This book offers an interpretation of a foreign conflict that has had a greater impact on modern British politics than any other.

The Spanish Civil War continues to attract attention as a brutal political and military struggle which foreshadowed the wider war across Europe that followed, and it has given rise to myths that have become commonplace since the war ended eighty years ago. Few of these myths are as potent as those associated with the International Brigades, the 45,000 volunteers from many countries who traveled to Spain to fight for the Second Republic. That is why this perceptive and original study by Charles Esdaile is so valuable. Using the recorded experience of the British Brigaders as well as primary research in the Spanish archives, he thoroughly re-examines the contribution they made to the war effort against the Nationalists of General Franco. During the war the Nationalists exaggerated the importance of the International Brigades in order to demonstrate the influence of the Communists on the Republic, and the Republicans portrayed them as part of the great crusade to defend democracy. Then, after the war, surviving Brigaders tended to overstate the part they played and the sacrifices they made. The one fact that nobody would dispute was the terrible losses sustained by the volunteers. This produced an impression that they were veritable men of iron who played a key part in the fighting and helped stave off the Nationalist victory until the eve of the Second World War. By concentrating in close detail on the major battles in which the British Brigaders took part, Charles Esdaile reassesses their impact and considers whether their performance on the battlefield justifies their reputation.

Taking inspiration from a police informer’s comment that his workmates had gone “Spain mad” in response to the Spanish Civil War, this book uses biographical studies to explore the nature of British engagement with the conflict. The opening chapter presents a general analysis of the subject and assesses the available evidence. Some 2400 Britons volunteered to fight in the conflict and some 500 died there. Accordingly, the International Brigades are well represented in the book, with chapters on two of the commanders of the British Battalion (Wilfred Macartney and Fred Copeman) and the Anglo-Canadian volunteer Frank Whitfield. Two of the other subjects (George Orwell and Felicia Browne) fought in other units. However, the book shows that engagement in the Civil War could take many forms: hence, the chapters on the journalist Philip Jordan, clergyman E. O. Iredell, and the humanitarian activist and politician G.T. Garratt. The remaining chapters look at three historians and writers who have shaped the understanding of the Civil War in Britain: Orwell, Hugh Thomas and Jim Fyrth. The book is based on extensive new research, and many of these subjects have never previously been studied in any depth.

Shelmerdine shows that traditional notions in Britain of Spain as a country of bullfighting, bandits and flamenco were pervasive, and were significant in shaping wider UK government policy towards Spain in the period of the civil war. He assesses political perceptions of the 1930s Spanish scene such as race and ethnicity.

Was the British left's support for the anti-Franco cause 'the most outstanding example of international solidarity in British history'? Here Lewis Mates considers this claim and argues that support for the anti-Franco cause was varied and multi-faceted. He analyses the 'Aid Spain movement': activities undertaken at grassroots level in support of the Spanish Republic. He explores the nature of grassroots support, its extent and depth, the motivations of activists, the institutions they operated through, and importantly, the role and impact of ideas on activism. Those within the British Left who did not embrace the Republic's cause are also examined as are the consequences of these divisions for the labour movement at its different levels from grassroots to national.Mates provides new perspectives on an important period of twentieth-century British history, contributing to debates about the nature of the British left, grassroots activism and popular political engagement in a contradictory epoch.

Through oral and written narratives, this book examines the interaction between women and the war in Spain, their motivation, the distinctive form of their involvment and the effect of the war on their individual lives. These themes are related to wider issues, such as the nature of memory and the role of women within the public sphere. The extent to which women engaged with this cause surpasses by far other instances of female mobilization in peace-time Britain. Such a phenomenon therefore can offer lessons to those who would wish to encourage a greater degree of interest amongst women in political activities today.

This book draws on a mass of documentary material to provide a major reinterpretation of British labour's response to the Spanish Civil War. It challenges the view that the labour leadership ' betrayed' the Spanish Republic, and that this polarised the movement along `left' versus 'right' lines. Instead, it argues that the overriding concern of the major leaders was to defend labour's institutional interests against the political destabilisation caused by the conflict, rather than to defend Spanish democracy. Although the main advocates of this position were trade union leaders associated with the labour right such as Walter Citrine and Ernest Bevin, the book argues that their dominance reflected the centrality of the trade unions to labour movement decision-making rather than the abuse of union power to achieve political goals.

Explores the relationship between Britain and the Spanish Civil War. This book explains the war's legacy and longer-term impact on Britain, and presents a chronological progression from the Civil War to the post-war Franco era. It also provides a discussion of the importance of loss and memory.

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 almost 2,500 men and women left Britain to fight for the Spanish Republic. This book examines the role, experiences and contribution of the volunteers who fought in the British Battalion of the 15 International Brigadesasking: * Who were these volunteers? * Where did they come from? * Why did they go to Spain? * How much did they actually help the Spanish Republic? In contrast to recent revisionist interpretations, this work stresses the crucial importance of the war experience itself, rather than political ideology, in the understanding of the volunteers' role and experiences within the Spanish war. This book will be of essential interest to historians and those interested in the Spanish Civil War.