Great portraits of the International Brigade in Spain

One of the most chilling memories of Franco in action I have read was him signing off death warrants as he was driven to work.

But then he regarded the extreme or Socialist Left as a total threat to the Spanish way of life. He followed that old political adage of "whatever it takes". He believed that the root and branch removal of the extreme Left from Spanish political life was essential. In this he is reminiscent of Pinochet. Both believed that the Left was a revolutionary force. Both were simplistic in this conclusion but nevertheless it motivated their decision to repress the Left permanently. History seems to have indicated that their approach may have born fruit as in neither country has the Extreme/Revolutionary Left been able to rise to their former political prominence.

The Soviet Union did well out of the Civil War whilst supporting the losers because along the way they got hold of 35 tonnes of Spanish gold out of the National Exchequer....not to mention some very nice art.

Franco's strategy of physically wiping out anything suspected of being vaguely "Left" during the 30-40's may have worked for him and the extreme Right, but I wouldn't rule out a comeback of one sort or the other by the Republican Left... with the way the economy in Spain is going. (But this is going off-topic now.)
...

On the original topic of the workwear/clothing...
Here some of my favorites:

http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/373
http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/327
http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/653
http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/688
http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/476
http://dlib.nyu.edu/randall-photo/node/248

Wow, I am inspired by the collective knowledge shown in this thread. Usually when discussing the Spanish Civil War, I find that most peoples' knowledge of the conflict is, at best, superficial and anecdotal; this is not at all the case here!

cookie said:

Unidad o muerte. The disunity and conflict of the Republican side was one of the reasons that the Right/aka Franco triumphed. But then when the Left started killing the religious people that really turned the tide. The Left gave a glimpse of the post Civil War agenda aka a second Reign of Terror like post Bastille France.

Interestingly a good friend of mine who was born in Seville has a relative who has his unenacted death notice on his wall as a souvenir of the Civil War!

Click to expand...

To get a sense of the violence / atrocities leading up to and during the conflict, I highly recommend Paul Preston's voluminous work The Spanish Holocaust. In it he makes a very interesting (and convincing) case that the nature and character of violence / atrocities in the republican and nationalist zones was fundamentally different.

As Fastuni has already said, anticlerical violence in the republican zone was spontaneous, and unequivocally *not* supported by the central government made up of (small "r") republicans, socialists, and assorted middle class liberal parties. Furthermore, anticlerical violence was denounce by the Comintern aligned Partido Comunista Español. The vast majority of such violence was perpetrated by members of the anarchist CNT trade union, its hardline sister organization, the FAI, and the unaligned ultra radical Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista. It's also worth noting the seldom repeated fact that Francoist forces actually committed numerous violent againsts clergy too.

Maguire said:

OH i'm aware of that- but before Franco condensed the various factions into his FET y de las JONS, they came from somewhere- for example in the early days officers rebelled from their barracks and endured sieges where they were supported by elements of the Falangist party, in those spur of the moment attacks there wasn't time to organize or intergrate these into the army- probably one of the biggest strengths of the Nationalists and weaknesses of the Republic was the fact that the nationalists were able to more or less rally around franco despite having oftentimes conflicting and completely contrary aims, aside from say, anti communism or anti republic sentiment while the Republicans squandered time infighting, and were riddled with disunity between the anarchists, the moderates, and the competing communist factions.

Click to expand...

Correct, early on Flange milicianos and the Requeté fought as separate formations, in aide of rebel military units, However, Sanjurjo, Franco, Queipo de Llano, and Mola were all deeply distrustful of party politics. As such, general orders were issued almost immediately (we're talking as early as August '36) that all party paramilitary units should be incorporated into the regular Iberian army as soon as possible.

I love that wild striped shirt on the left:



The XIV International Brigade was comprised of made up of volunteers from French speaking countries.

Fatsuni - i don't believe franco's campaign was slow on purpose- his two fellow generals Mola and Sanjuro tried the fast approach and lost, so the only thing to do was hunker down and take piece by piece. Civil wars are always ugly. The reprisals one suffered for being associated side X when side Y wins, or vice versa are always unpleasant to say the least. Both sides saw victory for the other as the death of their country. Franco's biggest mistake was stressing the unity to the point of alienating the basques, who by and large were conservative traditionalists, he could have easily given them a promise of some autonomy, free use of language (even the Falange with all its emphasis on national unity printed out flyers in the Basque language) but he bawked at this. This policy alienated a portion of spaniards who'd have never sided with the communists or anarchists- as for the Soviet support, its ironic that the strongest and best disciplined formations were the communists, but they also were the ones most prone to purging- Stalin's line was simply that he preferred Spain to lose than to be won over by trotskyists.

I've talked to folks on both sides of the conflict(and had the pleasure of having first hand accounts of it years back) but it is ironic that the savior of Catholic spain used moorish troops to surpress Catholic Basques, but as someone else pointed out, it was the means to an end- Franco was a pragmatist always, its the reason he lasted as long as he did, his ideology only went as far as conservative nationalism and monarchism, not further. Everything else was window dressing, which one can see from how he treated the old guard of the Falangist party.

On a side note i think everyone here can relate to Jose Sanjurjo's death

Sanjurjo died in Estoril in a plane crash on July 20, 1936, when he tried to fly back to Spain. He chose to fly in a small airplane piloted by Juan Antonio Ansaldo. One of the main reasons for the crash was the heavy luggage that Sanjurjo insisted on bringing. Ansaldo warned him that the load was too heavy, but Sanjurjo answered him:
I need to wear proper clothes as the new caudillo of Spain.
Ironically, Sanjurjo chose to fly in Ansaldo's plane rather than a much larger and more suitable airplane that was available. It was an 8-passenger de Havilland Dragon Rapide, the same one which had transported Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco. Sanjurjo apparently preferred the drama of flying with a "daring aviator". (Ansaldo survived the crash.)

Click to expand...

Going down in a stunt craft weighed down by all your clothes.. i couldn't want a better end myself.

Anyway, back to the photos, i'll see if i can comb through what i've got saved on my own harddrive- i do notice the number of french Adrian helmets in the republic- was Spain generally being armed the French at this time?

Maguire said:

. . . I don't believe franco's campaign was slow on purpose . . .his two fellow generals Mola and Sanjuro tried the fast approach and lost . . .

Click to expand...

The majority of legitimate academic works I've read do show that Franco was deliberately methodical, both for legitimate military and for cynical political reasons (he even explicitly stated as such to the Germans later in the war). Furthermore, slow, methodical campaigns during which "pacification" of captured populations took precedence over rapid territorial gains was the standard operating procedure of the Army of Africa going back several decades.

In the summer of '36, the rebels failed to capture Madrid for two main reasons: first, they spent a significant amount of time and effort "pacifying" captured territory; second, Franco diverted substantial resources to relieve the besieged Alcázar fortress in Toledo. These delays allowed valuable time during which a defense of Madrid could be organized.

Both historians and Franco's contemporary critics have pointed out that the Alcázar was strategically of very little military unimportance. However, the political capital Franco accrued due to this propaganda victory was substantial. At that point, Franco was not yet the clear overall leader of the rebels and the capture of Toledo and rescue of the Alcázar garrison; as a direct result of this action, Franco was named Head of State by the other rebel generals.

Maguire said:

Anyway, back to the photos, i'll see if i can comb through what i've got saved on my own harddrive- i do notice the number of french Adrian helmets in the republic- was Spain generally being armed the French at this time?

Click to expand...

The French did supply the republic with arms and equipment initially, so those may very well be French army helmets. On the other hand, the Italian army in the mid-20s was equipped with an Adrian-style helmut and I believe the Spanish Army also produced its own Adrian-style helmet during the 20s as well, so it's tough to say.

Guttersnipe said:

The majority of the legitimate academic works on the war do show that Franco was deliberately methodical, both for legitimate military and for cynical political reasons.

Click to expand...

Guttersnipe, can you recommend academic (but also not-so academic older) works dealing specifically with Franco as a military leader?
I am familiar with the more general works and on specific aspects of the SCW... - but literature (beyond Preston) focusing on Franco's military (and political) rationale for his tactics and strategy is something I'd want to read up on.

Guttersnipe said:

The majority of legitimate academic works I've read do show that Franco was deliberately methodical, both for legitimate military and for cynical political reasons (he even explicitly stated as such to the Germans later in the war). Furthermore, slow, methodical campaigns during which "pacification" of captured populations took precedence over rapid territorial gains was the standard operating procedure of the Army of Africa going back several decades.

In the summer of '36, the rebels failed to capture Madrid for two main reasons: first, they spent a significant amount of time and effort "pacifying" captured territory; second, Franco diverted substantial resources to relieve the besieged Alcázar fortress in Toledo. These delays allowed valuable time during which a defense of Madrid could be organized.

Both historians and Franco's contemporary critics have pointed out that the Alcázar was strategically of very little military unimportance. However, the political capital Franco accrued due to this propaganda victory was substantial. At that point, Franco was not yet the clear overall leader of the rebels and the capture of Toledo and rescue of the Alcázar garrison; as a direct result of this action, Franco was named Head of State by the other rebel generals.



The French did supply the republic with arms and equipment initially, so those may very well be French army helmets. On the other hand, the Italian army in the mid-20s was equipped with an Adrian-style helmut and I believe the Spanish Army also produced its own Adrian-style helmet during the 20s as well, so it's tough to say.

Click to expand...

You are correct! i forgot about the siege of Alcazar- and yes it was militarily insignificant but its value as a moral/political victory was substantial- something the way the Tet offensive failed utterly yet succeeded as a propaganda /political victory. But even the other two generals (Mola i believe lasted longer) tended to take too long with things, frustrating quite a few of the people working with him.

Fastuni said:

Guttersnipe, can you recommend academic (but also not-so academic older) works dealing specifically with Franco as a military leader?
I am familiar with the more general works and on specific aspects of the SCW... - but literature (beyond Preston) focusing on Franco's military (and political) rationale for his tactics and strategy is something I'd want to read up on.

Click to expand...

You might try Franco: Soldier, Commander, Dictator by Geoffrey Jensen, who is military historian specializing in the Spanish Army and Spanish Civil War. Although, in the case of full disclosure, I have not read this work. If you'd like to check out his credentials, here is a link to the author's homepage.

Thanks - I will check on this.

Anthony Beevor's The Spanish Civil War is a popular book on the topic in general. From memory i found it to be objective and pretty fair to the goings on in the war.

Agreed, Beevor was also my "starter" into the topic a few years ago.

Maguire said:

Anthony Beevor's The Spanish Civil War is a popular book on the topic in general. From memory i found it to be objective and pretty fair to the goings on in the war.

Click to expand...

Paul Preston's books are good too, although, his writing style isn't quite as smooth as Beevor's.

It's Hem.

It's always Hem!

Great thread. Great photos. ¡No pasarán!

Hemos pasado

Hadley, thanks for the pics.
What caught my eye: three different berets on the last photo. On the right, wide crowned one-piece and "sloppy", on the left snug and sewn two-piece. Hemingway's seems to be a one-piece as well.

Here another great photo of Hemingway in Spain... this time lunching in 1937.
The jacket is quite interesting - worn over a herringbone suit with two layers of shirts (pic of the suit at link below).



http://www.circuitmag.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/14667_I_Hemingway-Capa_f-T25-3.jpg
(too large - thus just linked)

My great uncle Aaron Ramer enlisted in the ALB and was killed in action. He was a great inspiration to my father who later served in the second world war. I wish I had a photo of him to share here.

Alanfgag, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was not a contemporary organization, but rather is a veterans organization formed after the war. When it was organized, they used the moniker "brigade" rather than "battalion" out of a sense on inclusiveness because there were many different units and capacities in which American volunteers who went to Spain served.

For example, the Abraham Lincoln , George Washington, the merged Lincoln-Washington, and Mackenzie-Papineau battalions, were frontline infantry units. Many other Americans served in the army medical corps, the Sanidad Militar, as ambulance drivers, medics, doctors, and nurses. Lots of other Americans, including women, served military transport truck drivers, for whom there was a critical need (there were very few automobiles in Spain prior to the war, so practically no one knew how to drive!). Finally, a substantial number of Americans served in administrative military staff positions, as military engineers, and as training personnel.

According ALB achieves you linked, your great uncle was a member of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, another battalion of the XV International Brigade. The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was primarily composed of Canadians, however, there were substantial number of American "Macpaps" as well.

The Mackenzie-Papineau battalion has a very high reputation among veterans organizations as being a crack outfit. They were raised slightly later during the war and as such, benefitted from having more experienced training officers and were much, much more disciplined than the Lincolns and Washingtons.