The Spanish Civil War (123 page)

3.
He appears in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
as General Goltz.

4.
See Longo, pp. 42–9; Max Wullschleger,
Schweizer Kämpfen in Spanien
(Zurich, 1939), pp. 21ff. Albacete was within two hours’ drive from Archena, the Russian tank base.

5.
Gillain, p. 18.

1.
Gillain, p. 18. These volunteers were soon supported by a British Medical Aid group including doctors and nurses. This originated as follows: Isobel Brown, the communist moving spirit behind the British Committee for the Relief of the Victims of Fascism (one of Muenzenberg’s creations), was receiving many donations labelled ‘Spain’. She, therefore, inspired the creation of a British medical aid committee, with non-communist, but left-wing, doctors as figureheads which dispatched the medical aid unit to Spain under the leadership of a socialist, a contemporary of Cornford’s at Cambridge, Kenneth Sinclair Loutitt. The value of this and other medical units was considerable, since nearly all the army doctors of Spain were with the rebels. (As for the civilian practitioners, these seem to have been almost equally divided between the republicans and the nationalists.) See also
All My Sins Remembered
by Viscount Churchill (London, 1964). This peer led the British unit out to Spain.

2.
Fischer, p. 367; Longo, p. 44. Longo later became secretary-general of the Italian communist party, a post he held from 1964 until 1969, when he became president of the party.

3.
Guiseppe di Vittorio, a labour organizer from Apulia and active in Italy against Mussolini earlier, was from 1945 to 1958 secretary-general of the General Confederation of Italian Labour, the communist trade union. Longo’s
nom de guerre
was taken from the name of a famous and elegant matador, El Gallo.

1.
Ehrenburg,
Eve of War,
p. 167.

2.
Marty’s bodyguard was Pierre George, famous in the Second World War as ‘Colonel Fabien’. See Fischer, p. 366, and
The International Brigades,
pamphlet issued by the Spanish foreign ministry, 1953.

3.
Fischer, p. 379.

4.
Comment by Ernst Adam (London).

5.
Kristanov’s identity was established for me by Victor Berck, to whom I am grateful also for other help.

1.
Fischer, p. 366.

2.
Ruth Fischer,
Stalin and German Communism
(Oxford, 1949), p. 500n. Confirmed in Branko Lazitch’s
Biographical Directory of the Comintern
(Stanford, 1973).

3.
Esmond Romilly,
Boadilla
(London, 1971), pp. 72–3.

4.
Krivitsky, p. 116. See also Andreu Castells,
Las Brigadas Internacionales
(Barcelona, 1974), p. 73f. According to Castells, ‘Kléber’ came to Spain first in 1924!

1.
He himself worked with an ambulance unit for a short while in 1937. It is unclear that he did much.

2.
As earlier mentioned, Auden changed some lines in this poem in later editions.

1.
Abad de Santillán, p. 175.

1.
Philip Toynbee, p. 87.

2.
There were, however, general relief funds which gave aid to both sides. The English General Relief Fund for Spain was supported by the archbishops of Canterbury and of Westminster, the chief rabbi, the moderator of the church of Scotland, and the free churches. It was formed in December 1936.

3.
Spain! Why?
(pamphlet by Nehru, London, 1937), p. 4. Nehru visited republican Spain in the course of the war.

4.
GD,
pp. 113–14.

5.
Evidence of Johannes Bernhardt, Buenos Aires, 1971.

6.
NIS,
seventh meeting. Described in some detail by Ivan Maisky,
Spanish Notebooks
(London, 1966), pp. 45–57.

1.
NIS
(c), eighth meeting.

2.
Ciano,
Diplomatic Papers,
pp. 60–61;
GD,
pp. 117, 122.

3.
B. H. Liddell Hart,
The Other Side of the Hill.

1.
USD,
1936, vol. II, p. 546;
NIS,
eighth meeting. There is an interesting account of this meeting by Maisky, who is particularly good on the fear of the fascist powers shown by diplomats of smaller nations. Ivan Maisky, pp. 58–63.

2.
At the Labour Party Conference, held that year in Edinburgh, 435,000 votes (against 1,728,000) had been cast (in the Labour Party’s idiosyncratic method, the card vote) against the party line of support of non-intervention. The rebels included Sir Charles Trevelyan, Christopher Addison, Philip Noel-Baker and Aneurin Bevan. The conference was addressed with eloquence by Jiménez de Asúa and Isobel de Palencia (mistaken by Hugh Dalton in his memoirs,
The Fateful Years: Memoirs,
vol. I, 1931–45, London, 1957, p. 99, for La Pasionaria). Isobel de Palencia, republican minister in Stockholm, wrote an account too in
I Must Have Liberty
(New York, 1940), p. 246. The national executive restrained the general ardour of the conference, however, by dispatching Attlee and Greenwood to consult with Chamberlain (acting Prime Minister) and to urge detailed inquiry into non-intervention breaches.

1.
Solidaridad Obrera,
30 October 1936.

2.
Arman died as a general in the Second World War. The later Generals P. Batov and N. Voronov were also present in this day’s fighting, the first as military adviser to Lister (who, like Modesto, knew a little Russian), the second as artillery adviser. It seems that it was at Seseña that the so-called ‘Molotov cocktail’ was used for the first time, against the tanks by the legionaries (De la Cierva,
Historia ilustrada,
vol. I, p. 480). Lister tells us that the writer Ramón Sender acted for a time as his chief of staff in this battle but then abandoned the front precipitously (Lister, p. 82). See Batov’s account in
Bajo la bandera,
p. 223f.

3.
GD,
pp. 123–5.

4.
Jesús Salas, p. 126. In these Russian aircraft, the pilots were Russian, but the bomb-droppers and machine-gunners were Spanish. The commander of this raid was a Russo-German, E. Schacht. See account by G. Prokofiev,
Bajo la bandera,
p. 378f.

1.
GD,
pp. 123–5.

2.
Milch, the state secretary, saw off the first units on 6 November (Irving, p. 50). Sperrle had been responsible for all air operations, such as they were, under von Seeckt in the 1920s.

3.
The tanks were commanded by Colonel von Thoma, who had been in Spain for three months training Spaniards. The fighters were commanded, to begin with, by Major von Merhard. The German air force at this time disposed of something over 1,200 combat aircraft (see Irving, p. 52 fn.).

1.
Völkischer Beobachter,
May 1939, qu. Toynbee,
Survey 1938,
vol. I, p. 358; Jesús Salas, p. 136.

2.
The late Noel Monks, then of the
Daily Express,
described this conference to the author. Dr L. de Jong, the author of
The German Fifth Column in the Second World War
(London, 1958), has traced a reference to the Fifth Column in
Mundo Obrero
of 3 October 1936. See Cervera, p. 139. But Lord St Oswald (at the time a reporter on the republican side) has a claim to have coined the phrase some weeks before, while the Army of Africa was still in the Tagus valley, and mentioned it in a dispatch (untraced) to the
Daily Telegraph.
He says the phrase was taken up by his fellow-reporters in the Telefónica in Madrid and from thence was carried to Mola across the lines by rumour. On the other hand, the phrase was also used about Russian supporters inside the fortress of Ismail beseiged by Suvarov in 1790.

3.
Two Russian fighter aerodromes were established near Madrid, one near Algete in the finca El Soto, under Major Richagov, and another at Alcalá de Henares; both were manned mostly by Russians, though there were some Spanish pilots, for example García Lacalle (
op. cit.,
pp. 174–5).

1.
Valdesoto, p. 183.

2.
C. Lorenzo, p. 224 (Lorenzo is Horacio Prieto’s son). The four anarchists called on Horacio Prieto when they arrived in Madrid and asked for instructions; he said that the CNT was not the communist party, and would not seek to bind the ministers’ freedom of action (
op. cit.,
p. 254). Horacio Prieto had resumed his secretaryship-general shortly before the war, having resigned after the Saragossa conference in May.

1.
The architect of the new University City in Madrid, Manuel Sánchez Arcos, was under-secretary.

2.
Carlos Pi Sunyer,
La republica y la guerra
(Mexico, 1975), p. 419.

3.
For example, Martin Blázquez, p. 298.

4.
General Cause,
p. 371, quoting from direct testimony.

5.
Socialist Review
(May–June 1938), vol. VI, no. 6, p. 17, qu. Cattell,
Communism,
p. 66.

6.
Peirats, p. 233.

7.
Federica Montseny in a speech in Toulouse (
International Bulletin of the MLE-CNT in France,
September–October 1945); qu. Richards, p. 59.

1.
Speech, 27 May 1937, qu. Peirats, vol. II, pp. 270–72.

2.
Peirats, vol. I, pp. 228–9; C. Lorenzo, p. 151.

3.
López Muñiz, p. 25f.

1.
Prieto,
Convulsiones,
vol. II, p. 316.

2.
The only under-secretaries left in Madrid were Fernando Valera, sub-secretary of communications, and Wenceslao Carrillo, of the interior (Lázaro Somoza Silva,
El general Miaja,
Mexico, 1944, p. 148).

3.
Federica Montseny, speech 27 May 1937, qu. Peirats, vol. II, p. 272. See also comment in Prieto,
Palabras,
pp. 324–5.

4.
Vicente Rojo,
España heroica
(Buenos Aires, 1942), p. 38.

5.
L. Fischer, p. 369.

6.
Koltsov, p. 189; Azaña (vol. IV, p. 860) records Miaja’s account to him.

1.
Somoza Silva, p. 139; Largo Caballero, p. 235.

1.
Barea, p. 174; Koltsov, pp. 184ff.; Ehrenburg,
Eve of War,
pp. 146–7.

2.
Rojo, p. 41. A detailed account can be found in Rojo’s
Así fue la defensa de Madrid
(Mexico, 1967).

3.
Rojo,
España heroica,
p. 44; Somoza Silva, p. 142. Text of this ‘document which saved Madrid’ is printed in Somoza Silva, p. 316.

4.
Somoza Silva, p. 316, prints the minutes of this meeting. The communists imposed a veto on the entry of the POUM into the
junta
and nothing the POUM leaders in Valencia could do could change this. Manuel Albar, socialist leader, told Enrique Rodriguez, the POUM
responsable
in Madrid, that the socialists had complained but had decided to accept matters ‘because of the importance of Soviet aid’. Julián Gorkin came from Barcelona to argue the POUM’s case—to no avail.

1.
Azaña’s view (
op. cit.,
p. 732).

2.
Jaime Cervera,
Madrid en Guerra,
p. 89, thinks the overall figure of these murders between 7 November and 4 December 1936 was 2,000. His is the best analysis. He gives (p. 97) the names of four policemen who acted in the four prisons concerned. All were communists. Jesús Suárez Galíndez,
Los vascos en el Madrid sitiado
(Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 66;
General Cause,
p. 236; Koltsov, p. 192. G. Izaga,
Los presos de Madrid
(Madrid, 1940), p. 336, gives a horrifying nationalist account. Koltsov attributes the order to ‘Miguel Martinez’, who was, however, himself. Peirats blames José Cazorla (vol. II, p. 96). Christopher Lance, the English ‘Spanish Pimpernel’, had already brought about several successful escapes with great audacity, and would rescue over a hundred by using the ambulance unit financed by a Scottish philanthropist as a secret transport from Madrid to the coast. Lance was eventually caught and held for months in unpleasant gaols. See his ‘story’ in Cecil Phillips,
The Spanish Pimpernel
(London, 1960); and Delmer, p. 345.

1.
Alvarez del Vayo,
Freedom’s Battle,
p. 208; Borkenau, p. 196; Eduardo de Guzmán,
Madrid rojo y negro
(Buenos Aires, 1939), p. 300. Pedro Rico, the popular mayor of Madrid, was also turned back. Returning to Madrid, he took refuge in the Mexican Embassy. He was not made welcome by the right-wing refugees whom he found there. But he now could not return to the town hall. He was afraid to go home. Despite his enormous girth, he was fitted into the boot of the car belonging to ‘El Nili’, the
banderillero
of Juan Belmonte, and driven to Valencia. Prieto later secured his escape to France (
De mi vida,
vol. II, pp. 324–6). Prieto himself flew to Valencia.

2.
Ibarruri, p. 334.

3.
A portrait of Goriev appears in Castro Delgado, pp. 452–3. Louis Fischer (p. 377) describes him as ‘more than any one man … the saviour of Madrid’. See also Ehrenburg (
Eve of War,
pp. 146–7) and Barea (pp. 289–90). De la Cierva,
Historia ilustrada,
vol. I, p. 492, takes a different view. Writers have usually divided the laurels between Miaja and Goriev according to their own inclinations.

1.
Fuentes at first refused to see Voronov, then said that he could play no part since he did not know Spanish. Largo Caballero afterwards left Voronov with an equally bad impression, saying that republican Spain had no need of foreign arms (
Bajo la bandera,
p. 67). Voronov says that it was he who insisted that the republican artillery headquarters should be moved to the Telefónica (pp. 80–81), and he who protested against two hours being taken off for lunch by the artillery.

2.
Described as Colonel ‘Kodak’, because of his pleasure at being photographed. Twenty years previously Dumont and ‘Hans’ had been facing each other in the German and French armies on the western front.

1.
‘At dawn on 8 November, leaving for the Sierra, I saw a battalion of the first International Brigade in the Calle Ferraz’ (Tagüeña, p. 140). So much for the strange statement by General Rojo (
Así fue,
p. 69) that these troops did not join the battle till 12 November. This distortion is discussed in R. Salas, vol. I, p. 584. See also Neruda’s poem beginning
‘Una mañana de un mes frío’,
in
Tercera Residencia
(Buenos Aires, 1961).

2.
USD,
1936, vol. II, p. 603.

3.
Cox, p. 144; Fischer, p. 373. Cf. Castells, p. 100f.

4.
Fischer,
loc. cit.
For Fischer, see Radosh, pp. 107–20.

5.
Somoza Silva, p. 183. This Valenciano would in the 1970s be Prime Minister of the Spanish republic in exile in Paris.

1.
Voronov, in
Bajo la bandera,
p. 256.

2.
Malraux, p. 322.

3.
Jesús Salas, p. 133. Lieutenant Kraft Eberhard was the first German officer killed in Spain.

1.
Karlo Lukanov fought in the First World War, joined the communist party in 1919, fled to Austria in 1923 and went to Russia after a spell back in Bulgaria. After 1945 he was deputy prime minister of Bulgaria (1952–3) and later foreign minister. See, for this Brigade, Batov in
Bajo la bandera,
p. 228.

2.
Pacciardi, a member of the republican party in Italy, came from the Maremma in Tuscany, and was a veteran of both the First World War and several fights in 1920–22 against the fascists. Since 1926, he had been in exile in France and Switzerland. His nomination as leader of the Garibaldi Battalion was preceded by long discussions between him and the communists, sealed in a final agreement on 27 October, and marked by Pacciardi’s agreement to have a communist, Antonio Roasio, from Biella, as commissar.

1.
This was a famous battle, the most severe of 1936 in which 14 Fiats fought 13 Chatos over the Paseo de Rosales, and shot down several. A Russian pilot was lynched when he parachuted to Madrid, on the mistaken ground that he was a German.

2.
Durruti had been reluctant to go. See Paz, pp. 418, 422, for numbers.

3.
See Cipriano Mera,
Guerra, exilio y cárcel de un anarcosindicalista
(Paris, 1976), p. 86. Durruti was allocated a Russian ‘adviser’, known as ‘Santi’, whose real name was Mamsurov Jadji-Umar, a ‘Caucasian’, and future Russian general. They did not get on well. In view of subsequent communist behaviour towards anarchists at the front, Mera’s comment may well be a valid one. For speculation about Santi’s role, see Eduardo Comin Colomer,
El comisariado politico
(Madrid, 1937), p. 96.

4.
The Condor Legion also bombed Cartagena, the port where Russian supplies usually came in, on this day.

1.
Koltsov, p. 233.

2.
Gustav Regler,
The Great Crusade,
translated by Whittaker Chambers (!) (New York, 1940), p. 4.

3.
Antonio López Fernández,
Defensa de Madrid
(Mexico, 1945), p. 175.

1.
Peirats, vol. I, pp. 245–6. The various possibilities are summarized in Juan Llarch,
La muerte de Durruti
(Barcelona, 1973). There is a colder summary of various versions in Jaume Miravitlles,
Episodis de la guerra civil espanyola
(Barcelona, 1972); and in Paz, p. 497, where the anonymous reviewer of James Joll’s
The Anarchists
in
The Times Literary Supplement,
24 December 1964, is taken to task. See also Angel Maroto,
Actualidad Española
(December, 1971).

2.
J. Salas,
op. cit.

1.
In 1937, Sir F. Kenyon, former director of the British Museum, and James Mann, keeper of the Wallace Collection, visited republican Spain to report that the art treasures of the Prado were in excellent keeping.

2.
Delaprée, p. 14.

3.
Delaprée’s plane was probably attacked by republican aircraft. Delaprée died a few days later in Guadalajara Hospital. Delmer (p. 324) says that the plane was shot down by the republicans, since their counter-espionage wished to kill a suspected rebel agent, Dr Henry, of the Red Cross, who was also on board.