Mac Paps

Abstract

While the origins of Spain's civil war of 1936–39 lay within Spain itself, the course of the war and its outcome certainly did not. The support for the military rebels by Germany and Italy, and Britain and France's refusal to assist what was a democratically elected government, effectively doomed the Spanish Republic, despite Russian support and the 35,000 men and women from around the world who volunteered to serve with the International Brigades. The role of these international volunteers in the Spanish conflict has ensured that the subject has long had resonance around the world, and been the subject of numerous studies. Initially, following the end of the civil war, many works on the International Brigades were written by veterans of the Spanish war or their ardent supporters, ‘keepers of the story by which they wanted … to be remembered’.1 To these determined supporters of the Spanish Republic, its...