There was no 5th International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War as per the Christy Moore song Viva La Quinta Brigada. There was a 15th International Brigade though.
Conditions for the International Brigadiers were terrible and the Republican commanders would often throw them into senseless battle rather than send their Spanish countrymen in. Going home was not an option and the desire to do so was treated as desertion with execution the penalty. Many of the International Brigadiers finished the war in concentration camps.
The Republican side was a shambles. The Communists spent as much effort in putting down the Anarchists, Socialists and Trotskyists as they did in fighting Franco. They would not allow retreat in battle as that would make for poor propaganda so they tried to fight to the last man which led to appalling and unnecessary slaughter of their own troops.
It was an exceptionally vicious war on both sides and it is extraordinary that Spain has become the reasonably normal country it is now.
Can you recommend a good book that covers the Spanish civil war in its entirety?
Started one focused on Guernica a few months ago but it required a knowledge of all that stuff you mention.
Iâve just finished the Antony Beevor book, the Battle for Spain. Iâm not really fond of him as a writer as I think he tries to cram in too much detail that you can get lost in it. Also unhelpfully the protagonists are all Spanish so you have to keep checking back to see whoâs on what side unlike say a book on Stalingrad where the names tell you all you need to know on that score. That aside Iâd recommend the book.
Wouldnât be the last Irish man to mangle los numeros en Espanol - to quote Bono: One! Two! Three! Fourteen!
Super. Already pinning up a wall map of Spain.
@Fagan_ODowd he says 15th here.
He must have been put right in his later years. The song title still refers to the 5th Brigade
The recording of his version of Boys of Barr na Sraide has a bit of an intro where he says itâs about a street in the town of Listowel, when in fact itâs about Cahersiveen
That the Pro in the Pro-Cathedral meant temporary.
I see it as a very popular song with Kerry people. Was it always so?
I know its nonfiction u are looking for but For Whom the Bell Tolls is a great book about the Spanish Civil War
Tony OâDonoghue is from Cork
Stand-up comedian Neil Delamere who hails from Offaly is a fair man to answer quiz questions. He was there on The Chase, answered 9 in the quick fire round, gambled for ÂŁ103k, aced that and then answered 15 in the 2 minute round (Jas Borthwick chipped in with one) to set the target at 20. They then held off the Chaser with a second to spare and divide ÂŁ120k for charities.
Iâm reviewing my earlier opinions of Neil.
Franco would put the Moroccans up the front as he knew the south couldnât fight and the Moroccans were deadly with a knife and he wanted to save the bullets . The myth goes that He told the Moroccans if they died on Spanish soil theyâd rose again in Morocco.
We were down in the south west of France over the summer is a place called Argeles, which isnât far from the Spanish border. From reading a memorial there and a little bit of further research I learned that during the war in Spain the Republican fighters and civilians retreated over the border with the expectation they could use France to transit back to areas of Spain which were still under republican control. The French however wouldnât allow it, disarmed the fighters and put everyone in an horrendous sounding concentration camp on the beach in Argeles.
Lived on the beach with no shelter and no toilets.
Maybe they were better off in the long run
Thereâs a great book called Ghosts of Spain about the reckoning with the civil war in the 2000s.
Judges in Spain have independent powers to order investigations and in the 2000s there were a series of orders of excavations of unmarked mass graves of people whoâd been executed/disappeared. Spanish society incredibly never talked about what happened, even after the transition to democracy. Book gives great insight into how one family would never talk to another one down the road generations later, even though theyâd never know or has forgotten the detail why. cc @cmontofuck