I can remember murmuring the name 'Passchendaele' in an ecstasy of excitement and regret.
- Philip Toynbee
The Great War loomed large in the minds of most British volunteers in Spain. They understood this war from a uniquely British perspective and filtered most of their ideas about fighting and being soldiers through stories and representations of that war during which most of them had not even been alive. A large number of men who went to Spain had been active in the anti-war movement of the 1930's which was very much a part of left-wing politics. Most were aware of the horrors of war but this did not stop it from being a romantic and seminal event which occupied an important place in their imaginations. War was still conceived of as the ultimate proof of a man's strength and the greatest test of his personal convictions and character as a man. These notions are demonstrated in men's writings about Spain, many of which discuss expectations based on the Great War and which reproduce well known images such as angelic nurse and pure comrades. At the front some of these ideas were renegotiated, but still men yearned for action and were anxious to be well equipped and trained. They had concrete notions of what the proper soldier should be like and respected men who could fulfill this role. There is disapproval and sometimes silence around the issue of the inadequate soldier who was defined as cowardly or uncommitted. Although sometimes the pain and boredom of war were acceptable to write or talk about, men who failed to live up to the heroic soldier ideal were dismissed and their problems taken less than seriously. All these expectations about what war would entail and, later, how it should be fought, are central to men's stories about the Spanish Civil War.
World War One was in many ways an unprecedented event in its impact on British society. It provoked the rapid renegotiation of many cultural ideas, from the glorification and importance of war to the perceptions of women's economic and political contributions to society. It influenced thoughts about the relationship between youth and age and between government and society. Many scholars have identified this period as a historical watershed after which life in Britain was never the same. It has been asserted that attitudes towards war, death and injury ceased to be bound up with the glory and romance that had accompanied them in the Edwardian period and the early part of the so-called Great War. In The Female Malady, Elaine Showalter interprets shell-shock as a form of male hysteria, and shows how this reaction to the physical and emotional rigours of fighting made men question their natural capability for the socially designated role as soldiers. The loss of power in decision making and of control over their own bodies called into question men's ability to fulfill the ultimate masculine role of the soldier. The independence and strength which were seen as the characteristics of true masculinity were often shattered by war experiences rather than bolstered by them. Attitudes towards war did change though, and it ceased to be a seen as a test of personal fortitude in the period of intense backlash against the Great War.
However it took only a short time before the horrendous memories of World War One were already beginning to fade. The calamitous nature of the event necessitated new ways of commemorating and of forgetting. The numerous war memorials and occasions such as Armistice Day allowed memories to sink into the distant past, making the war actually seem less real through its vivid memorials. Some writers reflected that it became "bad form" to mention the War at all. The pain and boredom of the War were never represented in these official monuments which presented an enduring image of aggressive and heroic masculinity. Those images which remained in the public imagination were pictures of "young soldiers in uniform" who were not "haggard victims of shell-shock but people for whom the military experience is making a man of him, and who are clearly proud to be doing their bit." Stories about soldiers like Lawrence of Arabia were adapted to emphasize the positive qualities of military masculinity while distancing imaginings of war from the trenches. Intense pacifist feeling remained and developed though, and anti-war sentiments were associated with most radical movements of the inter-war period, as well as with more politically conservative views. The residue of the War remained in the 1930's, and reactions to the idea of war were intense though varied.
It has been taken for granted that the First World War changed attitudes to war and to society, but this may not be as much the case as has been assumed. The situation of the Spanish Civil War is an excellent place to examine this thesis. The participants were mainly young radicals, exactly the group of whom new attitudes would be expected. Through their writings it is possible to analyze attitudes towards warfare and masculinity and assess the legacy of the Great War. It might be thought that the soldiering identity would become far less important after the disaster of the War, but in fact masculinity remained intertwined with the idea of war, even as it was rejected by the younger generation. The myth of wholesale disenchantment and disillusionment with war grew alongside ones which continued to idolize and sentimentalize the life of a soldier. This allowed the soldier hero to continue to be one of the most profound myths with which young boys could identify themselves.
In fact, far from repudiating all manifestations of war, even the most radical and pacifist men growing up after the Great War felt themselves to have missed out on the defining event of the century. Christopher Isherwood writes of his generation that "we young writers of the middle 'twenties were all suffering, more or less subconsciously, from a feeling of shame that we hadn't been old enough to take part in the European war." He was obsessed, he wrote, "with the idea of 'War,'" which was a test posing the question "'Are you really a Man?'" This abstract war was still the Great War, against which romantic ideas about army life and heroic fighting were projected. For George Orwell, Spain was "a chance to expiate the guilt he said he felt at being just too young to fight the Great War." So, consciously or not, Spain was for many a mirror or shadow of the Great War with which they were both disgusted and fascinated. "Both during the war and in its aftermath," Malcolm Smith writes, "culture comes back to the question of the relationship between war, masculine duty and sexuality." Men's imaginative relationship with that event was bound up with feelings about masculinity and the need to make themselves into men. Even though much of that was outwardly rejected after the War it was not so easy to escape the feelings of expectation and inspiration.
One of the ways of dealing with the aftermath of the Great War had been to reject the principle of war altogether. Pacifism, which had indeed existed before 1918, gained a great deal of strength and support. It is one of the great ironies of the Spanish Civil War that many of its participants were in fact pacifists. Boys like the Romillys had been so strong in their anti-war convictions that they had refused to join the Officers Training Corps. They immediately regretted this when they decided to go to Spain. Esmond reports that while making his decision his main objection to going Spain was the "fear that I should be no use, that if any volunteers were needed they would be those who had military experience." While volunteering he and others lied, writing that they had indeed been trained in the OTC. Indeed, the question of militarism had been an essential one in Out of Bounds where boys discussed whether young radicals should join the OTC in order to be militarily trained for the revolution or maintain their pacifist stance. Valentine Cunningham writes that "youthful radicals were made to feel that they'd miserably backed the wrong horse," in their embrace of pacifism. Many pacifists changed their stance, as Romilly did, but others remained unable to sanction the use of force in the struggle for their ideals. These men came under criticism from other members of the leftist community. John Sommerfield was one volunteer who condemned the pacifist stand. He believed that pure pacifism "leads to sterility and in times of crisis to the abandonment of the effective struggle against war." That even some pacifists viewed the situation as a just war is what separates it from attitudes towards World War One. As much as individuals were opposed to killing, it was hard to avoid the ideals of heroism and glory when the cause was seen as so pure. This was a war which the young generation believed in, and it was this which they felt set them apart from the generation of the First World War.
The pacifists' relationship to war was a complex one, though. Philip Toynbee reflects that "even in our Anti-War campaigns of the early thirties we were half in love with the horrors we cried out against." He writes that even the great anti-war writers, "Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Remarque and Barbusse, had not convinced us that war is dull and dispiriting: still less could they have persuaded us that our own war might disillusion us." He and his generation, he believed, knew of the horrors of the war, but were somehow unconvinced. "'War is hell,'" he writes, "induced romantic frisson all its own, and every bit as violent as 'War is glory.'" Jason Gurney notes that his notions of war on the eve of military training were still "based largely on a Boy's Own Paper view of the 1914-1918 War, coloured by a series of Hollywood films." It is easy to see the attraction of the way war was represented in popular images and stories, but it is still surprising that the memories of the carnage of World War One could so easily lose their effect on young men.
It is perhaps surprising that pacifism had enjoyed such a vogue at all, though anti-war feelings were sincere and not merely a matter of fashion. It is evident how important war was to many middle class radicals, and the fervour with which they attacked it was in part dictated by the attractiveness of heroism. George Orwell attacked the intellectual ease with which middle class radicals exchanged pacifism for romantic warmongering, but the two had always been closely related. It may seem natural that a person with sympathy for Spain would think first of becoming a Republican soldier but it fact this was specific to men of a certain background and time period. Conceptually men felt that to show solidarity with a cause meant the willingness to take part in violent action, although pacifists had been calling this notion into question. British military campaigns had usually been justified in terms of morality, and it had been the role of "civilized" middle class men to bring British values to the "savage" world. Working class men, with their history of being called into the army during serious conflicts, also felt that it was taking up arms which expressed personal ideals and determination. Some women saw action in these terms and dreamed of fighting in Spain but most accepted the more conservative role of nurse or support worker. The war was a man's world, an arena where men were especially necessary and where it seemed there was something naturally masculine about their activities and their companions.
A further irony is that despite their radical politics, in fact the public school boys who went to Spain were fulfilling the very role which school had prepared them for. Even those who had rejected some traditional values had still learned tremendous leadership skills at school. Esmond Romilly, although an exceptionally determined person had gathered confidence from Wellington and from growing up among high-powered individuals. The middle class volunteers in Spain were useful precisely because of the military atmosphere of their schools, and were well-suited to being part of an male community such as the army. Malcolm Smith senses an irony in reading Orwell's books about Spain, that "the War was the first and perhaps only time in his life Orwell actually belonged, fighting for a cause as his public-school background had trained him to do, even if the cause was certainly not Empire and Country." The belief that men expressed their ideals through strong dramatic actions had been drilled into boys in school and reinforced by idealizations of soldiers, and it these images continued to effect men, though not always as intended.
The Spanish War loomed large in the minds of intellectuals, communists and left-wing radicals in the summer of 1936 and as more stories of British men who volunteered became known, each had to decide where they stood. For most it came down to a question of personal courage and essential manhood. Gurney writes that "too many people were talking too much and I felt that the time had come when any decent man must either put up or shut up." Gurney saw volunteering to fight as the necessary way to prove his commitment to his beliefs, but also writes that he felt that it was "not a political decision but a question of my own personal integrity as a man." T.C. Worsley wrote that once the appeal for volunteers as made each man "was confronted with the issue of whether or not he should himself join up." Some did not go because they were afraid, because it was inconvenient, or because they felt they would not be of any help. When Christopher Isherwood asked EM Forster why he didn't go to Spain he he was told, "afraid to." Most wanted to be in Spain in any capacity, and chose routes other than fighting if these were more personally appealing. Worsley, who volunteered as an ambulance driver, reflected that he believed himself "constitutionally incapable of the particular form of courage required to take part, for instance, in a bayonet charge." He felt that he would have volunteered if it had not been for the fact that "the education of the average middle-class boy does not unfortunately include any branch of useful knowledge." Despite this self-deprecation he found that ambulance drivers (along with reporters and other non-combatants) were often cast in just as romantic a light as the soldiers. Once they arrived in Spain and had been equipped and trained they often felt more calm and at ease than while they were deliberating about volunteering. David Cook wrote in a letter home that "it is probably much easier to be here than elsewhere, that in a sense it needs less courage to be within 200 metres of the fascist lines than it does to stay at home." It is a peculiar statement regarding courage and heroism, which Cook felt fell by default on the soldiers whose beliefs made no other decision possible. Few men at home in Britain would be able to understand this sentiment, often feeling guilty and inadequate as men for staying behind.
For some others the War was a welcome break from their stunted anti-fascist activities. Many were dissatisfied with the mundane routine of writing articles, selling newspapers, demonstrating against the British Union of Fascists, and fighting unemployment. They wanted a chance to do something more dramatic which was motivated not only by political conviction and some sense of solidarity with the people of Spain but by feelings about the role of men in war and the sense of self-worth bestowed on a man who was involved in action. Toynbee felt of Esmond Romilly's departure for Spain that "he was among the first to take this dramatic action, and it was, I suppose, in every way suitable that he should do so. Touting silk stockings or advertising space, his life had become aimless, and the eighteen months between our arrest and this departure had threatened him even with a sense of futility." Toynbee believed Romilly's actions to be anarchic, motivated by the fervour and energy which boiled over in him: "He acted for the sake of action itself and because he was, in himself and unchangeably, an active man." For Giles, the decision to go to Spain broke his cycle of restlessness and timidity and his outlook as a "Hamlet" unable to act, especially obvious in contrast with his feverish brother. David Cook wrote in a letter that he felt he should go to Spain because "life in England was too useless a one to be living at such a time as this." It was just as often frustration with the possibilities of life in England as the compulsion to fight for Spain which made men cross the Channel and begin a journey to Spain.
Most of those who volunteered were at the mercy of the British media for news of the Spanish conflict. Most did not read Spanish and would not have been able to read sources from the war-torn country itself. Neither does it seem that any volunteers had Spanish friends in the United Front who provided them with details of the struggle. For many, information came through the political party they were associated with in Britain, be that the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party or another group. Most were committed anti-fascists who opposed the strong-arm policies of Hitler and Mussolini and hated the militant Blackshirts of Oswald Mosley. There were few possibilities for volunteers to know what they were actually getting involved in and it was the context of British politics which motivated them although they saw these as part of a greater European context. Since most men were under the impression that the issues involved were clear and simple, it made their decisions seem to them to be tests of character. The political and social turmoil of the times may have made the notion of a black and white cause especially appealling.
Most volunteers felt that Spain was an important site because it was the battlefield on which to confront the global menace of fascism, and not necessarily due to the particular circumstances of the Civil War in itself. Spain was seen as a convenient place to fight against an ideology they despised (though not always self-reflexively), and those anti-fascist beliefs were important enough to self-consciously leave home to fight in a foreign war. There are features that were particular to Spain, though. It was a country close enough to home for most volunteers to be large in their imaginations and to seem within reaching distance. It was a well known country, even if most had never visited Spain and only vaguely knew the history and geography. The Italian conquest of Abyssinia, on the other hand, had concerned many men in Britain, but was considered too exotic and distant to prompt direct action. It was also in Africa, which was another continent, one which was seen to have little in common with Europe. Of this, volunteer Maurice Levine said, "thirty years go no-one ever thought of going to Spain on their holidays, it was out of the question and if they got to Calais it was an adventure. But at least [Spain] was somewhere nearer home. The blow had been struck more or less on your doorstep." The world was getting smaller and Spain seemed to be a responsibility of all those in Europe. Spain's position within Europe but at the same time its distance from Britain were important in establishing the Civil War as the important event that it was for so many European men.
That Britain had a history of intervening in international affairs was certainly a factor in the minds of volunteers. Whether they thought about it or not, British men were raised with the historical belief that they and their country had a responsibility for action in foreign politics. There was also a traditional of romantic British heroes such as Lord Byron in Greece or TE Lawrence in Arabia who were seen as fighting in just wars against barbaric oppressors. In fact, one interviewee remembers that the day John Cornford was killed he "had a bandage around his head--he looked like Lord Byron." Toynbee writes that the illusion of such heroic involvement still moved him: "There is an old, fairly ludicrous but largely admirable tradition of English men attaching themselves to revolutionary struggles of foreign peoples." This kind of heritage made decision making for others seem natural, and for most men the philosophical problem of outside intervention would not have been an issue. Gurney wondered if he had "taken up a rather Quixotic attitude, casting myself in the absurd role of knight in shining armour going out to defend the oppressed." It was this kind of attitude, especially among the upper and middle classes which gave volunteers the confidence to see a clear-cut role for themselves. Reflecting on this, Jessica Mitford writes of herself and Esmond Romilly, "our style of behaviour during much of our life together, the strong streak of delinquency which I found so attractive in Esmond...are not hard to trace to an upper-class ancestry and upbringing." She realized that her upbringing and that of her whole class encouraged brash behaviour and utter self-confidence even in foreign politics.
There may have been some volunteers who felt that the Spanish were incapable of carrying out such an important war on their own, but this was an uncommon view. Most men felt that "British" characteristics such as organization were what they could best lend to the Spanish. Many were actually reluctant to join in the fighting because they felt they had little to add. There was a certain amount of colonialism in the way British men regarded the war in Spain and the Spanish people, especially among the upper and middle classes. Though an attitude of moral superiority and leadership among peoples may have provoked them into action there is little evidence to suggest that they treated the Spanish in a condescending or prejudiced manner. Without the tradition of being extremely involved in the politics of other countries though, it is possible that the idea of the International Brigades might not have been as popular in Britain.
One of the most important features about leaving home, be it to travel the world or fight in a war, was the crossing of a frontier. It was this imaginative boundary which separated the territory of home where life was safe, from the new and unexpected life. Volunteers write of Paris this way, as the place where they realized they had left home and embarked upon a new life. It was a gateway to the world where the action was, a territory quite unlike Britain, despite its vivid political marches and demonstrations. This frontier motif had always been significant, and the action of leaving home was often brought into focus by the passing of a particular point for instance, the Suez Canal was often such a marker for men travelling to the Empire in the nineteenth century. In the Spanish Civil War this symbolic function was fulfilled by Paris, the city through which most volunteers passed on their way to Albacete. Worsley wrote that "only when I left Paris...did I feel that the new life had really begun." It was a journey from the relatively mundane world of Britain to a place where war was. Hynes notices that memoirs tend to make much of the strange emotional intensity of the passage abroad and the realization of crossing the point beyond which they would become not just ordinary men, but soldiers. The act of going to war was not instantaneous, but a journey, a series of passages which had to be undertaken. Though these appear to be important psychologically in order for men to distance themselves from their previous life the process took too long for many of them, who expected to be fighting much earlier than they could.
Men expected the territory of Spain to be vivid and dramatic, different from their homes, and in many ways it was. There was a lot of action even before they entered Spain, with large groups of men of all nationalities converging on the border. There was much activity by all the various political groups in Spain whose propaganda and banners decorated the streets and whose members welcomed the International volunteers. Spain had been an idea more than a place to all of these men who arrived, and many admitted to knowing nothing of Spanish history or geography so it may have been a shock to see it in reality. T.C. Worsley arrived first on a spying mission with Stephen Spender and expected excitement. He remarked of a couple he and Spender met in Barcelona, "they struck me as rather inappropriately dull to be at this place at this moment." Obviously Worsley, like many others was expecting non-stop action in Spain and could not quite reconcile the banalities of war-time with the visions he had internalized from adventure stories.
II. The Fighting Identity
I'd got a good gun; it was the best thing that had happened since I left London.
- John Sommerfield
No slogan,
No clenched fist
Except in pain.
-Tony Hyndman "Jarama Front"
The situation in Spain was rarely what men expected from the Boys Own Paper versions of war many had internalized. Some were indeed thrilled to be placed in the war setting, anxiously examining their weapons and exploring their barracks. For most though, the event of war which had occupied their imaginations was hard to connect to the realities. George Orwell, for one, was disappointed by Spain, which seemed to him to be a "bad copy of the Great War" and where the firing of guns was "so different from the tremendous unbroken roar for which many senses had been straining for twenty years." Esmond Romilly was struck by reliving the melodrama of the Great War when he thought that he was "spending a night in No-Man's Land during a modern war," until he was told by a veteran comrade that in fact trench warfare in Spain did not in the least resemble experiences in the Great War. Since representations of World War One had often avoided the harsh realities of fighting to focus on the acts of men working, eating, playing and talking together many were unprepared for the physical strains and for the actuality of death. Men made the best of these circumstances, although many returned home due to physical or mental strain after relatively short periods of time. Few felt themselves to be ideal soldiers, a model against which they measured themselves and others.
The entry into Spain was indeed initially exciting for most volunteers and corresponded to their imaginings of the war-torn territory. Trains carrying International Brigaders were often met by processions and parades which immediately made the men feel important. When Esmond Romilly landed in Valencia "everyone shouted greetings and sang the Internationale." On leaving the next day the volunteers were sent off by a huge crowd and "free kisses were given to anyone who leaned his head out." Gurney was sure of his decision once he arrived in Spain and was swept along by the general enthusiasm. "At every station," he writes, "there were crowds to greet us with food, wine and small bunches of flowers. Banners were waved, clenched fist salutes were exchanged and a variety of slogans chanted." This kind of spectacle was in line with the atmosphere men expected of the Republic. The comradely spirit of revolutionary Barcelona "may have lacked realism," in Gurney's opinion, "but it was heady stuff to a man who was by nature a romantic, and I drank deeply of it." Of his send-off Orwell writes, "again the conquering hero stuff--shouting and enthusiasm, red flags and red and black flags everywhere, friendly crowds thronging to the pavement to have a look at us, women waving from the windows." In this kind of atmosphere the men felt that they were a part of a large happy community where they were appreciated and their contribution was taken seriously.
Soon, though, the experience became less pleasant. Men were transported to training grounds, usually in the International Brigade headquarters of Albacete. The disorderly training and waiting around was intensely difficult for the men who expected to be clashing with fascists. The drama began to wear off as men soon found themselves with poor food and inadequate supplies. Of Madrigueras where he was trained Gurney says, "it was unbearably depressing." Romilly's journey to his barracks was not good due to indigestion, and the destination was "cold and bleak and wintry." "For days," writes Cornford, "I've been shoved about from place to place, lost and anxious and frightened...alternately worried, homesick, anxious, calm, hungry, sleepy, uncomfortable in turn." At their training bases men were frustrated with the slow arrangements, the poor food and lack of training. Comments Romilly, "I was glad to have some work to do, and went enthusiastically for the garbage and the latrines." On arrival any work was better than waiting around.
War is often defined by the activities at the front line and it was there that men had to prove that they could handle the life of a soldier and could contribute to the cause they believed they were fighting for. They went through the rituals of being giving equipment, training and then being sent to the front, which was an emotional journey. Once there, most realized just how difficult a business war was, and the physical and mental hardships which were involved. In their memoirs men describe the wonderful feeling of relief when they could rest and do nothing, but this was not always something they could talk about at the front. Men had to maintain a consistent exterior if they were to gain the respect of their fellow soldiers.
The volunteers describe an emotional response to the identity of a soldier and the paraphernalia that accompanied it. This had begun at home and continued until men were uniformed at their barracks. Giles Romilly and Tony Hyndman went through the ritual of outfitting in London, and due to the former's financial security they arrived in Spain with many more provisions than the average soldier or volunteer. Mrs. Romilly sent the two to the Army and Navy to be "kitted with the best boots they have, besides a good supply of their warmest underwear." She even presented the two with a scarf she had knitted for her husband during World War One and sent them off with her and her husband's blessing. Jessica Mitford also describes the buying of her equipment. She went with Esmond Romilly to the Army and Navy to select "a good running-away outfit." She had "poured over pictures of Spanish guerrilla women fighters" and therefore had an exact mental picture of her wardrobe. It was not until she had her corduroy suit and military jacket that she felt she was really embarking upon a voyage. It was even more of a defining moment when men received their weapons and uniforms in Spain. After Gurney was issued his rifle, bayonet and ammunition he and all the other volunteers filed out in silence, "each man holding his new-found manhood to his chest. This was the real thing," he writes. John Sommerfield writes about the moment when he was finally issued his equipment in Spain:
We were in a state of tremendous impatience, we wanted to see them [the guns], to handle them, to know what types they were; we wanted ours, to hold it and test the sights and the bolt and the trigger action. And when my turn came I experienced a pang of delight, something far deeper than any sensation that could simply have been caused by the actual fact of having a rifle; and it certainly was nothing to do with feelings about being able to kill people with it. It was something else, something that because of long held beliefs and feelings, made this moment significant, a fulfilment that came with a sense of inevitability, so that I suddenly realized that all along I had expected it to happen, that the moment would come, wither by my own choosing or forced on me by history, the moment in which I would find myself with a rifle in my hands to defend the things in which I believed.
This extremely emotional passage is the most intriguing point of Sommerfield's narrative where he expresses illogical feelings toward the tools he is issued because of all they represent to him as a man. It was being given the soldier's weapons and clothing which made people feel they were taking on a new identity, and this was a moment of excitement for most, though the symbolic power of these items soon lost their awe, and became mere tools.
Most volunteers were extremely anxious to be at the front. They supposed that they were not actively engaged the cause they had come to fight for unless they were in a situation of direct confrontation. But even at the front there was no guarantee of action. Orwell expresses dismay that even when posted to the front he still rarely gets a look at the enemy. When the fascist position is pointed out to him "on a hill-top, beyond the ravine, seven hundred metres away at the very least," he is shocked. "I was indescribably disappointed," he reports. "We were nowhere near them!" The front was not always the centre of activity which he had imagined it to be, and was sometimes more of an imaginary war zone than a real one. Of the day when he is sent to the front Esmond Romilly writes he "felt - and most of us had felt--somewhat melodramatic at the idea of going to the front for the first time." When it became a reality though, he found that his thoughts were all for is personal comfort and his overactive bowels. Some war veterans pointed out to the younger men that in their experience war was often mundane, and that the boring jobs such as cleaning were often the most important. A Frenchman told Esmond Romilly, "Young people, they think was is something romantic, something terrible; they think of bayonets, and charges and courage, but they are wrong. This, this cleaning of plates and sweeping, and counting clothes, this is war." That the domestic could be more important in war than in ordinary life must have been disconcerting for volunteers, who never imagined cooking meals or cleaning clothes in their fantasies of the "just war". Even those aware of the mundane aspects of war, though, still felt an anxious desire to be where the action was.
In their writings many volunteers express the feeling that the war they had come to was more of a game than a reality. The war experience, and the figure of the male war hero was such a part of men's imaginations that it was hard to connect these stories to the real life experiences they had and aspects of the war always seemed more like a game than reality. Esmond Romilly felt that he and his comrades "were only playing at soldiers, we were only amateurs." To him this meant that the bombing and shelling were also rather unreal, and he could not believe that there was indeed an enemy scheming how to eliminate him. In fact seeing some fascist Germans fall in an offensive he remarks "it was just like seeing people killed in an American film." Literature and, increasingly, films were two media in which war stories were told, and the men who proved their characters there vaunted. The kinds of partial picture of war which these could create was essential to the ongoing centrality of war imagined as a romantic event. Even the socially radical were as susceptible to these images as the public at large and they allowed war to continue to be seen as the voice of public policy and ultimate expression of solidarity.
The theme of "baptism by fire," so prevalent in World War One, was equally large in the imaginations of British volunteers in Spain. Most express the sensation of not feeling like a real soldier until they had first faced the enemy's artillery and make a special note of their first time under fire. Cornford writes, "yesterday we went out to attack, and the prospect of action was terribly exhilarating." Bernard Knox, one of Cornford recruitees describes his baptism of fire as "sharp and unexpected" and believed their performance under it to be not bad for "raw troops taken by surprise in a barrage." Knox also details his first experience of open warfare and the first wounds of his companions. This is done with a certain amount of pride, and those who stoicly underwent these rituals of war became part of the respected community. After his first experiences of fire, Romilly noticed that his companions "all looked less tough now." It was perhaps the most important ritual for the men to go through, and the one which changed their attitudes the most significantly.
Most men resigned themselves to the experiences of fighting and were committed to staying in the war despite the dangers and disappointments. Of his Spanish experiences John Sommerfield writes, "mostly it's not danger, mostly it's being uncomfortable and cold and hungry, being awakened in the night and marching long distances carrying heavy loads...and you don't care about anything and don't know what is happening to you." Sommerfield never stopped believing in the cause but despised the way the war was represented in the press. "Expressions like brave, victorious, gallant become nauseous and shameful," he reflects. In a letter to a friend Romilly wrote, "I've found a whole lot of blood and violent destruction all around. This is a pretty good argument for Huxley pacifism, but not quite as strong as the struggle itself." This is the most common view, which re-affirmed many of the pacifist notions the radicals had held earlier in life, although some men were fully committed to the role of the soldier and enjoyed it.
Men do describe the fear and discomfort they felt at the front. It is probable that it became more acceptable to discuss being afraid in war after the First World War. Most volunteers in Spain were fairly introspective and did not think it reflected badly upon them to write about their feelings. The worst part of war for those who had abandoned pacifism, in Romilly's opinion, was the fear. "Fortunately," Romilly writes, "hardly anyone was afraid to admit his fear." Each man had a particular fear of a different aspect of war, for some it was being captured, for others the whine of shells. Romilly also noticed the change that fighting had on his friends. Two of them left after the first day and two others had acquired a "bewildered expression of someone who is cold and hopes to make himself warm by drawing himself in." Men usually wrote that they were not afraid to die, but both Hesketh Baines and Gurney expressed a particular fear of being mutilated. Romilly believed that it was an insult to the men involved to try to hide their fears and failings which is why he included these episodes in his book. He was anxious not to romanticize the war, a sentiment he could only understand coming back from two months inside of it.
One might assume that given these experiences and the political background of the volunteers, attitudes of the men involved might be radically different from those involved in other wars. It is surprising to find that volunteers were still thought of as "macho" by their friends and companions, and their courage and convictions envied. Men still expressed the belief that war was personally invigorating for a man, just as had been thought in 1914. Romilly reports a conversation with Aussie, an Australian tramp who was one of his comrades who believed it "does a man good in some ways, a battle," and Romilly offers no contradiction. Though some of these men would decide that war was usually boring, or that there was nothing "macho" about running into machine gun fire, it remained a strong belief that war made men of them. It was an even stronger belief among those who did not volunteer for Spain and this did not have to compare their expectations of war to the realities. Jason Gurney writes that even thirty years after the war "I frequently meet people who tell me how much they regret that they did not go to Spain." This might be due partly to personal guilt rather than direct desire to engage in fighting, but men still felt less admirable for having missed their opportunity in war. It was an attitude encouraged by propagandists back in Britain of whom Romilly's opinion (according to Toynbee) was, "it was the falseness of communist bugleblowing in England which offended him even more than the cruelty of sending the young and ignorant to their deaths."
Stories of the dead and the wounded have an ambiguous place inside veterans' memoirs. Where they were written about in diaries and other contemporary writings they are simple and emotionless. It was a war and those involved expected others to be wounded and killed, especially when it happened every day. In those later accounts though, which had the distance to reflect on those traumatic events their representation is rather different. Men usually report only the deaths of those who were close friends. There is little comment on what war did daily to men's bodies and minds. Sometimes stories of shell-shock or mutilation do intrude into the narrative. Men also seemed willing to discuss their fear, boredom and pain, though this rarely happened at the time but rather was written about after the fact. Generally though, these aspects are part of the material which is not incorporated into the story of the Spanish Civil War
The Great War had seen the disfigurement and dismembering of men's bodies on an unprecedented and previously unimaginable scale. Men who survived had lost limbs, were scarred or otherwise disabled and would have been visible for most to see in the years afterwards. The various ways in which men had been psychologically scarred was apparent in shell-shock victims who were discussed long after the War. Even though much of this might be avoided, ignored and sanitized by the public, there must have been an understanding of what war did to men. Given this background it is surprising that attitudes towards men's bodies seem to be similar in the Spanish Civil War to those from the heroic days of World War One. It was considered unmanly to be injured, to be wounded or to be sick. While several men wrote about their injuries and ailments they were usually unable to get their conditions taken seriously by other members of the army. Some men were willing to discuss the adverse effects of war on their bodies and minds, but this was only uneasily incorporated into the story of the Spanish Civil War. This is partly due to the usual emphasis on political issues over individuals. There was also a continuing belief in the masculine strength of soldiers and their ability to withstand the rigours of warfare. Death and breakdown intrude into the stories, sometimes in emotional terms and other times in a completely matter of fact tone.
Several men do describe their own physical difficulties, from harmless ailments to serious injuries. Many men, including Esmond Romilly and Tony Hyndman, went back to Britain with serious injuries or chronic sickness. For Hyndman this is the central concern of his writing, as it was his own pain and that of his friends which was his central war experience. "I vomited continually," Hyndman writes of the time he was sick. "John had cataracts painfully forming on both eyes. Giles had colic and went around doubled up." He and John Lepper were told "one with an ulcer, the other almost blind, I don't see how you can be any further use to us here," and their repatriation was recommended. However their political commissar decided that he wanted each man at the front "regardless of our disabilities," and seeing no alternative, the two men deserted. They were arrested in Valencia though, and spent the next few months in a "steady progress through jails, camps, then more jails." Even the recollection of this incident Hyndman writes, "makes me feel sick, and I begin to itch with fleas and lice." In jail he reports that both their ailments became worse, and Lepper "wept with pain." In other sources Hyndman's troubles are dismissed as the problems of a coward and an un-fit soldier, despite his years in the Guards, and he is dismissed as a soldier who "couldn't take it." He is repudiated as "a member of Stephen Spender's set" by Jason Gurney without regard for his background, as if only the comfortable middle class could be adversely affected by the rigours of war.
These kind of criticisms are usually only levelled at the men who did not fit into the image of the professional soldiers, for whatever reason. Some of the soldiers who lasted until the end of the war seem anxious to defend their participation and look down on the many soldiers who spent only a short time fighting in Spain. It is only these few men who seem to be able to write about the physical strain of war and describe the many ailments that afflicted them in the International Brigades. The revolutionary soldier was not allowed to be portrayed as a sick or possibly weak men, and these those of descriptions are rarely a component of writings on the War.
There is little room for the kind of story Hyndman had to tell in the reports of others. Hyndman damned himself in their eyes by complaining, which was not seen as an acceptable trait for the Republican soldier. His renewed pacifism was treated skeptically by others around him. Hyndman had some pacifist leanings after leaving the Guards, but his military training seemed to make him well-suited to being a soldier in Spain. Despite his intense writings on the subject of the value of human life, others dismiss him as a coward. Tom Wintringham mentions some "chronic grumblers" one of whom "announced suddenly that he refused to shed human blood." Wintringham took a patronizing view of this, and believed himself to be more of a pacifist than anyone else. Uncompromising pacifism was seen in the same light it had been in the First World War, the stand of a coward. In order to justify their rejection of pacifism, men had to have a strong sense of the justice of their cause, and would feel threatened by those who still advocated pure pacifism.
There is nearly no mention at all of men who suffered psychologically from the war. Given the massive number of men who had suffered from shell-shock during the First World War and other problems after it, the possibility of such psychological damage by heavy fire and stressful situations would have been known to all. Gurney is one of the only men to mention a man was so affected and expressed no judgement other than a feeling of pity. The man had been one of his closest friends before he went mad and was killed leaping onto a parapet. Romilly briefly mentions a man later taken to hospital with shell shock. The later suicides of some volunteers are mentioned, but usually attributed to depression, loneliness and sexual deviance. It is probable that shell-shock was associated with the despair and powerless of soldiers in the First World War, and that men who volunteered for an "altruistic" cause should have no such problems. Hyndman writes that "the experiences of many people leave unseen scars, on the mind, in the heart. If this is true, my scar is Spain." It is a fairly bitter statement about the psychological impact of the various things that happened to him in Spain. He was left with no impression of heroics of or the justice of war, only of sickness and death.
Much attention in memoirs of the War is given to assessing the characteristics of soldiers and defining what made an effective fighting man. Writings by soldiers and by historians often represent the characteristics of members of the International Brigades in a very precise manner. This was a combination of imagination and observation. Most men had internalized a picture of the ideal Republican soldier who was an honest working-class man, brave, uncomplaining and well-disciplined. In reality men from other backgrounds or with other characteristics could be just as effective as soldiers. They were sometimes valourized when they became well-known martyrs to the cause, and are then represented as figures whose sincere Communism allowed them to transcend their background. In a Cambridge obituary for John Cornford he is described as seeing "quickly the nature and significance of the Spanish struggle, and before anyone else he realized the importance of volunteer work in the people's army." In fact Cornford had travelled to Spain simply as an observer, and only decided to join up on the spur of the moment. Bill Alexander's account of the British volunteers stresses their working class origins and political consciousness and denies all other motivations for their decision to fight. "The British volunteers went to Spain," he writes, "because they understood that fascism must be checked before it brought wider repression and war."
Many of the volunteers who were not always sure of their own relationship to the War constructed a figure, whether respected or not, who was the consummate soldier. Esmond Romilly had a picture in his mind of the "real Communist," of whom John Cornford and two of his comrades, Lorrimer Birch and Arnold Jeans, all fit the description. All three of them were killed early in action. This definition was purely personal, Romilly acknowledged and the characteristics he associated with it were being "a serious person, a rigid disciplinarian, a member of the Communist Party, interested in all aspects of warfare and lacking in any such selfish motive as fear or reckless courage." Cornford is one example of the romantic martyr with flair, that soldier type like the "real Communist" who were acceptable heroes. George Nathan is another man who was represented as a courageous hero, though sometimes his flair was interpreted as pretentiousness. Vincent Brome writes of Nathan as an example of "the old myth about charmed lives." His Nathan walked upright under fire, escaped certain death, and was as brave as a lion. All this in a man who behaved like a disciplined well-bred soldier and yet "born of lowly parents." This is the archetypal hero who is strong yet principled and who has created his own opportunities.
It is a commonly expressed belief that the politically committed made the best soldiers. Jackson notes that several accounts of the International Brigades make this point without any evidence or argument. This sentiment is echoed by the soldiers like Wintringham who thought of themselves as intensely serious. John Cornford, who was thought of as a pure Communist writes in his letters, "I shall fight like a Communist if not like a soldier." Cornford felt that he had the potential to "make a good fighter," but unlike Wintringham and others, did not feel his political faith made him into a soldier. In fact all the men who went to Spain were serious in different ways and all knew that they were entering into a conflict where they could be killed. Some did make their decisions more whimsically than others. Belgian Nick Gillain wrote that he went to Spain in "a spirit of adventure and lassitude," but this was not in actuality a factor which affected the ability of a man to be an effective soldier. Most considered themselves "anti-fascists" but this had become a handy slogan rather than a phrase with much real meaning.
There is little commentary by soldiers on men who had chosen not to fight. Most respected the work that medical units did, but did not reflect on the difference of their positions. There are several reasons why men might change the nature of their participation. When Esmond Romilly returned home after the devastation of the battle of Boadilla he decided to return of Spain as a newspaper correspondent. With age and experience Romilly came to believe that he might do more good with his words than his gun, and perhaps that temperamentally he was not cut out to be a soldier. Some of this has to do with the loss of his comrades in the battle. Romilly could not face returning to Spain to fight with new comrades with the void of those he had lost still in his mind. This is clear in the reverential tones he writes about the men he fought with, although he tries not to idealize them. He writes that he "might have gone back and joined those men," but he did not, opting for a different course of action in the media. Still it is the men surviving under artillery fire whom he terms as "the real heroes of the Spanish struggle." Though men often felt their efforts on the front line to have been futile, it was still these same soldiers who were universally seen as the heroes in Span.
Other non-combatants with whom soldiers came in contact with at the front were the war tourists.
Casual visitors to the front could exhibit their bravery and "macho" fearlessness without the danger and boredom of the soldiering life. The front was a zone of real action and anger, but at time it was open to visitors and sightseers. As Gurney reports, the Communist Party started a "tourist agency to enable distinguished visitors to view the Front for propaganda purposes," and Gurney clearly feels anger towards those individuals who visited the front and took some kind of credit for a war they are not fighting. Visiting a relatively safe front gave them an opportunity to feel as if they were part of the war and in some ways they were. The act of picking up a weapon and firing at the enemy or even being present at the front was an event of import which could not be simulated in England. Perhaps a search for this feeling explains part of the reason young men like Romilly and Toynbee took part in the raiding of Fascist demonstrations in London. Gurney describes Ernest Hemingway's visit to his front where Hemingway "sat himself down behind the bullet-proof shield of a machine-gun and loosed off a whole belt of ammunition in the general direction of the enemy." Hemingway did not stay for the retaliatory bombardment which followed his actions. Many non-combatants who visited the front were given a chance to fire at the enemy. Jessica Mitford was shown how to use a rifle and fired "at the tiny figures on the other side of the ravine." Her bullet lodged in a tree and a few half-hearted shots came back across from the other side. Of this experience she wrote: "The strange sense of unreality deepened." During Philip Toynbee's visit to Spain as part of a youth writers delegation he visited the front as well and was also given the chance to fire at the enemy. Later in life he reflected on the experience in the third person, "certainly he didn't borrow this rifle and fire this shot through the trees because he believed that by doing so he was serving the cause of the Spanish Republic." Instead Toynbee believed that he wanted "to say, when he got home, that he had shot off at least one bullet in battle." This might not have made hm a "real solder," but by firing from the front lines he could hope to come closer to that role.
Though the soldiers in Spain may have had ideals about the equality of humanity (though this might, in practice, mean men) there were certain groups who were not included. Though Franco's supporters were universally hated, none met with the fierce emotion afforded the North African troops, known as "Moors." This terminology is almost completely unremarked upon, the only reference to some of the implications of this language coming from Philip Toynbee, who in his work The Distant Drum reflects back upon his diary from Spain. Toynbee had felt sympathy with Spain, had felt guilty for not fighting, but only visited the war-torn country as part of a youth writers' conference. In his diary he had recorded having taken a "pot shot at a 'Moor.'" He later noted that "this derogatory word was much used in our own propaganda, and we constantly protested, in shocked and indignant tones, the Franco had introduced African barbarians into a European war." There was very little critique of imperialism or colonialism by the left in the 1930's, and few socialist volunteers seem to display any understanding of the issues at play. At this time the causes of socialism and anti-imperialism were not linked as they may have been at other times such as in the nineteenth century when many socialists were highly concerned with Britain's role in exploiting other peoples.
Most middle class soldiers seem to have felt positively about their working class comrades. However, as a group the middle class soldiers are often not well described by others. The general feeling was that they were decadent, uncommitted and disorderly. In Vincent Brome's account he reports that Esmond Romilly was part of an unruly group which visited brothels, wantonly tore up military orders, and stayed up drinking until midnight. Brome constructs Romilly's experience in Spain as a socially conventional one, portraying Romilly as a "bohemian, well-educated gentleman, freshly down from Wellington." Brome imagines that the Spanish war was "widely and wittily discussed into the night," in sophisticated London and is dismissive of the motivations of these decadent intellectuals. Here it is Romilly's class background which has determined how he is perceived and none of his personal history. Brome does not mention that Romilly left school, fought against conventional values and was a committed political radical. Romilly's comrade Arthur Ovenden criticized him for being part of clique with Keith Scott-Watson and others who drank which was, to Ovenden, "a breach of faith." That Scott-Watson and another middle class member of the Brigade disappeared after the first day of fighting did not do the reputations of the other men of their background any good. Scott-Watson turned up again in Madrid, working at the more secure job of a newspaper correspondent for the Daily Express, a paper which some men felt was "fascist." The correspondents were seen as mercenary in their choice of employers and less than capable when they deserted.
Taken to extremes, the desire for action labelled a man as a pure adventurer who was not willing to make personal sacrifices to provide what was asked from him. This kind of definition seems to be attached more often to members of the upper and middle class. In an unconfirmable reference, Sefton Delmer, correspondent for the Daily Express, writes that both Romillys were restricted from the fighting lines by order of the Spanish government. This, he alleges, was due to pressure from Churchill, the boys' uncle. It seems unlikely that this was the case with Esmond who was involved in heavy fighting for two months. Esmond left Spain in late December with dysentery, although Delmer alleges that he did so "disgruntled when he found he had no further chance to take part in the fighting." It is more of a possibility with Giles who was confined to the base-camp at Albacete as an interpreter before embarking on a quest for more satisfying work. Delmer seems to delight in representing the brothers as romantic adventurers, though, who were only looking for action and left the country when they found there was no more to be had.
Bill Alexander is anxious to show the centrality of working class experiences, in his British Volunteers for Liberty and neglects to mention involvement or actions by men who do not fit into the mould of the soldier he wants to portray. He reports that it was Ovenden, Esmond Romilly's other surviving companion who took it upon himself to report the news to their fallen comrades' families. Romilly, however, writes that his first priority in England was to visit the families of the men who meant so much to him and Philip Toynbee noted that he could not be re-united with his friend until this task had been completed. In Alexander's version Romilly had been under "great strain" and was "taken" home by Ovenden who after informing the families, "helped in the organization and transport of more volunteers." Romilly is not mentioned again. Opinions seem to be diverse though, on which type of men were most valuable, despite the construction of certain stereotypes of the "perfect soldier" for whom class differences meant nothing and although his characteristics were those associated with the working class.
Even the middle class men themselves encouraged the perception that the working class men were the real soldiers and that they and other men of their background were anomalies. Gurney rejects the notion of "the platoon of poets" which he felt as encouraged by the press and by the publication of middle class memoirs. He is more militant than this in his condemnation of many intellectuals who, he said had "come to Spain in a spirit of bravado or exhibitionism." He ridicules their involvement and is sceptical of the motivation of left-wing radicals who, he remarks "discussed 'The Revolution' as though they were intimately involved in a conspiracy in which they would burst out with a sword and gun onto the streets of London at any minute." It may have been a more romantic issue for those who did not directly face unemployment but this does not explain Gurney's resentment and anger which may have come from personal experiences of being stereotyped. He is critical of many individual figures in the Brigades, including Oxfordian Tom Wintringham who himself wrote about the centrality of the working class Brigaders. Wilfred Macartney, one-time leader of the British Battalion also comes under his scrutiny and Gurney believed him to be unaware of his duties. Much of these censure seems to be due to Gurney's belief that as a Macartney was "a rich and well-educated man, a great drinker and bon viveur," he cannot believe him to be a dedicated Communist. It is not so much simply the class origins of the man that marked him, but rather that behaviour such as drinking and taking little notice of orders was associated with an image of the decadent middle class men.
In an army composed primarily of socialists and communists there were very different expectations about army discipline and decision making. There was a tension between the friendly individualism of many socialists and the strict discipline of the Communist Party. The most strict units were the actual International Brigades, and they become more orderly and hierarchical as the war progressed. In these units the ideal soldier was seen as a committed Communist Party man who accepted all orders. Those in the Spanish militia found each unit to be different. In Esmond Romilly's British division of the Thaelmann Battalion most men expected decisions to be made by democratic process. They had fairly regular group meetings where men felt able to express themselves. "If we don't discuss this kind of thing," Bill Scott told the group of a changed decision, "we might as well be fascists." Romilly did not always see the need for such meetings and reflected that "you were inclined to be annoyed with the interruption if you were cleaning your rifle or getting your possessions together." He did appreciate the fact that he and his friends were free to grumble and disagree, and felt this reflected the democratic nature of the army more than any real discontent. John Lepper, a friend of Hyndman and Giles Romilly said he preferred to join the anarchists who said no one gave them orders because they "knew what to do." In this area, as in others, there was a constant tension between the opinions of individuals and what was perceived as the good of the community. The splintered nature of the Spanish conflict made this all the more apparent. Some volunteers found themselves under military rule mirroring "the Soviet hierarchical military system" when they had thought they were in a "people's army." Giles Romilly had left thinking he and Hyndman "shall have the right to question any orders with which we don't agree," but found his movements restricted in Albacete. It was the suspicious factionalism and rigid discipline of the Communist run Brigades which destroyed the ideal of the "community" in Spain for those involved, and made the war experience more mercenary. Gurney writes that the "abandonment of personal responsibilities horrified me and called for an immensely powerful assurance of the justice of our cause." He knew that in joining up he had "accepted and approved the whole amorality which is part of the condition of militarism." Men believed that they would retain their individual identity in this army, and it was the promise of that which made them feel fighting for the Republic would be unlike the militarism of fascist armies. Socialist ideas often appealed to men because of the personal responsibility it afforded them as individual, rational men and they objected to the fascist insistence on obedient soldiers who abdicated personal accountability
Men often had their essential characters altered by the Spanish Civil War. Whether or not they would be remembered as a "real soldier," they had gone through the experience of war and it left some kind of mark on each of them. The situation affected the Romilly brothers in opposite ways. Toynbee noticed a profound alteration in spirit in Esmond who returned sick with dysentery and scarred by the loss of his comrades. He was relieved to be home with friends where he no longer had to "wear the fist-clenching grins of a 'returned fighter for freedom.'" Giles, however, was invigorated by the experience. His "slender body had filled out," Toynbee wrote, and "he looked healthier than ever before." Tony Hyndman describes Giles as having changed the moment he decided to volunteer: "This was a different Giles," he writes. Esmond's attitude towards war was also altered on his return home. Like Cornford, he still saw it as a necessity, but all of the "shame-faced romanticism" which had moved him only a few months earlier had vanished. Toynbee observed that while Romilly "believed that the Spanish communists were right...he had nothing but a caustic disgust for the antics of the British party. He hated their hearty heroics, and angrily refused to make recruiting speeches for the International Brigades." Not that Romilly had ever propagandized for war, but his restless attraction to war was gone. He was indignant, writes Toynbee, "against those breathless left-wing ladies who were appearing on Spanish platforms all over England and whose clamorous calls to arms reminded us of all that we had heard about the over-patriotic ladies of the 1914 war."
The men involved in the fighting in Spain found that they had to re-evaluate many of their heroic notions of war once they were in the action. Many of their stories, such as Tony Hyndman's, challenged the idea of male military heroism, while others like Esmond Romilly, still believed it to exist in some form. Romilly objected to the false way he believed the War to be represented at home while still believing in the cause. Giles Romilly was one of those men who had war "make a man of him,"acquiring confidence in the identity of a soldier. Middle class men still found themselves in a strange position, often taking on the characteristics of the working class men who predominated in the International Brigades, but able to blend in with the community most of the time. Very few of the middle class soldiers felt themselves to be the fighting ideal and most constructed such an image to live up to. Their stories still reflect the idea that they were stepping into a role that they were in some way suited for and that they learned valuable things while in Spain, though these might not have always been what they expected.