The Spanish Civil War (132 page)

1.
Numantia, a hill fortress near Soria, resisted Rome until the end in 134–133
B.C
. In fact, there was no possible escape for the defenders since Scipio Aemilianus had drawn continuous entrenchments round the town.

2.
All the above conversations derive from Azaña’s diaries.

1.
Azaña, vol. IV, p. 786.

2.
Ibid.,
p. 107.

3.
Ibid.,
p. 794.

4.
Gómez Lobo to Azaña,
op. cit.,
p. 748.

1.
This sad image is Christopher Seton-Watson’s in relation to pre-fascist Italy.

2.
García Oliver demanded to the state prosecutor, Eduardo Ortega y Gasset, that Fernández be released, adding, ‘we do not make requests twice’. Ortega fled the country.

3.
See above, p. 287.

4.
Qu. in Ossorio y Gallardo, p. 207.

1.
Fifty-three compared to 98 in June 1936, with January 1936 as 100 (Bricall, p. 96).

2.
Bricall, p. 70.

3.
See, e.g., Azaña,
op. cit.,
p. 760.

1.
Carlos Pi y Súñer to Azaña, in Azaña, vol. IV, pp. 790–801.

2.
Op. cit.,
p. 802; also p. 760.

3.
Guy Hermet,
Les Catholiques dans l’Espagne Franquiste
(Paris, 1981), p. 79. The vicar-general of Barcelona forbade the opening of any church and allowed it to be known that he would refuse licences to priests who heard mass. (Evidence of Señor Irujo.)

1.
Azaña, vol. IV, p. 638.

2.
Convulsiones,
vol. II, p. 65f.

3.
See above, p. 710.

4.
Prieto’s words to Azaña,
op. cit.,
p. 638.

1.
Convulsiones,
vol. II, p. 34; Hernández, pp. 99–100; Castro Delgado, p. 201; El Campesino,
Comunista,
p. 86f.

2.
George Orwell, letter to Raymond Mortimer, 9 February 1938.

3.
Convulsiones,
II, pp. 56–7.

4.
Manuel Uribarri,
El SIM de la República
(Havana, 1942). Carlos de Juan, the new director-general of security, did his best to cut the size of, and remove the politics from, the police (there were 4,000 more police in the republic in mid-1937 than there were before the war in the whole Peninsula). Azaña pointed out that the ‘problem’ was common to both zones, as ‘one now refers to them’ (
op. cit.,
p. 835).

5.
The General Cause,
p. 161.

1.
Prieto in
Yo y Moscú
(Madrid, 1955), p. 156. No one ever heard what happened to El Negus, even when his policy became that of the party itself.

2.
Prieto,
Convulsiones,
vol. II, pp. 22, 57, and
Yo y Moscú,
p. 189. Orlov, still head of the GPU in Spain, thought of assassinating Prieto; he was dissuaded by Hernández (see
Convulsiones,
vol. II, p. 117).

3.
Lister, p. 125.

1.
Martínez Amutio, pp. 211, 228.

2.
The General Cause,
p. 304. The army unit in question was the 36th Mixed Brigade, commanded by Justo López de la Fuente, who, returning to Spain in the 1960s, died in gaol because of this. There was a similar scheme in Russia during their civil war. Cf. Angelica Balabanoff,
Impressions of Lenin
(Ann Arbour, 1964), p. 108.

3.
For a description of these arbitrary tribunals on which the ignorant and malevolent often sat as judges, see G. Avilés,
Tribunales rojos
(Barcelona, 1939),
passim.
Hard though such books are to credit, they are impossible to reject.

1.
An exception was during the collapse in Aragon in early 1938. See below, p. 779.

2.
Rojo,
Asi fue,
p. 159.

3.
R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. II, p. 1560.

1.
Qu. in William Rust,
Britons in Spain
(London, 1939), p. 98. These instructions were not confined to the International Brigades. Pamphlets on ‘Leadership’ were also published in considerable numbers, e.g.,
El Mando
by ‘General W.W.W.’

2.
Spriano, p. 226. Other figures for 1938 from Italy were 27, 34, 47 and 35 in March and following months.

1.
Gurney, p. 53. See Skoutelsky, p. 86, for a more innocent explanation.

2.
The International Brigades
(pamphlet, Madrid, 1953), p. 21.

3.
Asensio became military attaché in the US, Martínez Cabrera military governor in Madrid.

4.
Azaña, vol. IV, p. 683.

5.
R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. II, p. 1583.

1.
USD,
1938, vol. I, pp. 149–50. The arms profiteers at the expense of the republic came from all classes. Who in those days had not heard of Lord Hervey, who, having received payment from the republic for a cargo of ammunition, allegedly sold it again to the nationalists?

2.
R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. II, p. 1619. See also Howson, especially 278ff.

3.
The meeting had been convoked at the last minute, on dubious grounds (Largo Caballero, p. 236).

4.
Text in Peirats, vol. II, pp. 382–93.

5.
The new executive of the UGT included Ramón González Peña (president); Edmundo Domínguez (vice-president); Rodríguez Vega (secretary-general); Amaro del Rosal Díaz (assistant secretary); and Felipe Pretel (treasurer). Both Domínguez and Pretel had once been supporters of Largo, but they were now
Negrinistas.
Such are the consequences of power. The old
Caballerista
executive continued in existence, disputing the validity of the new. After some months, negotiations were begun between the two, the skilful diplomacy of the French union leader Léon Jouhaux being used to begin the conversations. Eventually a compromise was reached, and four of the Largo Caballero wing (Zabalza, Díaz Alor, Belarmino Tomás, Hernández Zacajo) joined the executive. But they did not do so as officers, and Largo Caballero himself remained outside. See Peirats, vol. II, pp. 393–4.

1.
C. Lorenzo, p. 84.

2.
Ibid.,
p. 312; Azaña, vol. IV, p. 802f.

1.
Campo Libre,
20 November 1937.

2.
Ibid.,
27 November 1937.

3.
Ibid.,
18 December 1937.

4.
The total cultivable area was 60 million acres.

5.
Imprecorr,
17 May 1938, p. 145. The same report says that the Institute of Agrarian Reform spent 200 million pesetas in credit and aid to peasants between July 1936 and 31 December 1937.

1.
Pike, p. 129. The last was an unsuitable contact: Troncoso, an important link in nationalist intelligence, was arrested in Bayonne for organizing a group, including an Italian fascist, the Marquis di Maraviglio (editor of the Rome paper
La Tribuna
), whose aim was to capture the republican submarine
C-2
when it docked in Brest.

2.
A. Toynbee,
Survey, 1937,
p. 391.

1.
Azaña, vol. IV, p. 848.

1.
So De la Cierva says (
Historia ilustrada,
vol. II, p. 328), though he says the spy was Cipriano Mera—a story of which the latter does not speak in his own book.

2.
Azaña, vol. IV, p. 812.

1.
Aznar, p. 549. The command was as follows: 22nd Army Corps (Ibarrola)—11th Division (Lister) and 25th Division (Vivancos); 20th Army Corps (Menéndez)—68th Division (Trigueros) and 40th (Nieto); 18th Army Corps (Heredia)—34th Division (Etelvino Vega) and 64th (Martínez Cartón). Tanks (both T-26s and BT-5s), artillery and sapper units were attached to each Army Corps.

2.
The best journalistic accounts of this battle from the republican side were by Henry Buckley and by Herbert Matthews in
Two Wars and More to Come
(New York, 1938). See also Lister, p. 171f.; R. Salas, vol. II, p. 1637f. Lojendio, Azñar, and Villegas are sources for the nationalist counter-offensive.

1.
See Kindelán’s report on the republican air force, 8 February 1938, qu. R. Salas, vol. II, p. 1624.

2.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 46.

3.
Galland, p. 32.

1.
Prieto,
Palabras al viento,
p. 220. Both were later shot. See below, p. 858.

2.
The International Brigades had rested during the early part of these operations. It was early in December that the British Battalion had received a visit from the Labour leaders Attlee, Ellen Wilkinson and Philip Nöel-Baker. A dinner was given, at which Attlee promised to do his utmost to end the ‘farce of nonintervention’, and Nöel-Baker recalled how Britain had sent 10,000 men to assist the Spanish liberals in the Carlist Wars. Henceforth, the No. 1 Company of the British Battalion was known as the ‘Major Attlee Company’. Attlee wrote back: ‘I would assure [the Brigade] of our admiration for their courage and devotion to the cause of freedom and social justice. I shall try to tell the comrades at home of what I have seen. Workers of the World unite!’ The singer Paul Robeson was a visitor too. As for those for whom ‘home’ meant France, the winter of 1937–8 was notable for the publication of Malraux’s magnificent novel
L’Espoir.
Azaña commented: ‘Ah, these Frenchmen! Only they would think of making a civil guard into a philosopher!’

1.
R. Salas, vol. II, pp. 3050–51.

2.
Save certain Russian actions near the Caspian in 1942.

1.
See Martínez Bande,
La batalla de Teruel
(Madrid, 1974), p. 227.

2.
El Campesino,
Listen, Comrades
(London, 1952) p. 11;
Comunista en España,
pp. 65–70. See Prieto’s review of this book reprinted in
Convulsiones,
vol. II, pp. 110–11.

3.
Lister, p. 301.

4.
Prieto,
Yo y Moscú,
pp. 197–200.

1.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 72. Eden promised Azcárate to try to intervene with Franco against these raids (Azcárate, p. 209). While it presumed that this
démarche
was being considered, the republicans refrained from reprisals. But later, after Eden had resigned, Britain denied that she had taken any initiative in the matter.

2.
Eden, p. 571. The captain of the
Sanjurjo,
who was responsible for the attack on
Endymion,
was relieved of his command on return to harbour.

1.
GD,
p. 564.

2.
Ibid.,
p. 573.

3.
NIS
(c), eighty-third meeting.

4.
Eden, p. 549f.

1.
Feiling, p. 337; Eden, pp. 380–82; Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 78.

2.
Cervera, p. 226.

1.
The Condor Legion now had two Messerschmitt 109 groups of four squadrons; two Heinkel 51 groups of two squadrons; a reconnaissance group of Heinkels and Dorniers 17, of three squadrons; four bomber groups of three squadrons of Heinkels 111 and Junkers 52. Fighters and reconnaissance groups were of nine aircraft, bomber groups of twelve. The tank corps under von Thoma now comprised four battalions, each of three companies with fifteen light tanks a company. This was accompanied by thirty anti-tank companies, with six 37-mm. guns apiece.

2.
The now veteran American Major Merriman was killed in the retreat. Merriman was succeeded by the English Malcolm Dunbar. A Brooklyn art student, Milton Wolf, took over the Lincoln Battalion. The commissar of the British Battalion, Wally Tapsell, was killed near Belchite. He had been an outspoken critic of the changes of front in the communist policy towards Spain.

3.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 87.

4.
Martínez Amutio, p. 266.

1.
Cf. Castells, p. 311f.

2.
Julian Amery,
Approach March,
p. 92, recalls a macabre scene in the cemetery outside Huesca, relieved now by the nationalists, in which skeletons and decomposing corpses, along with freshly dead men, had been arranged in a dance of death to welcome the enemy. (Amery, a future English politician, visited nationalist Spain in the spring of 1938 as an undergraduate.)

1.
It is hard to sort out the accusations of treachery, cowardice, attempted murder, which fill the works of anti-communist writers of this period—e.g., Peirats, vol. III, pp. 102f. and 251f. A number of commanders were bound to be dismissed in consequence of these defeats. A number of others were evidently shot, partly for political or even personal reasons. Several of the most discreditable occurrences happened in Andalusia, where there could be no excuse that the stress of defeat compelled it. Anarchists did not accept murders by communists without protest: thus the famous guerrilla fighter, Francisco Sabater (‘El Quico’), shot a communist captain and commissar as a reprisal for being placed in an exposed part of the front (Téllez, p. 17).

2.
The nationalist pilots sometimes thought of air battles in the same terms as a bull-fight. Some would refer to the stage of actual battle by the bullfight cry ‘
¡Al toro!
’ The motto of the famous nationalist air ace, García Morato, was ‘
Vista, suerte y al toro
’—good eyes, good luck and at the bull.

1.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 99.

2.
De la Cierva,
Historia ilustrada,
vol. II, p. 354. The rumours are not confirmed. For another, less charitable view, see below, p. 912.

3.
Qu. Abella, p. 312.

1.
Zugazagoitia, vol. II, p. 82.

2.
Álvarez del Vayo,
The Last Optimist,
p. 300.

3.
Hitler used the ex-commander of the Condor Legion, Sperrle, as a physical menace at his famous interview with Schuschnigg.

1.
Feiling, p. 347.

2.
USD,
1938, vol. I, p. 163.

3.
Robert Brasillach,
Histoire de la guerre d’Espagne
(Paris, 1939), p. 397.

4.
Schuschnigg,
Ein Requiem in Rot-Weiss-Rot,
p. 37, qu. Churchill,
Gathering Storm,
p. 205.

5.
This meeting is described in Maurice Gamelin,
Servir
(Paris, 1946–7), vol. II, pp. 322–8. See also Georges Bonnet,
De Washington au Quai d’Orsay
(Geneva, 1946), p. 77.

6.
Their resolution was perhaps helped by the appearance of a news story that a military rising had taken place against Franco at Tetuán. This was the fabrication of the Comintern propaganda department in Paris carried out by Otto Katz and Claud Cockburn. The fraud aimed to give the impression that Franco might still be defeated and that, therefore, it was worth the French effort to open the border. (Claud Cockburn,
Crossing the Line,
London, 1956, pp. 27–8.) (I was grateful to Claud Cockburn for help here.)

7.
L. Fischer, pp. 451–2, suggests that a crucial talk between British ambassador Sir Eric Phipps and Paul-Boncour tipped the balance. Phipps is said to have protested against the proposals to mobilize.

1.
Les Événements,
p. 253.

2.
GD,
p. 622. Ribbentrop succeeded Neurath as German foreign minister in February.

3.
Basil Liddell Hart,
The Defence of Britain
(London, 1938), p. 66.

4.
It had become customary in nationalist Spain to date public decrees and even private letters by the terminology Year I, Year II, after the rising of 18 July 1936, in the style of fascist Italy. (In Rome, 1937 was the Year XV.)

5.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
p. 80. Ciano was distressed: ‘Franco must exploit his success. Fortune is not a train which passes every day at the same time. She is a prostitute who offers herself fleetingly and then passes on to others.’

6.
Rachele Mussolini, p. 71.

1.
GD,
p. 625.

2.
Report of US military attaché, Colonel Fuqua (Claude Bowers,
My Mission to Spain,
New York, 1954, p. 376).

3.
GD,
p. 626.

4.
See Cervera, pp. 317–18; and Kindelán, p. 19. The German Hydro-Heinkels of Palma were known as ‘Negrillas’, the Italians, Legionaries.

5.
Ciano,
Diaries 1937–8,
pp. 91–2.

6.
For an account in Barcelona, see Horner, p. 160.

7.
A public letter of protest was signed by a mixed group of eminent Englishmen, including both anglican archbishops, Cardinal Hinsley, the Lord Chief Justice, the chairmen of ICI and Lloyds, Lords Horder and Camrose, the headmasters of Rugby and Haileybury, Maynard Keynes, and many others. H. G. Wells gave his name to one of these protests. The nationalist agent, the Duke of Alba, wrote to him in astonishment that so great a writer should have such truck with the ‘rabble’.

1.
In a letter to the author.

2.
Bosch Gimpera, Memorandum No. 5.

1.
See Peirats, vol. III, pp. 280 and 288. According to one report, the SIM had 6,000 agents in Madrid alone, with a budget of 22 million pesetas. The SIM shortly went into a period of disorganization—its chief, Colonel Uribarri, escaping to France with a good deal of money. His extradition, though demanded, never occurred. His successor was Santiago Garcés, previously of the socialist youth, a confidant of Prieto, who had been in the murder-car at the time of the death of Calvo Sotelo. Another prominent member of the SIM, Maxim Schneller, head of its ‘Foreign Section’, seems to have been a double spy and fled to France (see Delmer, p. 356, where there is a description of a visit to the SIM’s prison ship,
Uruguay,
in Barcelona harbour).

2.
Álvarez del Vayo,
The Last Optimist,
p. 301.

1.
Other members of the delegation were Pretel (UGT); Vidarte (socialist); Santiago Carrillo (united youth); Serra Pamiés (PSUC); and Guerrero (FAI) (Ibarruri, p. 395).

2.
The above derives from Prieto,
Epistolario Prieto y Negrin
(Paris, 1939); Prieto,
Convulsiones,
vol. II, p. 37; Alvarez del Vayo,
The Last Optimist,
p. 123; Zugazagoitia, p. 400.

3.
I.e., Jesús Hernández. For confirmation of communist murders at the front, see Peirats, vol. III, pp. 102–30. The CNT and FAI sent a complaint on this question to Prieto on 25 March.

1.
Prieto,
Yo y Moscú,
p. 38.

2.
Hernández, p. 159. This was scarcely a happy time in the world communist movement: Bukharin and his fellow victims, including Yagoda and Grinko, the commissar of finance who had received the Spanish gold in 1936, were tried between 2 and 13 March 1938.

1.
Prieto,
Yo y Moscú,
pp. 39–40. Prieto said later he merely told the meeting the ‘fascists would inevitably reach the Mediterranean’.

2.
Prieto,
Epistolario,
p. 24.

3.
Qu. in Prieto,
Yo y Moscú,
p. 43f.

4.
See C. Lorenzo, pp. 291 and 313. A liaison committee had been formed with Horacio Prieto president and Rodríguez Vega (socialist) secretary.

5.
Ibid.,
pp. 176–7.

1.
C. Lorenzo, p. 315.

2.
Shipping companies created in England by the republican government were those of Howard Tenens Ltd, the Prosper Steamship Co., the Burlington Steamship Co., ‘Southern Shipping’, and the Kentish Company. The Mid Atlantic Company was formed to charter other ships and was run by a Basque nationalist and a socialist under the direction of the Spanish Embassy in London. Prieto’s son Luis was financial attaché. The Tyneside millionaire Billmeir (‘the best of the rogues I had to deal with’, said José Calvino, one of the leading republican buyers) was the hidden hand behind many such ventures.

3.
Prieto,
Palabras al viento,
pp. 282–3.

4.
See, for example, Amery, pp. 108–9. Prieto was offered the post of ambassador to Mexico. No doubt Negrín wanted him out of the way. Azaña was furious. That led to a major quarrel between the two, since Azaña desired to keep Prieto as a possible Premier. Prieto refused. See Azaña, vol. I, pp. 881–3. Eventually, much later in the year, Prieto agreed to be ‘special ambassador’ to the inauguration of President Aguirre Cerda of Chile. He went to Santiago, made brilliant speeches, and was in exile already when the war ended.

1.
Hernández, pp. 166–8. On 18 March, Russia proposed a ‘grand alliance’ within the League against Hitler. This was rejected by Chamberlain.

2.
Castro Delgado, p. 659.

1.
This agreement and the negotiations leading up to it are described in full in Peirats, vol. III, p. 62f. A committee to coordinate UGT-CNT activities was set up under two anarchists (Horacio Prieto and Roberto Alfonso) and two from the UGT (Rodríguez Vega and César Lombardie). During April, the CNT gave other backing to the government, the ex-minister Peiró becoming commissar-general of electricity (
op. cit.,
p. 124).

1.
Though this mainly radical socialist cabinet stood to the right of those of Blum and Chautemps, it was supported by the socialists.

1.
Letter to the editor of
Time and Tide,
5 February 1938. Orwell had pointed out earlier that the war produced a ‘richer crop of lies than any event since the Great War of 1914–1918’. (‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’, in
New English Weekly,
29 July 1937.)