Chapters (82)
- Cover
- Brand Page
- Orwell in Spain
- Orwell in Spain
- Introduction
- Editorial Note
- Acknowledgements
- Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
- Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
- Orwell in Spain, December 1936
- Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- ‘British Author with the Militia’
- Eileen Blair to her mother
- To Eileen Blair
- Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
- Orwell’s Wound
- To Cyril Connolly
- Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
- Escape from Spain
- BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
- Charles Doran
- Homage to Catalonia
- X
- ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
- Eileen Blair to John McNair
- George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
- Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
- George Kopp to Eileen Blair
- Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
- To Rayner Heppenstall
- ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
- Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
- To Amy Charlesworth
- To Charles Doran
- Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of Storm Over Spain by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas in Spain by Josée Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain by Josée Ortega y Gasset
- H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
- To H. N. Brailsford
- Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
- To the Editor, Time and Tide
- To Raymond Mortimer
- To Stephen Spender
- To Geoffrey Gorer
- ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
- To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
- Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
- To the Editor, The Listener
- Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
- Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
- Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
- To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
- To Yvonne Davet
- To Raymond Postgate
- Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
- Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
- To Frank Jellinek
- ‘Release of George Kopp’
- ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
- To Yvonne Davet
- Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
- Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
- Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
- Extract from War-time Diary
- Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
- Extract from letter to Partisan Review
- Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
- ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
- Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
- Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
- Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
- ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
- Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
- Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
- Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
- A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
- Further Reading
We were still at Huesca, but they had placed us further to the right, opposite the Fascist redoubt which we had temporarily captured a few weeks earlier. I was now acting as teniente – corresponding to second-lieutenant in the British Army, I suppose – in command of about thirty men, English and Spanish. They had sent my name in for a regular commission; whether I should get it was uncertain. Previously the militia officers had refused to accept regular commissions, which meant extra pay and conflicted with the equalitarian ideas of the militia, but they were now obliged to do so. Benjamin had already been gazetted captain and Kopp was in process of being gazetted major. The Government could not, of course, dispense with the militia officers, but it was not confirming any of them in a higher rank than major, presumably in order to keep the higher commands for Regular Army officers and the new officers from the School of War. As a result, in our division, the 29th, and no doubt in many others, you had the queer temporary situation of the divisional commander, the brigade commanders and the battalion commanders all being majors.
There was not much happening at the front. The battle round the Jaca road had died away and did not begin again till mid-June. In our position the chief trouble was the snipers. The Fascist trenches were more than a hundred and fifty yards away, but they were on higher ground and were on two sides of us, our line forming a right-angle salient. The corner of the salient was a dangerous spot; there had always been a toll of sniper casualties there. From time to time the Fascists let fly at us with a rifle-grenade or some similar weapon. It made a ghastly crash – unnerving, because you could not hear it coming in time to dodge – but was not really dangerous; the hole it blew in the ground was no bigger than a wash-tub. The nights were pleasantly warm, the days blazing hot, the mosquitoes were becoming a nuisance, and in spite of the clean clothes we had brought from Barcelona we were almost immediately lousy. Out in the deserted orchards in no-man’s-land the cherries were whitening on the trees. For two days there were torrential rains, the dug-outs flooded and the parapet sank a foot; after that there were more days of digging out the sticky clay with the wretched Spanish spades which have no handles and bend like tin spoons.