Censorship and commitment: Foreign correspondents in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

Thousands of men and women from all around the world flocked to join the International Brigades believing that to fight for the Spanish Republic was to fight for the very survival of democracy and civilisation against the assault of fascism. And alongside the regular troops sent by Hitler and Mussolini to support Franco and the military rebels, a smaller number of volunteers also went to fight for what they perceived as the cause of Catholicism and anti-Communism. A similar range of sentiments can be found among the nearly one thousand newspaper correspondents who went to Spain. Along with the hardened professional war correspondents, and others still to win their spurs, came some of the world's most prominent literary figures. This article shows how, as a result of what they saw, even some of those who arrived without commitment came to embrace the cause of the beleaguered Republic. Underlying their conversion was a deep admiration for the stoicism with which the Republican population resisted.