The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War

by Giles Tremlett

Overview

** Shortlisted for the Military History Matters Book of the Year Award **

'Magnificent. Narrative history at its vivid and compelling best' Fergal Keane

The first major history of the International Brigades: a tale of blood, ideals and tragedy in the fight against fascism.

The Spanish Civil War was the first armed battle in the fight against fascism, and a rallying cry for a generation. Over 35,000 volunteers from sixty-one countries around the world came to defend democracy against the troops of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini.

Ill-equipped and disorderly, yet fuelled by a shared sense of purpose and potential glory, these disparate groups of idealistic young men and women formed a volunteer army of a size and type unseen since the Crusades, known as the International Brigades. Were they heroes or fools? Saints or bloodthirsty adventurers? And what exactly did they achieve?

In this magisterial history, Giles Tremlett tells – for the first time – the story of the Spanish Civil War through the experiences of this remarkable group. Drawing on the Brigades' archives in Moscow, as well as first-hand accounts, The International Brigades captures all the human drama of a historic mission to halt fascist expansion in Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408854006
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/15/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	720
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Giles Tremlett is a contributing editor to the Guardian and Fellow of the Cañada Blanch Centre, London School of Economics. He has lived in and written about Spain for over twenty years, and is the author of Catherine of Aragon, Ghosts of Spain and Isabella of Castile, winner of the 2018 Elizabeth Longford Prize. He lives in Madrid with his family.
Giles Tremlett is a prize-winning biographer, narrative historian and journalist based in Madrid, Spain. He has lived in, and written extensively about, Spain almost continuously since graduating from Oxford University. He has been a Visiting Fellow of the Can~ada Blanch Centre at the London School of Economics, writes opinion and long-form reportage for the Guardian and is a former Madrid correspondent for the Economist.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Welcome to the Games: Barcelona, 19 July 1936 13

2 The Workers and the Army: Madrid, 20 July 1936 29

3 Amateur Warriors: Tardienta, August-September 1936 41

4 The Fascists Are Here: Seville, August 1936 49

5 A Professional View: Huesca, mid-September 1936 55

6 Creating the Brigades: Madrid, Moscow, Albacete, October 1936 63

7 The Tower of Babel: Albacete, October 1936 67

8 The First Brigade: Gran Vía, Madrid, 8 November 1936 81

9 No Pasarán: Parque del Oeste, Madrid, 9 November 1936 91

10 Death in the Park: Casa de Campo, November 1936 97

11 Bulletproof Books: University City, Madrid, November 1936 101

12 A New Brigade: Albacete, Chinchón, Cerro de los Angeles, 9 November 1936 107

13 Save Madrid: University City November 1936 119

14 Hail, the Saviour of Madrid!: Cinema Monumental, Madrid, November-December 1936 129

15 The Battle of the Mist: Boadilla, 14-23 December 1936 137

16 Stalin Was Still a Saint: Albacete, November-December 1936 145

17 Sans Nom and the Poles: Southern front, Andalusia, Christmas Eve, 1936 155

18 Men in Rubber Coats: Lopera, 25 December 1936 167

19 Justice and a Different Kind of Army: Lopera, January 1937 175

20 Mothers and Jews: Algora, 1 January 1937 179

21 The Final Battle for Madrid: Las Rozas, Aravaca, Villanueva, January 1937 187

22 Bethune, Blood and Bombing: The coast between Málaga and Almería, February 1937 191

23 A Valley Called Jarama: Pindoque railway bridge, 11 February 1937 203

24 The British: San Martín road, Jarama valley, 12 February 1937 211

25 Disobeying Orders: Jarama valley, 13 February 1937 223

26 The Yanks Are Coming!: Jarama valley, 16 February 1937 231

27 Mussolini at Guadalajara: Brihuega, Torija, Trijueque, 9 March 1937 239

28 The Italian Civil War: Brihuega, 10 March 1937 249

29 The Battle of the Loudspeakers: Palace of Ibarra, Brihuega, 13 March 1937 259

30 Blue Nose and the Deserters: Valencia, 20 April 1937 267

31 Hemingway: Men and women in war: Brihuega, Madrid, March-April 1937 277

32 Damage in Catalonia: Barcelona, late April 1937 289

33 Attack!: Guernica and Valsaín, April-June 1937 307

34 The Death of Lukács: Huesca, early June 1937 317

35 Brunete: Denmark, early summer 1937 325

36 The Romanillos and Mosquito Ridges: Guadarrama river, 8 July 1937 343

37 Resist: Brunete plain, 12 July 1937 351

38 The Coup that Lasted a Year: Brunete plain, 18-26 July 1937 359

39 The Price of War: Brunete plain, 25 July 1937 369

40 Vengeance: Quinto, Aragon, 24 August 1937 381

41 Conquest: Belchite, 31 August 1937 393

42 The North Pole: Teruel, December 1937 407

43 Blitzkrieg: Belchite, 9 March 1938 423

44 Boy Soldiers: Guadalope river, 19 March 1938 441

45 Defeat, Despair, Hope: Mora la Nova, 4 April 1938 455

46 Prisoners: The monastery at San Pedro de Cardeña, autumn 1938 463

47 The Last Charge: Ebro river, 24 July 1938 471

48 Resist, Fortify and Be Vigilant: La Cova Hospital, La Bisbal de Falset, July-September 1938 479

49 Dreams of Home: Sierra de Pàndols, early August 1938 489

50 The Last Fight: Barcelona, 16 September 1938 499

51 Farewell to Arms: Northern Catalonia, 24 September 1938-8 February 1939 509

52 'Premature Anti-Fascists': Paris, 21 August 1941 521

Abbreviations 541

Notes 543

Bibliography 637

Acknowledgements 669

Tables 673

Index 681

Editorial Reviews

Nothing less than magisterial . . . rich details are provided through a combination of first-hand witness and participant accounts, newspaper articles, and secondary sources.” —The Boston Globe

“A remarkable act of scholarship, as well as being captivatingly readable. The first overarching history of the brigades in English . . . [Tremlett] has created a dazzling mosaic of vignettes and sources, of lives lived and lost, of acts of heroism, solidarity, betrayal and futility, that builds to a grand picture of a conflict that drew idealists from across the world. The war left many of them in despair, injured or dead – but also hardened many more in their determination to defeat fascism. This book is as close to a definitive history as we are likely to get.” —The Guardian

“Tremlett's book marks a heroic episode in the history of the left. At a time when real fascists with real guns are patrolling the streets of American cities, and when far-right violence is on the rise in Spain, the sacrifice of the International Brigaders deserves to be remembered. In doing so, Tremlett reminds us that even just wars are dirty and chaotic, breeding grounds of sadism and injustice, and that the selfless often die first.” —Observer

“This evocative study is the first comprehensive history in English of all the 35,000 international volunteers who fought the combined forces of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco in Spain . . . Far more than a civil war, it was Europe's war against Fascism. Giles Tremlett encapsulates its huge stakes perfectly . . .There's no feeling of a heavy read here, such is Tremlett's deft handling of the material and page-turning prose. The story races along, replete with memorable stories and poignant vignettes . . . [A] gripping book.” —Literary Review

“A highly readable, monumental account of the idealism and suffering of the most international army ever assembled since the Crusades.” —New York Journal of Books

“Meticulously researched and engagingly written. Tremlett resurrects an extraordinary cast of characters . . .The Brigaders remain heroes of the left for their internationalism and self-sacrifice. Tremlett has done them proud.” —Economist

"[The International Brigades] offers an implicit reminder of the importance of leftist internationalism as a political force and of its current absence, even as democratic governments around the world, including in Spain, come under attack from neofascist political parties … Tremlett’s exhaustive recounting of the brigades’ shortcomings makes his moral elevation of them somehow more moving." - New York Review of Books

“The bravery and sacrifices of the volunteers from all over the world who fought fascism in Spain keep alive interest in the civil war. Many of the tens of thousands of books about the conflict are about the International Brigades but there has never been one like Giles Tremlett's deeply moving and endlessly informative account. Bursting with memorable quotes and anecdotes, it provides, in lucid and compelling prose, the overall history of the Brigades that has been lacking.” —Paul Preston

“Tremlett provides a lucid and thorough history of the Brigades' military campaigns. Spanish Civil War buffs will savor this epic account.” —Publishers Weekly

“An expert, squirm-inducing account of [the Brigades'] minimal training, inadequate equipment, sometimes incompetent leadership, and performance, which ranged from suicidally brave to cowardly. . . . An iconic war receives a definitive if painful history.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-05-15
A longtime chronicler of Spanish affairs offers a new history of that country’s civil war.

In 1936, when Spain’s generals rose in revolt, the country resembled a banana republic, although it was actually a parliamentary democracy in which many parties shared popular left-wing beliefs. While the government dithered, workers, activists, and even visitors fought the rebels in many areas, especially the large cities. No historian can definitively explain why these events became a rallying cry for the battle between democracy and fascism, but Guardian contributor Tremlett, a skilled researcher and solid writer who has lived in Spain for two decades, delivers a fine history. Answering an appeal, Hitler dispatched 15,000 rebel troops from Africa. “This single action,” writes the author, “together with the constant flow of arms and ammunition that both Hitler and Mussolini now provided, saved the generals.” Still preoccupied with appeasement, Britain’s government proposed a nonintervention agreement; though other governments signed, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin “openly flouted it.” Assembling, transporting, training, and arming perhaps 40,000 volunteers required more organization than any movement except communism possessed, so it played an outsized role in what became the International Brigades. However, the mixture of ideologues, laborers, adventurers, exiles, and migrants did not pledge allegiance to the communist cause, and Stalin paid as much attention to eliminating rival left-wing Spanish parties as in fighting Franco. Tremlett delivers an expert, squirm-inducing account of their minimal training, inadequate equipment, sometimes incompetent leadership, and performance, which ranged from suicidally brave to cowardly. Most of the book consists of a nuts-and-bolts description of two years of fighting, a steady stream of names, places, movements, and small-unit actions that may overwhelm general readers. In September 1938, in the forlorn hope of shaming the rebels into doing the same, the Loyalist government announced that all foreign troops would be sent home. No nation, including the Soviet Union, welcomed them back, and Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland did not change official opinion that these volunteers were “premature anti-fascists.”

An iconic war receives a definitive if painful history.

Kirkus Reviews