The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

1 The first line, some 30 kilometres out from Madrid, linked Navalcarnero with Valdemoro passing by Batres, Griñón and Torrejón de Velasco. The second, about twenty kilometres out, consisted of Brunete, Villaviciosa, Móstoles, Fuenlabrada and Pinto; the third, at about ten kilometres out, went from Villaviciosa de Odón to Cerro de los á ngeles; and the fourth, at the gates of the capital, consisted of fortifying Pozuelo, la Casa de Campo, Campamento, Carabanchel, Villaverde and Vallecas (José Manuel Martínez Bande, La guerra en el norte, Madrid, 1969, p. 130.)

2 Preston, Franco, caudillo de España, p. 255.

3 These first mixed brigades came under the División Orgánica de Albacete, commanded by Colonel Segismundo Casado. The first was led by Major of Militia Enrique Líster; the second by Major Jesús Martínez de Aragón; the third, composed of carabineros, by José María Galán; the fourth, commanded by an infantry captain Eutiquiano Arellano, was made up of conscript soldiers; the fifth, also carabineros, was led by Fernando Sabio; and the sixth, of reserve soldiers based in Murcia, was commanded by Miguel Gallo Martínez.

4 Rodimtsev, Aleksadr Ilyich, Dobrovoltsy–internatsionalisty, Sverdlovsk, 1976, p. 31.

5 Louis Aragon, the French poet and communist, and his partner, Elsa Triolet, a writer, were regarded as ‘the royal couple’ of the French Communist Party. Koltsov, Ispansky dnevnik, Moscow, 1957, p. 199. Many people suspected Triolet of being an NKVD agent, but no documentary proof has emerged.

6 Francisco Largo Caballero, Arenga a las fuerzas armadas, 28 October 1936, reported in the daily press.

7 The republican tank force was formed on the basis of a brigade which arrived from the Belorussian military district, 60 per cent of the unit were Soviet ‘volunteer’ tankists. RGVA 31811/4/28, pp. 104–10. The brigade was commanded by Colonel D. G. Pavlov, who was executed in the 1941 as a scapegoat when the Wehrmacht smashed the Red Army in its invasion. Arman was not the son of Lenin’s close friend Inessa Armand, as some people think.

8 Ispansky dnevnik, Moscow, 1957, p. 231.

9 Letter from Federica Montseny to Bolloten: La revolución española, p. 288.

10 Ispansky dnevnik, p. 235.

11 Azaña, Diarios completos, p. 956.

12 For this massacre and those from other prisons, such as Antón, Porlier and Ventas, see Gibson, Paracuellos cómo fue, pp. 185ff., which gives a total figure of 2,400 murders between 7 November and 4 December 1936. Javier Cervera (Madrid en guerra. La ciudad clandestin, Madrid, pp. 84–103) states that there were more than 2,000 killed at Paracuellos and Torrejón.

13 See Martínez Reverte, La batalla de Madrid, Barcelona, 2004, pp. 226–7, 240. The document is reproduced pp. 577–81.

14 RGVA 35082/1/185, p. 365.

15 R. Salas Larrazábal, Historia del Ejército Popular, p. 574 and General Alonso Baquer, El Ebro. La batalla decisiva de los cien días, La Esfera, Madrid, 2003, p. 33.

16 ‘French direction had been unmistakably evident on the side of the reds in their whole tactical procedure’ (DGFP, p. 259).

17 Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter, The Secret History of German Diplomacy, 1939–1945, London, 1951.

18 J. Delperrie, Las brigadas internacionales, Madrid, 1978, p. 94.

19 Hoy, Las Palmas, 24 July 1936.

20 Blanco Escolá, El general Rojo, p. 173.

21 Karl Anger, alias Dobrovolsky, RGVA 35082/1/189, p. 83.

22 RGVA 35082/1/95, pp. 33–58.

23 Rodimtsev, Dobrovoltsy–internatsionalisty, p. 46,

24 Koltsov, Ispansky dnevnik, Moscow, 1957, p. 279.

25 RGVA. 35082/1/189, p. 103.

26 A biographer of Durruti suggests that the doctors did not dare intervene surgically when they might have saved him. He died of an internal haemorrhage (Abel Paz, Durruti en la revolución española, Madrid, 2004, p. 678).

27 J. Salas Larrazábal, La guerra de España desde el aire, p. 140.

28 See Solé Sabaté, pp. 48–9.

29 BA-MA RL35/38.

30 Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,

venid a ver

la sangre por las calles,

venid a ver la sangre

por las calles! ‘Explico algunas cosas’ in Poesía política, Santiago de Chile, 1953, I, p. 60.

31 RGASPI 495/120/261, p. 14.

32 Cowles, Looking for Trouble, p. 18.

33 Dobrovolsky (Karl Anger), RGVA 35082/1/189, p. 126.