ the 70th anniversary is causing barely a ripple in Spain itself. Little is planned to mark the event on a national level, and no major Spanish politicians are expected to attend a Mass, concert and wreath-laying ceremony for the dead in Guernica's town cemetery.

It is symptomatic of a country that has never come to grips with its Civil War past. Spain has become a cultural and economic powerhouse in recent years, but critics say its success has been built _ quite literally _ over the ruins of its greatest disaster.

"In Spain, we have changed on the outside _ we've built new highways, shopping centers and successful multinational companies _ but to change people's mentality on the inside has proven much more difficult," said Emilio Silva, president of an organization that leads efforts to exhume the bodies of civilians killed by Franco's forces in the 1936-9 war. Half a million people are believed to have died on all sides.

Silva said that many in the generation that lived through the war and Franco's victory learned that the best way to survive under the dictatorship was not to talk about it. Those who oversaw the country's transition to democracy following Franco's death in 1975 believed reconciliation meant burying the past.

But the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the war generation are starting to demand more openness, he said, adding: "A country without memory has no meaning at all."

Survivors of the Guernica bombing, their faces lined by age, say forgetting has never been an option for them.

Arzanegi was just 11 years old when the bombs started to fall. She fled to a pine grove on a hill above town and watched the inferno below. She and other villagers hid in the brush as the planes screamed overhead, until one woman could contain her anger no longer. She jumped out and started to scream at the sky, just as a plane was coming into view.

"There are many things we live through in our lives, and some of the details we forget, but that bombardment I cannot forget, not even for a single day," said Arzanegi. "As long as I live, the sight of that plane dropping down and machine-gunning that woman will be with me. It was so cruel, so unimaginable."

Only about 200 survivors are known to be alive today, according to Remembering Guernica, a non-governmental peace group based in the town. But the stories they tell of that day in their childhood are captivating and terrifying in their detail.

Luis Iriondo, 84, says he was separated from his family and hid in a bomb shelter in the center of town.

"There was no light, no ventilation, and there were so many people pressed together that it was impossible to breathe. I was frightened that a bomb would hit us and I would be buried alive," he said. In the end, he decided to take his chances on the streets: "Better to be machine-gunned than buried alive."

Pedro Balino was at the train station with a friend when he heard the sirens cry and saw the first plane fly overhead. The pair fled to the hills above town and watched the bombing from there. When it was over, he came down to find his family.

"After the bombing we came down from the hills, and at the entrance to Guernica we found eight or 10 guys who were dead or dying. One was missing his face, the other had no arm," said Balino. "Some of them I knew. They were young people, maybe 15 or 16 years old."

Why was a small, nonmilitary town picked for destruction?

The most popular theory is that it was sacred to the Basques, who had rejected Franco's overtures to join him and whose independent streak was detested by the Spanish general. Here Spanish kings would travel to stand under an oak tree and vow to respect an ancient code giving the Basques special rights.

The tree was not targeted and stood in one of the few places in town that survived the bombing. It finally succumbed to disease in 2005, replaced by a sapling from the original tree's acorn that stands today.

Today Guernica is a town of 15,000 nestled in a lush valley at the southern tip of an estuary that opens into the Bay of Biscay.

Franco denied any German or Italian planes were in Spain at the time of the attack, and claimed the Basques had destroyed the town themselves. When his troops took the town a few days after the bombing, they immediately set out to conceal all traces of the air attack, removing bullets and the casings of the incendiary and fragmentation bombs.

The town was rebuilt as quickly as possible _ with drab new buildings rising on top of the ruins of the old. Residents say public works projects frequently uncover bones.

Though thousands of witnesses saw the attack, the dictator took his denial of responsibility with him to the grave.

But there were myths on all sides, said Jose Angel Etxaniz, a historian linked to the town's museum who has spent nearly 20 years studying the bombardment. Chief among those myths was the belief that Guernica was the first and deadliest air assault on a civilian population in the Spanish Civil War.

On both counts, it was not.

After Hitler's Condor Division planes and Italian allies unleashed their payloads, reducing the town of mostly wooden houses to smoldering embers, the fleeing Basque government announced that 1,245 people had died, and that more than 800 had been injured.

But those numbers were mere guesswork. In the world's collective consciousness, Guernica became synonymous with the tens of thousands killed in subsequent bombings elsewhere.

The attack began when a single plane appeared on the horizon at about 3:30 p.m., dropping six bombs. In the 10 to 12 minutes before the first wave of bombers arrived, many of the 8,000 to 10,000 people in town at the time managed to flee into fields or bomb shelters.

Etxaniz said his team have meticulously pored over church and cemetery records and have been able to document 120 deaths from the bombing.

Nor was it the first time modern weaponry was used against a civilian population _ German planes had unleashed a similar assault against the Basque town of Durango just three weeks earlier, killing 300 people.

But Guernica captured attention because of dramatic dispatches by foreign correspondents, chief among them George Steer of the London Times, who wrote of walls of flames visible for miles around.

"In the form of its execution and the scale of the destruction it wrought, no less than in the selection of its objective, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military history," he reported.

It was these accounts in the foreign press that caught the attention of Picasso, who was living in Paris at the time, Etxaniz said. Otherwise, the artist might well have picked a different subject for his signature painting.

Many believe Guernica was a dry run for Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland and the start of World War II two years later. Soon a world that had never known urban savagery from the air would witness the horror falling on London, Warsaw, Berlin, Hiroshima.

Yet Guernica, whatever its final death toll, retains the power to shock, and its survivors say they hope their ordeal can still serve to warn the world away from war. Many have been active in opposing Spanish involvement in Iraq, and speaking out about other conflicts.

"What are the lessons of Guernica?" asked Balino, now 86, hunching his shoulders and resting his elbow on his knee as he considered the question. "Only that it should never happen again. That it should never be allowed to happen again."

 

[Martinis at 8]

Francisco Franco is what Spain needed at the time.

M8

 

[Story]

Francisco Franco is what Spain needed at the time.
M8

"Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead"