BooksBarbecue
Back Orwell in Spain Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Brand Page
  3. Orwell in Spain
  4. Orwell in Spain
  5. Introduction
  6. Editorial Note
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
  9. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
  10. Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
  11. Orwell in Spain, December 1936
  12. Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  13. ‘British Author with the Militia’
  14. Eileen Blair to her mother
  15. To Eileen Blair
  16. Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  17. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  18. Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
  19. Orwell’s Wound
  20. To Cyril Connolly
  21. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  22. Escape from Spain
  23. BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
  24. Charles Doran
  25. Homage to Catalonia
  26. X
  27. ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
  28. Eileen Blair to John McNair
  29. George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
  30. Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
  31. George Kopp to Eileen Blair
  32. Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
  33. To Rayner Heppenstall
  34. ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
  35. Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
  36. To Amy Charlesworth
  37. To Charles Doran
  38. Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
  39. To Geoffrey Gorer
  40. Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
  41. To H. N. Brailsford
  42. 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
  43. H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
  44. To H. N. Brailsford
  45. Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
  46. To the Editor, Time and Tide
  47. To Raymond Mortimer
  48. To Stephen Spender
  49. To Geoffrey Gorer
  50. ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
  51. To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
  52. Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
  53. To the Editor, The Listener
  54. Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
  55. Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
  56. Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
  57. To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
  58. To Yvonne Davet
  59. To Raymond Postgate
  60. Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
  61. Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
  62. To Frank Jellinek
  63. ‘Release of George Kopp’
  64. ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
  65. To Yvonne Davet
  66. Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
  67. Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
  68. Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
  69. Extract from War-time Diary
  70. Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
  71. Extract from letter to Partisan Review
  72. Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
  73. ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
  74. Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
  75. Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
  76. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
  77. ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
  78. Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
  79. Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
  80. Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
  81. A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
  82. Further Reading

Heroes of the Alcazar re-tells the story of the siege last autumn, when a garrison mainly of cadets and Civil Guards held out for seventy-two days against terrible odds, until Toledo was relieved by Franco’s troops. There is no need because one’s sympathies are on the other side to pretend that this was not a heroic exploit. And some of the details of siege-life are very interesting; I particularly liked the account of the ingenious way in which a motor-bicycle engine was hitched onto a hand-mill to grind corn for the garrison. But the book is poorly written, in a glutinous style, full of piety and denunciations of the ‘Reds’. There is an introduction by Major Yeats Brown, who generously concedes that not all the‘Red Militia’ were ‘cruel and treacherous’. The photographs of groups of defenders bring home one of the most pathetic aspects of the civil war. They are so like groups of Government militiamen that if they were changed round no one would know the difference.

Finally, Spain of a hundred years ago. Spanish Circus recounts the reign of Carlos IV, Godoy2 (the ‘Prince of Peace’), Napoleon, Trafalgar, palace intrigues, Goya’s portraits – it is that period. At this particular moment I find it rather hard to read such a book. Spain is too much bound up in my mind with flooded trenches, the rattle of machine guns, food-shortage and lies in the newspapers. But if you want to escape from that aspect of Spain, this is probably the book you are looking for. It is written with distinction and, as far as I can judge, it is a piece of accurate historical research. The way in which Mr. Armstrong has not exploited the scandalous story of Godoy and Maria Luisa should be an example to all popular historians.

1. C.L.R. James (1901–89) was born in Trinidad but lived most of his life in England, where he died. A Marxist, but not a member of the Communist Party, he wrote on politics and cricket. He settled in Lancashire in the 1930s and wrote on cricket for the Manchester Guardian leading to the fine book Beyond the Boundary (1963). He worked for a British West Indian Federation (proposed 1947) and lectured in the USA, but fell victim of McCarthyism and was expelled.

2. Manuel de Godoy (1767–1851) was twice Prime Minister of Spain. When a member of the royal bodyguard, he became the lover of Maria Luisa of Parma, wife of future king, Charles IV. He sided with the French in the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1807 agreed to the partition of Portugal. The following year, Charles was forced to abdicate in favour of the heir apparent (later Ferdinand VII), and by a device, Godoy, with Charles and Ferdinand, became a prisoner of Napoleon. Martin Armstrong (1882–1974) was to be one of the contributors to Orwell’s ‘Story by Five Authors’, 30 October 1942 (1623).

[413A]

To H. N. Brailsford

10 December 1937

The Stores, Wallington, Near Baldock, Herts

Dear Mr Brailsford,1