Homage to Caledonia
Page 1
DANIEL GRAY is a manuscripts curator in the National Library of Scotland. He is a graduate of Newcastle University. His first book, The Historical Dictionary of Marxism (Scarecrow Press), was published in 2007. Gray has worked as a researcher, contributor and writer on bbc radio and on STV’S 2-part documentary series The Scots Who Fought Franco. He has also written on football for When Saturday Comes and Fly me to the Moon, the fanzine of his beloved Middlesbrough FC. He is married to Marisa and lives in Edinburgh.
Praise for Homage to Caledonia
Daniel Gray has done a marvellous job in bringing together the stories of Scots volunteers… in [this] many-voiced, multi-layered book. SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
[Gray] has organised a complex story into a well-constructed and compelling narrative. He can write – his prose is unfussy, fluent and warm. Best of all, he has squared the circle of producing accurate history while retaining a deep respect for the men and women who people it… moving and thought-provoking.
THE HERALD
Excellent… highly effective. THE SCOTS MAGAZINE
A new and fascinating contribution. SCOTTISH REVIEW OF BOOKS
Excellent… a rigorous, well written and entertaining assessment of Scotland’s contribution to that chapter of European history. Jamie Hepburn MSP,
HOLYROOD MAGAZINE
Book of the week… Gray deserves applause for shining a light on a lesser-known aspect of the nation’s character of which we should all be proud.
PRESS AND JOURNAL
A very human history of the conflict emerges.SCOTTISH FIELD
The latest addition to a line of excellent books detailing the efforts of British men and women in Spain. MORNING STAR
An excellent book I would recommend to anyone with an interest in the Civil War. SCOTS INDEPENDENT
Tells the story of those in Spain, but also of the tremendous effort of the Scots at home to raise funds to provide vital food and medical supplies. DAILY RECORD
Much of the testimony in this important book is new… What is most impressive is the way in which the different characters involved carry the reader along with them. From its pages, the voices of the ordinary Scots who volunteered to fight fascism ring out loud and clear… in no other book will you find yourself closer to them, or more inspired. INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES MEMORIAL TRUST NEWSLETTER
Daniel Gray skilfully weaves the words of the Scottish participants in Spain’s struggle for democracy in this excellent and timely book. THE CITIZEN
Told through the words and experiences of those who were there, this meticulously researched and beautifully written book is simultaneously heart-breaking and uplifting. MAGGIE CRAIG
Homage to Caledonia
Scotland and the Spanish Civil War
DANIEL GRAY
Luath Press Limited
EDINBURGH
www.luath.co.uk
First published 2008
Reprinted 2009
This edition 2009
eBook 2012
ISBN (print): 978-1-906817-16-9
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-12-0
The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chronology of Events
The Stages of the Spanish Civil War
Introduction
Part 1
Chapter 1 - Connecting the Fight: Scotland in the 1930s
Chapter 2 - Bonny Voyage: Leaving Scotland, Arriving in Spain
Chapter 3 - Early Action: Brunete and Jarama
Chapter 4 - 'Esta noche todos muertos': Prisoners of Franco
Chapter 5 - Eating Onions as Apples: Life as a Volunteer
Chapter 6 - With the Best of Intentions: The Scottish Ambulance Unit
Chapter 7 - Red Nightingales: Nursing Volunteers
Part 2 - Scotland's War
Chapter 8 - The Home Front: Scottish Aid for Republican Spain
Chapter 9 - The Home Guard: The Reaction of Relatives
Chapter 10 - Scots for Franco: The Friends of National Spain
Chapter 11 - The Red, Red Heart of the World: Scotland's 'Other' Left
Part 3 - Spanish Stories, and Endings
Chapter 12 - Murder or Circumstance? The Bob Smillie Story
Chapter 13 - The Scots Scarlet Pimpernel: Ethel MacDonald
Chapter 14 - Last Heroic Acts: Aragon and the Ebro
Chapter 15 - Far From Perfect? Criticism and Dissent
Chapter 16 - The Unbitter End: Going Home and Being Home
Chapter 17 - 'Something to be proud of': Conclusions
Interviews and Printed Material Quoted
Archival Sources
Selected Bibliography
To Marisa, for everything
Picture it. The Calton. Fair Fortnight. 1937. Full of Eastern Promise. Wimmen windaehingin. Weans greetin for pokey hats. Grown men, well intae their hungry thirties, slouchin at coarners, skint as a bairn’s knees. The sweet smell of middens, full and flowing over in the sun. Quick! There’s a scramble in Parnie Street! The wee yin there’s away wae a hauf-croon.
Back closes runnin wae dug pee and East End young team runnin wae the San Toy, the Kent Star, the Sally Boys, the Black Star, the Calton Entry Mob, the Cheeky Forty, the Romeo Boys, the Antique Mob, and the Sticklit Boys. Then there wiz the Communist Party. Red rags tae John Bull. But if things wur bad in the Calton they wur worse elsewhere. Franco in the middle. Mussolini oan the right-wing. Hitler waitin tae come oan. When they three goat thegither an came up against the Spanish workers, they didnae expect the Calton to offer handers.
The heirs a John MacLean, clutchin a quire a Daily Workers, staunin oan boaxes at the Green, shakin thur fists at the crowds that gathered tae hear aboot the plight ae the Spanish Republic. Oot ae these getherins oan the Green came the heroes ae the International Brigade, formin the front line against fascism.
The Blackshirts, the Brownshirts, the Blueshirts, fascists of every colour an country came up against the men an women ae no mean city, against grey simmets an bunnets an headscarfs, against troosers tied wae string an shoes that let the rain in, against guns that were auld enough tae remember Waterloo. Fae nae hair tae grey hair they answered the call. Many never came back. They wur internationalists. They wur Europeans. They wur Scots. Glasgow should be proud ae them!
From the Calton to Catalonia, John and Willy Maley
Foreword
Daniel Gray’s important and powerful book Homage to Caledonia tells the story of those deeply committed and courageous Scots who volunteered to fight for democracy and socialism against General Franco and his forces – backed by Hitler and Mussolini – in the Spanish Civil War against an elected Republican Government.
The British establishment was openly sympathetic to the fascists, and its policy of ‘non-intervention’ was known on the left to be their way to stay clear so that Franco could win, but the left in Scotland rallied to the cause and apart from those who actually fought and died there, there was a great campaign to raise money and support.
As a teenager, I wrote a school essay in support of the republicans and against Franco on which my teacher wrote a one-word comment, ‘Disgusting’, so that told me a lot about him.
That war can be seen as a prelude to the second world war, and if Franco had been defeated, Europe might have escaped the horrors of 1939–45.
This book is very timely because the economic chaos that led to fascism seems to be threatening again today in the so-called ‘credit crunch’, which should remind us that the left has always to be vigilant.
Tony Benn, October 2008
Acknowledgements
I
have been stimulated and encouraged by the kind help and knowledge of widows, sons, daughters and nieces of those who participated in the Spanish Civil War. In particular, David Drever, Annie Dunlop, Sandra Elders, Alan Murray, Sonna Murray, Sheila Stuart, Liz Pettie, and George and Nan Park all offered me stories, wisdom, and copious amounts of tea, cakes and soup. The words of Willy Maley were almost as great a motivation as the actions of his father. I am grateful, too, for their cooperation in allowing me to use the letters and archives of their relatives. Mike Arnott, Jim Carmody and Marlene Sidaway of the International Brigades Memorial Trust have been enormously helpful. Ian MacDougall’s written and spoken words have been of immense value, as has been the advice of Richard Baxell, Alan Warren and Don Watson. A grant from the Strathmartine Trust facilitated an extremely useful study trip to Spain.
Thanks are due to David Higham Associates for permission to use a quote from Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The unendingly patient and obliging Dr John Callow of the Marx Memorial Library deserves special praise, and thanks for permission to use quotes from the library’s International Brigades archive. Images and quotes appear courtesy of private collections belonging to the relatives of International Brigaders, and holdings of the National Library of Scotland (see Archival Sources, page 213). Photographs of the Scottish Ambulance Unit originally appeared in the Glasgow Evening Herald. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of material reproduced in the book. In case of any query, please contact the publisher.
At the National Library of Scotland, Maria Castrillo, Kenneth Dunn, Lauren Forbes, Cate Newton, Stephen Rigden, Robin Smith and Chris Taylor have been supportive in the extreme. Special thanks go to my translator Elena Fresco Barreira, the only Spaniard I know who uses the word ‘ken’. Gavin MacDougall has made Luath Press the ideal publishing house to write for, as well as supplying some outstanding ideas for the book, including the title. The support of his colleague Leila Cruickshank has also been invaluable, as has the assiduous work and treasured advice of my editor Jennie Renton.
The opinions expressed in Homage to Caledonia are those of the author and not of the publisher or any institution.
On a personal level, my mum and dad’s encouragement continues to know no bounds, and I cannot give thanks enough for the faith shown in me by Marisa, first a football widow, and lately a Spanish Civil War widow. Finally, my greatest, sadly posthumous, thanks must go to Steve Fullarton: quite simply, an inspiration.
Chronology of Events
1926 General Strike, in which many future International Brigaders participated.
1931 April: Second Spanish Republic proclaimed and reform programme instigated.
1932 Inauguration of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists.
1933 November: victory for right-wing parties in Spanish general election. Halt of reforms programme.
1934 Fifth National Hunger March to London.
1936 February to June: Popular Front administration elected in Spain. Government of Manuel Azaña recommence and extend reform programme, exile military leaders, and ban the Falange Española.
12–13 July: José Castillo, then José Calvo Sotelo killed in Madrid.
17–18 July: Generals’ military uprising launched from Spanish Morocco.
20 July onwards: Hitler and Mussolini begin to supply the nationalists with military aid, while the Comintern agrees to help establish the International Brigades.
4 August 1936: the British and French governments sign Non- Intervention Treaty.
September onwards: Britain and major powers formally commit to non-intervention in Spain. Large numbers of volunteers begin to arrive to fight for the republicans, contributing to the defence of Madrid and assault on Lopera. In Britain, members of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement march on London. Many future International Brigaders from Scotland participate.
October: republicans begin to receive military aid from the Soviet Union.
1937 January: Foreign Enlistment Act invoked in Britain. British Battalion formed in Spain.
February: British Battalion take part in their first battle, at the Jarama Valley.
April: nationalist bombing of Guernica
May: Barcelona street-fighting.
June: Death of Bob Smillie.
July: British Battalion participate in the Battle of Brunete.
August: British Battalion transferred to the Aragon Front, and help to capture Quinto and Belchite.
October: British Battalion’s disastrous assault on Fuentes de Ebro.
December: British Battalion participate in the Aragon offensive and capture of Teruel.
1938 January: British Battalion eventually succumb to the nationalist invasion of Teruel. From March, republicans retreat through Aragon, and Franco’s troops reach the Mediterranean, dissecting the Spanish republic.
July: British Battalion cross back over the River Ebro and participate in republican offensive.
21 September: Juan Negrin announces the withdrawal of international volunteers from the republican army.
28 October: British Battalion take part in parade of honour through the streets of Barcelona.
December: British Battalion members begin to arrive home.
1939 February: British government recognises Franco as Spain’s sovereign leader.
1 April: nationalist victory complete.
1 September: Hitler invades Poland; beginning of World War Two.
Introduction
One of Joyce Emily’s boasts was that her brother at Oxford had gone to fight in the Spanish Civil War. This dark, rather mad girl wanted to go too, and to wear a white blouse and black skirt and march with a gun. Nobody had taken this seriously. The Spanish Civil War was something going on outside in the newspapers and only once a month in the school debating society. Everyone, including Joyce Emily, was anti-Franco if they were anything at all.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
ON 7 MARCH 2008, under a leaden sky, several hundred people gathered in homage to the final survivor of a proud yet largely overlooked episode in Scotland’s history. Of 549 Scots who fought in the Spanish Civil War, Steve Fullarton was the last to die, adding a weight of poignancy to the sombre mood of those present at Warriston Crematorium, Leith. With him had gone Caledonia’s final active link to a conflict that defined the lives of an entire generation of Scots: it was in the Spanish Civil War, whether they participated directly or not, that their own struggles became embodied.
Documenting a selection of individual narratives, Homage to Caledonia brings Scotland’s contribution to events in Spain into focus: by showing not only the role of Scots in Spain but also the way in which the conflict impacted on life in Scotland, the book sets out to explain how and why this became Scotland’s war. It is a social history rather than a military one and is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the battles, politics and intricacies of the wider Spanish Civil War.
Reaction to hostilities in Spain must be viewed through the prism of 1930s Scotland; in the context of this highly politicised era, it is possible to appreciate why support for the republican government was so unequivocal. Popular modern perceptions of, for instance, communism are invalid, and hindsight largely irrelevant. The thirties were a time of intense idealism, of faith in democracy, anti-fascism and often of fealty to the Soviet Union, her atrocious excesses and distortions as yet unrecognised by most. More than obeisance to political dogma though, it was a time of sheer hope; a better tomorrow could be won through collective action, not just in Scotland, but in Spain too. To the Scottish working class, the struggles of the 1930s were the same struggles whether in Buckhaven or Barcelona. It is no coincidence that many of the Scots who fought in Spain referred to themselves as internationalists.
For many people, the primary impression of Scotland’s relationship with the Spanish Civil War has come from Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, in which a schoolgirl, Joyce Emily Hammond, travels to fight for Franco
as a response to the fascistic, doctrinaire education she receives from the book’s eponymous teacher. Joyce Emily is killed before witnessing any action: even in the insular bourgeois world of a conservative Edinburgh girls’ school, the Spanish Civil War in all its brutal colour could not be avoided.
The Scottish people responded with alacrity to the coup d’état launched by General Francisco Franco and his cabal of supporters on 18 July 1936. That coup was both the culmination of years of simmering tensions, and the trigger for a fierce war involving troops from across Europe; truly, it was Spain’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand moment.
Spain in the 1930s was a land of schisms between monarchists and republicans, Catholics and those opposed to the social, political and economic power of the church, and feudal landowners and peasants. That latter group, impoverished and largely illiterate, made up a substantial proportion of the Spanish population and constituted the main support base of the reformist republican government, which was elected on 16 February 1936.
The new ‘Popular Front’ government of Manuel Azaña, a figure reviled by conservatives, monarchists and military leaders, recommenced a series of political and social reforms halted in 1933 by the election of a right-wing regime (the original reforms had been instigated in 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, and had included the enfranchisement of women, the legalisation of divorce, a reduction of the military’s size and influence, and the redistribution of feudal land amongst peasants). In a frenzied atmosphere of flux, new legislation was also introduced, enhancing the rights of peasants and penalising the landed aristocracy. Spain’s reactionary establishment were outraged. Their ire was accentuated when the government sought to extinguish a threatened rebellion by exiling and isolating military chiefs including Franco, who was banished to Spanish Morocco. These actions heightened unrest among the government’s opponents and, supported by the newly outlawed right-wing Falange party, Franco and his military cohorts Emilio Mola, Juan Yague and José Sanjurjo began plotting a coup.