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Spanish Civil War

Robert Traill before Spain

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I will be forever grateful to Mark Hornsby  for allowing me to ‘man’ his stall at the The Piercebridge Village Summer Fayre,  because it provided me with a once in lifetime opportunity.

I did not see many people but one lady in particular caught my attention, she came up to me as she had spotted Bob Beagrie’s collection Civil Insolencies 

Masha told me that Dr Bob had been her tutor when she studied creative writing at Teesside University, therefore she was pleased to see his publication. Masha then commented on I Sing of My Comrades, saying that her father, a Scottish volunteer, had died in Spain, and then just as casually remarked

oh, my Grandfather was in the Russian government before the revolution.

I took down her details and the name of her father and told her I would see what I could find out about her father, we continued chatting, it was then that Masha took my breath away.

Masha told me her Grandfather was Alexander Guchkov. At Keele I studied both History and Politics for my joint honours degree; my History thesis was on the formation of the Labour Party in Middlesbrough and my Politics Thesis was on Trotsky’s interpretation of the Russian Revolution. For this reason I knew the name of Alexander Guchkov, (I still find it astonishing that I can remember him from work I did over 40 years ago, but today walked into a room and forget why I’d gone in here!)

Alexander Guchkov in 1917

He is certainly memorable: he chaired the Third Duma,  he fought against the British in the Second Boer War, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. He served in the Russo-Japanese war, treating the wounded on the Battlefield of Mukden. After the 1905 Revolution he became leader of the Octoberists . It was Alexander Guchkov who led the commission of enquiry looking into the relationship between the Tsarina and Rasputin, which led to the Tsar exiling Rasputin in 1913. When The Great War broke out Guchkov was put in charge of the medical provision on the German Front. In August 1915 Guchkov led the ‘Progressive Group’ in the Duma who demanded that the Tsar hand over more responsibility for running the War to the Duma. When the February revolution broke out Guchkov was put in charge of the Ministry for War, it was Guchkov and Vasily Shulgin  who persuaded the Tsar to abdicate.

At the time all I could recall was that Alexander Guchkov had put the pen in the Tsar’s hand and told him to abdicate, which may be because the image above has been used in numerous textbooks. It is Alexander Guchkov who is standing behind the Tsar. In the Provisional Government Guchkov was Minister for War. Although I was excited by this I had promised Masha that I would look into her father’s time in Spain.

The first thing I discovered was that  Robert’s family was from Scotland; his father, Robert Sr, had been born in Aberdeen in 1870. Robert Sr is shown in the 1911 census as an ‘Assistant  Manager, Marine Engine works.’

Robert Traill Jr was born in Monkseaton, Whitley Bay on 19th August 1909, his mother Adeline had been born in North Shields. Robert’s older sister, Phyllis Maud, had been born in Whitley Bay in on 14th October 1907.

This is where the trail (excuse the pun) goes cold, I was unable to find the family in the 1921 Census, there appears to be no record of Robert Sr, Adeline and their two children.

Amendment – After Posting my friend Tam Watters found them in the 1921 Scottish Census, this is behind a paywall which explains why I could not find them.

Tam let me know that they, Robert, Adeline and Robert Jr are shown in Lanark in the 1921 Scottish Census. This gave me a line of enquiry which enable me to trace them through Robert Sr’s career.

Robert’s sister Phyllis does not appear on the record, she is not with them in Glasgow, she is instead a visitor in the household of her Great Grandfather Peter Brown a ‘Shipowner’ at 7 Alma Place, North Shields. It appears Phyllis is staying with her grandparents Herbert and Eva Brown.

7 Alma Place, North Shields

I won’t go into detail as the focus here is Robert Jr, this obituary in the Shields Daily Gazette in October 1928 gives us a good summary of Robert Sr’s career.

Robert Trail, therefore was born in Monkseaton whilst his father worked for the Wallsend Slipway Company. In 1920 the family moved to Glasgow when he was appointed manager of the Fairfield Ship Building and Engineering Company.

After a few months of hunting I found Robert Traill Sr arriving in London in June 1926, he had travelled on The Nelson Line ship, the Highland  Piper from Argentina. Interestingly his profession is now shown as ‘Farmer’. The proposed address is listed as The Roehampton Club, Barnes, London.

This is where it got really interesting, because I had found Robert Sr’s brother in the 1921 Census at 2 Woodlands Road, Barnes, which is next to the Roehampton Club. John Arthur Edward Traill is listed as the Head of the household, but as a visitor, with his profession given as:

Polo pony breeder in the Argentine.

John’s wife Antielta was born in Rosario, Argentina, and their eldest son James was born in Buenos Aires, their other son John has Barnes, London SW as his birthplace. The Wilkipedia page for the Roehampton Club has this to say on John Traill.

Polo and equestrianism at Roehampton Club recovered quickly after the First World War. The club was now being managed by Clement Charles Lister who with the assistance of John Arthur Edward Traill and the Miller brothers took a keen interest in the development of newcomers to the sport of polo. There were a number of key polo players at the club during this time including 10-goal Charles Thomas Irvine Roark, 9-goal Eric Horace Tyrrell-Martin and John Arthur Edward Traill

John Trail is also listed as winning the Argentine Open; The Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo ten times in his career. The first time in 1904 with the North Santa Fe team, which consisted of :

José E. Traill, Eduardo Traill, Juan A. E. Traill, Roberto W. Traill

The North Santa Fe team won the Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo cup in 1906, but this time Roberto W. Traill is replaced by Roberto Traill – Robert Sr, who is in the winning team five times (1906, 1908, 1911, 1912 and 1913), in 1913 Robert scores eight goals, although John surpasses him with 10.

Robert Jr went to Oundle School and then Kings College, Cambridge, where he took History, played cricket and rowed. Robert was at Cambridge at the same time as The Cambridge five who were all at Trinity College, Robert was at Kings College, just a courtyard away.

Whilst Robert was at Oundle School his father died, on 16th October 1928, this possibly explains why he didn’t go up to Cambridge until 1931. The newspapers report that Robert Trail Sr left over £72,000  to his widow, Adeline in his will. 

In April 1934 Robert was fined £1/10/0

Robert  Traill, an undergraduate, of Lansdowne Road, Bedford, was fined £1/10/0 for causing a motor-car to be on the highway during the hours of darkness without lights at Elstow on 18th March. Bedfordshire Times 13th April 1934

Shortly after graduation, in 1934, Robert travelled to Moscow to attend the International Lenin School, he took the short course and then stayed on to work as a translator for the Communist International (Comintern).

It was in Moscow that Robert met and later married, in November 1935, Vera Gochkova.

I could write books on Vera Traill, but as I’m writing about Masha’s father, Robert, I’ll just give you the description that accompanies her MI5 files as a taster:

Vera Alexandovna SOUVTCHINSKY, aliases GOUTCHKOVA, TRAILL, MIRSKY: Russian at birth and British by marriage. The daughter of Alexander GOUTCHKOV, a member of KERENSKY’s government, Vera TRAILL fled to Paris with her family, visited the UK regularly during the 1920s, and acquired British citizenship through a marriage of convenience to Robert TRAILL, a Communist journalist later killed while with the International Brigade. KRIVITSKY said she was a Russian agent in Paris, and the French police identified her as a close associate of the group believed to have been responsible for murdering Ignace REISS. She came to the UK in 1941, settling in Oxford for the duration of the war

Robert left for Spain in February 1937, leaving the pregnant Vera in Moscow; two months later Vera travelled to Paris where she is said to have recruited White Russians for the International Brigade.

To ensure the posts are not overly long, Robert’s time in Spain will be in a separate post.

Spanish Civil War, Uncategorized

Soldiers in the Fog by Antonio Soler

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Soldiers in the Fog by Antonio Soler

Original title: El nombre que ahora digo.

Translated by Kathryn Phillips-Miles & Simon Deefholts

ISBN 978-1-013693-31-2

Release date: 14 September 2023

https://theclaptonpress.com/soldiers-in-the-fog/


On Monday 8th February 1937, Franco’s Nationalist troops; aided by German and Italian troops, tanks, warships and planes, invaded Malaga. The civilians who fled from this onslaught had just one road to get away and this had, on one side high peaks and on the other the sea. Italian plane and Fascist artillery bombarded the road and in addition there was no food or transport for the refugees as they fled towards Almeria.

I have a special interest in this well documented atrocity as it was recorded in detail and publicised at the time primarily by the Mobile Blood unit headed by the Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune. Bethune’s unit transported the blood of donors to the Republican front, he was assisted by Hazen Sisen and Cuthbert Worsley.

In February 1937 the Mobile Blood unit was driving from Almería to Málaga to help after the fall of this city when they encountered the beginning of the refugee flow. Over the next few days and nights they worked tirelessly to save many lives, help the refugees to get to Almeria and record the event. On the evening of 12th February 1937, Almería, packed with 40,000 exhausted refugees, was heavily bombed by Italian and German aircraft. Bethune records the Malaga road and Almeria attacks in The Crime on the Road Malaga – Almeria, published in 1937. Cuthbert Worsley would also publish an account in 1939 in his Behind the Battle.

The major reason why this war crime is of particular interest to me is because Cuthbert Worsley is one of the fifteen volunteers from Durham; and the surrounding pit villages, that I am researching and writing about for the rededication of the Durham International Brigade memorial in Redhills; The Miners Hall in Durham.

Soldiers in the Fog is not an historical account, it is historical fiction; Antonio Soler draws upon the experiences of Republicans during the Civil war, he uses these experiences to enhance and influence his fictional narrative. Soldiers in the Fog begins with the champion of the book, a young soldier named Gustavo Sintora, arriving in Madrid, having escaped from Málaga. Therefore, the accounts from Bethune and Worsley were firmly in my mind as I started reading. However there are no graphic descriptions of the horrors witnessed on the Malaga – Almeria road, they are vaguely alluded to by Sintora so briefly that anyone without knowledge of the event would miss the reference. Thus Soler gives us a very human story, with the focus firmly on the individuals.

The narrative journey begins with Gustavo Sintora being posted to a Republican mobile army entertainment unit, stationed in the outskirts of Madrid. The entertainers are an eclectic and exotic mix, extraordinary and unusual. It seems that these characters would ordinarily be outsiders, they seem not to fit into ordinary Spanish society, but in these exceptional times ordinary society no longer exists. At first I made the superficial correlation with the television programmes MASH and It ain’t half hot mum, but there was nothing funny about the characters or the situations they found themselves in, but there is some similarity. At first the members of the mobile army entertainment unit are so diverse and unusual they are more like stereotypes than real people; grotesque aberrations who seem surreal, an impression which is enhanced by Solar’s descriptions and the initial interactions between them and Sintora.

The grotesque continues in the narrative, this isn’t a comfortable read, it is challenging, and I admit I was disturbed by a few aspects, this is far from an historical account of the Spanish War, and far from being an accurate account of the Republican experience. The Republic and the Republican soldiers are not represented favourably, in fact in a few cases the author appears hostile.

Very early, in one of the opening chapters, a scene felt so out of place that it upset the rhythm of the novel, I felt the author had made some odd choices. It started off with Sintora finding himself in a camp for Russian Airmen, there were just under 200 soviet pilots in Spain at this time therefore this seemed implausibly lucky. Solar adds to the incongruity by using the well-worn cliché of representing these Russians as constantly drunk and aggressive. Credulity is stretched further when Sintoria witnesses the brutal and sadistic execution of two of the Russian airman by their own officer, allegedly for treason. The scene ends with the other Russian airman casually strolling off, leaving the bodies of their comrades out in the open. Most Historians agree that the Soviets sent between 2,000 and 2,500 Soviet military personal to Spain,  mostly as specialists and instructors. Therefore it is highly unlikely that  the lives of these valuable specialists would be seen as expendable by their officers. Even if we accept that it may have happened it would not have occurred in such an open way, the NKVD or SIMS would not operate like this and the Soviets would be well aware of the propaganda implications; a trial and execution usually occured out of sight, if not back in the Soviet Union.

Soviet pilots on the Soto airfield near Madrid.

In a later section Stalin is lampooned by Republican soldiers, I am not saying this is unlikely, in fact the opposite, it is highly likely. However this is the only instance in which soldiers mock a leader, it appears odd that of all the leaders involved in the Spanish War the author chooses a supporter of the Republic; Stalin’s Soviet Union was one of the few and the most significant providers of material aid to the Republic. Franco nor any of his Generals are never mentioned let alone criticised or lampooned.

These minor oddities did not distract from the beauty of the narrative, however. The narrative is wonderfully interwoven throughout with excerpts from Sintora’s imaginary notebooks, a clever literary device which is used successfully. According to the story, Sintoria had handed over these notebooks to the narrator’s father, and now the narrator was exploring them. These fictitious notebooks are used to stich the story together, with the narrator elaborating on the entries, this allows him to bring in thoughts and feelings which rapidly become the driving force propelling the narrative forward. The result of this literary devise is that the reader empathises with the characters, we see their hopes and dreams, which are familiar.

As the story slowly develops the unusual assembly of characters are transformed, after some time we see them expressing  hopes and desires which are recognizable, the characters cease to be unusual but still retain the extraordinary. I gradually came to realise that these extraordinary characters have become exceptional because of the situations they have found themselves; namely they are caught up within a Civil War.

Sintora is a youth so the chief desire we see is love, the desire to be loved; on joining the unit Sintora meets Serena Vergara, the unit’s seamstress who becomes his focal point and sole thought, unfortunately Serena is married to the violent Corrons and as a result Sintora is warned off her, not only by Serena herself but  by the other soldiers in the unit. Despite this and the fact that  Serena is old enough to be his mother, he is undeterred – the notebooks make clear that she becomes the love of his life. This growing relationship binds the narrative, it also highlights Sintora’s strengths and weaknesses; he is young, with little experience in relationships, but he is determined and loyal.

Because Serena is much older than Sintora we see, and even feel, his insecurities; he is drawn to her but because of self-doubt and Spanish tradition he is reticent  and uncomfortable approaching her; he also fears the ridicule of the other men. In this way Solar humanises the character of Sintora wonderfully, he does this with the rest of the unit members also. We come to see their behaviour and emotions as perfectly logical, which allows us the empathise deeply.

I initially found the language unusual too, the sentence structure seemed odd, and then I realised that the translators have not rewritten the text in English, they appear to have produced a translation that remains true to the original text, which is wonderful as at times the text can be quite beautiful. The start is a case in point:

A dead person is a memory but back then, during the war, they were part of a landscape, a sunset that appeared at a bend in the road even if it was still mid-morning, a flower, a neglected bush that nobody bothered to water, that grew anywhere, casting shadows over the street corners and the streets themselves.

I found myself savouring the text, which meant a careful reading of the book. This had two benefits; firstly I lingered over the text which gave me an appreciation of the words used and the construction of the paragraphs, I was reading to cherish the writers art, something I do with poetry and a very exclusive number of books. The second benefit was that it helped me became deeply absorbed in the story and the characters: I was not reading the text to find out what would happen next, but rather to give me aspects to think about. The narrative led me to think about relationships, comradeship, fears and hopes.

Gradually I realised that what was missing in the initial chapters of the book was the war, the characters were occupied with mundane tasks; transporting the artists, maintaining the vehicles or sorting out the small disputes that arise when strangers live and work in close proximity. The war was ever-present but it was in the background.

When the war does audaciously impose itself upon the life of the characters it comes as a profound shock, it is short, violent and quickly over, but leaves a lasting frustration and confusion. For me this aspect highlighted the skill of the writer; Solar is not writing about the Spanish Civil War, he is demonstrating the effects of this conflict on human beings and more widely the effects of war on society. This is where I found the title so appealing, the analogy of a fog can be used to fit a number of circumstances. A fog can mask so much from view, it also disorientates. The characters find that the Civil War does both, it hides aspects of the war and individuals can hide aspects of themselves, but it will also reveal aspects which have been hidden. The interaction between the characters also creates a fog, a veling of thoughts and motives which leads to suspicion and conflict.

In terms of action, for most of this novel there is very little, the brief outbreaks of violence highjack the reader, without preamble they erupt swiftly and brutally, leaving the characters, and the reader a little shocked. The situations the characters inhabit are mundane and ordinary, with a major part of the book taken up with dialogue between the characters. The sheer ordinariness of the situations are a counterpoint to the thoughts and expressions of the characters, this leads to a surreal, almost dreamlike progression of the story. The characters go from a mundane situation to a bizarre situation so gradually that the reader does not realise that the situation has become outlandish.

This aspect reminded greatly of my absolute favourite book; The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a satire where the devil and his bizarre entourage visit Moscow under Stalin. Here they create surreal situations, but as the Soviet Union under Stalin is so bizarre and surreal, they seemingly fit right in. There are aspects of Soldiers in the Fog where one feels this is also the case here, the characters actions are so out of place that, in isolation they appear bizarre, but when taken in the context of the Civil War these actions are perfectly understandable. Soler perfectly reflects an experience of war that is so ridiculous it almost defies description, the dark situations are almost comic, there is certainly an element of black humour in the dialogue and situations, but as the war overshadows everything these are far from being funny. In The Master and Margarita Bulgakov has the devil narrating the thoughts of Pontius Pilate, the ‘Procurator of Judaea’ in sections that are then interspersed between the main ‘Moscow’ chapters. In Soldiers in the Fog Solar inserts Sintora’s notebooks into the narrative in a similar random fashion. The Notebooks, the thoughts of Sintora are rarely used to introduce the scene, they sometimes seem unrelated to the section of the narrative, which adds to the complexity and disorientation of the situations.

There is a similarity too to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the characters appear to be exercising free will, especially as they are not subject to the military discipline seen in regular units, but ultimately they are victims of the situation. As well as the paradox’s the characters come across a further comparison with Catch-22 is the characterisation, as with Heller, Solar’s ‘hero’ of the book is not the most prominent character; Sintora it clearly the junior in the unit, the new face who needs to fit in with the established members. This means that the majority of the named characters are described in detail, Solar writes them all as multidimensional personas, which means that there are only a small number of incidental characters, allowing the reader to empathise with all the members of the unit. I think this reflects Solar’s underlying message that this Spanish Civil War has no heroes, only victims.

The war affects the characters in multiple subtle ways, seemingly creating confusion and disruption. The characters seem to be in a constant state of great confusion, unable to plan or navigate the way ahead. This state of perplexity makes the title Soldiers in the Fog so fitting, when I mentioned this to Simon; one of the translators, he replied:

we agonised for months over the title and then had to come clean with the author that it didn’t really work in English and came up with Soldiers in the Fog. He was very happy because his working title for the novel (in Spanish) was A Soldier in the Fog, which his Spanish Publishers had insisted on changing. [To The name that I now say ]

The book has such a steady pace that on the rare occasion that violence breaks into the rather tranquil world of the support staff the event it is truly shocking, overturning the sense of stability that the pace establishes. I am hugely impressed by how skilfully this is written, we only get the odd glimpse of the events of the Civil War, experiencing hints and insinuations on what is happening in places none too distant, the War is in the background, overshadowing the actions of the characters, but not overtly oppressive.

The oppression is implied but constant, throughout the novel we have the feeling that the war will have to eventually catch up with the characters in a big way, that the dam will burst and it will become much more than an inconvenience; as the pressure builds we see how this pressure influences the way the characters behave. The characters become more frantic and unpredictable. The tension created by the war and the unusual life the characters are living gradually erodes their stable, if rather erratic, living arrangements; leading to more and more bizarre behaviour. At first we see bizarre characters behave normally and normal characters behave outlandishly, but the singular situations created by a nation at war exerts an influence in which normal behaviour becomes irregular and sometime abhorrent, we see the characters desperately trying to create a mental state necessary for surviving in a time of war.

As the war becomes darker and more intense, the pretence at stability the characters try to create is disturbed more and more frequently, the war invades the world of the mobile army entertainment unit more and more frequently and more and more deeply.

On 25 July 1938 the Republican army began to cross the River Ebro

Eventually Sintora’s unit is sent into action on the Ebro front, the crucible of the Civil War. Despite denying the possibility it is when finally faced with the horrors of the battlefield and the inevitability of Republican defeat that the unit disintegrates.  The orgy of violence stands in stark contrast with what had been described before. The characters destroy the relationships carefully built up over the course of the novel. I found this aspect shocking, I had come to empathise and sympathise with most of the characters, but in the ending a lot of this empathy is betrayed; a number of characters behave abhorrently. I was shocked and came to question my sympathy for them, but the wonderful narrative means one has to have sympathy for these characters as they struggle to avoid drowning in despair as the certainty of defeat pervades their world.

When the collapse comes it comes as a great shock, everything Solar has built up is tainted by the disintegration of the new norms, the collaboration, the civility and humanity disappears, consumed by the chaos of war. I think this is a fantastic reflection of the effects of the Battle of the Ebro on the latter stages of the War. The last death is horrifying in its brutality: an enemy plane drops a bomb, hitting a car and literally blowing the car and its occupants to pieces; bringing a disturbing correlation with the attack on Guernica.

I am impressed that Soler does not spares us the details of the shelling, bombing, artillery and the bitter cold, he hints at it for most of the novel, and occasionally gives us small examples but then at the end as the characters are thrown into the fighting, he hits the reader with the true hideousness of 20th Century Warfare, plunging us head first into the horror and squalor of war on a purely human level.

Thankfully most of characters survive, but after this experience it does not feel like a relief. I empathised with the obvious effects of trauma the characters display, and felt the tragedy of the experience, not only for the individuals but for Spain. The ending of the book did not feel like an end, it truly felt like a defeat.

One line at the end really struck me: Captain Villegas tells Sintora.

I don’t really know, but I think they’ve killed me too. I think I’m a dead man, dead like the men who were with me.

 It highlighted for me one of the many tragedies of the Spanish Civil War, the fact that the Republicans were unable to mourn their dead, it was a glorious cause for which they fought but those that were killed, both soldier and civilian, died in vain; Fascism was triumphant. The ending left a void which I think is present in our remembrance of the Spanish Civil War, the sacrifices and efforts all came to nought.

I think Soldiers in the Fog transcends historical fiction, it is set during the Spanish Civil War, the author has used this to highlight many aspects unique to this tragic conflict, but this is not about the men and women who were caught up in this conflict. I believe that this impressive book explores the challenges people face in order to retain their humanity in a time of total war – warfare in the 20th Century. This is a truly remarkable book, the translation is a masterpiece of the art of converting a given text into a another language without losing the spirit. I will cherish this book and reread it often.

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T J Carter

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At the Stockton Arc recently I was honoured to be invited to the BBC’s recording of The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff  it was an emotional performance for many reasons, not least because, once again The Young’uns were performing it in Johnny’s and their home town.

I am impressed by the fact that there is always something new to take away from listening to the album or watching a performance, 17th March’s recording was no different.

In the track from the show Ay Carmela  Thomas Carter is referenced:

The first of us fell at Jarama
The earth was warm, our blood was warmer
Thomas Carter came a-stormin’
Ay Carmela! Ay Carmela!
Ne’er to see another morning
Ay Carmela! Ay Carmela!

This reminded me of one of my most recent finds, a letter published in the Daily Worker on 17th March 1937, I had uncovered it just two day earlier.

This short message tells us so much:  Thomas Joseph Carter, was know as Joe in Spain. he is explaining how his Company is occupying a high ridge, after fighting during the day they dig in at night, on the next day they are tricked by the Fascists, which is when Carter was wounded.The story suggests to me that Thomas Carter was a member of No.2 Company (Machine-Gun) in the British Battalion, he enlisted on 7th January 1937, number 73.

As Carter says he ‘occupied a high ridge’ we can discount the Conical Hill occupied by No.1 Company, but it is the description of the ‘trick’ which locates him in No.2 Company. According to the version that has become part of Jarama folklore, on 13th February some of the machine-gunners in Harry Fry’s No.2 Company were tricked into surrendering by fascist troops who advanced on their unprotected flank singing the Internationale and giving the anti-Fascist clenched fist salute. Some volunteers have repeated the story found in Frank Ryan’s Book of the XV Brigade, whilst many historians have subsequently dismissed it as myth, however the story was widespread at the time; it is repeated in a number of contemporary publications and is to this day recalled in most publications on the battle. This letter from Thomas Carter may be the first reference to the story, it is certainly one of the earliest contemporary descriptions.

Secondly we discover that Carter is wounded and in Hospital, I was unfamiliar with the name of the Hospital so I approached my friend and colleague Peter Verburgh, who is much more knowledgeable than I.

Trapaja is unknown to me – Castalan, however, looks as if it possibly is a garbled reference to Castellón de la Plana – it had two hospitals in 1937, one civilian, the other military, which both had International wounded/patients Peter Verburgh 21st March 2022

This is possibly the Benicàssim Hospital at Castellon de la Plana, which by coincidence is where John Unthank of Middlesbrough spent six weeks  before succumbing to the wounds he received at Jarama, he died on 2nd April 1937.

As Thomas Carter was listed on the database as killed in action on 27th February 1937 I had assumed previously that he was killed during the American assault of that day, in which Wilf Jobing was also killed, writing:

In an attempt to storm the Nationalist strongpoint at Pingarrón, the XV Brigade; which now included all 450 Americans of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion under Robert Merriman, led an attack on 27th February. Due to lack of coordination the XV Brigade advanced without artillery or air support; the predictable outcome was that the Brigade was cut to pieces. Poet Charles Donnelly, part of the Irish contingent who had joined the Lincolns was heard to remark, “even the olives are bleeding”, before losing his life. The British had been tasked with supporting the attack by the Lincolns. The result was that No.2 Company Commander Wilf Jobling, along with David Halloran, a Catholic CP member from South Bank in Middlesbrough, and Thomas Carter of West Hartlepool were killed on 27th February 1937 when the attack failed. I Sing of My Comrades (2022)

It now looks as though he was wounded on the 13th February,  he succumbs to his wounds and dies on the 27th February, which then means that the letter was published posthumously.

The date of his death is confirmed on the Jarama memorial, erected by members of the British Battalion in 1937.

The names of Carter T.J., Jobling W. and Halloran D. are all shown on photographs of the memorial, and all have the date 27-3-37 against their name. The memorial was destroyed on Franco’s orders in 1939. Carter, Halloran and Jobling are also listed on the Teesside International Brigades Memorial.

Thomas Carter and Wilf Jobling are also eulogised in Jack Lindsay’s  epic poem Requiem Mass for Englishmen Fallen in the International Brigade

This war has roots everywhere, in the soil of squalor.

He watched on the tarnished slates the glistening moon,

a milky drip of light mocking the mouth of hunger,

a promise of cleansing beauty, a pennon of freedom.

and midnight, yawning, creaked with the ghosts of old pain,

till resolution regathered like the moonlight

flowing in through the cast iron bars at the end of the bed.

Where is T. J. Carter of West Hartlepool

 

Where now is he, a voice among many voices,

who said: In poverty’s jail are bolted the guiltless,

the thieves lock up their victims.His voice protested.

Sentenced, he saw through a stone-wall the truth.

Clearer that wall of privation than any arguments.

He struck his hand on the stone and swore he would break it,

he took a rifle and broke through that wall in Spain.

Where is Wilf Jobling of Chopwell? 

Requiem Mass for Englishmen Fallen in the International Brigade  Jack Lindsay, 1938.

 

Every October we commemorate the Volunteers for Liberty who gave their lives for the Spanish Republic, the name of Thomas Joseph Carter is read out, along with the other seven Teesside men who fell (yes this year there will be seven more, not six, but that is a different and recently uncovered story). With the instillation of the new Stockton International Brigades Memorial giving us fresh impetus we will continue to commemorate the Volunteers who served in the International Brigade.

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David Marshall fighting in Spain

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Continuing on the story from https://foxburg.edublogs.org/2020/12/09/david-marshalls-spanish-equipment/  we left off David’s account with him going into action having not yet fired his rifle.

We got into lorries at Chinchon the next morning. We were detrucked south of Madrid near a place called Cerro de los Angeles, the hill of the Angels, it’s a symmetrical hill which I think is said to be the geographical centre of Spain. They were on top in a bloody old heavy building and we had to try to get them out. David Marshall IWMSA

The bloody old heavy building can be seen in the image below.

It was a bit of a shambles, we had a couple of tanks with us, they only has 2 pdr guns, and the convex curvature of the hill meant as they were climbing up they couldn’t depress enough to hit the building at the top anyway until they got too close. It was a stirling time. We stood there, you see, you could see Madrid far in the distance, far away, you could see it being bombed a little, you could see the great plumes coming up. And then we started to move forward in open order, we were shooting and firing but nothing much happened, we attacked all night. Like all war it was a bit of a balls, we didn’t get anywhere. I got shot the next day. David Marshall IWMSA

A number of times I have mentioned David getting injured, however, to hear him describe the event brings it into sharp relief.

We had advanced as far as we could and we were firing at the windows of this building in a controlled way. We were right on the right flank and we felt bloody exposed because we knew moors were in the offing, we had a healthy respect for them. David Marshall IWMSA

The ‘moors’ are another thread which seems to weave it’s way into the British Battalion. A Jarama the XV Brigade, including the British Battalion, faced the Moors of Franco’s Army of Africa. At this stage the Army of Africa and the Spanish Foreign legion were used as shock troops; leading the assaults as these were the only units who’s morale Franco could rely upon. After Jarama and Brunete, Franco relied more and more on the Italian Blue Division and the German Condor Legion as his leading shock troops.

I was laid at an angle to the building because there was a very shallow furrow and I was hoping this would be of some help and firing a bit across myself. I got one particular window as a target and was having a steady go at it, without being wasteful. David Marshall IWMSA

I have written about the ammunition in the earlier post – see the link to David Marshall’s Spanish Equipment at the top of this page.

They were giving us Machine-gun stuff. When you hear the first bullet go past you, you know you are not invulnerable, and there was a bit of shrapnel about, not a lot.  Then this marksman got onto me, and I heard the bullets hitting the ground around me, he must have put half a dozen around me, and then he hit me in the leg. Didn’t hurt. It was like a red hot blow, as I say it didn’t hurt, and that was the end of my military stuff. David Marshall IWMSA

Despite forty years passing, one can still hear the frustration in David’s voice as he relates the incident.

By this time it was late afternoon and the sun was coming down, and I just laid quietly, as time passed I crawled back. David Marshall IWMSA

David received his wound; just above the ankle on 12th November 1936, he had been in Spain for just over ten weeks.

I was sitting at the base of an olive tree, this figure came frantically storming at me with a bayonet. I managed to spot him and said “Frank it’s me,” He helped me back, then stretcher bearers came and they insisted on putting me on a stretcher, which I resisted, I resented in a way as I could certainly get along on my rifle. We were shoved into lorries and many of the lads were badly hurt of course. We travelled for an hour or two, the stars were so close you could’ve picked them out of the sky. David Marshall IWMSA

It seems likely that the man who helped him back was the Australian Frank Browne , this is the only man named Frank, that we have records for, serving in Spain at this time, in this unit.

Republican forces “execute” a statue on Cerro de los Ángeles  in 1936

 

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David Marshall’s Spanish equipment

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Reading accounts of the Battle of Jarama, and the XV Brigade up until May 1937 I am struck by the seemingly relentless impression given that the British Battalion were; ill equipped, ill disciplined and had inadequate training: Ben Hughes in They Shall Not Pass  is a good example :

. . . the training was severely hampered by the lack of guns . . . As well as the antiques, some of which dated from 1888, wooden ‘rifles’ and sticks were used on manoeuvre. In the evenings, Macartney indulged his passion for night-time raids. Whilst he remained in his villa, the men would fumble their way across the sodden fields seeking check points in the dark. The marches often ended in farce. (pg 60)

Frankly this does not hold up to much scrutiny,  alas it appears to be the standard narrative. This made me look to where these misconceptions come from; the answer is partly  from Tom Wintringham’s English Captain and partly from what appears to be a confusion over the chronology of the accounts of ‘English’ volunteers fighting in the first six months of the War in Spain. As David Marshall was one such volunteer, one of the first to volunteer,  I think it is useful to look at his experience.

We’d taken things seriously, we drilled, we tried to practice a few manoeuvres. I can drill in German, Spanish, English and French, doesn’t do you much good. David Marshall IWMSA

This is remarkably similar to John Longstaff’s account, who recalls the Spanish instructions in his IWM interview. 

We did field manoeuvres which were useful, we learnt to advance in open order. David Marshall IWMSA

David had spent seven years in the British Army during the Second World War, and felt his training in Spain was comparable. Talking about his time in Albecete (see David Marshall and the Tom Mann Centuria) he moves on to talk about the equipment:

The only rifles we’d ever had must have come from Morocco, they were all engraved in Arabic, they had no firing pins, and we used to use these for drilling with.

back in May I wrote about Firearms in the Spanish Civil War, but this was only about the firearms not the equipment.

We were kitted out with Uniforms there [Albecete] I’d had several different ones before all of them dreadful. This time we got more or less what became the accepted uniform of the International Brigades, it was rather like Battledress . They were dark cord blouse and trousers, the trousers buttoned at the ankles.

The equipment was bloody awful, it was a sort of black plastic on canvas and you had two shoulder straps, a belt around you and three enormous ammunition pouches about as big as  building bricks. well the one in the middle of the back was bloody stupid, every time you crawled it caught  on everything and you felt like a camel, you felt like you were bound to be shot through the backside, so we soon ditched that, most of us generally stuck to one which we kept for bread and grapes for food. When we did get amo we slung it round our necks in its bandoliers. David Marshall IWMSA

We’d been there [Albecete] about 10 days when the rifles came, they were in cases, i don’t know, half a dozen rifles to a case, or eight or something like that, reeked like hell. It seems they were Ross Rifles, a Canadian rifle from the Great War, which had not been used because they were larger than the Lee Enfield and had a more delicate sight, a more damageable sight, and were not so well suited to trench warfare. These  were brand new. David Marshall IWMSA The ammunition was in boxes and in English printed on the sides – “reexamined in England, 1932, for target practice only” – Well we intended it for target practice in a way, didn’t we?  David Marshall IWMSA

We were given these rifles one day, it was a job finding cloth to get all the grease off, I think we’d to sacrifice the odd sock. then we’d hadn’t finished cleaning them and we’d dished out 100 rounds a piece which as I’d said we’d hung of course around our necks, when they shoved us on the train that night . . . We hadn’t even fired the rifles before we went into action. David Marshall IWMSA

I think one can see where the idea of an untrained, underequipped group of men, who hadn’t even fired  their rifles comes about. However this is October 1936, not February 1937, these early  men and women had made their own way to Spain, but when put into action the units did have some idea as to how to fight as a co-ordinated unit. The success of the Republican Army in holding off the Army of Africa in 1936 is testimony to the skill and, admittedly brief, training they had.  

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David Marshall and The Tom Mann Centuria

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After recently writing about Tom Mann and the link to David Marshall (https://foxburg.edublogs.org/2020/11/28/tom-manns-circles-and-links/) I came across this colorisation of the iconic photograph. Colourised by Rafael Navarrete, you can see his work at : https://historiacolor.wordpress.com/

The image is of the Tom Mann Centuria in Barcelona in 1936, it shows (from Left to Right) Sid Avner, Nat Cohen, Ramona Garcia Siles , Tom Wintringham, Georgio Tioli , Jack  Barry, and David Marshall. I will admit I was taken with the image at first, it is certainly arresting. It does have it’s weaknesses however, it’s not up to the standards of Marina Amaral , the Brazilian digital colourist who first came to prominence when she colourised the image of Czesława Kwoka, the impact of the photograph sowed the germ of an idea which resulted in the Faces of Auschwitz project, a collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, academics, journalists and volunteers.

As you can see the image has been heavily cropped, which I feel loses a substantial part of the context.

Yesterday, by coincidence I was listening to David Marshall’s IWM interview and got to the point where he talks about the Tom Mann Centuria, I have begun to transcribe the interview. He had left his home and job in Middlesbrough and travelled to Spain, where, in September 1936, he joined up with a small group of English speaking Communist Party volunteers in Barcelona. He explains to the interviewer that this was before the formation of the International Brigades, therefore he joined the militia units forming in Barcelona.

This was the Anti-Fascist Militia of Catalonia, because there was no International Brigades.

We mentions that in these early months there was little in the way of organisation.

We just went to the front in groups and that was that. 

We were moved from place to place in Barcelona and spent some weeks there and got more and more bored as the units moved off, and our numbers slowly grew until we were eight or ten people.

We were young people together. The active, bright chaps were YCLrs [Young Communist League] funnily enough, but not all of them were. We had regular cell meetings and I was soon made a member of the Spanish Communist Party, and I stayed in the Communist Party for forty years. 

These were organised and led by an East End London activist, Nat Cohen, who had been in Spain for the Barcelona Olympiad when the Military coup occurred. The group named itself the Tom Mann Centuria.

All English, the leading figure was Nat Cohen, a Londoner, he was just back from an abortive attempt to take  Majorca, I remember  visiting a chap called Richard Tish.

Nat Cohen formed us into the Tom Mann Centuria, there is a picture of us carrying a banner in Bill Alexanders’s book Volunteers for Spain . On that you will see Sid Avner, Georgio Tioli who got me in, Tom Wintringham; who was just visiting, and Nat Cohen and a Spanish girl called Ramona who later on he married. . . . and there was this Australian lad called Jack  Barry, who we used to call ‘Bluey’, then we had with us Phil Gillan, and Lorimer Birch, Ray Cox, they were both YCLrs, splendid chaps

In October, before the formation of the International Brigades got fully underway, this group went to Albecete where they drilled and were assimilated into the Thaelmann Battalion. The Thaelmann Battalion would be one of the first, and later eventually became the largest of the groups that formed the International Brigades.

We were feeling the shame of being idle and getting fed up, finally organisation was beginning and they decided to gather the foreign volunteers in a group, and this of course later became the International Brigades, and so we were sent to Albecete which is about half way between Alicante and Madrid, and this was always the base for the Internationals training and getting together.

We were perhaps 16 English all told, when I say ‘English’ it was Scots, Irish, Australian etc. We were officially attached to the Thaelmann Battalion to make their numbers up to the Battalion strength which was about 120.

I have found David’s comments a fascinating insight into the formation of the Anti-Fascist units in the early months of the Spanish War and the makeup of the Tom Mann Centuria in particular. 

Of particular note is the role of Nat Cohen, who formed the Tom Mann Centuria, credit is generally given to the self publicist, self centred Tom Wintringham, who would later prove so disastrous to the British Battalion six months later; but that is another story. 

David goes on to related the training and equipment, therefore, to keep the length of the posts down I’ll report on this separately.

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Where’s Wilf

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I have continued to work on the booklet to accompany John’s  campaign for a memorial to the eight Stockton men who travelled to Spain to fight for the Republican Government within the International Brigades.

See :  https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/stocktonbrigaders 

I have been very lucky in that the process has put me in touch with so many wonderful people, who, without exception. have been supportive and helpful. Primary amongst these must be the relatives and partners of Brigaders, the result is that I feel that I have got to know, and love, a number of these men.

Recently I was watching Los Canadienses: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War and was struck by a scene in 1937. I wondered if I had spotted one of the Stockton men.  

Wilfred Cowan was the youngest son of John and Sarah Cowan of Tilery Road, Stockton, he had immigrated to Canada in 1925 where he joined the Young Communist League. Arriving in Spain on the 24th of April, he trained with the British Battalion before transferring with a further 39 Canadians into the Abraham Lincoln Battalion on 5th June 1937, fighting in this unit until February 1938 when he transferred to the nominally Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.

I posted the image on a few pages to see if I could aquire further information. Alan Warren was the first to assist, telling me this was after the withdrawal from Jarama, and showed Lincolns. Ray Hoff in Canada responded with:

I believe that photo is the 30 Canadians transferred to the Lincolns on June 5, 1937. Ron Liversedge is in the middle. Yes that is Wilf Cowan.

Ray then posted another picture from this event, which for me makes it clear that this group includes Wilf Cowan.

I was particularly pleased as I had two images of Wilf Cowen from later in the war. One from December 1937 and one from October 1938, both are of Wilf posing alone.

Wilf Cowen, dated December 1937, this could be taken at Mas de las Matas. The XV Brigade, left their reserve positions at Mas de las Matas on New Year’s Eve for a perilous nine-hour journey over ice-covered mountain roads to Teruel, which was captured  by the Republicans on 8th January  1938 during the coldest winter in Spain for over thirty years. I think this image is wonderful, if only for the way he’s wearing his cap at a roguish angle.

This second photograph accompanies Wilf Cowan’s Biografia de Militantes held in the Moscow archives, I think you can see why I believe that Wilf is standing far left in the photograph from June 1937.

As you would expect I am a little pleased, as i feel i have at last begun to pay back some of the assistance and help I have received. I must however thank Ray Hoff, not only for his assistance but for the kind and generous way in which he guided me. Thank you.

 

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The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War

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The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War – A Military History of the Republic and International Brigades 1936–1939

By Alexander Clifford
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
Hardback £25 (£4 P&P) Pages: 315, with 43 Illustrations
ISBN: 9781526760920
Published: 22nd January 2020

 

Available from https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Peoples-Army-in-the-Spanish-Civil-War-Hardback/p/17104

Exactly a year ago I was reading Prof. Esdaile’s wonderful The Spanish Civil War, a military History, an academic assessment of the military conflict, one of the few books which looked at the military aspects exclusively, separating these from the political aspects of the war. Alex’s book is directly comparable to Charles’, he does use Charles’ The Spanish Civil War, a military History as a framework, he also conforms to the highest levels of academic convention; providing detailed notes, attribution and an extensive bibliography. This publication is very far from a populist account; this is an outstanding scholarly narrative, demonstrating writing of the finest order; equal to the works of any full-time academic historians I’d care to namedrop. Alex is a History teacher, like myself, this clearly shows in this fine addition to an increasingly popular area of study.

I earlier referred to the term populist, as there tends to be a distinction between academic works and the more populist works. The former are deeply focussed upon a particular aspect of the war; for example Esdaile’s The Spanish Civil War, a military History sees the Spanish Civil War as a military event, in particularly the conflict  between the two sides of the Spanish armed forces that split prior to the coup. The populist publications tend towards a more general view of the conflict, addressing the conflict with broad strokes sometime leading to oversimplification and generalisation. There are some very fine publications covering a lot of the ground Alex is addressing, Richard Baxell’s Unlikely Warriors being the foremost, this looks solely at the British Battalion, whereas Alex looks at the International Brigades as a whole, placing the British Battalion in wider context. It was with Richard’s and Charles’ publications to mind that I began reading Alex’s The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War. The first thing that struck me, from the introduction onwards, was the fluidity of the prose, Alex writes with a light touch which masks the complexity of his sentences. The narrative flows freely because the paragraphs are clear and concise, there is no elaboration to restrict the smooth flow. To say that there is little explanation would be a travesty, as the paragraphs are well balanced. I think it is fair to say that explanation is used economically and appropriately; to create clarity rather than to reinforce a point.

Like most people in the UK my chief focus will obviously be the volunteers from Britain and Ireland, looking at their role within the 15th International Brigade. These are central to The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War, however, as the title implies Alex has placed these within the wider context of the Republican army, comparing them to other Spanish and International units. Alex is quite subtle with his arguments, leaving his points to evolve from the narrative, rather than pushing a particular line of argument and using the evidence to support this, he appears to simply highlight the obvious points that emerge from the story. The best example of this is demonstrated in the balance of the chronology, three quarters of the book covers the campaigns of Jarama, Brunete and Belchite, the last three chapters look at Teruel, the ‘slow agony of defeat’ and an assessment of the People’s Army, this reflects the significance of these events rather than presenting a uniform chronology; the main focus of the narrative relates to just four months, July to October 1937, when the International Brigades were at their peak in terms of equipment and manpower.

After a very brief summary of the cause and outbreak of military conflict in Spain, Alex gives an assessment of Franco and his army, which once again is quite refreshing, I have found that a number of publications show the rebels simply as two dimensional stereotypes – the Fascist Dictator in uniform, single-handedly commanding his barbaric Army of Africa with their German equipment. Alex shows the complexity of the rebel forces, the challenges Franco faced in order to maintain the substantial supply of arms, equipment, supplies and men that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy provided. It is worth noting that Alex carefully contrasts Mussolini’s and Hitler’s relationship with Franco, distinguishing the different roles they played in maintaining the armed coup. It is to Alex’s credit that I can only think of Paul Preston’s work which gives a similar nuanced assessment. The two Fascist dictators saved Franco’s coup from meeting the same fate as the 1932 Army coup, but did so to further their own ends. It is pleasing to see someone highlighting the role of the Italians in this conflict, beyond that of their submarines torpedoing ships carrying men and supplies to Republican Spain.

I was impressed by the description of Jarama as comparable to the trenches of the Western Front in the Great War, this resonates as most of the memoirs speak of trenches, dugouts and digging, this is especially true of Frank Thomas a brigader in the British anti-tank battery. The analogy runs deeper as we find stretches of endless waiting, even boredom interspersed by short, intense, brutal action. Examining Jarama Alex’s light touch shines through, I perceived the overall battle whilst focusing on the individuals, as well as experiencing the frantic chaos of battle. For clarity and immersiveness I felt this was on a par with Frank Graham’s account; Frank Graham, however, had the benefit of being able to write from his own experiences.

The description of Brunete as ‘The Republic’s Somme’ is inspired, this is one of the focal points of the book, the hub around which the arguments and explanation revolve. The use of the phrase ‘The Somme’ is emotive, but justified by Alex’s narrative, he embeds his comparative description deeply, allowing the numerous implicit connections to emerge from the description. I am very familiar with Brunete because of my focus on the Teesside brigaders, (I am part of a group campaigning for a memorial – justgiving.com/crowdfunding/stocktonbrigaders) but this chapter brought fresh insights and clarity; even with a familiarity with a number of individual stories, I still found a level of comprehensibility in the overview which enriched my prior knowledge. An example of this is the use of Copeman’s account of the killing of Bill Meredith, (Meredith is one of the ten names on the Teesside memorial) it’s tone is  similar to that of Copeman’s description of George Bright’s killing; the clinically precise detail underscores the brutal tragedy, whilst also suggesting the context: the horrific barbarism of some of the combatants whilst others perceiving their actions to be honourable, and in the case of Meredith chivalrous. The barbarity of Franco’s troops is well presented here, whilst avoiding glorification of violence. Alex is demonstrating Brunete as a development of Jarama, a transition between the trench warfare of the previous European conflict and the attritional slogging match of the European conflict which would swiftly follow.

I feel the way Alex demonstrates the interconnection between the conflict in Spain and the Second World war; especially the Eastern campaign where Soviet and German tactics, equipment and sometime men, clashed once again. This reflected and enhanced my understanding of the Spanish conflict, his chapter on Teruel alluding to Stalingrad only deepened this understanding. Alex argues convincingly that the watershed moment in the Spanish Conflict was at Jarama, where Franco’s military coup was stopped, where the Army of Africa and the International volunteers fought themselves to a standstill, denying the military coup success. Hereafter the conflict could best be characterised as the Spanish Government attempting to prevent an invasion by foreign powers. The French and especially the British actions ensured that the Spanish Government would be unable to fight off this invasion. The valour and bravery of the shock troops of the Republican Army would henceforth only delay the conquest of Spain by the fascists. It is further to Alex’s credit that this situation is made abundantly clear, not through commentary, but through his clear narration of the events. The later chapters have a much slower paced feel, they have a rather morose atmosphere, it’s obvious the Government faces defeat, no matter what they do, fittingly this last chapter is giving the title ‘A slow agony.

At the end of each chapter Alex writes a ‘conclusions’ section which draws together his thoughts on the events he has just related, I found this exceptionally useful, as it allowed me to consolidate my thoughts. It is within these conclusions that Alex assesses the events and actions of groups and individuals; this allows the preceding narrative to flow, there is no pause to assess the impact. It is fitting therefore that the assessment of the People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War is completed in a separate final chapter, where Alex gives a favourable, but I feel balanced, assessment of the forces the Spanish Government could deploy.

The strength of this book is that I found myself agreeing with his conclusions, however, I do not feel as if I have been persuaded, I feel as if I have been allowed to come up with these conclusions myself. It is very difficult not to take up an emotional position on this conflict, especially as someone who has studies the men for my home town, who has spoken to the relatives and friends of brigaders, and who measures a number of these men as personal heroes. It is a danger that one can react emotionally to criticism, there is criticism, but The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War could be seen as a tribute to the Republican soldiers and medical staff, it shows their honour, their valour, bravery without glorification. It also shows the mistakes, the challenges and the disparity between the shock troops and majority Spanish recruits, without making excuses; it does not raise the Republican Army to the heights of a mighty military regime which could have been successful if the odds had not been stacked against it. Alex make it clear that this People’s Army was a poor Army; poorly led, poorly equipped, with poor tactics and scant resources. I think a fair and balanced assessment, one that can lead to debate.

The book is completed by four Appendix, of which the first, on the firearms used in the conflict, provided a useful, if rather repetitive insight; basically, the rebels had almost all the best firearms and they had a plentiful supply. The order of Battle and details on the armament shipments to both sides reinforce Alex’s narrative handsomely. I must finish with a mention of the illustrations, the maps are what I consider ‘old style’ black and white line drawings, which suit the text well, they amplify the thrust of the narrative, rather than distract from. I found the photographs of Brunete and Belchite refreshing, as they show the battlefields rather than the combatants we usually see; the one of Purburrel Hill has special significance for me.

I believe Alex’s The People’s Army in the Spanish Civil War is exceptional, it is accessible in that it spans the divide between academic and populist publications. It can be read by anyone as the History teacher here presents the information in a way that is clear, but challenging. The chapter structure and style of writing make the reading of this volume a pleasure, the chapters are distinct units, part of a larger unit, one has the feeling of fulfilment on reaching the end of a chapter. It is usual to impose a qualification on recommendation, limiting the recommendation to a particular grouping of people. In this case this would be unnecessary, for experts on, and novices to, the topic will get something from this publication. Lastly it needs highlighting that Pen and Sword are the publisher of this book, they produce a huge quantity of military publications, giving authors like Alex the opportunity which they would not usually get from the larger publishers. It is to their credit that they encourage new authors, for it would be a travesty if this book had not seen the light of day, I believe it sets a standard many academic publications will fail to reach.

March 2020