2 First Engagements: the Battle of Madrid

The first International Brigade, the XIth Brigade (numbered XI, next to the ten mixed brigades of the Spanish regular army), under command of Kléber , was engaged during the Battle of Madrid , occupying its positions on 8 November 1936. There were the Edgard André (German), Commune de Paris (French), and Dombrowsky (Polish) battalions, and a section of British machine-gunners, totalling around 1900 men. The XIIth brigade took its positions on the 13 November 1936, with 1550 men.

The Battle of Madrid was a major success for the Republic, and the role of the International Brigades in this victory was generally recognised, sometimes even beyond reality (the British Ambassador, Sir Henry Childon, declaring that there were no Spaniards in the Army which had defended Madrid). Even though the International Brigades did not win the battle by themselves, nor significantly change the situation, they certainly did provide an example by their superb fight, and improved the morale of the population by demonstrating theconcern of other nations in the fight.

One of the strategic positions in Madrid was the Casa del Campo. There the Nationalist troops were Arab troops commanded by General Varela. They were excellent fighters in the open, but were ill-trained for urban warfare, a role which the Republicans mastered from the early days of the war. They were thus stopped by the IIIrd and IVth Brigades of the regular Republican Army. On 9 November 1936, the whole XIth Brigade was at the Casa del Campo. In the evening Kléber launched an assault on the Nationalist positions, which lasted for the whole night and part of the next morning. At the end of the fight, the Nationalist troops had been forced to retreat, abandoning all hopes of a direct assault on Madrid by Casa del Campo, while the XIth Brigade had lost a third of its men.

On the 12th, as the battle was raging on, the XIIth Brigade, under General " Lukacs", took its positions on the Valencia- Madrid road, with battalions Thaelmann (Germans), André Marty(French and Belgians) and Garibaldi (Italians). The XIIth launched an attack on Nationalist positions on the hill Corro de los Angeles, which was unsuccessful (languages and communication problems, command issues, lack of rest, bad links with armoured units and insufficient artillery support seem to have contributed to the failure).

On the 16th, Anarchist units of the Republican Army were forced to retreat, and the University City was taken by Nationalist troops -- Arab troops and legionnaries covered by the Nazi Condor Legion. The XIth Brigade was sent to defend the City. The battle was extremely bloody, a mix of artillery and aerial bombardments with bayonet and grenade fights, room by room. Anarchist leader Durruti was shot there on the 19 November 1936, and died the next day. The battle in the University went on until 3/4 on the City was under nationalist control. Both sides then started setting up trenches and fortifications. It was then clear that any assault from either side would be far too costly; the nationalist leaders had to renounce the idea of a direct assault on Madrid, and ready for a siege of the capital.

On 13 December 1936, 18,000 nationalist troops attempted an attack to close the encirclement of Madrid at Guadarrama. The Republicans sent a Soviet armoured unit (under General Pavlov , whose experience in Spain would make a future hero of the Second World War) and both XIth and XIIth International Brigades. Violent combat resulted in stopping the Nationalist advance.

An attack was then launched by the Republic on the Cordoba front. The battle ended in a form of stale-mate (a communication was issued, saying: "Today, our advance continued without loss of land"). Poets Ralph Fox and John Cornford were killed. Eventually, the Nationalists advanced, taking the hydro-electric station at El Campo. André Marty accused the commander of the Marseillaise Battalion, Gaston Delasalle , of espionage and treason and had him executed (it is doubtful that Delasalle would have been a spy for Franco; he was denounced by his own second, André Heussler, who might have been a traitor himself and was later executed for treason by the French Resistance during the Second World War).

Further Nationalist attempts after Christmas to encircle Madrid met with failure, not without extremely violent combat. On 6 January 1937, the Thaelmann Battalion arrived at Las Rozas and held its positions virtually to the last man. On the 9th, only ten kilometers had been lost to the Nationalists, when the XIIth and XIVth International Brigades and the 1st British Company arrived in Madrid. Violent Republican assaults were launched in attempt to retake the land, but with little success. On the 15th, trenches and fortifications were built by both sides, resulting in a stalemate.

The Nationalists did not retake Madrid until the very end of the war.

3 The battle of Jarama

On the 6 February 1937, following the fall of Malaga, the nationalists launched an attack on the Madrid- Andalusia road, south of Madrid. The Nationalists quickly advanced on the little town Ciempozuelos, held by the XVth International Brigade, which was composed by the Saklatvala Battalion (British), the Dimitrov battalion (miscellaneous Balkan nationalities), the 6 Février Battalion (Belgians and French) and the Abraham Lincoln battalion (550 Americans, some of them Black).

On the 11 February 1937, all sentries of the André Marty battalion of the XIVth Brigade were stabbed and a Nationalist brigade crossed the Jarama. The Garibaldi Battalion stopped the advance with heavy fire. At another point, the same tactic allowed the Nationalists to deploy their troops past the river.

The British Saklatvala Battalion took most of the attack, on the 12th. It defended its positions under heavy artillery fire for 7 hours. The place became known as "Suicide Hill". At the end of the day, 225 men remained of the 600 of the British battalion. A company was made prisoner by ruse (Nationalists advanced amongst their ranks singing The Internationale).

On the 17th, the Republican Army struck back. The 23rd and the 27th, the International Brigades were engaged, but with little success. The Abraham Lincoln battalion was put under great pressure, with no artillery support. There were 120 killed and 175 wounded. Amongst the dead was the Irish poet Charles Donelly [1].

As in Madrid, the fight resulted in a stalemate, since both sides had consolidated their positions to the point were no useful assault could be undertaken.

4 The battle of Guadalajara

After the failed assault on the Jarama, the Nationalists attempted another assault on Madrid, from the North-East this time. The objective was the town of Guadalajara, 50 kilometers from Madrid. The whole Italian expeditionary corps (35,000 men, with 80 battle tanks and 200 field artillery) was deployed, as Mussolini wanted the victory to be credited to Italy. On 9 March 1937, the Italians made a breach in the Republican lines, but did not properly exploit the advance. However, the rest of the Nationalist army was advancing, and the situation appeared critical for the Republicans. A mixture of the best available units of the Republican army was quickly set up, among them the XIth and XIIth International Brigades.

At dawn on 10 March 1937 the Nationalists closed in, and by noon, the Garibaldi Battalion made its move. Some confusion arose from the fact that the sides were not aware of each other's moves, and that both sides spoke Italian; this resulted in scouts from both sides exchanging information without realising they were enemies. The Republican lines advanced and made contact with the XIth International Brigade. Fascist battle tanks were shot at and infantry patrols came into action (there took place the incident in which a fascist officer asked why Italian soldiers were shooting at his party, and was responded Noi siamo Italiani di Garibaldi, and which point the Fascists surrendered). The action went on as some sort of Italian civil war in foreign land. The common language was taken advantage of when the Republicans used loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda messages and airplanes to drop messages promising to pay Fascist deserters.

On the 11th, the Fascists broke the front of the Republican army. The Thaelmann Brigade suffered heavy losses but succeeded in holding the Trijueque - Torija road. Garibaldi also held its positions. On the 12th, Republican planes and tanks attacked. The Thaelmann Brigade attacked Trijuete with bayonets and re-took the town, capturing numerous prisoners.

5 To re-write

The first Brigades to be formed were mostly composed from French, Belgian, Italian and German volunteers, and were numbered as the XIth, XIIth and XIIIth mixed brigades (according to the re-organisation of the Spanish army, which was consituted in ten mixed Brigades immediately after the failed coup; these brigades mixed experienced soldiers with volunteers who had just joined but had no experience of combat).

The battalions were often constituted of one particular nationality, so as to ease understanding of orders. They were named after national heroes of the Left movements. Examples are the

• British Saklatava Battalion (named after a Communist MP of Indian descent, the name was not widely used and the Battalions banner proclaims "British Battalion"
• German Thaelmann battalion (named after Ernst Thaelmann, leader of the German Communist Party during the Weimar Republic),
• French Louise Michel battalion (after Louise Michel a hero of the 1871 Paris Commune) and Commune de Paris battalion,
• Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion this was named after two leaders of the 1867 (?) revolt against the British imperial powers,
• American Volunteers of which there were many originally formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and they were later joined by the George Washington Battalion. These were the first American military units to be racially integrated and the Lincoln Battalion was at one point commanded by Oliver Law, who became the first black man to lead white American combat troops. After heavy casualties at Jarama and Brunete the two battalions were merged to form the Lincoln-Washington Battalion.

There were nearly 40,000 volunteers, of whom 9000 to 10,000 were French, for the defense of the Spanish Republic. Most of them were workers, and half of them were from Paris. They included a large number of veterans of the First World War, which made them efficient fighters. The first engagements fought by the International Brigades during the Battle of Madrid demonstrated their military value.

The International Brigades were mainly Communists, or under Communist authority. They were involved in the fighting in Barcelona against Republican opponents of the Communists -- the POUM (Partido Obredo de Unification Marxista, which defined themselves as Trotskyists, while having been explicitly backed by Trotsky) and Anarchists.

Later, mercenary contracts were cancelled, and learning Spanish became mandatory, coincidating with a tightening of military discipline amongst the Spanish Republican military.

6 Status of the Brigades after the war

Since the Civil War was eventually won by the Nationalists, the Brigadists were initially on the "wrong side" of History, especially since most of their home countries had a right-wing government (in France, for instance, the Popular Front was not in power anymore). However, since most of these countries found themselves at war with the very powers which had been fought in Spain, the Brigadists gained some prestige as the first guard of the democracies, having fought a prophetical combat. Retrospectively, it was clear that the war in Spain was not as much a Spanish Civil war than a precursor of the coming Second World War. Some glory was therefore accredited to the volunteers (a great deal of the survivors having also fought gallantly during the World War), but this soon faded in the fear of Soviet-like propaganda. Since the fall of the Soviet bloc, the International Brigades have been quite unanimously regarded as heroes, and the legitimacy of their fight seems to have washed away the stains of summary executions and Stalinist manipulations.

6.1 Swiss Brigadists

766 Swiss went to fight for the Republic, while only 40 went on the other side. It is interesting to note that the pro-republicans were later prosecuted for breaking the Swiss neutrality laws, which prohibit Swiss nationals from fight for foreign countries, while the pro-fascists were never prosecuted. This might be explained on one hand by the anti-communism of the Swiss government at the time, but also because the Swiss living in Spain at the time (nearly 4000) were very much afraid of what was perceived as a communist movement. The Republican fighters were re-habilitated in the 1990s.

Interestingly, it has been noted that the punishments of those prosecuted were very variable (ranging from 15 days to 4 months in prison) but that the French-speaking tribunals had been as a rule much more lenient than the German-speaking ones. This is very much corellated to the openly pro-fascist sentiment of the so-called elite in those parts at the time.

6.2 Recognition of former Brigadists

On 26 January 1996 the Spanish government gave Spanish citizenship to the Brigadists. At the time, roughly 600 remained. By the end of 1938, Prime Minister Juan Negrin had promised Spanish citizenship to the Brigadists, a promise which had not been kept since the Republic had lost the war.

7 Misc

7.1 Symbolism and Heraldic

The International Brigades were inheritors of a Communist aesthetic, which explains the numerous very stylised posters about the subject.

The flags featured the colours of the Spanish Republic : Red, Yellow and Purple, often along with Communist symbols (Red flags, hammer and sickle, fist,...). The emblem of the brigades themselves was the three-pointed red star, which is often featured.

7.2 Personalities involved in the International Brigades

right Oliver Law (third from the right, with the hat) and his comrades in action

• André Marty
• "Kléber" Stern
• "Gomez" Zaisser
• "Lukacs" Zalka
• "Gal" Galicz
• John Cornford.
• Simone Weil
• Ernest Hemingway (although he was in Spain officially only as a reporter, Hemingway did not balk at lending a hand in the small arms training of the recruits)
• David Guest
• Oliver Law

8 References

8.1 Books

Poster for the film Sierra de Teruel, by André Malraux

• Spanish Civil War, Hugh Thomas
• Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love ( 1945)
• British Volunteers For Liberty, Bill Alexander
• Book of the 15th Brigade, edited by Frank Ryan
• Britons in Spain, Bill Rust

8.2 Internet pages

• IBMT the international brigade memorial trust
• Farewell to the International Brigades
• Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
• Spartacus Educational

8.3 Photographs

• asso.acer.free.fr
• english.uiuc.edu

8.4 Films

• Land and Freedom, by Ken Loach (although the subject of the film is not the International Brigades, it portaits international volunteers, and the actual International Brigades are indeed featured. Loach is however not sympathetic to the Brigades and this is apparent in their portrayal in the film
• Sierra de Teruel by André Malraux (features the International bomber squadron in margin of the Brigades)

Spanish wars Civil wars

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