REMEMBER THE MEN AND WOMEN OF SPAIN - 75 YEARS

I have been away in the South West, in Devon. Today, Sunday the 17th July, marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, which was a prelude to the Second World War.

Mola

Franco

Manuel Azaña Díaz

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. The war began after a Coup d'état by a group of conservative generals under the leadership of Emilio Mola against the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña Díaz. The rebel coup was supported by the conservative groups including the  Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right,  monarchists such as the Carlists, and the Fascist Falange. Following the only partially successful coup, Spain was left militarily and politically divided. A junta in Burgos proved unable to set overall strategy and General Francisco Franco was chosen commander-in-chief at a meeting of ranking generals on September 21. Mola continued to command the Army of the North and led an unsuccessful effort to take Madrid in October. In a radio address, he described Nationalists sympathizers in the city as a "fifth column" that supplemented his four military columns. From that moment onwards 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, while the Soviet Union intervened in support of the socialist Republicans.

The International Brigades were military units made up of socialist, communist and anarchist volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic.

The number of combatant volunteers has been estimated at between 32,000–35,000, though with no more than about 20,000 active at any one time. A further 10,000 people probably participated in non-combatant roles and about 3,000–5,000 foreigners were members of the CNT - Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour) or the POUM - Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista  (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification). They came from a claimed "53 nations" to fight against the Spanish Nationalists.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in International Brigades. As time went on, the name Abraham Lincoln Brigade became used loosely, in the United States, as shorthand to describe any unit with an American component. Volunteers from the United States also served with the Canadian Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion, the Regiment de Tren (transport), and the John Brown Anti-Aircraft Battery. North Americans also ran a very well-organized and well-equipped field hospital (funded and staffed by the American Medical Bureau to Save Spanish Democracy).

When I was in Los Angeles in early sixties I worked in a bookshop owned by a member of the Lincoln Brigade, Robert Klonsky. He went out to Spain at 17. He managed to survive. He was a wonderful man.
It was not only the young men who went to Spain. A particular salute also to Salaria Kea.

Salaria Kea

Salaria Kea was born in Georgia, USA, in 1917. Her father, an attendant at the Ohio State Hospital for the Insane, was stabbed to death when Kea was a child. His widow took her four children, including Salaria, to Akron, Ohio. Kea became a nurse and while working at the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing, led a successful campaign against racial segregation. In 1935 she helped to organize medical care in Ethiopia when it was invaded by Italy. In March 1937 Kea joined an American Medical Unit working with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. She later recalled: "I sailed from New York with the second American Medical Unit. I was the lone representative of the Negro race. The doctor in charge of the group refused to sit at the same table with me in the dining room and demanded to see the Captain. The Captain moved me to his table where I remained throughout the voyage." To find out more, this you tube entry is a must view.