General Franco
Did not join WWII due inter alia to the mess left by the civil war.
QUOTE
In September 1939, World War II broke out in Europe, and although Hitler met
Franco once in
Hendaye, France (23 October 1940), to discuss Spanish entry on the side of
the
Axis, Franco's demands (food, military equipment,
Gibraltar,
French North Africa etc.) proved too much and no agreement was reached. (An
oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader would rather
have some teeth extracted than to have to deal further with Franco).[43]
Franco's tactics received important support from
Adolf
Hitler and
Benito Mussolini during the civil war. He remained emphatically neutral in
the Second World War, but nonetheless offered various kinds of support to Italy
and Germany. He allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German
Army against the
USSR (the
Blue
Division), but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the
democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by
Hitler's propagation of
Nazi mysticism and his attempts to
manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to
defending Christianity and Catholicism.
Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining
rights in Spain. Some historians argue that Franco made demands that he knew
Hitler would not accede to in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that he, as leader of a destroyed
country in chaos, simply had nothing to offer the Germans and their military.
UNQUOTE
Sensible chap, what?
Spain in World War II
QUOTE
The
Spanish State under
General Franco was officially
non-belligerent during
World
War II. This status, although not recognised by international law, was
intended to express the regime's sympathy and material support for the
Axis Powers, to which Spain offered considerable material,
economic,
and military assistance. Despite this ideological sympathy, Spain did not enter
the war as a belligerent and, in fact, frustrated German designs on
Gibraltar
and stationed field armies at the
Pyrenees to
dissuade Germany from occupying the
Iberian Peninsula. This apparent contradiction can be explained by Franco's
pragmatism and his determination to act principally in Spanish interests, in the
face of Allied economic pressure, Axis military demands, and Spain's geographic
isolation.
UNQUOTE
The boy done good.
Spanish Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Spanish
Civil
War (The Crusade among Nationalists,
Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, The
Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans) was a major conflict ..."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
Claud Cockburn
Cockburn was attacked by
George Orwell in
Homage to Catalonia (1938). Orwell accused Cockburn of being under the
control of the Communist Party and was critical of the way Cockburn reported the
Barcelona May Days. According to the editor of a volume of his writings on
Spain, Cockburn formed a personal relationship with
Mikhail Koltsov [ Jew, NKVD wallah ], "then the foreign editor of
Pravda and,
in Cockburn's view, 'the confidant and mouthpiece and direct agent of Stalin in
Spain'."
Mikhail Koltsov
Mikhail Efimovich Koltsov (Russian:
Михаил Ефимович Кольцов) (June 12
[O.S.
May 31] 1898,
Kiev – February 2,
1940 or June 4, 1942, Moscow), born Mikhail Efimovich Fridlyand (Friedland)
(Михаил Ефимович Фридлянд), was a
Soviet journalist.
Koltsov was the son of a
Jewish shoemaker and the brother of
Boris Efimov. Koltsov participated in the
Russian Revolution of 1917, became a member of the
Bolshevik party in 1918, and took part in the
civil war. A convinced
communist, he soon became a key figure of the Soviet intellectual elite and
arguably the most famous journalist in the
USSR, chiefly due to his well-written satirical essays and articles, where
he criticized
bureaucracy and other negative phenomena in the Soviet Union. Koltsov
founded popular journals such as
Krokodil,
Chudak and
Ogonyok and was a member of the editorial board of
Pravda. As
a correspondent of Pravda, he travelled to Spain to cover the
Spanish Civil War, while at the same time working for the
NKVD. He also acted
as military advisor to Loyalist forces on occasion. Koltsov is widely regarded
as having been
Stalin's chief reporter in the Spanish war, with speculation suggesting he
had a direct line from his hotel to the
Kremlin.
Koltsov described his experiences in The Spanish diary, which was
published in 1938. In the same year, Koltsov was summoned from Spain and
arrested on charges of
anti-Soviet and
terrorist activities as part of the
Great
Purge. He was sentenced to death and shot in 1940 or 1942, according to
different sources.
Koltsov was rehabilitated following Stalin's
death in 1953.
The war began after a
pronunciamiento by a group of conservative generals under the leadership
of Emilio
Mola against the elected Government of the
Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President
Manuel
Azaña. The rebel coup was supported by the conservative groups including the
Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right,[nb
2] monarchists such as the
Carlists, and the
Fascist
Falange.[nb
3][5]
Following the only partially successful coup,[nb
4] Spain was left militarily and politically divided.
From that moment onwards Mola's successor,
General Franco, began a protracted
war of attrition with the established government, as loyalist supporters of
the centre-left Republican Government fought the rebel forces for control of the
country. The conservative generals (nacionales) received the support of
Nazi
Germany and the
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), as well as neighbouring
Portugal.[6]
The
Soviet Union intervened in support of the socialist Republicans, although it
encouraged factional conflict to the benefit of the Soviet foreign policy, and
its actions may have been detrimental to the Republican war effort as a whole.[7]
The Luftwaffe attempted to incorporate all
military units that had anything to do with air warfare. Given the strong Nazi
origin and influence in the Luftwaffe, this was seen as a way to increase Nazi
influence in the army (alongside the other project in this respect, the
formation of SS divisions), as well as boosting the personal prestige of
Göring. Thus the anti-aircraft (Flak)
and airborne troops (Fallschirmjäger)
fell under direct Luftwaffe command, and the navy (Kriegsmarine)
never established its own air branch; naval aviation was executed by the
Luftwaffe. Even the aircraft flown from the (never finished) aircraft carrier
Graf Zeppelin were to be operated by the Luftwaffe. By the
middle of the war, when personnel assignments for the Luftwaffe were
disproportionate to a shrinking amount of planes, the excess personnel was not
transferred to the army (Heer),
but instead organized into
Luftwaffe Field Divisions in 1942. Their performance as ground units was
so poor that command was transferred to Heer in 1943, although they retained
their name.
The Luftwaffe had the ideal
opportunity to test its pilots, aircraft and tactics in the
Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, when the
Condor Legion was sent to Spain in support of the anti-Republican
government revolt led by
Francisco Franco. Modern machines included names which became world
famous: the
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber,
Dornier Do 17 "Schnell" (fast) bomber, and the
Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter. Since the aircraft were seconded to Franco's
Nationalist air force, Luftwaffe markings were replaced to avoid giving
the impression that Germany was actively supporting the revolt. Instead of the
Nazi Party's
swastika on the tail, the German planes used the nationalist air force
aircraft markings (a Saint Andrew's cross over a white background, painted on
the rudder of the aircraft and a black disc on fuselage and wings). All
aircraft in the Legion were affiliated to units given a designation ending in
the number 88. For example, bombers were in Kampfgruppe 88 (combat
group 88, K/88); and fighters, in Jagdgruppe 88 (fighter group 88,
J/88. Following the
Munich crisis, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe be expanded by five
times.[3]
A grim foretaste of the systematic bombing
of cities during
World
War II came in April 1937 when a combined force of German and Italian
bombers under Spanish-Nationalist command destroyed most of the
Basque city of
Guernica in northeast Spain. This bombing received worldwide condemnation,
and the collective memory of the horror of the bombing of civilians became
more acute because of a famous
painting, named after the town, by
Pablo Picasso. Many feared that this would be the way that future air wars
would be conducted; the Italian strategist General
Giulio Douhet (who had died in 1930) had formulated theories regarding
what would be dubbed "strategic bombing", the idea that wars would be won by
striking from the air at the heart of the industrial muscle of a warring
nation, thus demoralizing the civilian population to the point where the
government of that nation would be driven to sue for peace.
The destruction of the town was not the aim
of the mission; the targets were the roads and the Rentaria bridge. The
devastation was primarily caused by the inaccuracy of bombing techniques of
the day and the fact that the mass of refugees moving through the town was
misidentified as "Troop Movements". The Basque Government had previously
decided to fortify the town and that there were 2000 of their troops present.[4]
The propaganda claims that it was intended a "terror attack" are demonstrably
untrue as
Wolfram von Richthofen "had no time for this tactic and was at first as
bewildered about the town's destruction as everyone else".[5]
The
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
Mitrokhin
Archive page 111
Of August 1939 Was a major upset for
NKVD
agents in England. Rees broke away.
QUOTE
The
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the
Soviet
foreign minister
Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of
Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in
Moscow in the
late hours of 23 August 1939. It was a
non-aggression pact under which the
Soviet
Union and
Nazi
Germany each pledged to remain
neutral in the event that either nation were attacked by a third party. It
remained in effect until 22 June 1941, when
Germany invaded the Soviet Union.............
Background
At the beginning of the 1930s, the
Nazi Party's
rise to power increased tensions between Germany, the Soviet Union and other
countries with ethnic
Slavs, which were considered "Untermenschen"
according to
Nazi racial ideology. Moreover, the
anti-Semitic Nazis associated ethnic Jews with both
communism
and
financial capitalism,
both of which they opposed. [ The Wiki does not bother to mention that
they were right- Ed. ] Consequently, Nazi theory held that Slavs in the
Soviet Union were being ruled by "Jewish
Bolshevik" masters.........
In 1936, Germany and
Fascist Italy supported
Spanish Nationalists in the
Spanish Civil War, while the Soviets supported the partially socialist-led
Second Spanish Republic under the leadership of president
Manuel
Azaña. Thus, in a sense, the Spanish Civil War became also the scene of a
proxy war
between Germany and the USSR. In 1936, Germany and Japan entered the
Anti-Comintern Pact, and were joined a year later by
Italy.
UNQUOTE
What is the difference between the
Nazis and
Communism? Not a lot!
The uniforms were different; slogans ditto. Other aspects are very similar; the
tyranny, oppression, the lust for power were there. One significant difference
is that the Nazis were nationalists while the communists were internationalist,
very much a thing that Jews go in for.
The Spanish civil war was marketed to us as wonderful, caring left wingers
versus nasty right wing thugs who were being helped by naughty
Adolf. He
sent the Luftwaffe to get to practice on live targets etcetera. But as
Willi Münzenberg,
the propaganda master of the communists said:-
"All news is lies and all propaganda is disguised as
news." - Willi Münzenberg
- biography
Here
Jonas De Geer, a Swede puts a different view in:-
The Spanish Civil War: A Successful Nationalist Revolution
QUOTE
It has been 75 years since the outbreak of
the Spanish Civil War. Few conflicts in history have been as widely
misunderstood, or misrepresented. The standard narrative has long been that of
a military coup against a democratic government and the noble Spanish people,
supported by foreign idealists, heroically fighting evil “fascists.” This is a
grotesque distortion of the truth, and stands as one of the most flagrant
examples of how propaganda has been uncritically accepted as official history.
First, it must be emphasized that the
Leftist Spanish regime at the time of the nationalist revolt was by no means a
coalition of mildly progressive liberals and socialists as it is usually
described, but was, in fact, a reign of Communist and anarchist terror.
Secondly, less than half of the Spanish military rebelled. The government
forces were also at least as well equipped as the nationalist rebels, and they
had greater economic resources at their disposal.
These distortions have also been evident in
other recent accounts of counterrevolutionary efforts. Since mainstream
Western historiography has been confined to more or less Marxist
interpretations for over half a century, few today are aware of the many
popular uprisings that occurred after 1789 against the Revolution, in
defense of Faith and homeland, from the Vendée in 1793, to Hungary in 1956.
As opposed to the famous liberal and
socialist “revolutions,” many of which have, in reality, been internationally
organized coups, ordered and paid for by international finance, these
counterrevolutionary uprisings have almost always been at a hopeless
disadvantage, and as a result ended in tragic defeat, and have thus been
rendered obscure.
The Spanish Civil War is the one great
exception. It is the only major conflict in the modern history of Europe that
nationalist, counterrevolutionary forces won.
Like most other Catholic countries after the
French Revolution, Spain had been plagued not only by wars, but by capitalist
centralization, industrialization, and Masonic persecution of the Church,
resulting in the proletarization of large segments of the population. The
country’s national pride had just about recovered from the loss of nearly all
of its South American colonies in the early nineteenth century when, in 1898,
Spain lost Cuba and the Philippines to the United States in humiliating
fashion.
Spain managed to stay out of the First World
War, but was increasingly affected by internal conflicts and the general
turmoil of the time. After an embarrassing military defeat in Morocco, a group
of generals led by Miguel Primo de Rivera carried out a coup d’état
in 1921. His dictatorship was a time of relative stability in which no
political opponents were executed. After seven years he handed over power to
the King, Alfonso XIII. This monarch was kind, but weak, and more interested
in ladies, horses and sport than the governance of his kingdom. After royalist
candidates suffered setbacks in local elections in April 1931, he abdicated.
Whether he genuinely feared the revolutionary currents in the country or
seized an opportunity to rid himself of his burdensome office (or both) is
hard to tell.
Thus the Second Spanish Republic was
proclaimed, with a government dominated by Masons, liberals and socialists.
This heralded the beginning of the Spanish Revolution. Just like its French
and Russian precursors, the primary object of revolutionary hatred was the
Church. Already by the end of May 1931, over a hundred churches and convents
had been burned to the ground by Communists and anarchists. Madrid was the
worst afflicted area. Neither the police nor firefighters intervened. From now
on, priests, monks and nuns were more or less fair game for the extreme Left.
The government itself embarked on a campaign of religious persecution,
confiscating the property of religious orders, closing Catholic schools and
banning crucifixes from public spaces.
The escalation of violence in the years
after the Leftist government under a liberal Freemason came to power becomes
clear when one looks at the statistics: no bombings in 1930, then 175 in1931,
428 in1932 and 1,156 in1933. Towards the end of 1933, new elections were held
that resulted in a great victory for a center-Right coalition. Predictably,
this led to an intensification of the violence from the extreme Left. On 1
July 1934, former Prime Minister Azaña declared, “We prefer any kind of
catastrophe to a Republic in the hands of monarchists and fascists, even if it
means bloodshed.”
This soon came to pass, and on a large
scale. On 5 October 1934, an attempt at revolution against the legally elected
government was made in Asturias, on the north coast. The revolutionary forces
consisted of 20,000 socialist miners, 6,000 Communists and uncounted thousands
of anarchists. After 17 days of Red terror, including such atrocities as the
slaughter of 34 priests, members of religious orders and seminarians, the Army
intervened. Two days of fighting resulted in 1,300 dead and over 3,000
wounded. One of the generals in command was Francisco Franco, who has since
been criticized for having dealt too harshly with the Reds. However, at the
time, anyone of normal intelligence understood what a Communist regime would
mean, and realized that any attempt to establish such a regime had to be
firmly nipped in the bud. The Communist massacres in Russia and during Bela
Kùn’s short-lived, but blood-soaked, reign in Hungary had not yet been
smoothed over and hushed up in the manner which was to become the norm in the
post-war Western world.
Compared with the previous year, 1935 was
relatively calm. Violence continued, but on a smaller scale. By the beginning
of 1936, the time had come for new elections. The French writer Christophe
Dolbeau describes the election and its aftermath as follows: “On 16 February
1936, after an election marked by several irregularities, the Left finally got
its famous victory that it so much desired. With a minority of the votes, it
nevertheless obtained a comfortable majority in Parliament. This brought about
the explosion of all frustrations, resentments and utopian fantasies, the
plunge into the abyss. Strikes, occupations of land, assassinations, attacks
on Army barracks, burnings of churches, journals and political offices: all
provinces were set on fire without the government doing anything to assert its
authority.”
Leftist liberal and Freemason Manuel Azaña
once again became Prime Minister, and Spain quickly descended into violence
and chaos. It was difficult for most Spaniards, whether they were for or
against the new government, to fail to see it as only a transition prior to a
Communist takeover. The parallels to the February 1917 Revolution in Russia
were obvious. After the Tsar was forced to abdicate, Russia was formally run
by the socialist and Freemason Kerensky, who paved the way for the Bolshevik
Revolution in October of the same year. The Red Terror followed.
During the Republican regime’s first four
months, the violence, which was de facto sanctioned by the
government, claimed 269 dead, 1,287 wounded, 160 demolished churches, 341
strikes (one-third of which were general strikes), 146 bombings and ten
destroyed newspapers.
Up until the outbreak of the Civil War, the
violence predominantly came from the extreme Left. However, the Falangists,
themselves a prime target for Left-wing violence, responded in kind.
Falange Española,
the Falange, was the fascist party of Spain, founded and led by
José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the oldest son of general Miguel Primo de
Rivera, who, with the King’s approval, had been the country’s military
dictator from 1921 until 1928 (he died in 1930). The Falangist social doctrine
was radical in many ways. They did not designate themselves as fascists but as
National Syndicalists, and there was a clear Left-wing element in this
movement, which at the same time was generally strongly Catholic and
nationalist. It also had a more intellectual profile than most fascist
movements, which did not hamper a substantial influx of members from all
social classes.
The other militant party of the Right was
the Carlists. The movement took its name from a pretender to the
Spanish throne, Don Carlos, whose claims led to three major wars during the
nineteenth century, the Carlist Wars of 1833–40, 1847–49, and 1872–76. This
was not merely a series of conflicts regarding monarchical succession, but
wars fundamentally motivated by ideology. The Carlists represented a deeply
religious, regional and rural conservatism in opposition to the reigning
bourgeois, capitalistic liberalism which adhered to the principles of the
French Revolution. Carlism had its immediate roots in the guerillas
of the early nineteenth century, who had defended Faith and homeland against
Napoleon’s armies. The same tactics — to compensate for inferiority in
military strength by exploiting one’s superior knowledge of the terrain — had
been systematically applied with considerable success by the politically
kindred Vendéens and Chouans against the Revolutionary oppression of late
eighteenth-century France.
Like Falangism, Carlism was staunchly
anti-capitalist, but unlike the former, also radically anti-modernist. Its
politico-philosophical doctrine was called Traditionalism. Carlism, too, was
represented all over the country, but had its undisputed stronghold in the
predominantly Basque region of Navarra. The Carlists were not involved in the
deadly street-fighting of the cities to the same extent as the Falangists, but
in the spring of 1936 in those areas where they dominated the countryside
their armed forces, the red beret-clad requetés, renowned for their
fighting skills and calm composure in the face of death began preparing for
the war they knew was inevitable. On 7 March, more than four months before the
outbreak of the Civil War, Jaime del Burgo, the commander of the Carlist
Requeté of Pamplona, gave the following order of the day: “We will fall
upon the barricades of the revolution and sweep away, forever, this filthy,
foreign Marxism at the points of our bayonets!”
The Spanish officer corps at this time was
infested by Freemasons at its highest levels. Only 17 generals sided with the
rebels, whereas 22 stayed loyal to the Leftist regime. Francisco Franco was
not originally a driving force behind the rebellion, but soon after he joined,
he became its natural leader. At the time of the uprising he was stationed in
the Canaries, an unusually peripheral post for an officer of his merit. The
government clearly regarded him with some suspicion. He had, however, served
for most of his career in Morocco, where he had distinguished himself fighting
Muslim rebels and played an important part in the creation of the Spanish
Foreign Legion (modeled after the French), of which he had also been the
commander. He was highly respected by his men and fellow officers alike. The
military units in Morocco were of vital importance to the rebellion, since
they contained many of the best and most combat-experienced troops, not least
the elite force, the Foreign Legion, which was to form the core of the
nationalist forces during the war. There were also Muslim, “Moorish” troops
who, unlike many Spanish soldiers, were unhampered by conflicts of loyalty.
The event that triggered the Civil War was
the murder of the leader of the opposition, the highly respected Catholic
politician José Calvo Sotelo. He was picked up at his home in Madrid on 13
July 1936 at 3 o’clock in the morning by the Guardia de Asalto, a
police force created by the Leftist regime that recruited its members chiefly
on their political attitudes. Before leaving his house, he promised his wife
and daughter to phone them from the station, adding “unless these gentlemen
intend to blow my brains out.” They drove him only a short distance and did
just that, dumping the body by the nearest cemetery.
As the young socialist terrorist in police
uniform, Victor Cuenca, pulled the trigger, he not only murdered Calvo Sotelo,
but unwittingly fired the signal for the nationalist uprising.
Go to Part 2
The Spanish Civil War: A Successful Nationalist
Revolution, Part 2
The Civil War began on 18 July 1936. The Moroccan uprising had been betrayed
at the last minute. The rebels therefore missed the element of surprise upon
which they had been relying. The government-controlled radio reported that the
rebellion was confined to Morocco and would soon be crushed. In reality,
several important cities — Seville, Córdoba, Cádiz in the south, Valladolid,
Zaragoza and the entire Carlist stronghold of Navarre in the north — were soon
secured by the rebels. During the first phase of the war, however, most of the
country remained under Republican control.
In Madrid and Barcelona,
socialist, Communist and anarchist militias led a lawless reign of terror.
General Lopez Ochoa, although himself a Republican and Freemason, had quashed
the Revolution in Asturias alongside Franco two years earlier. He was
decapitated in his hospital bed on 19 August. His severed head was then
displayed in the streets of Madrid by a bloodthirsty Red mob in one of many
scenes reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Real or imagined political opponents and their families — indeed, anyone
perceived as a “class enemy” — were fair game for the Red rabble. Torture,
rape and executions, often in front of family members, were not uncommon. As
always, the revolutionary hatred was primarily directed against the Church.
What took place in Red Spain during the first six months of the Civil War was
one of the worst religious persecutions in modern times. Thirteen bishops, and
over 7,000 priests, monks and nuns were murdered, in many cases after having
been cruelly tortured. Exactly how many Catholic lay men and women were
martyred for their faith is difficult to estimate.
In order to assist the Spanish Reds in their campaign of terror, Moscow
sent some of their best, led by General
Aleksandr
Orlov of the
NKVD, the
Soviet secret police. His real name was Leiba Lazarevich Feldbin, but, like
many other prominent Jewish Bolsheviks, he had changed it to a Russian name.
In August,Moscowalso sent a new ambassador, Marcel (Moses)Rosenberg, toMadrid.
The leading politician in the Republican camp was no longer the Freemason and
liberal Manuel Azaña, but the Freemason and socialist radical Largo Caballero,
who fancied himself as the “Spanish Lenin.” However, Rosenberg, and ultimately
Stalin, now held the real power in Republican Spain. Those who still cling to
the lie that the Republican side was really “democratic” would do well to
consider what became of the Spanish gold reserve. On 14 September 1936, only
two months after the outbreak of the war, it was shipped from Cartagena to
Moscow (a smaller part was transferred to France) by order of the Republican
authorities. It was, of course, never returned.
Yet the propagandists of the Left to this day continue to portray the
Republican Reds as inadequately equipped and poorly financed compared to the
nationalists. The truth is that not only did the Republicans criminally give
away their country’s gold to their master in Moscow, but it is also the case
that during most of the war they also controlled Spain’s main industrial
centers. They also had the support of the worldwide media, which was heavily
biased against everything that traditional Spain represented.
The Spanish Civil War is often described as an “international Civil War” or
as a final rehearsal for the Second World War. The nationalists received
military support from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, while the Reds
were backed by the Soviet Union, and more discreetly by France, which was
being ruled by Jewish Prime Minister Léon Blum’s socialist/Communist Popular
Front government. A typical propaganda lie still rehashed in history books and
television documentaries is that the German and Italian support for the
nationalists was much more significant than that which the Soviets gave to the
Reds. The fact is that the military support of both powers combined just
nearly matched the Communists’ backing of the Republic.
The Communist International, or Comintern, opened recruiting offices all
over the world. Between 30,000 and 35,000 volunteers, mostly Communists,
enlisted with the International Brigades, so lauded by Hollywood. Three times
as many volunteers, primarily from Italy and Germany, fought on the
nationalist side. Many more would probably have joined if the nationalists had
been able and willing to accept them. But that was often not the case; many
who, on their own, made it down to Spain to fight for the nationalists were
turned down or reluctantly accepted. The attitude of the Carlists and the
Falangists, who both had good international contacts, was different, but they
had relinquished command over their troops to the army for the good of the
common cause. In many cases, perhaps out of a sense of national and
professional pride, the army’s officers regarded foreign volunteers with
suspicion.
After the Italians and the Germans, the biggest foreign contingent on the
rebel side was General Eoin O’Duffy’s Irish Brigade. The support for the
nationalist cause was very strong in staunchly Catholic Ireland. O’Duffy had
been the Chief of Staff of the legendary Michael Collins, Commander-in-chief
of the Irish Republican Army during the Anglo-Irish war. He became the
youngest general in Europe, as well as Commissioner of the Garda
(police) and the first leader of the Fine Gael, to this day one of
the country’s two dominating parties. After he was approached by a Carlist
representative, O’ Duffy organized an Irish volunteer force in the late summer
and early autumn of 1936 to fight for the nationalists. More than 7,000
Irishmen answered the call of the Spanish Crusade, of which 700 were accepted
in the first batch. More would have followed were it not for the fact that, by
early 1937, Franco’s interest in Irish participation had cooled. This change
of attitude was most likely the result of Franco not wanting to provoke the
British, who were displeased with the mass recruitment of Irish Catholics by a
former IRA leader turned unabashedly fascist.
Few truly idealistic ventures in modern history have been as unjustly
maligned by the Leftist establishment of the post-war West as the Irish
Brigade, and few persons have been as belittled and smeared as Eoin O’Duffy.
He is still systematically ridiculed and portrayed by establishment historians
as an alcoholic clown, even though few in his great generation of Irishmen
were as prominent as he for being a freedom fighter, an officer and a
politician. It is often said of the Irish volunteers that they saw virtually
no action, and spent their time in Spain doing nothing but getting drunk on
cheap wine until the Spaniards had had enough and sent them home. This is not
true. The Irish were disciplined and courageous. Even though they did not see
as much fighting as they would have wished, they still suffered a dozen dead
and over a hundred wounded. When they returned to Dublin on 22 June 1937, they
were greeted as heroes at the pier by a crowd of over ten thousand
well-wishers.
In his 1938 book, Crusade in Spain, O’Duffy writes in its
conclusion:
Our little unit did not, because it could not, play a very prominent part
in the Spanish war, but we ensured that our country was represented in the
fight against world communism. The guilt which might justly be ascribed to
Ireland in days to come has been mitigated by the Brigade offering. Our very
presence on the Madrid front focused attention on the significance of the
struggle, and where the sympathy of the bravest and best Irish hearts lay.
Our volunteers were not mere adventurers. Over ninety percent were true
Crusaders, who left behind them comfortable homes — many left secretly, lest
anything should arise to prevent them from carrying out their resolve. They
were not mercenary soldiers. Every man made a real personal sacrifice in
going to Spain, and every one returned poorer in the world’s goods. Many
have been refused their former positions again and are still unemployed.
They are undismayed because, as they proved so well in Spain, they are men
of spirit and merit.
We have been criticized, sneered at, slandered, but truth, charity and
justice shall prevail. We seek no praise. We did our duty. We went to Spain.
Among the many foreigners who “did their duty and went to Spain” were the
Romanians Ion Mota and Vasile Marin, both leading lights in the Legion of St.
Michael theArchangel, also known as the Iron Guard. Mota was the movement’s
second-in-command, confidant and brother-in-law of its leader, Corneliu
Codreanu, married to his sister Iridenta. Mota and Marin joined the Spanish
Foreign Legion and were killed in action at Majadahonda, outside Madrid, on 13
January 1937. Their original intention had not been to volunteer for the
Spanish war. They did so after having gone to Spain as part of a Romanian
delegation that was to hand over a gift, a ceremonial sword, to Colonel José
Moscardó, the commander of Alcázar.
That brings us to one of the most epic chapters of the war.
Alcázar is a stone fortress that towers above Toledo, the old City of Kings
in the middle of Spain. At the time of the Civil War it had for many years
served as an infantry academy. There, in the days following the uprising, some
1,800 nationalists entrenched themselves, led by the head of the Academy,
Colonel Moscardó. The core of the defenders was made up of some 600 Civil
Guards and 200 Army officers, who were joined by another 100 Falangists,
Carlists and other fighting men. The fortress also sheltered some 600–700
elderly people, women and children who sought refuge from the pending Red
terror.
Toledo lies in the middle of what was the Republican zone at the outset of
the war, and is located 45 miles from Madrid. The rebels could not hold the
city when vastly superior government forces arrived on 21 July 1936, but
retreated to the castle on the heights above. They had managed to seize a
great deal of ammunition from the city’s arms factory, but were only equipped
with rifles, a few machine guns and some grenades.
For over two months, the castle was bombarded to rubble by the
overwhelmingly stronger Republican forces, from the air, by Soviet-made tanks
and by heavy artillery. In spite of an almost hopeless situation, those
besieged held their ground until, starved and exhausted, they were liberated
by nationalist troops on 27 September.
In the epic stand of the Alcázar, there is one particularly moving episode
that has gone down in history. In Republican Spain, the Communists and
Anarchists had set up committees for dealing with those suspected of
”disloyalty to the Republic.” The Reds called these committees chekas,
after the infamous Soviet secret police force which had operated in the early
days of the Russian Revolution. On 23 July, the boss of the Toledo cheka,
a lawyer named Candido Cabello, phoned Colonel Moscardó to inform him that
they had captured his 17-year-old son Luis, and were going to shoot him unless
Alcazár’s garrison capitulated. Cabello then handed the phone to the boy.
Father and son had the following short conversation:
- What’s happening, my boy?
- Nothing, only they say they will shoot me if the Alcázar does
not surrender.
- My dearest son, if they do — commend your soul to God, shout
Viva España and die like a hero! Goodbye my son, leave me a kiss!
- Goodbye father, a very big kiss!
Luis Moscardó was executed three or four weeks later.
On 20 November 1936, the Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was
executed in prison; another one of countless prisoners murdered during the
first six months of a war which was to last until April 1939.
Was there not brutality and atrocities committed by both sides? Yes,
unquestionably. For example, no one defends the execution of the liberal poet
Federico García Lorca by a nationalist militia. However, there is no doubt
that the Republican side initiated the Terror, and was generally more brutal,
cruel and lawless than the nationalist side. And most importantly: this was
not a conflict between “fascism” and “democracy,” but between Christian
civilization and Communism. The only likely alternative to Franco’s relatively
mild dictatorship would have been an Iberian Soviet state. The geopolitical
consequences of such a scenario would have been dire.
From that perspective, we all have reason to be grateful to the men and
women who fought in the Spanish Crusade against Communism.
And won!
Jonas De Geer is a Swedish writer who
lives in Orkney, Scotland. He was the editor of the Swedish conservative
magazine Samtidsmagasinet Salt between 1999 and 2002, and has written
extensively on nationalist subjects. This article was previously published
in Swedish in the Stockholm nationalist weekly Nationell Idag.
Bibliography
Blinkhorn, Martin, Carlism and Crisis in Spain, 1931-1939 (Cambridge,
1975).
Carrol, Warren, The Last Crusade (Front Royal, Virginia 1996).
Dolbeau, Christophe, Ce qu’on ne vous a jamais dit sur la guerre d’Espagne(Atelier Fol’fer 2010).
Othen, Christopher, Franco’s International Brigades (Chippenham,Wiltshire
2008).
O’Duffy, Crusade in Spain, (Clonskeagh, 1938).
Payne, Stanley, The Civil War in Spain (New York, 1962).
Poncins, Léon de, Histoire secrète de la Révolution Espagnole (Paris,
1942).
UNQUOTE
Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Decide
for yourself.
