by Hugh Thomas
Technical information can be found in Salvador Rello’s four little volumes, La aviación en la guerra de España (Madrid, 1969–1971), or Miguel Sanchís’s Alas rojas sobre España (Madrid, 1956).
There are many accounts by both German and Italian fliers for Franco (for example, Max von Hoyos, Pedros y Pablos, Munich, 1941) and some by Russians (see the memoirs in Bajo la bandera, mentioned in [4] above). See too Jean Gisclon, Des avions et des hommes (Paris, 1969).
(6) The military conspiracy and the Rising are described exhaustingly in Arrarás’s La cruzada (mentioned in V above). See for this also Antonio Lizarza’s Memorias de la conspiración (Pamplona, 1954), Felipe Bertrán Güell’s Preparación y desarrollo del alzamiento nacional (Valladolid, 1939) and the account by Mola’s chauffeur, B. Félix Maíz, Alzamiento en España (Pamplona, 1952). The first volume of De la Cierva’s Historia (see V above) draws together many of the threads and there is useful comment in the works earlier cited by Robinson, Gil Robles and Stanley Payne (Politics and the Military). Luis Bolín’s Spain, the Vital Years (London, 1967) contains evidence on Franco’s activities. The work of del Burgo (see above, section IV [8]) is interesting on Carlist attitudes. See García Venero’s Madrid, julio 1936 (Madrid, 1973) for the débâcle there. Luis Romero’s Tres días de julio (Barcelona, 1967) is a clever attempt to re-create the first days of the war.
(7) Separate battles are described in the books of Martínez Bande (see above, para. [3]). See, however, also Robert Colodny, The Struggle for Madrid (New York, 1958) for the fighting round the capital; Esmond Romilly, Boadilla (new edition, London, 1971) for an account of that battle; Olao Conforti, Guadalajara (Milan, 1967); R. Casas de la Vega, Brunete (Madrid, 1967) and Teruel (Madrid, 1975); Luis María Mezquida, La batalla del Ebro, 2 volumes (Tarragona, 1963), and the same author’s La batalla del Segre (Tarragona, 1972), and Henríquez Caubín’s book on the Ebro previously cited (see para. [2] above). For Guernica, see Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts, Guernica (New York, 1975), an exciting account which, however, leaves some questions unanswered. Colonel Martínez Bande’s Los cien ûltimos días de la república (Barcelona, 1972) throws light on nationalist intelligence at the end of the war, as does José Bertrán y Musitu’s Experiencias de los servicios de información del nordeste de España (SIFNE) (Madrid, 1940). Cecil Eby’s The Siege of the Alcazar (London, 1966) is the most balanced account of that incident. Julio de Urrutia, El cerro de los héroes (Madrid, 1965) is a careful though passionate account of Santa María de la Cabeza. Luis Romero’s Desastre en Cartagena (Madrid, 1971) tells the tale of the revolt in that city in March 1939.
VII. NATIONALIST SPAIN
(1) The political history of nationalist Spain still awaits its historian. In the meantime, some information can be derived from the various lives of Franco and Ramón Súñer’s Entre Hendaya y Gibraltar (Madrid, 1947). Hedilla’s life as told to, and edited by, Maximiniano García Venero (Falange, Paris, 1967), is interesting, especially when read in conjunction with Herbert Southworth’s commentary Antifalange (Paris, 1967). Hedilla’s subsequent correction of García Venero has appeared as Testimonio de Manuel Hedilla (Barcelona, 1973). Dionisio Ridruejo’s Escrito en España (Buenos Aires, 1962) has passing references to the war. On the Falange, the work of Payne (see section IV [9] above) remains the best introduction. The works previously cited of Ansaldo (see section VI [5] above), del Burgo (section IV [8]) and Bolín (section VI [6] above) are helpful. The Carlists are treated exhaustively in Julio Aróstegui’s Los Combatientes Carlistas en la Guerra Civil Española, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1991).
(2) Far the best social history of nationalist Spain is Rafael Abella’s La vido cotidiana en la España Nacional (Barcelona, 1973). Some contemporary journalistic accounts throw light: for example, Eddy Bauer, Rouge et or (Neuchâtel, 1939).
(3) The repression in nationalist Spain is amply chronicled in Antonio Bahamonde’s Memories of a Spanish Nationalist (London, 1939), on Seville, Antonio Ruiz Vilaplana’s Burgos Justice (New York, 1938), Jean Flory’s La Galice sous la botte de Franco (Paris, 1938), Franco’s Rule (London, 1937), and El clero vasco frente a la cruzada franquista (Bayonne, 1966).
(4) The economic side of the ‘crusade’ can be found in Carlos Delclaux’s thesis La financiación de la cruzada (Deusto, thesis unpublished,) and J. R. Hubbard’s article ‘How Franco Financed His War’, The Journal of Modern History (December, 1953). See also, if you can find it, Juan Sardá’s ‘El Banco de España (1931–1962)’ in El Banco de España (Madrid, 1970), and Glenn T. Harper, German Economic Policy in Spain (The Hague, 1967).
(5) The victors sought to prove the legality of their rebellion in Dictamen de la comisión sobre la ilegitimidad de poderes actuantes en el 18 de julio de 1936 (Barcelona, 1939).
(6) Post-war repression is covered in Catalunya sota el règim franquista (Paris, 1973), Melquesidez Rodríguez Chaos, 24 años de la cárcel (Paris, 1968), Miguel García, I was Franco’s Prisoner (London, 1972), Arturo Bray, La España del brazo en alto (Buenos Aires, 1943) and also Ronald Fraser, In Hiding (London, 1972). Also see Santos Juliá’s book mentioned in section V above.
(7) For the church, see Guy Hermet’s Les Catholiques dans l’Espagne Franquiste (Paris, 1981) and Frances Lannon’s Privilege, Persecution and Prophecy (Oxford, 1987).
VIII. THE POLITICS OF THE REPUBLICANS DURING THE CIVIL WAR
(1) For general studies on the republic, see Diego Sevilla Andrés, Historia politica de la zona roja (Madrid, 1954) and Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War (New York, 1991). For a personal but informed view at the time, see Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit (London, 1937).
(2) The vanishing centre is not well covered. See, however, the diaries of Azaña previously cited (section IV [6]), the autobiography of Angel Ossorio y Gallardo, Le España de mi vida (Buenos Aires, 1941) and Azaña’s famous dialogue, La velada en Benicarló (in volume III of his Obras completas, several other editions). Casado’s memoir (section VI [2] above) expresses the frustration of a loyal army officer.
(3) The socialists also lack a detailed analysis. But see the works of Largo Caballero, Zugazagoitia, Prieto and Saborit (on Besteiro) previously cited. Julio Álvarez del Vayo wrote several autobiographies, of which the most useful is Freedom’s Battle (New York, 1940). See also Justo Martínez Amutio, Chantaje a un pueblo (Madrid, 1974), and the last volume of Antonio Barea’s The Forging of a Rebel (New York, 1946).
(4) On the anarchist experience in the civil war, see Diego Abad de Santillán, Por què perdimos la guerra (Buenos Aires, 1940) and José García Pradas, Cómo terminó la guerra de España (Buenos Aires, 1940)—both personal accounts. The most useful survey is that in José Peirats, La CNT en la revolución española, 3 volumes (Toulouse, 1951–1953), which has much interesting documentation. On the ‘politics’ of anarchism, see César Lorenzo’s Les Anarchistes espagnols et le pouvoir (Paris, 1969) and Vernon Richards’s Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (London, 1953). On the revolution, see F. Mintz’s L’Autogestion dans l’Espagne révolutionnaire (Paris, 1970) and Gaston Leval’s L’Espagne libertaire (Paris, 1971). See also Cipriano Mera’s Guerra, exilio y cárcel de un anareco-sindicalista (Paris, 1976), ‘El movimiento libertario español’, supplement, Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico (Paris, 1974), Albert Pérez Baró, Trenta mesos de colectivisme a Catalunya (Barcelona, 1974), and Ricardo Sanz, Los que fuimos a Madrid (Toulouse, 1969). The previously cited books of Brademas, Paz (section III [1]), Borkenau and Bolloten are helpful and Juan Peiró’s Perull a la reraguarda (Mataró, 1936) testifies to anarchist realism at the time. A work by Carlos Semprún Maura, Révolution et contre-révolution en Catalogne (Torus, 1974) makes some good points.
(5) The communists have, or have provided themselves with, an ample bibliography. The two most serious historical analyses are D. T. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War (Berkeley, 1955), and Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War (New York, 1991). Communist memoirs include the books of La Pasionaria (Dolores Ibarruri), They Shall Not Pass (Lo
ndon, 1967), Hidalgo de Cisneros, Lister, Cordón and Modesto (cited in section VI [2] above). Some information can also be found in Santiago Carrillo’s Demain Espagne, a conversation with Régis Debray and Max Gallo (Paris, 1974). Ex-communists who have criticized their old comrades are Jesús Hernández, Yo, ministro de Stalin en España (Madrid, 1954), Enrique Castro Delgado, Hombres made in Moscú (Barcelona, 1965) and El Campesino (Valentín González), whose books are Comunista en España y anti-Stalinista en la URSS (Mexico, 1952) and Listen, Comrades (London, 1952). Togliatti’s despatches from Spain to Moscow have been published as Escritos Sobre la Guerra de España (Barcelona, 1980). Manuel Tagüeña’s book (cited above in section VI [2]) approaches the theme with serenity. Criticism of or comment on the communists in the civil war can be found everywhere in political studies or memoirs of the civil war. See in particular the books of Barea, Martínez Amutio and Borkenau (cited above, in [1] and [3] and also see the paragraph below on Russia [IX (7)]). Recent studies of importance are Antonio Elorza and Marta Bizcarrondo, Queridos Camaradas (Barcelona, 1999) and Ronald Radosh, et al., Spain Betrayed (New Haven, 2001). Both sustain the thesis that the Spanish communists were controlled by the Comintern. The last-named work presents an invaluable collection of papers from Soviet and other communist archives.
(6) Catalonia. Bricall’s Politica económica de la Generalitat (Barcelona, 1970) is a major contribution to the economic history of the war. Most of the anarchist accounts have valuable information, in particular the books previously cited of Semprún Maura, Abad de Santillán and Pérez Baró. Manuel Benavides’s Guerra y revolución en Cataluña (Mexico, 1946) is a vivid account favourable to the PSUC. See Carlos Pi Sunyer, La república y la guerra (Mexico, 1975) and Frederic Escofet, who gives a good account of 19 to 20 July 1936 in Al servei de Catalunya i de la república, 2 volumes (Paris, 1973). George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (London, 1938) brilliantly evokes the scene in May 1937. See also the life of Companys by Ossorio y Gallardo (cited in section IV [11] above). Azaña’s diaries have ample comment. For right-wing views of Catalonia under the republic, see F. La Cruz, El alzamiento la revolución y el terror en Barcelona (Barcelona, 1943) and José María Fontana, Los catalanes en la guerra de España (Madrid, 1951).
(7) On the Basques, G. L. Steer’s The Tree of Gernika (London, 1938) is an exciting account of the war in Vizcaya, very pro-Basque. A. de Lizarra’s Los vascos y la república española (Buenos Aires, 1944) gives the views of Manuel de Irujo. José Antonio Aguirre’s De Guernica a Nueva York pasando por Berlin (Buenos Aires, 1944) does not help much. A military study is Sancho de Beurko, Gudaris, recuerdos de guerra (Buenos Aires, 1956). See also Stanley Payne’s history.
(8) For the POUM, see George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London, 1938), Joaquín Maurín’s Revolución y contrarevolución en España (second edition, Paris, 1966) and Julián Gorkin’s Canibales políticos (Mexico, 1947). A new version of Gorkin’s story had appeared as El proceso de Moscú en Barcelona (Barcelona, 1974). A recent essay is Andrés Suárez’s El proceso contra el POUM (Paris, 1974). Katia Landau’s Le Stalinisme en Espagne (Paris, 1938) exposes the communist persecution of the POUM. Grandizo Munis’s Jalones de derrota (Mexico, 1948) is a well-written view of the failure of the revolution, from a roughly POUMista angle. See also Manuel Casanova, L’Espagne livrée (reprinted Paris, 1971). One of the best memoirs is Víctor Alba’s Sísifo y su tiempo, Memorias de un cabreado (1916–1996) (Barcelona, 1996).
(9) The appalling circumstances in which many lived behind the lines are vividly described in such works as The General Cause (a report on the mass law suit that followed the war undertaken by the victors, Madrid, 1943, and reprinted). See too Father Montero’s book, La persecución religiosa en España (Madrid, 1961), Pilar Millán Astray’s Cautivas: 32 meses en las prisiones rojas (Madrid, 1940), Agustín de Foxá’s novel, Madrid, de Corte a checa (San Sebastián, 1938), the trial reported in the book entitled Por qué hice las chekas de Barcelona (Madrid, 1940) by Rafael López Chacón, and some of the POUM’s attacks on the communists (e.g., the works cited by Julián Gorkin, Katia Landau and Manuel Buenacasa). Angel Cervera’s Madrid en Guerra (Madrid, 1998) illuminates many dark corners.
(10) The economic history of the republic demands more careful study than hitherto made. But see the works of Bricall, Semprún Maura, Mintz, Delclaux, Sardá and Stanley Payne (The Spanish Revolution) cited above.
IX. INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
(1) There is much interesting material in Jesús Salas Larrazábal’s Intervención extranjera en la guerra de España (Madrid, 1974). There are short diplomatic accounts by P. A. M. van der Esch, Prelude to War (The Hague, 1951) and Dante Puzzo, Spain and the Great Powers, 1936–1941 (New York, 1962). Fernando Schwarz’s La internacionalización de la guerra civil española (Barcelona, 1971) is suggestive. N. J. Padelford’s International Law and Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge, Mass., 1939) is still the best survey of the legal issues. A. J. Toynbee, with V. M. Boulter and Katherine Duff, still gives the best study of the war as an international problem in The Survey of International Affairs, 1937, volume II, and for 1938, volume I (London, 1938 and 1948 respectively). The Red Cross representative in Spain, Marcel Junod, has a good section in his Warrior without Weapons (London, 1951). Herbert Southworth’s La Destruction de Guernica (Paris, 1975) is an illuminating study of press reactions. I was fortunate to have access to the memoirs and papers, then unpublished, of Pablo de Azcárate, the Republican ambassador in London in 1936–1939. Gerald Howson’s Arms for Spain (London, 1998), a meticulous study, reveals much.
(2) The International Brigades have been widely written about. Almost every country in the world has their special history. The best general history is the encyclopedic if indigestible work of Andreu Castells, Las brigadas internacionales en la guerra de España (Barcelona, 1974). See also Jacques Delperrie de Bayac, Les Brigades internationales (Paris, 1968), and Vincent Brome, The International Brigades (London, 1965). Colonel Martínez Bande’s Brigadas internacionales (Barcelona, 1972) is less impressive than his other work and Ricardo de la Cierva’s Leyenda y tragedia de las brigadas internacionales (Madrid, 1969), slight. The appendix in Ramón Salas Larrazábal’s Historia del ejército popular de la república, volume IV (Madrid, 1974), is interesting. But Rémi Skoutelsky’s L’Espoir guidait leurs pas (Paris, 1998) is in many ways the best study of all now, though it discusses France.
(3) Britain and the civil war is investigated by K. W. Watkins’s Britain Divided (London, 1963). British foreign policy is considered by Anthony Eden’s worthy Facing the Dictators (London, 1962) and The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey (London, 1970). British diplomats in Spain who make a contribution include Sir Robert Hodgson (Spain Resurgent, London, 1953), Sir Geoffrey Thompson (Front Line Diplomat, London, 1959) and Sir Samuel Hoare (Ambassador on Special Mission, London, 1946). The best background to British diplomacy at that time is Keith Middlemas’s Diplomacy of Illusion (London, 1972). British intellectual reaction to the war is captured by Peter Stansky and William Abrahams, Journey to the Frontier (London, 1966), a study of John Cornford and Julian Bell. The best books by British participants are Esmond Romilly’s Boadilla (London, 1971), John Sommerfield’s Volunteer in Spain (London, 1937), Tom Wintringham’s English Captain (London, 1939), George Orwell’s book earlier cited, and Jason Gurney’s Crusade in Spain (London, 1974). See also Carmel Haden Guest, David Guest: a Scientist Fights for Freedom (London, 1939). A survey of the British volunteers can be found in William Rust’s Britons in Spain (London, 1939); it is uncritical. See also Peter Davison, Orwell in Spain (London, 2001).
The only work of a British volunteer for Franco is Peter Kemp’s vivid Mine Were of Trouble (London, 1957).
Irish involvement with the nationalists is commemorated by General O’Duffy’s Crusade in Spain (London, 1938).
(4) French foreign policy and the Spanish civil war is exposed in the several volumes of foreign policy documents published as Documents diplomatique
s français 1932–1939, 2nd series, 1968 onwards (volumes III to VII). See also the account given by Léon Blum in Les Événements survenus en France (Report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the causes of the defeat in 1940, published Paris, 1955). There is also material in Pierre Cot’s The Triumph of Treason (Chicago, 1944), Georges Bonnet’s De Washington au Quai d’Orsay (Geneva, 1946) and General Gamelin’s Servir (Paris, 1946–7). An excellent survey of the propaganda war in France is D. W. Pike’s Conjecture Propaganda and Deceit and the Spanish Civil War (Stanford, 1970). Maître Isorni’s Phillipe Pétain, 2 volumes (Paris, 1972) has an interesting chapter on Pétain and Spain. Malraux’s L’Espoir (Paris, 1937) has incomparable passages.
The part of French volunteers for the republic is summarized in L’Épopée d’Espagne (Paris, 1957). The best book on the matter, though, is Rémi Skoutelsky, L’Espoir guidait leurs pas (Paris, 1998). See also Henri Dupré, La ‘Légion Tricolore’ en Espagne (Paris, 1942) for suggestions that not all Marty’s fantasies were unfounded.
(5) On Germany and the civil war, the foreign policy documents Series D, volume III, are invaluable. German policy is analysed in Manfred Merkes, Die deutsche Politik im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg (Bonn, 1969), and Glenn Harper (in the book cited in section VII [4] above). There are some accounts by fliers in the Condor Legion, for example General Galland’s The First and the Last (London, 1957). A brilliant study is Angel Viñas’s La alemania Nazi y el 18 de julio (Madrid, 1974), several times reprinted.
For the Germans who fought for the republic, see Gustav Regler’s excellent The Owl of Minerva (London, 1959), Ludwig Renn’s Der Spanische Krieg (Berlin, 1955) and Alfred Kantorowicz’s Spanisches Tagebuch (Berlin, 1948) and ‘Tschapaiew’, das Bataillon der 21 Nationen (Berlin, 1956).