The Spanish Civil War

by Hugh Thomas

  3. Largo Caballero says that the communists wanted to be rid of Galarza since he was, at that time, investigating the loyalty of General Miaja and Colonel Rojo, found to have been members of the UME before the war (op. cit., p. 218). Whether they were or were not members has not been fully disclosed. They certainly had no record of left-wing opinions before 1936.

  1. For this crisis see Peirats, vol. II, pp. 238ff.; Cattell, Communism, pp. 153ff.; Largo Caballero; Alvarez del Vayo, Freedom’s Battle, p. 212; Gorkin, Caníbales políticos; Araquistain; and Hernández. I consulted Señor de Irujo, Señor Alvarez del Vayo and Señorita Montseny, present at this cabinet. See also Azaña, vol. IV, p. 595, for Largo’s contemporary report.

  2. Hernández, pp. 86–8. Krivitsky says that, as early as November 1936, Negrín had been ‘picked’ by Stashevsky as the next Premier (op. cit., p. 119).

  3. No evidence exists that Prieto had reached a formal agreement with the communists prior to this meeting, though allegations to that effect are put forward by Bolloten (op. cit., pp. 311–12).

  1. Lamoneda’s letter of refusal to back Largo Caballero is printed in Peirats, vol. II, p. 246. See also Largo Caballero, pp. 217–18. Lamoneda had been temporarily a communist in 1920.

  1. Zugazagoitia, p. 138. Cf. an exchange with Azaña on this in 1938 in Azaña, vol. IV, p. 875.

  2. Álvarez del Vayo, The Last Optimist, p. 228. Prieto’s own description of him can be seen in Convulsiones, vol. II, p. 219f.

  1. Statement to me by Julio Álvarez del Vayo, Geneva, 1960.

  1. Largo Caballero, p. 204.

  2. Prieto, Convulsiones, vol. III, p. 220.

  3. Azaña, vol. IV, p. 867.

  4. Ibid., p. 603. On the other hand, by 16 June, he was criticizing Negrín’s ‘juvenile optimism’ (op. cit., p. 620).

  5. Ibid., p. 894.

  1. That is, Presidente del Consejo, the Spanish equivalent of Prime Minister. Recollection of Alvarez del Vayo (Geneva, 1960).

  2. Hernández, p. 135. This may have been said because Negrín from an early stage placed hope in a world war which he thought inevitable, but which Stalin was trying to stave off.

  3. Ibarruri, p. 437. Togliatti said in 1962 that he met Negrín only once in Spain, in March 1939.

  4. See Radosh et al., 209.

  5. Negrín denied the existence of the torture chambers to Henry Buckley in Perpignan in 1939, and admitted his error to the same journalist in 1949 (Mr Buckley’s evidence to the author).

  1. Negrín was also skilful with foreign journalists, while Largo Caballero told Azaña that ‘he did not believe in the reality of the outside world’ (Obras, vol. IV, p. 617). See Juan Marichal, ‘La significación histórica de Juan Negrín’, Triunfo, 22 June 1974, who concluded that ‘in few men of European history of the last century and a half has there been—as was the case in respect of Dr Negrín—such a fusion of intelligence and character, of moral integrity and intellectual capacity’. Bolloten’s hostile view (p. 300) is, I believe, wrong. See Cabanellas, vol. II, p. 970, for a balanced view. When writing this book I had the benefit of several conversations with Dr Juan Negrín Jr.

  2. The most influential republican representative in Paris during Negrín’s government was the arms-purchase chief, Dr Alejandro Otero, helped by the American journalist Louis Fischer, ex-quartermaster of the International Brigades, interpreter of Russia for the US in the 1920s, who from the Lutetia Hotel directed an organization for the purchase of arms and the diffusion of republican propaganda. Perhaps one should note too the activities of French communists in Toulouse. See discussion in Pike, p. 128, on the role of Jean Marcel Blanc and the Bar Gambetta.

  3. Julio Just was also angry to be leaving his ministry of public works: ‘personally, and as a Valencian’ (Azaña, vol. IV, p. 603).

  1. Texts in Peirats, vol. II, pp. 248–77.

  2. Ibid., p. 281.

  3. Circular No. 12 of the national committee of the CNT of April 1937, qu. Lorenzo, p. 275, fn. 43. Of the total claimed of 2,178,000, 1,000,000 were allegedly in Catalonia.

  1. This resumption of governmental power in Catalonia was the consequence of an explicit, firm governmental decision urged in particular by Azaña (op. cit., pp. 604–5). The new Catalan government was composed only of PSUC and Esquerra with three councillorships each, Acción Catalana and rabassaires, with one each: Sbert (interior), Tarradellas (finance), Pi y Súñer (culture), all of the Esquerra; Vidiella (labour), Serra Pamiés (supply), and Comorera (economy)—PSUC; Bosch Gimpera (justice) of Acción Catalana, and Calvet (agriculture), of the rabassaires. Of Companys’s former moderate colleagues of the beginning of the war, only two—Tarradellas and Pi y Súñer, remained: all the others, old friends such as Espanya, Gassol, and Escofet—had been forced into exile in France; or had fled there. Twelve ex-councillors of the Generalidad were in Paris, according to Azaña (op. cit., p. 624).

  2. Largo Caballero, p. 229.

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  1. R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. II, p. 1194.

  1. The ME 109 had two fixed machine-guns in the cowlings, and two 20-mm cannon in the wings. Their radio equipment was bad in comparison with British. But these weaknesses were not apparent against the Russians over Spain. More Messerschmitt 109s were ultimately built than any other in the history of aviation—33,000. It had been designed by Willy Messerschmitt in 1935 and was made by Bayerische Flugzeugwerke at Augsburg. Several types of this plane were tested in Spain—the 109B-1, 109B-2, C-1, D, E-0, and later, E-1.

  2. Azaña, vol. IV, p. 620.

  3. This balance of forces in May 1937 derives from R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. I, p. 1084f.; Voronov, in Bajo la bandera, p. 128; Cattell, Communism, p. 228; and Sanchís, passim.

  4. See García Lacalle, p. 388, for instances of Visiedo’s obstructionism.

  1. Prieto was born in Oviedo, but went to Bilbao as a boy.

  2. Iturralde, vol. II, p. 425.

  3. Martínez Bande, Vizcaya, p. 128f.

  4. R. Salas, vol. II, pp. 1382–3; Francisco Tarazona, Sangre en el cielo (Mexico, 1960), p. 132.

  1. Yvonne Cloud, Basque Children in England (London, 1937); Steer, p. 263. Britain made a proposal to the Basques that they should name a series of neutral zones which would be guaranteed against attack. The republican government protested against Britain’s act in thus dealing with the Basques as if they were a regular government.

  2. See Revue des deux mondes, 10 February 1940. That article falsely alleged that the Basque government had begun negotiating direct with Franco. The above account was told to me by Leizaola, who confirmed the account in Aguirre, pp. 34–6. It has been slightly corrected by that in Largo Caballero (p. 206), e.g., the Basques said that a meeting of the republican cabinet was secretly held without the Basque minister Irujo being present. The telegrams from Faupel to Berlin giving a version of the tale current in Salamanca should be discounted. In March 1937, another démarche had been made to secure a mediated peace—this time by Mussolini through his consul in San Sebastián, the Marquis of Cavaletti, ‘perhaps by establishing an Italian protectorate over the Basque provinces!’ Aguirre rejected the idea (Aguirre, pp. 31–3). See also the discussion in Martínez Bande, La guerra en el norte (Madrid, 1969), p. 60f. and that in the biography of Cardinal Gomá by Antonio Granados (Madrid, 1969, p. 155f.).

  1. Madariaga, Memorias, p. 416. Azaña (vol. IV, p. 588) confirms that this was a personal peace mission of his own, with which Largo Caballero had nothing to do. Largo commented adversely, in his memoir (p. 199). See comment by Jackson, p. 442f.

  2. USD, 1937, vol. I, p. 295.

  3. GD, p. 291.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Serrano Súñer, p. 70.

  6. This was not true, though Britain had financial interests in Bilbao.

  1. GD, p. 295.

  2. History of The Times, vol. IV (London, 1952), p. 907.

  3. USD, 1937, vol. I, p. 302.

  4. Ibid., p. 303.

  5. NIS, twenty-second meeting.

  1. Blum told the Am
erican ambassador that his information was that the Germans were telling the truth (USD, 1937, vol. I, p. 309).

  2. See Prokofiev, in Bajo la bandera, p. 401, and García Lacalle (p. 212), where it is suggested that the Russians confused the Deutschland for the Canarias. See Azaña, vol. IV, p. 611, where he points out that the fact was surprising, since ‘the Russians observe a most rigorous discipline and their chiefs, like their government, know that they must avoid any conflict with the Germans’.

  3. USD, 1937, vol. I, p. 317; GD, p. 297f. See also François-Poncet’s dispatch of 3 June (FD, vol. VI, p. 22).

  4. The Deutschland’s victims were looked after by the governor of Gibraltar, General Sir Charles Harington, whose preoccupation hitherto in the Spanish war had been how to restore the Royal Calpe Hunt to its ancient glory. Meets had been resumed after the fall of Málaga.

  5. NIS, fifty-third meeting.

  6. GD, p. 299.

  1. GD, p. 302.

  2. La Casa (home) was the Spanish communists’ word for Moscow.

  3. Azaña gives an account (vol. IV, pp. 611–13). See also Hernández, p. 114.

  4. The account by Hernández is generally confirmed by Prieto in the preface to the Mexican edition of Como y porqué salí del Ministerio de Defensa Nacional.

  1. Prieto, Convulsiones I, pp. 152–3. The first communist complaint against Prieto was during the forthcoming battle of Brunete, when Uribe and Hernández told Negrín that the minister of defence was reallocating commands to their disadvantage.

  2. See R. Salas Larrazábal, vol. II, p. 1395.

  1. See account given by Gustav Regler, who was wounded at the same time (Regler, The Owl of Minerva, p. 312). So was the Russian General Batov (Bajo la bandera, p. 100). See Historia y vida, December 1969. The nationalist air ace García Morato killed Dr Heilbrunn, doctor of the 12th International Brigade, not Lukács. Lukács was succeeded as commander by the Bulgarian Kosovski (‘Petrov’).

  2. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, p. 260. This campaign is well described in Martínez Bande, La gran ofensiva sobre Zaragoza (Madrid, 1973), pp. 39–74.

  3. Our Lady of the Fuencisla, patron saint of Segovia, was later named a full field-marshal for her part in the defence of the town. This was when Varela had become minister of war in the nationalist cabinet in 1942. The news caused Hitler to say that he would never under any circumstances visit Spain (Table Talk, p. 515).

  1. See Tagüeña, p. 152, for an honest description. Martínez Bande, La ofensiva sobre Segovia y la batalla de Brunete (Madrid, 1972), pp. 61–100, gives useful information. See also Gillain, p. 57f., for a mordant description of the troubles between Walter and Dumont. The republic also misused a company of Russian T-26 tanks. Martínez Bande publishes a report on the battle by Walter and Galán (op. cit., p. 246f.). This was the republican offensive described by Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls. He suggests that it was betrayed but, due to Marty’s obstinacy, allowed to continue. The action of this book covers ‘the sixty-eight hours between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday noon of the last week of May 1937’ (Baker, p. 225). Hemingway himself, oddly enough, was by then back in New York, campaigning to raise funds for the republic.

  2. GD, p. 410. One allegation at the time was that Mola had been killed by the Germans because he had protested against the bombing of civilian targets. The protest and alleged outcome are equally unlikely.

  1. Martínez de Campos, p. 221. The army of the nationalists in the north had now been reorganized. The expanded old 6th Division, with headquarters at Burgos, had been renamed, what it already was in reality, the 6th Army Corps (General López Pinto in command), and was divided into two divisions. The first division, under Solchaga, comprised six Navarrese Brigades, the first four of them formed on the basis of the old Carlist volunteer columns, being commanded as on 31 March, the two new ones being headed by Colonels Bartomeu and Bautista Sánchez. The chief of staff remained Vigón, the artillery continued to be under Martínez Campos. On 23 May, this division was renamed the 61st (Navarrese) Division, that is, the 1st Division of the 6th Army Corps. See Martínez Bande, Vizcaya, pp. 124–5.

  2. Martínez Bande, La guerra, pp. 154–5. The divisional and brigade organization was weak.

  1. See del Burgo, p. 900, and Martínez Bande, p. 172.

  2. Steer, p. 307; R. Salas, vol. II, p. 1403; Martínez Bande, Vizcaya, pp. 288–90, prints the notes of the chief of staff, Lamas, at this conference. Steer’s account is excellent. The Russian Koltsov was in Bilbao too, though not at this meeting.

  1. See Víctor de Frutos, Los que no perdieron la guerra (Buenos Aires, 1967), p. 119. Frutos was a commander of a brigade. For Leizaola, see Sancho de Beurko, Gudaris, recuerdos de guerra (Buenos Aires, 1956), p. 90.

  1. Aznar, pp. 425–6; Steer, pp. 336–71.

  2. See unpublished MS. of Colonel Lamas, qu. Martínez Bande, Vizcaya, p. 198, fn. 317.

  3. Kindelán, p. 86.

  4. Martínez Bande, La guerra, pp. 219–20; Basque official casualty figures for June were lost. For April and May, they were 7,344 and 8,793. Fourteen thousand total casualties for June would be quite likely.

  5. GD, p. 409.

  6. Ibid., p. 412.

  7. The Germans were prepared to negotiate over this later with Britain and, by the end of 1937, iron ore exports to Britain were back to normal.

  1. The naval significance of the fall of Bilbao is well described by Admiral Cervera (op. cit., p. 170), whose blockade had so contributed to the victory. The naval shipyards, supplies of anchors, cables, chains and so on were of great service.

  2. Cloud, p. 8. Something of the life of these camps was given to the author by Victor Urquídi, a Mexican who worked in them when a student at the London School of Economics. The Basque children formed themselves a committee, he recalls, ‘to fight corporal punishment’; and when a dentist came, he arrived to find the camp empty: the children had fled.

  3. Osservatore Romano, 8 January 1937.

  4. La Guerre d’Espagne et le Catholicisme, a pamphlet by Vice-Admiral H. Joubert in answer to the article of 1 July by Maritain (Paris, 1937), p. 26.

  5. Iturralde, vol. II, pp. 318–19. Nevertheless, the bishop by this time recognized privately that he was wrong, and later was to do so publicly.

  1. Qu. Father Bayle, SJ, ¿Qué pasa en España? (Salamanca, 1937).

  2. Maritain’s position is to be found in his preface to Alfredo Mendizábal, Aux origines d’une tragédie (Paris, 1937). See also Ch. 8, ‘Católicos Antitotalitarios’, of Southworth’s El mito de la cruzada.

  3. Published in London by the Catholic Truth Society. It seems probable that the letter was written on the suggestion of General Franco. It was drafted by Cardinal Gomá and circulated for signature by the bishops.

  4. Father Ignacio Menéndez Reigada added, in La guerra nacional española ante la moral y el derecho (Salamanca, 1937), that the rising had been ‘not only just but a duty’.

  1. The bishop of Orihuela was ill, so his representative signed on his behalf. The archbishop of Tarragona, though refraining from commenting on the attitude of the Spanish Church in the civil war, never made any public statement of his position. He never returned to Spain, however, and, dying in exile in the Chartreuse convent near Zurich, had inscribed on his tomb the laconic epitaph reminiscent of that of Hildebrand: ‘I die in exile for having too much loved my country.’ Cardinal Segura, shortly to return to Seville from Rome, was apparently not asked to sign the letter.

  2. GD, p. 236.

  3. Le Clergé Basque, p. 10.

  4. Ibid., pp. 33–8.

  5. See Southworth, El mito, p. 235; Pike, pp. 130–32.

  1. Antonio Berjón, La Prière des exilés espagnols à la Vierge du Pilier (Liège, 1938).

  2. Jerrold, p. 384. For the controversy in England over Guernica, see Southworth, La Destruction, passim.

  3. Taylor, p. 157.

  1. Lacouture, p. 253; Spender, World within World, p. 496; see also Koltsov, p. 431, Ehrenburg, The Eve of War, p. 408, an
d Left Review, September 1937.

  1. See Claude Couffon, Miguel Hernández et Orihuela (Paris, 1963, translation, slightly altered, by A. L. Lloyd, in Spender and Lehmann, Poems for Spain, p. 37). See an interview with his widow in Triunfo, 4 January 1975. Hernández’s father-in-law had been a member of the civil guard and had been shot, quite gratuitously, by the anarchists in the summer of 1936.

  2. He shortly wrote his play Señora Carrara’s Rifles, satirizing the idea of neutrality, on the model of J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea. The theatrical effectiveness of the play is not diminished by the playwright’s mistake in giving his characters Italian, instead of Spanish, names.

  3. Azaña’s contemptuous description is in his diaries (op. cit., vol. IV, p. 672).

  39

  1. Qu. ‘Max Reisser’, Espionaje en España (Paris, 1938), p. 12. It was never clear who wrote this book or in what language it was first written. The Spanish translator was Arturo Perucho, director of Treball, a PSUC paper and ex-sub-editor of Juan March’s El Imparcial.

  2. This account derives from what Golfín and Roca told the POUM leaders when they met in prison. See Gorkin, pp. 252–3 and 258–60. But Angel Cervera (Cervera, p. 302) adds new information from Moscow. The provocateur Castilla was allowed to escape with his life and a certain amount of money to France. The chief Catalan police agent acting for Gerö, Victorio Sala, once a member of the POUM, later broke with the communists, whom he has since accused of atrocious crimes. The documents were published in Espionaje en España.

  1. Krivitsky, p. 125, confirmed to John Erickson by a former Russian officer. His French wife and daughter also vanished at the same time from Paris (Poretsky, p. 212). According to Krivitsky, Stashevsky approved the actions of the GPU against the ‘Trotskyists’ in Russia but thought that they should respect legally constituted parties in Spain. He left Russia happily thinking he had convinced Stalin of this view. Antonov-Ovsëenko was appointed people’s commissar for justice and told to return to Russia to take up those duties: a joke typical of Stalin. He never arrived at his post. Some suggest that he had come to like the Catalans too much for his safety (see Miravitlles, p. 195f.).