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

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One of the striking aspects of the book is just how much better the International Brigades (i.e. international communism) was at media and international recruiting than the Nationalists. The Nationalists had some limited support from Germany and Italy (mainly to test weapons), but fairly limited organic support by international individuals, and almost none from Anglo-American sphere (and this little written in English). This included stupidly not supporting press visits (they were all viewed as spies by the Nationalists), ensuring they were covered badly (either ignored or made to appear evil). Franco goes on to warn of the communist threat, especially to British education, spreading “subversive influences among our youth”. Franco had that exactly right. It is depressing to see the depths to which these “subversive influences” have degraded Britishers. And not only them, of course, but everywhere leftist subversion is allowed free reign, even Franco’s Spain, which defeated the left, but the left, like cancer or toe nail fungus or sin, returned, and now Spain is as left infected as any European, formerly Christian, society. The war never ends.

Reddit [Poem] I to my perils by A.E. Housman : r/Poetry - Reddit

The overwhelming majority of people who have read anything about the Spanish Civil War written by one who participated have read Hemingway or Orwell. Almost nobody reads anything written by anyone who served on the Nationalist side. This excellent memoir is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the conflict who wants to get a view from what was after all the winning side. In the case of the Spanish Civil War the old saying about history being written by the victors is of course stood on its head: almost everything we have, at least in English, is written by the losers. Among the people met in Spain are Kim Philby, General Franco and Randolph Churchill. These encounters are also interesting. Kemp became a journalist after the war and writes well. Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.”On that note, when we speak of the Spanish Civil War, we too often find the penetration of Communist propaganda into the conversations of even the most uninterested and uninformed commentators. This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means, however, as Kemp notes rather early in the book how the international efforts of groups like ComIntern had successfully ginned up international support for the Republicans at the expense of the Nationalists. The inferno of Guernica, commonly attributed to the Nationalists even today, was intentionally misattributed at the time—simple research and testimony is enough to reveal the truth, but the international media, like it does today, sided with communist interests at the expense of nationalist’s. This reveals the fundamental difference in their belief systems, too: for the communist, the real war is over information and clout; for the nationalist, it’s over the tangibles of culture.

Mine Were of Trouble by Peter Kemp - AbeBooks

Some have the speed, and the right combinations / If you can't take the punches, it don't mean a thing. — Warren Zevon Our style is clean. Our procedures are different from theirs. They shoot, they torture, they exterminate. We, because we are Christians and gentlemen, know how to fight”. The book tells the true story of the experiences of Peter Kemp (the author), a 21-year-old English law student who was so moved by the stories coming to Britain of the horrors experienced by Catholic priests at the hands of the Republicans, that he decided to join the Carlists (a monarchist faction within the Nationalist army during the Spanish civil war). The book does not read like a diary, and instead is more of a lengthy account of his entire time before and during his service in the Spanish Nationalist military. Puzzling, when you think about it, how the propaganda campaign succeeded so comprehensively when pretty much all of the propaganda turns out to be rubbish (does anybody take “For Whom The Bell Tolls” seriously?). But quantity matters….Charles, I just finished this book and can say that your review here is an excellent summary as to the events narrated and also the flavor of the narration, while the flavor of your writing is, as always, a thing to savor. It’s a short book, lean, but meaty, and well spiced. Every sentence is interesting and leads to the next interesting sentence. (Unlike that Kissinger book you reviewed.) The character of Kemp, the writer, is a study in certain British qualities; understated, competent, adventurous, courageous, and high-minded. The sort of character Franco describes when Kemp meets him: Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Kemp asserts that there were heavy losses on both sides when Yague’s columns stormed Badajoz. The Republican defenders were ill-trained and ill-armed militia (some had only scythes). They were outnumbered by battle-hardened veterans of the Army of Africa. The latter actually suffered just 44 killed and 141 wounded. Thousands of Republicans and others died during and immediately after the storming. Kemp, taking the place of an Alferéz, describes the perks of everyday anecdotes compellingly enough for the non-war literature enthusiast. He brings to light a side of this war which is still considered, to this day, "unfashionable", although he makes it very clear why he found imperative to join the Nationalist side. Yet he also kept an impartial view on the abuses he saw. This was November 1936. Kemp offers a thumbnail sketch of the first four months of the Civil War, which had passed by the time he arrived. At this point, Francisco Franco had not yet assumed supreme command, nor had he amalgamated the different political factions of the Nationalists under his personal control. As a result, the Nationalist military was organized in a fragmented and ad hoc manner. (The Republican military was too, but the Nationalists were much better as the war progressed at welding together the disparate components of their forces, helped by not being subject to the Moscow-directed purging that bled the Republicans.) The core of the Nationalist fighting forces was the Army of Africa, consisting of most of Spain’s land forces that actually had experience fighting. One part of this was the Spanish Foreign Legion (which meant Spaniards fighting abroad, in Africa; it was not a collective of foreigners, like the French Foreign Legion). The other was native Moroccans, the Regulares. Two political parties also raised separate forces. The first was the Carlists, one branch of the Spanish monarchists (favoring a king other than Alfonso XIII, who had resigned in 1931 to avoid the civil war being fomented by the Left). The Carlists were dominant in the north of Spain, in Navarre and the Basque provinces, and were old-fashioned, happy to die for King and country. The second was the Falange, the small Spanish fascist political party, who had little in common politically with the Carlists (and in fact in later years squabbled violently with the Carlists). Franco, of course, was not a fascist or a member of the Falange; most Nationalist military officers were not political.