Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War

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He [Franco] had always admired the English, he said, especially their system of education with its emphasis on self-discipline, breeding the spirit of adventure that had made so small a country the ruler of so great an empire.” The official number I see almost everywhere is the very precise figure of 6,832 people, including priests, nuns, bishops and other clergy.) A necessary read for N.S. & W.N. about the Spanish Civil War 1936-'39, Nationalists vs Global Communist recruits. Here is an overview of that book as it pertains to our current situation in EU, North America.

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If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace; and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. — Thomas Paine Thousands of foreigners, too, join the struggle. Most fight with the Soviet-sponsored International Brigades or other militias aligned with the loyalist "Republicans". Only a few side with the rebel "Nationalists". One of these rare volunteers for the Nationalists was Peter Kemp, a young British law student. Kemp, despite having little training or command of the Spanish language, was moved by the Nationalist struggle against international Communism. Using forged documents, he sneaked into Spain and joined a traditionalist militia, the Requetés, with which he saw intense fighting. Later, he volunteered to join the legendary and ruthless Spanish Foreign Legion, where he distinguished himself with heroism. Because of this bravery, he was one of the few foreign volunteers granted a private audience with Generalissimo Francisco Franco. One interesting bit of social history is how small the world seemed in 1938. Amazingly, Kemp would run into people he knew from college or who knew his friends. One of the most tantalizing bits is found in this passage: Here’s Kemp shooting at the Reds during the Battle of Jarama, one of the larger Civil War battles, immortalized in the song Jarama Valley by Woodie Guthrie:In his book, Orwell says that churches in Catalonia were burnt “as a matter of course” but laments the headline “Reds Crucify Nuns” in the Daily Mail as being bad journalism. Kemp mentions at least one village allegedly crucifying their priest, but the historical (non-memoir) studies I’ve read don’t mention crucifixions. This church was destroyed just after the Civil War began. Now the bottom part’s a library. Unlike most burned churches, it wasn’t rebuilt after the war. Lavapiés, Madrid. It also could have been worse if Franco had been on friendlier terms with Hitler. As it is, Spain didn’t join World War II, but fascism survived for decades. Things turned out badly enough.

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Kemp describes those he fought with in detail, varying from praise to condemnation of various figure’s skills and personalities. Kemp fought longer than Orwell and also went on to fight in WWII for the British in SOE. By the time he wrote the book he was an accomplished soldier so his account should have some weight. Kemps account of how the Nationalist troops were equipped, the quality of their troops and the Italian and German forces who fought there and their strategies and tactics are also interesting. Toward the end of the war Kemp writes about how Franco’s forces used Blitzkrieg tactics effectively to win the war. Spanish people of the older generations (older than me, at least) have told me that Spain is still divided between victors and vanquished: that which side your family was on makes a big difference in your life to this day. I don’t know if younger people feel the same way. Maybe

Wikipedia citation

In many places, people who owned land, factories or even shops were shot for belonging to the hated bourgeois class. Socialists might stage a show trial to “prove” their victims’ fascist sympathies. Anarchists, on the other hand, preferred shooting people on the spot to imprisoning them or putting them on trial: what kind of libertarian group is going to set up a prison? Maybe that was just the time they lived in. Growing up during World War I is bound to give you a certain perspective about violence and death most people today wouldn’t understand. On his brief stint on the Madrid front, fighting house to house in the Carabanchel neighborhood in the south of the city… After the war (spoiler alert: Nationalists won), the author ended up working for the British SOE in Europe, incidentally acting against the Nationalist's former allies. Probably a warmer reception by the British Government than many would receive, and a sign of the enemy of one's enemy often still being entirely horrible. This is a most unusual book. It recounts the experiences of Peter Kemp, a young British man who like many went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight for civilization. While there are probably many similar books - George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" was one such book - Kemp's book is different in that he decides to fight on the side of the Nationalists, i.e., the "fascists."