Abstract
As the flood of books on the Spanish Civil War continues unabated, the question is often asked whether there is anything left to say. In fact, much as we do know, there is still so much that we do not know. It is only recently that we have begun fully to understand, for instance, the financing of the two war efforts, thanks to José Ángel Sánchez Asiaín’s long-awaited La financiación de la Guerra Civil Española (Barcelona: Crítica, 2012), or the role of the Soviet Union, thanks to the monumental trilogy by Ángel Viñas. Yet many important subjects remain obscure. Several of them relate to military history and it is here that the immense value of James Matthews’s study resides. He adds considerable nuance to the picture of life for ordinary soldiers on both sides.
Given the special circumstances of the Republic’s Popular Army with its large component of volunteers, Matthews makes a particularly valuable contribution in terms of illuminating how it functioned, especially in the area of the maintenance of morale. It is worth recalling that Raymond Carr wrote many years ago that the Republic’s forces were ‘a fissiparous coalition united only by desperation’. In the face of deficiencies of supplies of all kinds and particularly of weapons and ammunition, the issue of morale assumed extra importance. Matthews’s book is particularly good on the role of political commissars in the Republican war effort. As he shows, the commissar system, together with efforts in terms of education and entertainment, played a key role. It is a subject on which very little has been published previously apart from two studies, one by a Francoist policeman, Eduardo Comín Colomer, and one by a Communist apparatchik, Santiago Álvarez.
In terms of opening up this and other aspects of military life which have simply not been adequately dealt with before now, the book is both original and extremely valuable. One of its striking conclusions is that a large proportion of the huge number of conscripts that made up the armies of both sides were not necessarily ideologically committed to the side on which they fought. Certainly there were volunteers for the Republic, particularly members of the militant youth movements, the Communist-dominated Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas and the anarchist Juventudes Libertarias, and also for the military rebels, notably from the Falange and the Carlists. Overall, however, as the war progressed, volunteers were increasingly a minority. The majority were conscripts and the side for which they fought was often the consequence of geographical accident.
The scale of conscription can be deduced from the fact that, at the beginning of the war, the rebel army had about 80,000 men. After the campaigns in the north between April and October 1937, Franco’s forces had grown to more than half a million. His three armies of the Centre, the South, and the North all had ample reserves. In addition to those conscripted, there were large numbers of Republican prisoners of war. James Matthews is particularly interesting on the issue of the recycling of prisoners, and demonstrates that about half of the captured conscripts were considered sufficiently apolitical to be absorbed into the Francoist ranks. Those Republican prisoners who had been volunteers were not considered trustworthy for service and were used in forced labour battalions in front-line positions. By December 1937 Franco had called up 11 years’ worth of conscripts from 1929 to 1939, consisting of 413,500 men. Together with Falangist and Carlist volunteers and Republican deserters and prisoners, by the end of 1937 he had 772,000 men in arms.
As Franco’s armies grew, Republican forces shrank, if not numerically, certainly in terms of effective soldiers. The consequences of this for daily life at the front, especially in terms of morale, discipline, and leave, are brilliantly explained by Dr Matthews. The Republican army required substantial reconstruction after every major defeat. The Nationalists had ample reserves so they could rotate troops and give them rest and recuperation, while this was rarely true with the Republicans. The troops of the Popular Army, and the International Brigades in particular, went for punishingly long periods without being withdrawn from the front. As this valuable book makes clear, discipline existed in all units on both sides. This account is thus a useful reminder that harsh discipline was driven by military, not political, motives, as has been asserted in some recent critical accounts of the International Brigades.
An illuminating feature of the book is what it tells us about food, alcohol, cigarettes, and other necessities and comforts. In that regard, tobacco and soap assumed immense importance. In Matthews’s original account of life in the trenches for the ordinary foot soldier, the comparative approach pays dividends in illustrating the differences and inequalities between the two armies. On the whole issue of discipline and desertion, Matthews says: ‘The Republican army suffered worse privations and possessed less efficient mechanisms to deal with both indiscipline and loss of morale.’ This became increasingly true as the war progressed and the rebel armies captured ever more territory.
By the end of 1937 the Republic had called up 10 years’ worth of conscripts (those of the 1930 to 1939 cohorts), which provided an army of approximately 800,000 men, who suffered from low morale. Many officers were drawn directly from the militias. Although some were outstandingly talented, the majority were simply insufficiently trained. Defeats at the front and war-weariness in the rearguard provoked considerable desertions despite fierce disciplinary measures. These often saw deserters being sentenced to the firing squad without trial and/or punishments being inflicted on their families. By early 1938 Franco had an overwhelming advantage in terms of men and equipment. His exploitation of that superiority in regaining Teruel on 21 February 1938, the only provincial capital captured by Republican forces, made it the military turning point of the Civil War.
After Teruel, it was thus with marked numerical and material superiority that the Francoists prepared for final victory with a massive offensive through Aragon and Castellón towards the sea. As a result of increasing losses, by mid-1938, the Republican government was obliged to call up a further nine years’ worth of conscripts (the cohorts of 1923–9 and of 1940 and 1941). Accordingly, the Republican army had to train, and rely on, both older and younger men from ‘the baby-bottle conscripts’ (la quinta del biberón) and ‘the bottom of the sack conscripts’ (la quinta del saco) mobilized in the last months of the war. In the great final battle of the war, at the Ebro, many Republican soldiers would be adolescents of 17 years of age. By the end of 1938 Franco had called up only an additional three years or so of conscripts, those of 1927, 1928, 1940, and the first nine months of 1941. In consequence, together with volunteers and Republican deserters and prisoners, before the battle of the Ebro his army consisted of 879,000 men in arms. The contrast was stark. During the battle Franco’s general staff reported that many prisoners were captured on the day after leaving Barcelona, where they had received only five days’ training.
The existing bibliography on the Spanish Civil War is colossal. With any new book that appears, the question has to be asked: what does this one add? In this case we have in our hands a book that is certain of a place among the indispensable works on the conflict. Based on painstaking research, it makes an important contribution to knowledge in so many aspects of the military life on both sides. Even-handed throughout, it demonstrates sophisticated judgement and is written in lucid prose.