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Speech at Oxford unveiling on 10 June 2017

Speaking at Oxford, 10 June 2017. Photo by Ric Mellis, © The Oxford Times

In addition to being a historian, I am the Chair of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, a charity which keeps alive the memory and spirit of the men and women who volunteered to fight fascism – and those who supported them – during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.

The trust, made up of family members, friends, supporters and historians, organises events around the country, including the forthcoming national commemoration on 1 July in Jubilee Gardens on London’s South Bank. We provide assistance to those researching the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War and promote the preservation of archives. Through our magazine, our eNewsletter, website and social media feeds, we keep our members and the wider public informed about developments concerning the memory and legacy of the International Brigades.

And, of course, we ensure that the more than 100 memorials to the volunteers located around the British Isles are maintained in good order. Where we can, we help new ones to be erected, such as this wonderful new monument. But all of this takes time and, more importantly, money. Please support us. If you are not yet a member, join. If you are a member, give generously. It really is money well spent.

For members of the Trust, the enduring significance of the International Brigades’ fight is not open to doubt. The recent, tragic events in Manchester and London are just the latest examples of the intolerance, bigotry and hatred – which we all know as fascism – that the International Brigades were determined to confront. The words of General Emilio Mola, the organiser of the Spanish military coup, could just as easily have come from those attacking democracy and pluralism today: ‘It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.’

It was this kind of murderous ideology that spurred the 35 000 men and women from more than 52 countries from around the world to leave their homes, families and friends and volunteer to join the fight in Spain. The International Brigades fought in all the major battles in the civil war, from the last-ditch defence of Madrid in the autumn and winter of 1936-37, to the final, desperate Republican offensive across the River Ebro, in July 1938. Of 2500 to leave from the British Isles, more than 500 of them never returned.

The shattered remnants of the Brigades were withdrawn from the front in September 1938 and the following month in Barcelona, a huge farewell parade was held in their honour, famous for the speech by La Pasionaria, in which she invited the departing volunteers to return to Spain, ‘when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves, entwined with the laurels of the Spanish Republic’s victory’. It would be a long wait.

The tragedy of the Spanish Civil War is that despite the volunteers’ sacrifice, they – and the Republican Army in which they fought – were unable to defeat Franco and his German and Italian allies in Spain. Just as the volunteers had feared and prophesised, this led the way to six years of world war and the death of 60 million people.

It also led to more than thirty years of dictatorship in Spain. Only with the death of Franco in November 1975 could a democratic Spain emerge, which did not forget the gratitude conveyed by La Pasionaria so many years earlier. Efforts to express this by awarding Spanish nationality to the veterans of the International Brigades took some time to materialise, but in 2009, at a poignant ceremony in London, seven surviving British and Irish veterans were presented with Spanish passports. Anyone fortunate enough to be present that day will never forget the sight of the 94 year old Sam Lesser delivering an emotional thank you speech in fluent Castilian. The Spanish Ambassador to Britain, Carles Casajuana, responded graciously, assuring the handful of elderly survivors that:

Your efforts were not in vain. Your ideals are part of the foundations of our democracy in Spain today.

The volunteers were, to some extent, a paradoxical group of men and women: both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. They were right to feel pride and we are right to feel pride in them. I would like to leave you today with the words of the popular London volunteer, Fred Thomas, who expressed his feelings with characteristic eloquence:

There were no medals to be won in Spain. But I believe that no man, not even that band of brothers who fought upon St. Crispin’s Day, nor that later Few of 1940, justly honoured though they may be, was ever prouder of his part than we who were of the International Brigade.

Carmen Negrín, grand-daughter of the last prime minster of the Spanish Republic, laying a wreath at the new memorial. Photo by Pauline Fraser

The Len Crome Memorial Conference 2015

Since the charity’s inception in 2001, the International Brigade Memorial Trust has organised an annual lecture in memory of Dr. Len Crome, a Blackburn GP who went to serve as a medic in Republican Spain in December 1936, and whose inspirational leadership led him to become Chief of Medical Services for the 35th Division of the Spanish Army during the civil war of 1936-1939.

The Len Crome memorial lectures have featured renowned scholars from around the world including, among many others, Peter Carroll, Helen Graham, Paul Preston and Angel Viñas. In 2010, the first nine lectures were released in a volume, edited by Jim Jump, and published by Lawrence and Wishart: Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War. Two years ago, with London’s Imperial War Museum closed for renovation, the event moved to Manchester and took on a new format, with four speakers and a discussion, rather than one keynote speaker. Chaired by Professor Mary Vincent of the University of Sheffield, the first conference in 2013 looked at George Orwell and Spain, with last year’s examining the Spanish Civil War’s cultural and artistic legacy. This year, with Paul Preston back in the chair, the conference was centred on perhaps the most famous artwork of the twentieth Century, inspired by the Nationalists’ horrific destruction of a small Basque market town on 26 April 1937.

Len Crome 2015 with image

Over the course of the day, there were four lectures on the bombing of Guernica (Gernika) and its consequences.  In the opening talk, the author of Telegram from Guernica and former BBC producer Nick Rankin, outlined the key role of Times journalist George Steer in bringing news of the destruction of the Basque town to Britain. Steer’s account of the bombing remains one of the most powerful and important pieces of reporting in English to have come out of the war. But, as Rankin explained, Steer went beyond the usual dispassionate role of a journalist, by wiring his report direct to the Labour M.P. Philip Noel Baker. This meant that news of the horrific destruction of Guernica could be raised in the House of Commons before it had even appeared on Britain’s streets. Steer, a determined supporter of the Basques during the civil war, was later honoured with a plaque in Bilbao and a statue in Guernica itself.

Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and best-selling author, is a world expert on Gaudi and Picasso’s Guernica. His deconstruction of Picasso’s painting and his account of the artist’s life were fascinating and I suspect many of the audience will have been spurred to go on and read his book, Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. Gijs outlined how the iconic painting became a powerful weapon in the propaganda battle against Fascism.

Manuel Moreno discussing the Basque children in Britain

Basque historian Xabier Irujo brought the event back to the actual bombing itself. In a forensic examination of the events of 26 April 1937, he demonstrated how the Germans – and Italians – systematically destroyed the town with high explosive and incendiary bombs, while planes circled around it machine-gunning any poor victims who attempted to escape. As he showed, the destruction and high number of casualties was no accident; a foretaste of the Nazi’s deliberately murderous approach to war.

The final talk was by Manual Moreno, who introduced a personal account of the consequences of the bombing. The son of one of the 4000 Basque children who were evacuated to Britain in June 1937, Manuel outlined the efforts made by the people of Britain on behalf of the Basque refugees and the Spanish Republic itself. Nearly eighty years have passed since the war, yet it was clear from Manuel’s emotional speech, that while he remains grateful to the British people for their efforts in support of the Spanish Republic, he continues to feel incensed with the British Government for their refusal to do likewise.

A video of the event will be released by the IBMT in the coming weeks.

Len Crome 2014 & launch of Unlikely Warriors paperback

Taking Sides
Flyer for 2014 Len Crome lecture in Manchester

For the second year running, the International Brigade Memorial Trust’s Len Crome memorial Lecture was held in the Manchester Conference Centre. While last year’s event was an examination of the role of George Orwell in the war and its historiography, this year focused on the involvement of artists and writers in the Spanish Civil War. As before, there were four speakers, expertly chaired by Professor Mary Vincent from the University of Sheffield. Sadly, there was one other echo from the previous year: Professor Paul Preston of the London School of Economics was unable to attend due to illness. Professor Valentine Cunningham, Professor of English language and literature fellow of Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, very generously agreed to take his place.

The event began with Royal Holloway’s Carl-Henrik Bjerstrom discussing Republican arts initiatives between 1931 and 1939. Arguing that they were an essential part of the Republic’s humanitarian and democratic programme of reforms, he presented an astonishing statistic from 1937: that the Republican Ministry of Fine Arts had a larger budget than the Ministry of War. Even when qualified by the observation that the Republic had deposited their gold reserves in Moscow, it is pretty amazing. ‘No wonder they lost’, commented one wag.

Carl’s forensic presentation was followed by an illustrated lecture by Dr Carmen Herrero, Principal Lecturer on Spanish Culture and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University, outlining recent portrayals of the International Brigades in cinema. One of her examples was Carlos Saura’s ¡Ay Carmela! – as Carmen pointed out, it’s a great shame that is so hard to get hold of, for it’s a terrific film. Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom was also raised – perhaps bravely- though it’s always interesting to hear how the much-admired director works. Whatever you think of the film, Ken Loach’s enthusiasm for allowing actors to ad-lib made the (long and convoluted) discussion over the issues of collectivisation in a small Spanish village extremely lifelike and convincing.

Baxell_BookSigning
Signing pre-release paperback copies of Unlikely Warriors

During the lunch-break, the organisers kindly allowed me time to launch the paperback edition of Unlikely Warriors, due to be officially released on 1 April, 75 years to the day since the end of the Spanish Civil War. My thanks to all involved in the Manchester event for this.

The afternoon session opened with the writer and filmmaker Jane Rogoyska’s overview of the Gerda Taro’s contribution to the canon of photography of the civil war – both by taking photographs herself and by enabling her lover Robert Capa to do so. She explained how the identity of Robert Capa was a deliberate construction, a means by which the Hungarian Jewish migrant Andre Friedmann could overcome his background. Gerda Taro also changed her name (she was born Gerta Pohorylle), and the intelligent and multilingual Taro initially began by acting as Friedmann’s business manager. However, as the war progressed, and she moved from using a square-format Rolleiflex, to the 35mm Leica, her photographs became every bit as good as – and often indistinguishable from – those of Robert Capa.

The afternoon finished with a lecture on the ‘aestheticising of tragedy’ by Valentine Cunningham. Initially a bewildering barrage of names of the (mainly) English poets and artists who (mainly) supported the Spanish Republic, he moved on to a soaring and erudite discussion of the, perhaps understandably, elegiac nature of much of the writing. There was so much in the lecture to discuss, that I felt it would have been churlish to point out that there were in fact 35 000, not 60 000, volunteers for the International Brigades and though the English writer and poet Laurie Lee was undoubtedly one of them, to cite his A Moment of War as a reliable account is unwise, to put it mildly.

My thanks go out to the IBMT in general and the Manchester organisers in particular. The event was, I think, a great success.

Jack Jones centenary, 5 October 2013

The following lecture was delived at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, as part of an event to commemorate the centenary of Jack Jones’ birth.

Jack Jones and the Spanish Civil War

Seventy-five years ago, a young trade unionist and Labour councillor from Liverpool took the momentous decision to leave his home and family to fight in a war in a country he had never seen. The young man was, of course, Jack Jones. To some contemporary audiences, this can seem an astonishing thing to do, yet for those who volunteered to fight at the time, it was often a simple and straight-forward decision. The issue was put starkly by the English poet, Stephen Spender, for whom the war in Spain was ‘an absolute choice between good and evil.’ The 1930s, wrote a volunteer from Wembley (John Bassett), were ‘a time of hope, when a man with a rifle had some power to divert the tide of human affairs.’

The reasons that lay behind the decision of some 2500 men and women from Britain and Ireland to go to Spain had more to do with events outside the country than within. While the vast majority of the volunteers from Britain knew little of Spanish politics, they certainly had personal experience of the powerful forces engulfing Europe in the 1930s, which had encouraged many to shift politically to the left. First had come the Great Depression, the catastrophic economic crisis that followed the stock market crash of 1929 and put over two million Britons out of work by 1930.

Hunger marchers
Hunger marchers in the 1930s

Alongside the economic turmoil came a political storm, one that had been growing since the end of the First World War and now swept across Europe. The birth of Mussolini’s fascist state in 1922 was followed by the establishment of other European dictatorships, most significantly in Germany following Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship in 1933. By the mid-1930s, essentially constitutional states such as France were themselves seemingly under threat. And, of course, fascism was not just a continental phenomenon. In Britain, Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (known as the Blackshirts) which had been founded in October 1932, appeared to present a similar threat to democracy. Mosley’ Blackshirt thugs were involved in vicious attacks on opponents, in particular in Jewish neighbourhoods such as Cheetham in Manchester and London’s east-end.

So, when on 17 July 1936, a military uprising was launched in Spain in order to overthrow the democratically elected government, Spain appeared to be the latest country about to succumb. However, while the rising scored some initial successes, it failed to capture significant parts of Spain, including the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao. Here opponents of the rising took to the streets, erected barricades and confronted the insurgents under the rallying cry ¡No pasarán! (They shall not pass).

Madrid, 1936: ¡No pasarán!
Madrid, 1936: ¡No pasarán!

Faced with determined opposition, the generals saw that their rebellion was in real danger of being defeated. With their best soldiers, Franco’s elite Army of Africa, trapped in Morocco, the Rebel officers turned to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany for assistance. After some hesitation, both Hitler and Mussolini sent help, providing vital aircraft to ferry Franco’s troops across the Strait of Gibraltar onto the peninsula, where they were able to head rapidly north, leaving a trail of slaughter and destruction in their wake.

Desperate pleas for assistance from the Spanish Republican government, initially regarded with sympathy by France, met with firm opposition from Stanley Baldwin’s national government in Britain. Determined to avoid a wider European conflagration, and maintaining that appeasement of Germany and Italy was the best means of preventing it, the European democracies chose not to come to the Republic’s aid. Instead a ‘non-intervention agreement’ was created, to which Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the USSR all signed up – in writing at least.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the agreement strongly favoured the Rebels, who continued to receive covert assistance from Germany and Italy. Indeed, for many supporters of the Spanish government, the non-intervention pact was the real villain of the story, and George Orwell later argued that the fate of the Republic ‘was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain’.

So for Jack and other supporters of the Spanish Republic the war was never seen as a domestic conflict. The view is often expressed in interviews with brigaders, that ‘Although the war was fought exclusively on Spanish soil, I never saw it as a domestic conflict.’ To the volunteers, Spain’s struggle transcended national boundaries, a perspective lucidly expressed by the sculptor, Jason Gurney from London, who arrived in Spain in December 1936:

“The Spanish Civil war seemed to provide the chance for a single individual to take a positive and effective stand on an issue which appeared to be absolutely clear. Either you were opposed to the growth of Fascism and you went out to fight it, or you acquiesced in its crimes and were guilty of permitting its growth…for myself and many others like me it was a war of principle, and principles do not have a national boundary.” (Jason Gurney, Crusade in Spain, p.36.)

Therefore fighting fascism in Spain would help the fight against fascism across Europe: conversely a victory for Franco was seen, by extension, as a victory for Hitler. The rapid and determined support for the Spanish Rebels by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy provided anti-fascists with convincing evidence for a connection between the regimes.

Around the world supporters of the Spanish Republic held meetings and demonstrations, collected food, money and medical supplies. However, some felt that sending help and money was not enough. Spain needed arms, as one young Spaniard argued: ‘We Spaniards are greatly thankful for your charity and your lint and your ointments which you send us to repair Don Quixote’s wounds; but we would be much more thankful if you were to outfit him with a new lance and an up-to-date shield.’

Some anti-fascists agreed and took the decision to volunteer to go to Spain, determined to seize this opportunity to halt the spread of authoritarian right-wing regimes across Europe. As Jack explained:

“The awful realisation that black fascism was on the march right across Europe created a strong desire to act. The march had started with Mussolini and had gained terrible momentum with Hitler and was being carried forward by Franco. For most young people there was a feeling of frustration, but some determined to do anything that seemed possible, even if it meant death, to try to stop the spread of fascism…This was Fascist progression. It was real and it had to be stopped.” (Introduction by Jack Jones in Judith Cook, Apprentices of Freedom, pp.vii-ix.)

The first volunteers consisted mainly of German and Italian anti-fascists, plus some British, French and Polish left-wingers. Sprinkled among the Spanish defenders at the rate of one to four, the brigaders both boosted their morale and trained them in the use of weapons such as machine-guns. The arrival of a well-disciplined group of soldiers provided an important psychological boost to the Republican forces. To many observers’ surprise, the defenders of Madrid managed to halt the advance of General Franco’s forces at the gates of the Spanish capital.

Yet when Jack first approached the Aid Spain Office in Liverpool’s Haymarket in order to offer his services to the Spanish Republic, he was turned down, despite having experience in the Territorial Army. Instead, he was told that he would be of more use staying in Britain and working on behalf of the Spanish Republic, including helping to recruit volunteers for the International Brigades.

However, after several requests, in early 1938 Jack’s efforts to volunteer were finally rewarded and permission was granted for him to go. However, it was not easy to get to Spain, for volunteering for the Spanish war had been made illegal in Britain, so the journey had to be undertaken in secret. Jack’s organisational experience meant that he was sufficiently trusted to be put in charge of a group of British volunteers. They followed the by now well-trodden route: from London by train and boat to the main recruiting centre for the International Brigades in Paris and then on by train once again to Perpignan in southern France.

Jack Jones' route to Spain in March 1938
Jack Jones’ route to Spain in March 1938

With the border between France and Spain closed, volunteers were forced to undertake an exhausting nine hour climb over the Pyrenees to get into Spain – carried out at night to avoid the patrols set up to catch them. Jack’s group arrived in Spain in March 1938. Upon his arrival he was given some brief training in the fort at Figueras in northern Catalonia, before being allowed to carry on to Barcelona to deliver a letter he was carrying from Ernest Bevin to representatives of the socialist trade union, the UGT. After delivering the letter, Jack briefly joined a UGT unit fighting on Aragon front [near Lerida], an experience he later described in his autobiography, Union Man:

“My character was hardened by many experiences at that time but one incident stands out vividly in my memory. ‘Yo lucha para Libertad! (‘I fight for liberty’) shouted the old Spaniard, digging in alongside me. The ground was hard and stony and with the aid of a trenching tool it was possible to dig only a shallow strip and use what natural cover was available. Laying his trenching tool on the ground, he picked up his rifle to fire at the opposing force. We faced a hail of rifle and machine-gun fire and shells came flying over at the same time. I looked at the unlikely soldier by my side and marvelled at his courage. He had a gnarled bronze face, a heavy body, and was wearing the cap and overalls of a working man. He was afraid of nothing. It turned out that he was an anarchist, but he typified for me the resolve of so many Spaniards who hated the idea of a Fascist take-over. [But] in his courage he was reckless, a recklessness which did for him, for he was killed within minutes of his picking up his rifle and firing a few shots.” (Jack Jones, Union Man, 2008, p. 68.)

Despite choosing to wear a black leather jacket – he later admitted it was not exactly the most effective form of camouflage – Jack survived a period of service with the Spanish UGT unit, before rejoining his compatriots. Jack Jones from Liverpool became volunteer number 1788 of the British Battalion of the 15 International Brigade.

Probably due more to his political, than military experience, he was appointed as political commissar to the No. 1 Major Atlee Company. Jack described his role as ‘a combination of welfare advisor and political advisor’; but he would have been unusual if he had not been informed that he should both keep watch over – and a watch on – the men in his company.  Based primarily on the model of the Soviet Red Army, the political commissars operated as a parallel command structure to the military and were responsible for both morale and discipline within the Communist-dominated International Brigades.

Jack Jones in Spain in 1938 (standing to the left in beret and leather jacket)
Jack Jones in Spain (to the left of photo, in beret and leather jacket)

In many ways it was not an auspicious time to join the International Brigades. The appalling number of casualties in the battles of Jarama and Brunete around Madrid the previous year, meant that those who arrived in 1938 could have no illusions of the danger they faced. Furthermore, the massive offensive in Aragon launched by Franco at the end of February 1938 had ended with his soldiers dancing triumphantly in the Mediterranean at Viñaroz, splitting the Republican zone in two.

During the chaotic retreats at least 100 members of the British Battalion were killed and many more wounded. A similar number were captured and imprisoned in prisoner of war camps. The following photograph was taken of the defiant British survivors responding to a story in a pro-Franco British newspaper which had triumphantly announced the annihilation of the International Brigades.

Yet, when Jack joined the battalion in the summer of 1938, he found the men in training at Fontanella, a pretty valley surrounded by rugged hills and mountains near the Catalonian village of Marsa.  The volunteers christened it ‘Chabola Valley’ after the small rough shelters they constructed under the hazelnut bushes that proliferated in the barrancos, the small dried up river gullies.

The volunteers were kept busy with ‘training, marching or rifle practice’ and ‘the procedures for crossing rivers’, while at night  one of the volunteers who was a particularly strong swimmer (Lewis Clive) swam clandestinely across the Ebro to reconnoitre the Nationalist positions. Benefiting from regular food and sleep, and safe from the daily risk of death, some came to see this as one of their most pleasant periods in Spain, as one Scottish member of the battalion described: ‘In this happy existence, which was really enjoyable, we were out in the fresh air and we were sleeping under the open sky. The weather was fairly good and we were getting plenty of exercise and plenty of food.’

On 8 July the battalion was visited by a travelling van fitted out with hot showers. Many volunteers also took the opportunity to lose themselves in a book. Their ranks included a number of voracious readers and they had amassed a huge library of English books; these were stored at a nearby hacienda, where they managed to rig up electric lighting and could read long into the night. ‘It was a strange, argumentative army of thinkers,’ remembered one young Briton. Jack described his time at Chavola Valley to the historian Max Arthur:

“Life wasn’t easy, but a good spirit prevailed in the ranks. Food was short; our main meals consisted of beans, lentils and chickpeas, sometimes beans with dried fish in a stew, or beans with mule meat or old goat, stewed and topped off with rough – very rough – red wine. Some of the lads visited an old chap in a nearby village who, allegedly, made stew from mice, but nobody would admit to having tasted it. Needless to say, there were no cats or dogs around!” (Interview with Jack Jones in Max Arthur, The Real Band of Brothers, p. 137.)

Towards the end of July 1938, the period of training finally came to an end. Now promoted to Commissar of Number Four Company, Jack and his comrades in the International Brigades were to be part of a huge – and ambitious – Republican offensive back across the River Ebro.

The British Battalion advance during the Ebro offensive of July 1938
The British Battalion advance during the Ebro offensive of July 1938

During the nights of 23 and 24 July 1938, the British Battalion marched nearly thirty kilometres to their crossing point over the river near Ascó. Early the following morning, the British followed the Canadian battalion over the river, most of them taken over in small rowing boats, while others crossed on pontoon bridges rapidly erected during the morning by Republican engineers.

Republican pontoon bridge across the River Ebro
Republican pontoon bridge across the River Ebro

Initially, the Republican soldiers found the Nationalists unprepared and they were able to advance rapidly. By the afternoon of 25 July, Jack and the other British volunteers were within two kilometres of the village of Corbera, that lay between them and their principal target, the small town of Gandesa, the key to the Ebro offensive.

However, within two hours of the first troops crossing, Nationalist aeroplanes had begun attacking the temporary bridges over the river. A lack of supplies, especially food and water, were becoming problematic as the battalion’s supply line became dangerously over-extended. Nevertheless, in increasingly difficult conditions, the battalion pressed on towards Gandesa. As Spanish forces battered the town itself, the British Battalion was ordered to capture a hill, just over a kilometre to the east, nicknamed ‘The Pimple’ by the British. The Pimple (Hill 481) overlooked Gandesa, and though not the highest hill in the vicinity, its capture was vital if the attack on the town was to stand any chance of success. Unfortunately, Franco had by now brought up reinforcements and the attacking Republican forces met with extremely fierce resistance, particularly aircraft and artillery fire. The volunteers in the battalion faced what one described as ‘a withering, murderous reply of shells, rifle and machine gun fire’ from the resolute defenders on Hill 481 and from Nationalist positions on the surrounding heights and on top of high buildings within Gandesa itself. Between 27 July and 3 August, in searing heat, the battalion launched increasingly desperate assaults on the hill, but all were repulsed, as Jack sadly recalled, ‘at great cost’.

Even for men hardened to the brutal realities of warfare, the number of casualties sustained on Hill 481 was deeply shocking. Many of them were popular, long-standing members of the battalion, who had fought in Spain since the very creation of the battalion eighteen months earlier. One of many casualties of the first day’s fighting on the hill was Jack himself, as he describes:

“Once more I had clambered up the hill with my comrades, taking cover where we could and firing at the enemy wherever he appeared. The bullets of the snipers whizzed over, grenades and shells were striking the ground, throwing up earth and dust and showering us with shrapnel. Suddenly my shoulder and right arm went numb. Blood gushed from my shoulder and I couldn’t lift my rifle. I could do nothing but lie where I was. Near me a comrade had been killed and I could hear the cries of others, complaining of their wounds. While I was lying there, to make things worse, a spray of shrapnel hit my right arm. The stretcher bearers were doing their best but could hardly keep up with the number of casualties. As night fell I made my own way, crawling to the bottom of the hill. I was taken with other wounded men down the line to an emergency field hospital at Mora del Ebro where I was given an anti-tetanus injection. The place was like an abbatoir; there was blood and the smell of blood everywhere.” (Jack Jones, Union Man, 1986, pp. 75–6.)

Transferred from hospital to hospital, it soon became clear that Jack’s wounds were not going to recover easily and the decision was taken to send him home. Jack was finally repatriated on 14 September 1938, and he left Spain accompanied by his friend and former company commander, the Irishman, Paddy O’Daire. Back home he was reunited with his fiancée Evelyn, the widow of his friend, George Brown, who had been killed whilst serving as the British Battalion’s political commissar  at Brunete in July 1937. Jack & Evelyn married the following month, in October 1938.

Jack & Evelyn Jones, October 1938
Jack & Evelyn Jones, October 1938

His wounds healed, Jack returned, as he put it, to ‘the world of ships and cargoes and the human problems of the waterfront.’ But he continued to work for Spain and campaigned to bring an end to the western democracies’ policy of non-intervention. After the final defeat of the Republic in March 1939, Spanish seamen stranded in British seaports who did not want to return to Franco’s Spain sought – and secured – Jack’s help. His connections arranged their transportation to Argentina to begin new lives. He also kept in clandestine contact with the illegal trade union movement in Spain and provided help and legal assistance to those imprisoned by the Franco dictatorship. Following Franco’s death in 1975, Jack lent his support to the re-establishment of independent trade unions in Spain.

As Jack declared in the postscript to the 2008 edition of his autobiography, the cause of democracy in Spain and the contribution of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War remained important to him throughout his life. When Jack died in 2009, he was the President of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, a position he had held since its inception in 2001.

The following 2 minute video clip is of Jack Jones talking about his time in Spain, from his participation in the battle on Hill 481 near Gandesa, to his rather sobering assessment of the legacy of the Spanish war. The interviews are from David Leach’s Voices from a Mountain, 2001.

James Larkin ‘Jack’ Jones, 29 March 1913 – 21 April 2009.

2013 Len Crome Memorial Lecture

For this year’s Len Crome lecture a number of historians were brought together to discuss George Orwell’s account of his time in Spain and the significance of the infamous events in Barcelona during May 1937. This is the first of four lectures, which features a lecture and discussion of George Orwell and the British Battalion in Spain.

2013 Len Crome lecture: Homage to Catalonia 75 years on

Crome_flyer

Over the last ten years, the hugely successful annual Len Crome lecture series has seen a number of academics from Britain, Spain and America deliver keynote lectures on their particular areas of expertise, at the Imperial War Museum in London. A collection of the first ten lectures was published by Lawrence and Wishart in 2010 as Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War. However, the closure of the Imperial Museum in 2013 for refurbishment forced a re-think.

The decision was helped by this year being a major George Orwell anniversary, marked by a number of programmes on BBC radio 4, including a radio dramatisation of Orwell’s famous account of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia. Consequently, it was decided to bring together a number of historians to discuss Orwell’s account of his time in Spain and, in particular, the significance of the infamous events in Barcelona during May 1937.

The event was held in the Manchester Conference Centre, on 2 March 2013. Chaired expertly by Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern Europen History at the University of Sheffield, the four speakers and their papers were:

Richard Baxell: George Orwell and the British Battalion
Paul Preston*: George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War
Tom Buchanan: Homage to Catalonia; its reception and impact
Chris Hall: Not Just Orwell; the Independent Labour Party Volunteers

*Sadly Paul Preston was unwell, but he very kindly allowed his paper to be read out by a proxy (IBMT Secretary, Jim Jump).

Jim Jump delivering Paul Preston's paper on George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War © Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA 3.0,  IBMT and Marshall Mateer
Jim Jump delivering Paul Preston’s paper on George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War
© Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA 3.0, IBMT and Marshall Mateer

For those who missed what was a very successful and popular event, the four lectures will be placed online and a short video of some of the highlights will be available on Youtube. In the meantime, Marshall Mateer has put some material on the IBMT’s Flickr site and Lydia Syson, author of A World Between Us, has written an account of the day on her blog.

L to R: Chris Hall, Mary Vincent, Richard Baxell and Tom Buchanan © Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA 3.0, IBMT and Marshall Mateer
L to R: Chris Hall, Mary Vincent, Richard Baxell and Tom Buchanan
© Creative Commons, BY-NC-SA 3.0, IBMT and Marshall Mateer

Guernica 75 at the People’s History Museum, Manchester

On Saturday 28 April, Richard joined Professor Paul Preston and Professor Helen Graham for Guernica 75. Organised by Mercedes Camino of Lancaster University, the event was a discussion of the International Brigades, Guernica and the Spanish Civil War.

Speaking to a full house, Richard drew upon his forthcoming book, Unlikely Warriors, to talk about Manchester volunteers and their roads to Spain while Paul and Helen followed with lectures using material from their critically acclaimed new books, The Spanish Holocaust and The War and Its Shadow.