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The International Brigades were Republican military units in the Spanish Civil War, formed of many non-state sponsored volunteers of different countries who traveled to Spain, to fight for the republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. An estimated 32,000[1] people from a "claimed 53 nations"[1] volunteered. They fought against rebel Spanish Nationalist forces, who were led by General Francisco Franco and assisted by Nazi German and Fascist Italian forces.
Using foreign Communist Parties to recruit volunteers for Spain was first proposed in Moscow in September 1936 – perhaps at the suggestion of Maurice Thorez - by Willi Münzenberg, chief of Comintern propaganda for Western Europe. As a security measure, non-Communist volunteers would first be interviewed by an NKVD agent.
By the end of September, the Italian and French Communist Parties had decided to set up a column. Luigi Longo, ex-leader of the Italian Communist Youth, was charged to make the necessary arrangements with the Spanish government. The Soviet Ministry of Defense also helped, since they had experience of dealing with corps of international volunteers (during the Russian Civil War). The idea was initially opposed by Largo Caballero, but after the first setbacks of the war, he changed his mind, and finally agreed to the operation on 22 October. However, the Soviet Union did not withdraw from the Non-Intervention Committee, probably to avoid diplomatic conflict with France and the United Kingdom.
The main recruitment centre was in Paris, under the supervision of Polish communist colonel Karol "Walter" Swierczewski. On 17 October 1936, an open letter by Stalin to José Díaz was published in Mundo Obrero, arguing that liberation for Spain was a matter not only for Spaniards, but also for the whole of "progressive Humanity"; in a matter of days, support organisations for the Spanish Republic were founded in most countries, all more or less controlled by the Comintern.
Paths were arranged for volunteers: for instance, Josip Broz, who would became famous as Marshal Tito, was in Paris to provide assistance, money and passports for the volunteers from Eastern Europe. Volunteers were sent by train or ship from France to Spain, and sent to the base at Albacete. However, many of them also went by themselves to Spain. The volunteers were under no contract, nor defined engagement period, which would later prove a problem.
Also many Italians, Germans, and people from other countries with repressive governments joined the movement, with the idea that combat in Spain was a first step to restore democracy or advance a revolutionary cause in their own country. There were also many unemployed workers (especially from France), and adventurers. Finally, some 500 Communists who had been exiled to Russia were sent to Spain (among them, experienced military leaders from the First World War like "Kléber" Stern, "Gomez" Zaisser, "Lukacs" Zalka and "Gal" Galicz, who would prove invaluable in combat).
The operation was met by Communists with enthusiasm, but by Anarchists with scepticism, at best. At first, the Anarchists who controlled the borders with France were told to refuse Communist volunteers, and reluctantly allowed their passage after protests. A group of 500 volunteers (mainly French, with a few exiled Poles and Germans) arrived in Albacete on 14 October 1936. They were met by international volunteers who had already been fighting in Spain: Germans from the Thälmann Battalion, Italians from Centuria Gastone Sozzi and French from Commune de Paris Battalion. Among them was British poet John Cornford. Men were sorted according to their experience and origin, and dispatched to units.
Albacete soon became the International Brigades headquarters and its main depot. It was run by a troika of Comintern heavyweights: André Marty was commander; Luigi Longo (Gallo) was Inspector-General; and Giuseppe Di Vittorio (Nicoletti) was chief political commissar. [2].
The French Communist Party provided uniforms for the Brigades. Discipline was extreme. For several weeks, the Brigades were locked in their base while their strict military training was under way.
The Battle of Madrid was a major success for the Republic. It staved off the prospect of a rapid defeat at the hands of Franco's forces. The role of the International Brigades in this victory was generally recognised and sometimes even exaggerated. For instance, the British Ambassador, Sir Henry Childon, declared that there were no Spaniards in the army which had defended Madrid; in fact, all but 3,000 of the 40,000 Republican troops in the city were Spanish. 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 determined fighting, and improved the morale of the population by demonstrating the concern of other nations in the fight.
They also provide their experience of warfare accumulated by older members of the International Brigades during the first World War compared with a Spanish Army that remained neutral in 1914-18.
One of the strategic positions in Madrid was the Casa de Campo. There the Nationalist troops were Moroccans, commanded by General José Enrique Varela. They were excellent fighters in the open, but were ill-trained for urban warfare, a role in which the Republican militia had shown prowess in from the early days of the war. [citation needed] They were stopped by III and IV Brigades of the regular Republican Army.
On 9 November 1936, the XI International Brigade - comprising 1,900 men from the Edgar André Battalion, the Commune de Paris Battalion and the Dabrowski Battalion, together with a British machine-gun company - took up position at the Casa del Campo. In the evening, its commander, General Kléber, launched an assault on the Nationalist positions. This 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 de Campo, while the XIth Brigade had lost a third of its personnel.
On 13 November, the 1550-man strong XII International Brigade, made up of the Thälmann Battalion, the Garibaldi Battalion and the André Marty Battalion, deployed. Commanded by General "Lukacs", they assaulted Nationalist positions on the high ground of Cerro de Los Angeles. As a result of language and communication problems, command issues, lack of rest, poor coordination with armoured units, and insufficient artillery support, the attack failed.
On November 19, Anarchist units of the Republican Army were forced to retreat, and Nationalist troops — Moroccans and Spanish Foreign Legionnaires, covered by the Nazi Condor Legion — captured a foothold in the University City. The 11th Brigade was sent to drive the Nationalists out of the University City. The battle was extremely bloody, a mix of artillery and aerial bombardments, with bayonet and grenade fights, room by room. Anarchist leader Buenaventura Durruti was shot there on the 19 November 1936, and died the next day. The battle in the University went on until three quarters of the University 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 prepare 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 — an engagement known as the Battle of the Corunna Road. The Republicans sent in a Soviet armoured unit, under General Dmitry Pavlov, and both XI and XII International Brigades. Violent combat followed, and they stopped the Nationalist advance.
An attack was then launched by the Republic on the Cordoba front. The battle ended in a form of stalemate; a communique was issued, saying: "[t]oday, our advance continued without loss of land". Poets Ralph Winston 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 Francisco Franco; he was denounced by his own second-in-command, André Heussler, who was executed for treason during World War II, by the French Resistance.)
Further Nationalist attempts after Christmas to encircle Madrid met with failure, but not without extremely violent combat. On 6 January 1937, the Thälmann Battalion arrived at Las Rozas, and held its positions until it was destroyed as a fighting force. On January 9, only 10 km had been lost to the Nationalists, when the XIII International Brigade and XIV International Brigade and the 1st British Company, arrived in Madrid. Violent Republican assaults were launched in attempt to retake the land, with little success. On January 15, trenches and fortifications were built by both sides, resulting in a stalemate.
The Nationalists did not take Madrid until the very end of the war, in March 1939. There were also some pockets of resistants during the consecutive months.
On 6 February 1937, following the fall of Málaga, 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 XV International Brigade, which was composed of the British Battalion (British Commonwealth and Irish), the Dimitrov Battalion (miscellaneous Balkan nationalities), the 6 Février Battalion (Belgians and French), the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and the Abraham Lincoln Battalion (Americans, including African-American). An independent 80-men-strong Irish unit, known as the Connolly Column, made up of people from both sides of the Irish border also fought. (They included an ex-Catholic Christian Brother and an ordained Church of Ireland (Anglican Protestant) Clergyman, fighting and dying on the same side.[citation needed])
On 11 February 1937, a Nationalist brigade launched a surprise attack on the André Marty Battalion (XIV International Brigade), stabbing its sentries and crossing the Jarama. The Garibaldi Battalion stopped the advance with heavy fire. At another point, the same tactic allowed the Nationalists to move their troops across the river.
On 12 February, the British Battalion, XV International Brigade took the brunt of the attack, remaining under heavy fire for seven hours. The position became known as "Suicide Hill". At the end of the day, only 225 of the 600 members of the British battalion remained. One company was captured by ruse, when Nationalists advanced among their ranks singing The Internationale.
On 17 February, the Republican Army counter-attacked. On February 23 and 27, the International Brigades were engaged, but with little success. The Lincoln Battalion was put under great pressure, with no artillery support. It suffered 120 killed and 175 wounded. Amongst the dead was the Irish poet Charles Donnelly.[1]
There were heavy casualties on both sides, and although "both claimed victory ... both suffered defeats". [3]. It resulted in a stalemate, with both sides digging in, creating elaborate trench systems.
On the 22 February, 1937 the League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign volunteers went into effect.
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 km from Madrid. The whole Italian
expeditionary corps — 35,000 men, with 80 battle tanks and 200 field artillery — was deployed, as
At dawn on 10 March, the Nationalists closed in, and by noon, the Garibaldi Battalion counterattacked. Some confusion arose from the fact that the sides were not aware of each other's movements, and that both sides spoke Italian; this resulted in scouts from both sides exchanging information without realising they were enemies.[citation needed] The Republican lines advanced and made contact with XI International Brigade. Fascist tanks were shot at and infantry patrols came into action. There was reportedly an incident in which a fascist officer asked why Italian soldiers were shooting at his party, and they responded Noi siamo Italiani di Garibaldi (literally: "we are Garibaldi Italian"), at which point the Fascists surrendered.[citation needed] The common language was used to advantage by the Republicans, who used loudspeakers and dropped leaflets from planes, to broadcast propaganda messages, including a promise to pay Fascist deserters.[citation needed]
On March 11, the Fascists broke the front of the Republican army. The Thälmann Battalion suffered heavy losses, but succeeded in holding the Trijueque-Torija road. The Garibaldi also held its positions. On March 12, Republican planes and tanks attacked. The Thälmann Battalion attacked Trijuete in a bayonet charge and re-took the town, capturing numerous prisoners.
The International Brigades also saw combat in the Battle of Teruel in January 1938. The 35th International Division suffered heavily in this battle from aerial bombardment as well as shortages of food, winter clothing and ammunition. The XIV International Brigade fought in the Battle of Ebro in July 1938, the last Republican offensive of the war.
The International Brigades were disbanded by the Republican government of Juan Negrin, who announced the decision in the League of Nations on September 21 1938 in an effort to get the Nationalist's foreign backers to withdraw their troops and to persuade the western democracies such as France and Britain to end their arms embargo on the Republic. By this time there were about 10,000 foreign volunteers still serving in Spain. Just over half of these came from fascist countries such as Germany, Italy or others such as Hungary which had authoritarian right wing governments. These men could not safely return home and were instead given honorary Spanish citizenship and were integrated in to Spanish units of the Popular Army. The remainder were repatriated to their own countries.
The first brigades were composed mostly of French, Belgian, Italian, and German volunteers, backed by a sizeable contingent of Polish miners from Northern France and Belgium. The XIth, XIIth and XIIIth were the first brigades formed. Later, the XIVth and XVth Brigades were raised, mixing experienced soldiers with new volunteers. Smaller Brigades - the 86th, 129th and 150th - were formed in late 1937 and 1938, mostly for temporary tactical reasons.
About 32,000 [1] people volunteered to defend the Spanish Republic. Many were veterans of the World War I. Their early engagements in 1936 during the Siege of Madrid amply demonstrated their military and propaganda value.
The international volunteers were mainly Communists, or under Communist authority, and a high proportion were Jewish. In total just under 1000 Irish socialists fought in Spain, probably not Jewish nor Communist
and from a Republican authority. Some were involved in the fighting in Barcelona against
Republican opponents of the Communists: the
To simplify communication, the battalions usually concentrated people of the same nationality or language group. The battalions were often (formally, at least) named after inspirational people or events. From Spring 1937 onwards, many battalions contained one Spanish volunteer company (about 150 men).
Later in the war, military discipline tightened and learning Spanish became mandatory. By decree of 23 September 1937, the International Brigades formally became units of the Spanish Foreign Legion[4]. This made them subject to the Spanish Code of Military Justice. The same decree also specified that non-Spanish officers in the Brigades should not exceed Spanish ones by more than 50 per cent[5]
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Brigades Composition by Nationality
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Casualties
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Since the Civil War was eventually won by the Nationalists, the Brigadiers 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 as much a Spanish civil war as a precursor of the Second World War.
Some glory was therefore accredited to the volunteers (a great deal of the survivors having also fought gallantly during World War II), but this soon faded in the fear that it would promote (by association) communism.
In addition, the ambiguous stance regarding Germany of the Communist Parties in the West, during the period between the Hitler-Stalin pact and the German invasion of the Soviet Union, contributed to widespread uneasiness when evaluating the Brigadists' role in the politics of the Nazi era.
Since the fall of the Soviet bloc, the International Brigades have been generally regarded as anti-Fascist heroes, and the legitimacy of their fight has, for the most part, washed away the stain of summary executions and Stalinist manipulation, despite being non-governmental combatants [citation needed].
An exception is among radical groups to the Left of the Communist Parties, for example anarchists, among whom the Brigades, or at least their leadership, are criticised for their alleged role in suppressing the Spanish Revolution. An example of a modern work which promotes this view is Ken Loach's film Land and Freedom. A well-known contemporary account of the Spanish Civil War which takes this view is George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia.
An estimated 766 [citation needed] 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 fighting for foreign countries, while the pro-nationalists 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 rehabilitated 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 usually attributed to the more openly pro-fascist sentiment of the elite in those parts at the time.
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 could not been kept since the Republic had lost the war.
In 1996, Jacques Chirac, then French President, granted the former French members of the International Brigades the legal status of former service personnel ("anciens combattants") following the request of two French communist MPs, Mr Lefort and Mr Asensi, both children of volunteers. Before 1996, the same request was turned several times including by Francois Mitterand, former Socialist French President.
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 Memorial to the German Brigadists in East Berlin. |
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.
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