Edge of Darkness: British ‘Front-line’ Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1937

Abstract

British policy during the Spanish Civil War was seen by many at the time as dishonest and dishonourable, and this is a criticism that has survived the opening of the official records to historical scrutiny. Research by Jill Edwards, Douglas Little and, most recently, by Enrique Moradiellos has presented the policy pursued by the British government as cynical, callous and objectively pro-Franco. Understandably, however, the literature on this subject, exemplified in the work of these scholars, has focused primarily on establishing how policy decisions were reached within the Foreign Office and other interested branches of government. What has tended to be neglected by historians (with some notable exceptions) has been the experience of British diplomatic and consular officials in the field. These were the men who carried the triple burden not only of being the eyes and ears of the Foreign Office in Spain, but also of negotiating with government and local authorities and of protecting British lives and interests amidst the chaos of civil war. This article seeks to redress the balance by placing the focus on these ‘front-line diplomats’. It concentrates on the experiences of those British diplomatic and consular staff in the main Republican zone who were most directly exposed to the war, although reference will also be made to officials in the Nationalist zone and in the relative tranquillity of the British embassy in exile at Hendaye. The article is concerned more specifically, although not exclusively, with George Ogilvie-Forbes's tenure as chargé d'affaires in Madrid and Valencia (August 1936–March 1937). For this period Ogilvie-Forbes's own papers offer an unparalleled insight into the private opinions of British diplomats in the front line of civil war, and provide a new perspective on their relationships both with each other and with the Foreign Office. The article concludes with the recasting of the British diplomatic presence in Spain in autumn 1937, with the relocation of the British embassy from Valencia to Caldetas, outside Barcelona, and the appointment of an agent to represent British interests in Nationalist territory. The first part of the article describes the development of the British diplomatic presence in Spain during this period, while the second examines the civil war's impact on individual British diplomats, and how their experiences affected their relationship with their superiors in London.