Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Iain on May 18, 2009, 01:44:39 PM
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I'm trying to get hold of a good range of materials about the Civil War, and the effects on Spain to this day.
I've read, seen or got a hold of: Anthony Beevor's 'The Spanish Civil War', Orwell 'Homage to Catalonia', Tremlett 'Ghosts of Spain', Webster 'Guerra' (last two not terribly academic, but interesting), 'Pans Labyrinth', 'The Devils Backbone', Hemingway 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'.
Also aware of 'Mine Were of Trouble' by Peter Kemp who was an English volunteer with Francos forces, and later fought with distinction as a member of SOE in WWII. Obituary (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-kemp-1501984.html)
Ken Loach's 'Land and Freedom' looks to be an interesting film. Might read Jane Duran's poetry collection 'Silences from the Spanish Civil War' as her father was a Republican officer and later an exile.
Also want to read 'As I walked out one midsummer morning', and 'A moment of war', both by Laurie Lee.
Was tempted by a Franco biography in Blackwell's the other day, but 900 pages and £25 was a touch more than I could take for now.
Found this too - http://www.geocities.com/irelandSCW/docs-Cork1930s.htm - coverage of Irish volunteers on both sides, with up to date news stories about them. Entertaining extract from Patrick Galvin's 'Song for a poor boy. A Cork childhood'.
Anyone got suggestions?
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I'll be interested in the suggestions, as well.
Heretofore, my only real interest & study concerned the use of German hardware during the conflict.
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I'll be interested in the suggestions, as well.
Heretofore, my only real interest & study concerned the use of German hardware during the conflict.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but both Nazi and Soviets funneled arms into the struggle, using it as a test bed, yes?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but both Nazi and Soviets funneled arms into the struggle, using it as a test bed, yes?
More or less.
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More or less.
Proxy war in some ways, although the Soviets were desperate not to upset Hitler. Beevor makes an intriguing suggestion late on his book that Stalin may well have not been interested at all in a (by that point Communist-dominated) Republican victory. The Republican government had shipped the vast majority of its gold reserves to Moscow early on, so its not like it was costing Stalin Soviet money.
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What fascinates me is how everybody "looking for a war" just sort of wound up in Spain it seems...
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What fascinates me is how everybody "looking for a war" just sort of wound up in Spain it seems...
Some were looking for an adventure, others were looking for a wage. Plenty of the journalists/writers were ideologically motivated, but I suspect a good many people thought that Spain would be the clash of the two ideologies, or would directly lead to a European war if Russia, Germany, France and Britain got directly involved. Maybe even an international war if the US could be persuaded.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but both Nazi and Soviets funneled arms into the struggle, using it as a test bed, yes?
Yes, in many ways far more so the Germans, whole combat groups (Condor Legion) but not a lot else.
The Soviets sent mainly military supplies (for payment in gold) like tanks and artillery. It was in Spain that the Soviets learned that their artillery designs were generally excellent but that their BT series of tanks was severely lacking. Experiences in Spain led directly to the development of the KV-1 and T-34, both exceptional tanks.
In terms of manpower, the Soviets didn't send many men, but did encourage the formation of the International Brigades. Procommunist Americans served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
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There were considerable numbers of Italian troops on the ground too.
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When I got my degree and started working in earnest, my first manager was a former Hitlerjugend, captured in 1945 by American forces at the ripe old age of 16 1/2. (He was actually an officer then!)
Once I got to know him a bit, he would start telling war stories . . . and one day his conversation turned to the Spanish Civil War. He was too young to be a part of it personally, but he knew a number of other Germans who were.
He was adamant that if not for German intervention, Spain would have gone Communist and become a Soviet puppet state.
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That's quite possibly true, but there are a lot of what ifs. What if non-intervention had actually happened? What if Britain had got involved, or allowed France to get involved? If the latter had happened before the effective communist coup - well, quite different. What if that plane hadn't crashed and Sanjurjo had taken control of the Nationalist forces.
The Republican government of Spain was not a communist one in the first place. The Republican forces probably failed in part because of the extremely diverse and thus divided nature of its forces. It was not purely communism vs fascism.
The Basques and Catalans fought for their autonomy against a nationalist movement based on an ancient Castilian ideal of unity, and they were right to as Franco banned their languages and suppressed their political freedoms, ETA was born at this time.
Barcelona in particular had been heavily influenced by anarchist ideas and there were violent clashes between them and the communists.
The communists came to dominate, and many commanders joined them making this look worse, but often they did so purely to try and guarantee artilery and air support for their men. The communist advisors were not above sending non-communists in to battle with unmet promises of support.
Also - do not forget what that German intervention brought with it, or the brutal purges behind the lines and oppressive government of the next few decades. No-one won.
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I recommend Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War.
If you have any endurance left (Thomas goes into detail), I would get Paul Preston's books including the biography of Franco.
Why the sudden interest in the Spanish Civil War, Iain?
Taking a trip to Spain for holiday? Just being nosy.
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No-one won.
Any time communists get shot, I count that as a win.
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You've read the books so I'll save you the lesson. If you're not joking then I'd suggest a re-reading. There wasn't much communist about a great deal of men that got shot, in fact the communists shot more than a few for not being communist enough.
Anyway, the British have long been obsessed with Spain. But for me '36-'39 Spain is a microcosm of the 20th century, communism and fascism, idealism and atrocity. I'd read Beevor's book some time ago, but then read the Webster Guerra! book referred to above, which covers some interesting anecdotes of investigating the war now. The official policy throughout the Franco regime was of forgetting, people lived with their relatives killers. Bodies remained in unmarked roadside graves where the victims had been shot.
Although being part of the Republican cause was made a crime, no-one was punished for Nationalist atrocities, and some of those responsible were also the men who made the transition after Franco died. Tremlett's book talks of a Spain that in many ways is only just facing up to the past, it took a long time to start the process of digging up and identifying those in mass graves.
I've stood on the cliffs at Ronda, the site of the events that Hemingway fictionalised in For Whom... where supposed Nationalist sympathisers were thrown over the edge.
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What fascinates me is how everybody "looking for a war" just sort of wound up in Spain it seems...
My grandfather fought there, but I have no idea why, never having met the man.
Prior to that he had been horse cavalry in the US Army.
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Any time communists get shot, I count that as a win.
Yeah, I'm thinking hard to come up with ways it could be a loss, but coming up empty.
And commies shooting commies? Where do we air drop the armaments to keep it happening?
Kinda like the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s: too bad both can't lose.
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I often wonder what it takes to do that work, and that mentality is definitely a pre-requisite.
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The following are on their way:
Behind the Spanish Barricades: Reports From The Spanish Civil War - John Langdon-Davies. Brit who spent time in Spain immediately before the war and during the war. He was later involved in helping the govt prepare for air raids.
Red Sky at Sunrise: Cider with Rosie; as I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning; A Moment of War - Laurie Lee. Cheaper to get the three books detailing the first 23 (!) years of his life.
Franco's International Brigades:Foreign Volunteers and Fascist Dictators in the Spanish Civil War: Foreign Volunteers and Fascist Dictators - Christopher Othen.
The Fifth Column: And Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War - Hemingway.
Land And Freedom [1995] [DVD]
Into the Heart of the Fire: The British in the Spanish Civil War - James K. Hopkins. Bloody expensive. Supposed to be good. Better be.
Soldiers of Salamis - Javier Cercas. Interesting sounding 'novel'.
Brother Against Brother : Experiences of a British Volunteer in the Spanish Civil War - Frank Thomas. Volunteered for Franco. Edition also contains a diary of another Welshman who fought for the Republic.
That'll do for now. It seems the Peter Kemp book 'Mine were of trouble' is out of print and I've seen it referred to as the Holy Grail of Spanish Civil War books, one forum post said that the last time it was seen online for sale it went for £120. Apparently the British Library have a copy and I could get it on inter-library loan.
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Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a good primary source. It's quite informative on the issue of [lack of] Stalinist support for the communist forces.
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I will inform Orlovsky immediately.
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Anyway, the British have long been obsessed with Spain.
Yes, I know. I've seen the movie "Sexy Beast". =D
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Yeah, I'm thinking hard to come up with ways it could be a loss, but coming up empty.
Fool! If killing a commie disrupts vodka, AK or 7.62 exports to the US, it's a loss. Otherwise, it's just good entertainment.
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Fool! If killing a commie disrupts vodka, AK or 7.62 exports to the US, it's a loss. Otherwise, it's just good entertainment.
Well, there you have it, the complete list of deleterious consequences if commies are shot.
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Isn't the best vodka Swedish, anyway?
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Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a good primary source. It's quite informative on the issue of [lack of] Stalinist support for the communist forces.
Orwell has three volumes of memoirs and other papers, one of which covers his time in Spain. Great read, especially when you realize he was fighting for the Communists. Spain in the 30's was like Greece in the 1820's--all these European idealists flocked to it.
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Orwell has three volumes of memoirs and other papers, one of which covers his time in Spain. Great read, especially when you realize he was fighting for the Communists. Spain in the 30's was like Greece in the 1820's--all these European idealists flocked to it.
Where'd you get that information about Greece? As near as I can tell from my public education, history revolves solely around the North American continent from about 1730 onwards.
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Many of the Americans who fought in Spain were not communists, but were anti-fascist and adventurers. The unfortunate side effect of fighting the above mentioned brigades was that after WW2, many were classified as communists and were hounded by our government and some couldn't find any work. A sad fate for those who served in our military during the war.
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Digging this up because I'm slowly getting through the books I've bought. I should stop reading other books at the same time, or perhaps just read more...
Javier Cercas - Soldiers of Salamis.
Sort of a novel about novel writing. There is a historical event behind it, the escape from the firing squad of the Falangist poet Sanchez Mazas. Cercas tells that story, and then hangs it together with the tale of a Republican soldier. Difficult but beautiful, the story is more important than the absolute truth because the story is so beautiful. Little bit like McEwan's Atonement in this regard.
Laurie Lee - Red Sky at Sunrise
His autobiographical trilogy, covering the first 23 years of his life. The first book is the famous Cider with Rosie, and it is by far the most significant book of the three in general terms. A prose poem: "I was part of that generation, that by chance, saw the end of a thousand years of life." The last book 'A moment of war' describes his time in the pointless unpleasantness of the war, nearly being shot as a spy or deserter by his own side on three occasions. The paranoia of the increasingly communist dominated Republican side, the arrests made and the shots heard.
Land and Freedom - film by Ken Loach
Low budget but well made. Sadly and poignantly shows the defeat of the naive, underequipped and idealistic anarchists by their own side as the communists staged coup took over. Definitely worth watching.
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I'm trying to get hold of a good range of materials about the Civil War, and the effects on Spain to this day.
I've read, seen or got a hold of: ... 'Pans Labyrinth'
Seems a bit of a stretch. Good movie and all, but not sure how well it does on the whole "historical" aspect.
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It feeds directly. Even if you ignore the way in which the mythology of the film may or may not be an allegory for a dying Spain, there are scenes of guerillas in the woods and the savagery of men who came to the fore in those days.
There are reasons why two of del Toro's most important works, Pan's Labyrinth and the Devil's Backbone are set in those times. Even if it is just because war makes a good, turbulent, backdrop for a story. Many stories are set, seemingly tangentially, in times of war because of the social upheavals involved, and that can tell you something about the nature of the conflict. Or just the impact on the conflict or the way the conflict was perceived. Historical accuracy isn't always everything in a work of fiction.