For this year's Len Crome event, I discussed the difficulties involved in establishing the precise background and origins of the volunteers for Spain from Britain & Ireland and how the various national groups in the International Brigades got along while fighting in Spain. The talk will be on the IBMT's Youtube channel and a precis appears in issue 45 of the IBMT magazine (2/2017).
The last volunteer
In the Sky News studio talking about the former International Brigader, Geoffrey Servante, who died on 22 April 2019, aged 99. He was almost certainly the last surviving British veteran of the Spanish Civil War.
On 9 August 2017, I introduced a number of readings relating to the International Brigades, movingly delivered by actors Christopher Ecclestone and Yolanda Vazquez and by Margot Heinemann’s daughter, Jane Bernal.
On 31 May 2018 I joined the biographer and filmmaker, Jane Rogoyska, for a presentation at L.S.E.'s Cañada Blanch Centre, chaired by Professor Paul Preston. We were outlining our thoughts on the image that had recently appeared on social media: did it really show the celebrated photojournalist, Gerda Taro, on her death bed?
I was very happy to take part in a short six minute film produced by the Gill Parker Consultancy. The film was commissioned by the L.S.E. to showcase the expertise of LSE academics; in this instance Professor of Contemporary Spanish History, Paul Preston. In addition to myself, the film included interviews with former Basque child, Herminio Martínez; Professor of Spanish History, Helen Graham; and Spanish writer and journalist, Lala Isla.
When Robert Stradling published his study of Wales and the Spanish Civil War, The Dragon’s Dearest Cause, in 2004, he was careful to pay homage to the earlier work of Hywell Francis, declaring that ‘it was never my intention to attempt the task – both impossible and gratuitous – of replacing his superb book Miners Against Fascism.’ Instead, Stradling declared his intention was to ‘complement’ Francis’s book, though in many ways his work was a critique. Now in 2018 we can add a new study to this contested field: Graham Davies’ You are Legend.
Wisely steering clear of the Francis-Stradling arguments, Davies opts for a more conventional account, concentrating on the personal experiences of the 200 or so Welsh volunteers in the war itself. Beginning with an overview of the background in Spain, the author then turns to 1930s Wales, before looking at the creation of the International Brigades, the motivations of the Welsh for joining and a chronological account of the war.
The inspiring story of Potato Jones and his fellow mariners is included, as is an account of the selfless role Welsh men and women played within the Republican medical services in Spain and accommodating and supporting Basque refugees at home. The author has included a number of photographs of Welsh volunteers that I haven’t seen before, together with some helpful photographs of his own, presumably taken on trips to Spain. Perhaps most useful of all, Davies has gone further than previous researchers, by including brief biographies of 149 Welsh survivors of the war. His definition on who to include in his list, incidentally, is eminently sensible: those who were born in Wales ‘or had strong Welsh connections’.
Aside from the inevitable small errors in a work of this scope (for example, Davies mistakenly claims that the Thaelmann, Garibaldi and Dombrowski battalions were part of the 15th International Brigade at Jarama) there’s no doubting that You Are Legend is a very a comprehensive account. This is not to say that all will agree with some of the author’s conclusions, of course, and there are certainly some areas in which I would take issue; for example, I think he overstates the power of the Russian Intelligence Services – and consequently the Soviet Union – in the recruitment and day to day control of the brigades. He also has a tendency to quote some of the propaganda from IB memorial leaflets rather uncritically; I very much doubt that when Billy Davies was killed at Villanueva de Cañada in July 1937 ‘his clenched fist shot up in salute as his body fell, riddled with machine-gun bullets’. To the author’s credit, however, he generally avoids over-eulogising, recognising that ‘not every volunteer for such a stressful and horrific theatre of war will be a hero.’ As has been said before, these were mostly ordinary men and women who chose to do something extraordinary.
How much the experience of Welsh volunteers differed from those from other parts of Britain, particularly from mining communities in Durham or Fife, is difficult to say. Certainly, as Davies acknowledges, ‘the Welsh did not develop as strong a national identity as the Irish.’ However, perhaps this is to miss the point. While the experiences of the Welsh volunteers may not have been ‘exceptional’, their contribution both individually and collectively is beyond doubt and Graham Davies should be applauded for helping make sure their efforts will not quickly be forgotten.
The review first appeared in the IBMT’s No Pasarán, 1-2019, pp. 20-21.