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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 Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War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

The very important question that this raises is whether a western country can in practice be controlled by Communists acting under Russian orders. It is a question that will probably come to the front again in the event of a revolution of the Left in Germany. The inference from Colonel Casado’s book seems to be that a western or westernized people will not for any length of time allow itself to be governed from Moscow. Making all allowance for the prejudice he undoubtedly feels against the Russians and their local Communist agents, his account leaves very little doubt that the Russian domination was widely and deeply resented in Spain. He also suggests that it was the knowledge of the Russian intervention that decided Britain and France to leave the Spanish Government to its fate. This seems more doubtful. If the British and French Governments had really wanted to counter the Russian influence, by far the quickest way was to supply the Spanish Government with arms, for it had been obvious from the start that any country that supplied arms could control Spanish policy. One must conclude that the British and French Governments not only wanted Franco to win, but would in any case have preferred a Russian-controlled Government to a Socialist-Anarchist combination under some such leader as Caballero.4

Colonel Casado’s book gives a detailed account of all the events leading up to the capitulation, and it is one of those documents that will always have to be studied by future historians of the Spanish War. As a book it is not and does not pretend to be anything very remarkable. Mr. Worsley’s book5 is better written, by a more practised hand; but the subject-matter is more familiar – air-raids, Barcelona politics, etc., etc. The story begins with a singularly amateurish attempt at intelligence-work on behalf of the Spanish Government by the author and Mr. Stephen Spender. Later Mr. Worsley found more useful and congenial work with an ambulance and had some interesting experiences, which included being mixed up in the retreat from Málaga. But I think it is very nearly the close-season for this class of Spanish war-book.

1. Colonel Sigismundo Casado López (1893-1968), commander of the Republican Army of the Centre. He organized a campaign against Dr Juan Negrin, the Republican Prime Minister, and attempted, towards the end of the civil war, to gain better terms from Franco. He failed and took refuge in Britain; he later returned to Spain.

2. Dr Juan Negrin (1889-1956) was Socialist Prime Minister of Spain, September 1936-March 1938. He fled to France in 1939 and set up a Spanish Government in Exile; he resigned from its premiership in 1945 in the hope of uniting all exiled Spaniards. He died in exile. See Thomas, 949-50.