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- Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War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
Franco, however, was being reinforced on a massive scale by the Axis Powers, while the Spanish Government was receiving only sporadic doles of arms from Soviet Russia and the help of a few thousand foreign volunteers, mostly refugee Germans. In June, 1937, the resistance of the Basques collapsed and the balance of forces tipped heavily against the Government.
In the meantime, however, the Government had quelled the revolutionary disorder of early days, smoothed out the struggles between factions, and trained its raw forces. Early in 1938 it had a formidable army, able to fight on for the year or so that food supplies would last out.
Dr. Negrín and the other rulers of Government Spain probably realised that they could not win by their own efforts, but they were justified in fighting on, since the political outlook in Europe still might change. The obviously approaching world war might break out during 1938; the British Government might abandon its policy of non-intervention.
Neither event happened, and towards the end of 1938 the Russians withdrew their help. Government Spain had long been hungry, and was now definitely starving.
As the Fascist forces drove across Catalonia, hordes of refugees streamed into France, machine-gunned by Italian aeroplanes and interned behind barbed-wire as soon as they arrived.
Early in 1939 Franco entered Madrid, and used his victory with the utmost ruthlessness. All political parties of the Left were suppressed, and countless people executed or imprisoned. If recent reports are true, half a million people, or 2 per cent of the population of Spain, are still in concentration camps.
The story is a disgusting one, because of the sordid behaviour of the Great Powers and the indifference of the world at large. The Germans and Italians intervened in order to crush Spanish democracy, to seize a strategic keypoint for the coming war, and, incidentally, to try out their bombing planes on helpless populations.
The Russians doled out a small quantity of weapons and extorted the maximum of political control in return. The British and French simply looked the other way while their enemies triumphed and their friends were destroyed. The British attitude is the hardest to forgive, because it was foolish as well as dishonourable.
It had been obvious from the start that any foreign country which supplied arms to the Spanish Government could control or at least influence that Government’s policy. Instead, the British preferred to make sure that Franco and Hitler should win, and at the same time that the affection and gratitude of the Spanish people should be earned by Russia and not by Britain.
For a year or more the Spanish Government was effectively under Russian control, mainly because Russia was the only country to come to the rescue. The growth of the Spanish Communist Party from a few thousands to a quarter of a million was directly the work of the British Tories.