136

p The broad democratic movement in France had scored great victories by 1936. The resolute rebuff given by French workers to the attempted fascist coup in February 1934 had demonstrated that fascism was neither inevitable, as some people were saying, nor an invincible force. Communists, Socialists and Radicals united in the anti-fascist struggle. The proposals for united action advanced by the French Communist Party, but initially rejected by the Socialists, finally received a favourable response, and on July 27, 1934, representatives of both parties signed a pact. In October of that year, Maurice Thorez proposed on behalf of the Communist Party that, to countervail reaction and fascism, a Popular Front of Liberty, Labour and Peace be established  [136•1 —a broad popular movement based on the alliance of all proletarian and democratic forces. The idea soon gained mass support.

p The formation of a broad Popular Front was also enhanced by the fact that joining the Communist and Socialist parties was the party of the Radicals, which had a great deal of influence among the middle strata and which had, on July 14, 1935, taken part in joint demonstrations by thousands of working people demanding the formation of a new, democratic government.

p Adding their voice to this demand were many outstanding members of the French intelligentsia, who had united in the Paris Anti-Fascist Committee of Action and Vigilance: Paul Langevin, Romain Rolland, Jean Perrin, Frederic Joliot, Paul Rivet, Henri Wallon, Jean-Richard Bloch, Andre Malraux, Jean Cassou, Louis Aragon, Henri Barbusse, Marcel Cachin, Paul Vaillant-Couturier and many others.

p At the same time, the working class repulsed an offensive by the capitalists, who had been encouraged by decrees issued by Laval’s 137 government reducing wages of government employees and cutting expenditures on social insurance. The number of strikes against the wage cuts and the number of “hunger marches" by the unemployed rapidly grew.

p An important stage in mobilising and strengthening the unity of the working class was the merger in March 1936 of two major trade-union associations—the Confederation Generale du Travail Unitaire and the Confederation Generale du Travail—to form a single organisation to be known as the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT). Two months later, the Popular Front won a victory in the parliamentary elections. The Communist, Socialist and Radical parties won a total of 337 of the 559 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The result was the formation of the first Popular Front government under the Socialist Leon Blum. The working class, now fully conscious of its strength, began a vigorous struggle against low wages, unemployment and violation of tradeunion rights by employers. As a result of the powerful strike movement, employers were forced to sign the Matignon Agreements with the trade unions, in which a number of concessions were made to the working people: substantial wage increases, a 40-hour week, a two-week paid vacation, and a commitment to respect the rights of trade unions.

p However, the French bourgeoisie, forced to retreat under the pressure of the workers’ movement, was determined to get its revenge at any price. The trusts refused to honour the Matignon Agreements, disorganised production and undermined the value of the franc. They openly supported fascist groups, financed their newspapers, and brazenly lauded nazism. Under their pressure, the government, on March 7, 1936, embarked on the road of encouraging fascist aggression by failing to take any retaliatory action in response to the German occupation of the Rhineland and refusing to apply sanctions against Italy, as proposed by the League of Nations in connection with Mussolini’s predatory war against Ethiopia.

p Such was the situation in France at the time that the Spanish generals instigated a mutiny against the Republican Government.

p The working people of France were full of admiration for the heroism of the Spanish people fighting to defend the Republic. In 1934 they displayed their solidarity with the fighters in Asturias, and followed with great sympathy the upsurge of the workers’ movement in Spain which had developed at the same time as the French movement for a Popular Front victory. Now, in July 1936, it became clear to many Frenchmen that the revolt of the fascist generals, organised with the blessings of Hitler and Mussolini, posed a threat not only to the Spanish people, but to the security of France. For in the event of a fascist victory in Spain, to two borders with fascist states—Germany and Italy—a third would 138 be added—in the Pyrenees. The words of Manuel Azana, President of the Spanish Republic—“In defending Madrid on the heights of the Guadarrama, we are at the same time defending Paris"— found deep understanding in France.

p The newspaper, L’Humanite, on whose pages Marcel Cachin, Gabriel Peri, Paul Vaillant-Couturier appeared, and the newspaper, Ce Soir, on which Louis Aragon and Jean-Richard Bloch worked, waged a relentless campaign for aid to the Spanish people. On August 27, 1936, L’Humanite published an article by the General Secretary of the French Communist Party, Maurice Thorez, in which he demanded that the Spanish Government be given "the possibility of freely procuring airplanes, guns and ammunition in France”. The article ended with a warning that the solution of this question had important meaning not only for Spain but also for the future of the peoples of Europe. "Tomorrow it will be in Czechoslovakia that Hitler will throw his agents against the Republican authorities. Tomorrow the same thing may happen in Rumania, where the Iron Guards, paid by Hitler, have been activated. The same may happen to Yugoslavia. The same may happen to Belgium. Tomorrow it may happen to France herself!”

p The great French writer, Remain Rolland, addressed an impassioned appeal to all the peoples of the world:

p “Humanity! Humanity! I call upon you! I call upon you, the people of Europe and America! Help Spain! Help ourselves! Help yourselves! It’s you, it’s all of us who are menaced!"  [138•1 

p Many other French writers and journalists were ardent supporters of Republican Spain. Among them were Andre Viollis, Georges Bernanos, Georges Soria, Simone Tery, Andre Wurmser, Madeleine Braun, Andre Malraux, Francois Mauriac, Paul Claudel, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and also Louis Delapree and Gerda Taro, both of whom were later killed in Spain while working there as correspondents for French newspapers.

p The national interests of France and the anti-fascist programme of the Popular Front demanded giving the legitimate government of Spain immediate aid. Insisting on this was the French Communist Party, the CGT, the Left wing of the Socialist Party, headed by Jean Zyromski, and all consistent democrats.

p However, as early as July 25, 1936, Leon Blum decided to pursue a policy of "strict neutrality”, and under this pretext, in violation of agreements signed previously, banned the export of arms to Spain and proposed to other powers that they do the same. Two days earlier, he had gone to London with his foreign minister, Yvon Delbos, where he easily acceeded to demands by British conservative circles who were advocating an agreement 139 with Germany and Italy. On his return to France, Blum came out flatly against rendering aid to the Spanish people. Influential French big business circles, in turn, pushed the government towards a policy of betraying the Spanish democratic republic. On August 1, Blum proposed that all major European powers collectively adopt the principle of “non-intervention” in the affairs of Spain. Despite the clear violations by Hitler, Mussolini and Salazar of the “non-intervention” agreement, the Blum government and subsequent French governments pursued this policy right up to February 27, 1939, the day that France and Britain broke off diplomatic relations with the Spanish Republic and recognised the government of General Franco.

p The policy of “non-intervention”—which in fact encouraged fascist aggression—was instrumental in the disintegration of the Popular Front, in whose ranks a fierce struggle took place between the advocates of aid to the Spanish people and supporters of the government’s policy of appeasing fascism. The constant concessions made by the French Government to fascism and big capital created favourable conditions for a new offensive by the reactionary forces. Under pressure from the big bourgeoisie, the government in February 1937 suspended the implementation of economic and social reforms called for in the Popular Front programme. This so-called breathing spell proclaimed by Blum’s government and supported by the Socialist and Radical parties, undermined the militant spirit of the working people and helped the big bourgeoisie to launch its counter-offensive.

p In June 1937, instead of taking decisive action against the trusts, the government resigned. The government of Radicals Chautemps and Daladier which replaced it continued and stiffened the policy of attacking the economic and political rights of the popular masses, to the extent that in 1938, on the basis of "emergency powers”, it liquidated the main gains won by the working class in 1935. At the same time, the policy of “non-intervention” turned more and more into open encouragement of the Hitlerite aggression in Spain and into compact with the fascist states.

p In those years of fierce class battles, victories and defeats for the French working people, an outstanding place in the political struggle of the working class and of the popular masses belonged to the broad movement of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, which the French working people had launched at the very beginning of the fascist revolt. The people demanded that arms and food be sent to the Republic and that the policy of "non- intervention" be abandoned.

p On September 3, 1936, at a mass meeting in the Paris Winter Cycle Track, Dolores Ibarruri said: “We are defending the cause of liberty and of peace. We need planes and cannon for our struggle—-We need arms to defend liberty and peace! And do 140

This money went to buy medicines for Spain
not forget—let no one forget!—that while it is our lot to resist fascist aggression today, the struggle is not going to end in Spain!" The slogan, "Planes and Gannon for Spain!" advanced at that meeting of 40,000 working people was enthusiastically picked up on the following day during a huge demonstration at the Place de la Republique in Paris, and then throughout the country. At the initiative of the French Communist Party, the CGT and the French section of the IRA, numerous organisations were formed: the Committee for Aid to Refugees from Northern Spain, the Committee of Solidarity with the Spanish People, the Committee for the Care of Spanish Children, the Committee for Aid to Families of French Volunteers in the International Brigades, the National Committee of Women and Girls of France. Aid to Republican Spain was expressed in tens of millions of francs and in thousands of tons of goods. The Young Women’s Alliance of France, for example, collected 300,000 tins of condensed milk for Spanish children; the French section of the IRA collected 24,000,000 francs and, together with the trade unions, organised the work of sending all contributions to Spain. They invited 10,000 Spanish children to France and arranged for them to stay with French families, thus saving them from bombings by fascist airplanes and the privations of war time. In November 141 1936, a CGT congress proposed that all CGT members be assessed an hour’s wages monthly for the Aid Spain fund.

p Paris was the headquarters of the International Committee for Co-ordinating Aid to Republican Spain. Its honorary presidium included such outstanding figures as physicist Paul Langevin, writer Jean-Richard Bloch, Francis Jourdain, Marcel Cachin, Jean Longuet, Jean Zyromski, Pierre Cot, Edouard Herriot and others. Also in Paris was the International Medical Centre, uniting antifascist doctors of the most diverse political convictions. With the active participation of Dr Pierre Rouques and his colleagues, the Centre organised the collection and shipment of medicines and medical equipment to Spain. It also formed teams of volunteer doctors, surgeons and nurses to serve in the medical services of the International Brigades.

p Solidarity with the Spanish people manifested itself in many different ways. Workers in the aircraft industry, for example, caught up the national slogan, “Planes for Spain!”, and were prepared to work extra time without pay. Another example was the setting-up of a company called France Navigation to ensure sea shipping to Spain despite the blockade and “non-intervention”.

p But the most brilliant and unparalleled page in the history of French democracy’s solidarity with the Spanish people was written by the French volunteers who took a direct part in the armed struggle against fascism. The movement began on the personal initiative of French anti-fascists, acting alone or in small groups, who felt that the fascist menace must be thwarted. But soon the French Communist Party gave the movement an organised form. As a result, 8,500 French anti-fascists—not only Communists, but also Socialists, syndicalists and non-party people—were given the opportunity of going to Spain to fight in the ranks of the Republican Army.

p Despite the fact that the French Government and the Nonintervention Committee sought to turn the Franco-Spanish border into an insurmountable barrier, France, due to the efforts and help of the French Communist Party, became a bridge to Spain for many thousands of volunteers from all over the world.

p At the very outset of the fascist revolt, many Spanish emigrant workers living in France returned home to defend their native country from fascism. And with them came their friends—French workers and anti-fascist emigrants from other countries. In Barcelona they met with athletes who had come in July 1936 to the People’s Olympiad, and in the first days of the revolt took part in the fighting in the Catalan capital. These were the first volunteers. Some of them fought in the North, defending Irun, others saw action on the island of Mallorca, where the heroic battles of the Republican landing force ended in a forced retreat and evacuation of the island because of insufficient arms and 142 ammunition. The foreign volunteers who survived the battle of Irun retreated into France, but again crossed the border to form the Paris Commune Centuria in Barcelona. The centuria went to Madrid, was reinforced with new volunteers from France, and took part in the fighting under the command of Jules Dumont, a former officer of the French Army.

p In October, when by decree of the government, the Republic began forming a regular army, the men of the Paris Commune Centuria became part of the first regular battalion (which was given the same glorious name) made up of French and Belgian volunteers. Jules Dumont and Commissar Pierre Rebiere headed the Paris Commune Battalion, which along with the other battalions of the llth International Brigade—the German Edgar Andre Battalion and the Polish Dabrowski Battalion—arrived at the front on November 8 to help the heroic people of Madrid repulse a violent fascist assault on the city.

p French volunteers coming to Spain in the autumn and winter of 1936/37 formed several other battalions that became part of various International Brigades: the Franco-Belgian Andre Marty Battalion of the 12th Brigade; the Henri Vuillemin Battalion and the Franco-Belgian Louise Michel Battalion of the 13th Brigade; the 10th (Domingo Germinal) Battalion, 12th (Franco-English) Battalion, and 13th (Henri Barbusse) Battalion of the 14th Brigade; and the Sixth of February Battalion of the 15th Brigade. In addition to this, French volunteers were also in the ranks of the engineer troops, in the cavalry, the tank units, and in various anti-aircraft and field artillery units. The international artillery battery of the Anna Pauker Battalion was commanded by Gaston Carre, and its political commissar was Paul Richard.

p There were also Frenchmen among the many pilots who fought against Franco’s air force. Some of them were in the Espana Squadron, under the command of the famous French writer, Andre Malraux. French volunteers served as drivers of military vehicles, worked on vehicle repairs at the plant in Albacete, and served in the First Transport Regiment of the 5th Army Corps. Many French doctors, doctor’s assistants and nurses fought for the lives of the men of the Republican Army in mobile field hospitals at the front and in stationary medical installations in the rear.

p The postal service of the International Brigades, with its centre in Albacete, was organised by Jean Grandel, former General Secretary of the French Postal Workers’ Union.

p The French volunteers represented all of the political trends included in the Popular Front. The largest contingent was made up of Communists and non-party men who sympathised with them. A considerably smaller number were members of the Socialist and Radical Socialist parties. Among the Socialists (former participants in the French Popular Front) who fought in the ranks of the 143
Captain Jacquot (centre) and Marcel Sagnier (right). February 1937


French volunteers of the 10th Battalion of the 14th Brigade on the Jarama.
February 1937
144 International Brigades were battalion commanders Major Fort and Major Bernard (shot in 1944 by the nazis for taking part in the Resistance movement), Major Agard (in the artillery) and Major Gabriel Hubert.

p The French Communists in Spain were headed by members of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party Andre Marty, Francois Billoux and Henri Janin. Leon Mauvais and Cathala regularly fulfilled party assignments. In the spring of 1937, a group of 30 men, all members of the Central and regional committees of the Alliance of the Communist Youth of France, came to reinforce the cadres of the International Brigades. Among them were Louis Perrot, who was later killed in action in 1938; Jean Hemmen and Lafond, who were later shot during the nazi occupation; Henri Tanguy, who became commissar of the 14th Brigade; and Charles Escure and Andre Gregoire, the latter becoming a battalion commander in the 12th Brigade. Leaders of the French Communist Party, including Maurice Thorez, Jacques Duclos, Marcel Cachin, Eugene Henaf, and Florimond Bonte, made frequent trips to Spain to meet with the men of the International Brigades and inspire them to further struggle against the fascists.

p People of different generations fought in the ranks of the International Brigades: veterans of the 1914-18 world war and former participants in the colonial wars in Morocco, Syria and Indochina; somewhat younger men who had only recently come out of the service; and finally, some very young men, such as 17-year-old Pierre Georges (Fabien), who was later to become a hero of the French Resistance of 1940-45. However, neither differences in age or nationality, nor differences in views or social origin prevented them from understanding each other and fighting together against the common enemy.

p On November 6, 1936, the fascists came up to the gates of Madrid. The city was subjected to heavy artillery bombardment. On the evening of November 8, the volunteers of the Paris Commune Battalion occupied positions for a counter-attack in a suburban park, Casa de Campo, on the west bank of the Manzanares river. This was where the main thrust of the fascist storm columns— Moroccans and mercenaries of the Foreign Legion—was directed.

p In the first battles on the Manzanares, in the sector between the San Fernando Bridge and the French Bridge, the internationalists suffered heavy casualties. The second company of the Paris Commune Battalion lost two-thirds of its men, and only thanks to the fact that the Edgar Andre Battalion joined the battle in time was the enemy assault repulsed. A week later, the llth Brigade received orders to counter-attack the Foreign Legion and Moroccan units which had broken through to the University City on November 15 and 16. There the men of the Paris Commune Battalion and Asturian demolition men, the “dinamiteros”, 145

Colonel Fabien (Pierre Georges)
recaptured the buildings of the faculties of philosophy, literature, pharmacology and medicine.

p In the meantime, at the approaches to the capital, the Franco-Belgian Battalion, together with the Garibaldi and Thaelmann battalions of the 12th International Brigade, launched an attack, with tank support, against the fortified Cerro de los Angeles hill south of Madrid. This operation weakened the insurgents’ onslaught on the Manzanares. A few days later, the 12th Brigade also moved into the University City. In the

p several days of heavy fighting in the second half of November in the University City and in the Casa de Campo, the internationalists of the llth and 12th brigades, together with Spanish “milicianos” and regular units of the Republican Army, repulsed the violent attacks of the enemy and depleted his shock columns.

p In December 1936 and January 1937, when the insurgents changed the direction of their thrusts, both of these brigades took part in the fighting west of Madrid at Boadilla del Monte. It was there that the commander of the Franco-Belgian Battalion, Bernard, was wounded. At Majadahonda, volunteers fought jointly with the battalions of the militia—“Asturias”, the 1st Madrid and “Pacifico”, and the 3rd (Jose Galan) Brigade, and took part in the defence of the northwestern sector of Madrid, which included Villanueva del Pardillo, Las Rosas, Pozuelo de Alarcon, Humera and Aravaca. The Paris Commune Battalion came under heavy bombardment, but did not retreat. Battalion Commander Jules Dumont was wounded, Marcel Sanier took his place. The Thaelmann Battalion, in which about 100 Frenchmen fought side by side with their German comrades, held its positions at a high price—out of 600 men, only 32 survived.

p Also taking part in the fighting on the northwestern sector in the defence of Madrid were the men of the 14th International Brigade. Made up primarily of French volunteers, this brigade was 146 sent in December 1936 into Andalucia to stop the advance of a large enemy force that had broken through the Republican front. After fulfilling this mission, the brigade was transferred to Madrid, to a sector of the front where the fate of the capital was being decided for the second time. As before, the insurgents failed to achieve their main objective. They could not take Madrid.

p At the time when this decisive fighting was going on, two battalions of French and Belgian volunteers, as part of the 13th International Brigade, were engaged in the Republican offensive on Teruel in December 1936 and January 1937. The operation was not successful, the battalions suffering heavy casualties.

p The third large battle for Madrid began in February 1937, on the east bank of the Jarama. It lasted for three weeks, during which the best formations of the Republican Army, including four International Brigades, each with battalions of French volunteers, displayed remarkable steadfastness and heroism. The hopes of the insurgent generals to take Madrid were shattered once again. It was on the Jarama that volunteers of the Franco-Belgian Sixth of February Battalion of the newly formed 15th International Brigade saw their first action.

p The casualty figures tell the story of the fierceness of the battle of the Jarama and the steadfastness of the volunteers: of the 800 men of the Sixth of February Battalion who had come to the Jarama positions, only 150 remained in action after ten days of fighting. Similar large losses were incurred by other battalions of the 15th and llth brigades, which repulsed the fascist advance at Morata de Tajuna, the main objective of the enemy attacks in those days. Most of the commanders of the sub-units of these brigades were killed or wounded. Large losses were also suffered by units of the 12th (Andre Marty) Brigade, which prevented the enemy from reaching his second objective—the village of Arganda on the Madrid-Valencia highway. One company of this battalion, protecting the Pindoque Bridge, was suddenly attacked by Moroccans at night and completely wiped out. Another company, which was sent in to close the breach, also suffered heavy losses.

p When at the end of February the front began to stabilise, the International Brigades, exhausted from constant battles, were in sore need of rest and reinforcement. But there was no time for this: in March, a fresh fascist offensive began.

In the first days of March, an expeditionary corps of Italian fascists under the command of General Roatta (Mancini) suddenly went over to the offensive. Two International Brigades—the llth and 12th—were the first Republican units to whom the command of the Madrid Front assigned the task of blocking the road to the interventionists. In the evening of March 9, the Paris Commune Battalion and the entire llth Brigade arrived at the Zaragoza highway east of Guadalajara. In the preceding two days the 147

French and German volunteers of the 10th Battalion of the 14th Brigade.
Madrid, March 1937

enemy had advanced 25 kilometres. Engaging the enemy in battle, the volunteers forced the fascists to stop and deploy their troops. On the next day, the 12th Brigade came up and blocked the highway leading to Brihuega. Conducting a defensive battle and slowly retreating under the onslaught of three enemy divisions, the volunteers of the llth and 12th brigades gave the high command a chance to win time and concentrate larger forces. In two days’ time, the internationalists, together with the Spanish brigades of the llth Division, went over to a counter-attack. The Paris Commune Battalion seized the fortified point of Casa del Cobo, while the Andre Marty Battalion of the 12th Brigade took part in storming and seizing another key position—Palacio de Ibarra. On March 18, the anniversary of the Paris Commune—the Republicans went over to the offensive along the entire front, putting four of Mussolini’s divisions to flight.

p The men of the Republican Army, exhausted from the heavy fighting, understood what great international significance their success had, and rejoiced at the victory won.

p A few weeks later, as part of the reorganisation of the International Brigades along language lines, the Paris Commune Battalion was transferred from the llth Brigade to the 14th, in which French and Belgian volunteers were brought together. In the village of Ciruelas near Guadalajara, a touching farewell took place between the French and German internationalists from the Thaelmann and Edgar Andre battalions.

148

p The 14th International Brigade, which from then on was called the Marseillaise Brigade, had as its commander Jules Dumont, and its commissar was Francois Vittori. It consisted of four international battalions, commanded by the Frenchmen, Marcel Sagnier, Boris Guimpel and Grignier, and the Englishman, George Nathan, the latter to be later replaced by the Algerian, Rabah Oussidoum. The 5th Battalion of the brigade consisted of Spaniards only. Like all International Brigades, the 14th reinforced its ranks not only with newly arrived internationalists, but also with Spaniards, who by the summer of 1938 made up nearly 85 per cent of its personnel.

p After the reorganisation, French volunteers still remained in battalions of the 13th, 15th and 150th brigades, but subsequently they too were transferred to the 14th (Marseillaise) Brigade.

p From May 29 through June 3, 1937, the 14th Brigade of the 35th Division, together with the 31st and 69th Spanish brigades, took part in an offensive in the Sierra de Guadarrama area. They attacked Balsam at night and waged stubborn battles against the enemy’s fortified position at Cerro del Puerto. The aim of this operation was to create a threat to the city of Segovia, and thus relieve the situation of the Republican forces on the Northern Front, at Bilbao. “The 14th Brigade... at Segovia deserves high praise for its heroic action in the battle of Balsam,"  [148•1  wrote the commander of the 35th Division, General Walter. In the course of this operation, Battalion Commander Boris Guimpel was wounded, and his replacement, Captain Rasquin, a Belgian, was killed.

p In July 1937, the Republicans launched a big offensive at Brunete, in which many French volunteers took part. These were men in the Henri Vuillemin Battalion; the Sixth of February Battalion, under the command of Gabriel Fort who had returned to service after being seriously wounded on the Jarama; and the Andre Marty Battalion, under the command of Emile Boursier (deputy commanders, Fernand Belino and Francois Ruiz). There were also Frenchmen in the Anna Pauker Artillery Battalion, which supported the Republican troops during attacks against Villanueva de la Canada. In that operation, Fernand Belino was seriously wounded, and Gabriel Fort lost his sight as a result of a serious head wound.

p In October 1937, the 14th Brigade took part in the big defensive battle of Cuesta de la Reina, south of Madrid. The fighting there was extremely heavy. In three days, the brigade lost more than 1,000 men in killed and wounded. Dying the death of the brave were company commanders Aurele Vittori and Rene Angel, captains Clerc and Louis Boujard, commissars Francisco Terroba and Blondeau. Among the wounded was Battalion Commander 149

The banner of the 14th Brigade
Rabah Oussidoum. But the enemy’s attempt to break through the Republican front was frustrated.

p In March 1938, the fascists undertook a major offensive in Aragon, an operation in which they used five army corps, including an Italian corps supported by many tanks, artillery (up to 600 guns) and air power (600 airplanes). In an attempt to close the breach made by the enemy in the first days of the offensive, the Republican Command brought in reserve Spanish units and five International Brigades. By March 12, however, the International Brigades of the 35th Division were almost completely encircled by four enemy divisions in the Hijar-Alcaniz-Ebro sector. Only after extremely heavy and difficult fighting to repulse fascist attacks from the front and flanks, did they succeed in breaking out of the encirclement. On March 15, the fascists broke into Caspe, but a battalion of the 14th Brigade, the 45th Division, moved up in time to throw them back.

p Emile Boursier’s battalion moved to the outskirts of Caspe in a series of counter-attacks. The commander of the 14th Brigade, 150 Marcel Sagnier, took command of a force made up of his own brigade, two battalions of the 12th Brigade, one Spanish battalion and two batteries. For 24 hours the group waged a stubborn battle for Caspe against the fascist Navarre Division, but threatened with complete encirclement, it retreated on the night of March 16, taking up positions at the Guadalupe river. Commissar Haudecoeur, a member of the Central Committee of the French Young Communist League, arrived at the front from Albacete at the head of a new French battalion, the Vaillant-Couturier Battalion, which immediately went into action. However, despite the remarkable feats of heroism performed by the volunteers and other Republican units, the enemy forces pushed through to the Mediterranean, cutting off Catalonia from the rest of Republican Spain. Many French volunteers fell in these battles, including Rabah Oussidoum and Gabriel Hubert, who was seriously wounded. Commissar Haudecoeur successfully avoided capture when, with grenade in hand, he broke through a group of fascist soldiers.

p The heavy casualties suffered by the Republican troops during their retreat on the Eastern Front did not break their fighting spirit. In less than three months, the Republican Army would accomplish the most daring of all operations in the war—the crossing of the river Ebro and the deep breakthrough of the enemy front.

p The 14th Brigade played an important part in this operation. Its task was to divert the enemy by crossing the Ebro near Amposta—a point far from the place where the main Republican forces were preparing to cross. This operation, which took place on the night of July 24, was an unforgettable episode in the war, and one in which the men of the Paris Commune Battalion displayed outstanding courage and valour. First an advance team swam silently across the river under the cover of darkness, showered the enemy trenches with grenades and captured them. Then the rest of the battalion crossed the river on boats and rafts, now under heavy enemy fire. They fought their way deep into enemy defences for several hundred metres. The fascist command, finally realising what was happening, concentrated its artillery fire on the river, thereby preventing the other units of the brigade from crossing.

p For a day the Paris Commune Battalion stalwartly repulsed attack after attack by the large enemy forces, mainly Moroccans who were supported by both artillery and tanks. By the end of the day, having lost more than three-fourths of its men and almost all of its officers, the battalion, on orders from the command, and under heavy enemy fire, crossed over to the left bank. In this phase of the operation, Battalion Commander Cazala and Commissar Lopez were killed. But the 14th Brigade had accomplished its mission. By drawing considerable enemy forces to itself, it 151

The Certificate of Honour the Spanish Government presented to members of
the International Brigades leaving for home
ensured the successful crossing of the river by units of the 5th Corps of the Ebro Army.

p Beginning on September 8, French volunteers took part in the second phase of Operation Ebro, in the defensive battles to hold the territory liberated from the fascists. In the number of artillery pieces, airplanes, tanks and other military equipment used by the enemy, these battles surpassed all previous operations of the Spanish war. From the day that the 14th Brigade occupied positions on the heights of Sierra Caballs till September 23, when the foreign volunteers were withdrawn from action by a government decree, attacks by the enemy and counter-attacks by the Republicans did not cease for a single day. The commander of the Paris Commune Battalion (which had been reorganised and reinforced after the battle of July 25), Captain Roll, his commissar, and Rene Hamon, commissar of the Henri Barbusse Battalion, were killed.

p On the last day of action, September 23, the 14th Brigade found itself in a particularly grave situation. A storm of artillery and machine-gun fire forced Republican units to retreat, and the command posts of the 14th Brigade and the 45th Division suddenly turned out to be in the main line of resistance. Brigade Commander Marcel Sagnier and Commissar Tanguy led a counterattack, as a result of which the brigade re-established its former positions, and the fascists, who had already hoisted their flag on the hill where the brigade C.P. was located, were sent running. 152 Thus, the French volunteers waged their last battle with fascism on the Spanish soil with flying colours.

It was with heavy heart that the French volunteers parted with their Spanish brothers with whom they had fought for two years in battles that had already then decided the fate of Europe. And it was with great emotion that just before their departure from Spain they listened to an address by Vice-President of the Cortes of the Republic, Dolores Ibarruri, in which she expressed the profound gratitude and unbounded love of the Spanish people.

p Once the Spanish war was over, the French Government began to round up soldiers of the Republican Army and foreign volunteers of the International Brigades and to confine them to concentration camps. All former French volunteers considered it their sacred duty to launch a broad campaign to help their comradesin-arms who were being held in camps at Gurs, Vernet, St Cyprien and elsewhere, and also the hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees—men, women and children—who had been driven into camps guarded by the police and gendarmes. The betrayal of Spanish democracy by the Western powers soon bore its bitter fruit. The policy of “non-intervention”, after a series of capitulations to fascism, led to the shameful Munich agreement, then to the partition of the Czechoslovak Republic, Austria’s loss of independence, and finally to the Second World War.

p Less than one year after the return of the French volunteers to their homeland, they again became soldiers, ready to defend France from her enemy, fascist Germany. When, as a result of the inability and unwillingness of the French bourgeoisie and the army high command to offer resistance, Hitler’s troops occupied France virtually without a fight, the veterans of the International Brigades showed up in the front ranks of the Resistance, in the forefront of the fight for their country’s freedom.

p In September 1940, former commissar of the Paris Commune Battalion and member of the CC FCP, Pierre Rebiere, headed the anti-fascist struggle in five departments of Central France, showing himself to be an able and courageous leader. Later, in the rank of Lt. Colonel, he was appointed member of the National War Committee. In October 1942, Rebiere was captured by the nazis, subjected to brutal torture, and shot.

p Pierre Georges, who had been one of the youngest volunteers in the Spanish war, became almost a legendary figure in the French Resistance. Even before Hitler’s troops invaded France, he was thrown into a camp for his anti-fascist activities. He escaped and immediately began organising groups of young anti-fascists around Marseille. Later, under the name of Fabien, he became 153 one of the founders and leaders of the French organisation of francs tireurs and guerrillas. In 1941 he gave the signal for the beginning of armed resistance to the occupation by assassinating a nazi officer in Paris. During the fighting to liberate Paris, Pierre Georges headed a large formation called the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) of the Resistance. At the head of the first Paris Brigade which he formed, he took part in the pursuit of the retreating Hitlerite troops to the very Rhine. Pierre Georges was killed in December 1944 on the Alsace Front, together with Pimpeau, the former commissar of the international battalion in which he fought in Spain.

p The former commissar of the 14th International Brigade, Tanguy, began organising Resistance committees in the Paris area as early as 1940, and in 1941 he joined the ranks of the franc tireur and guerrilla organisation. Among his fighting comrades were former Battalion Commissar Haudecoeur, former major in the artillery in Spain Carre, and former participants in the Spanish war Epstein and Georges Vallet. From 1941 through 1944, Tanguy held various command posts in the franc tireur and guerrilla organisation. In June 1944, he took command of the FFI of the Isle de France province. On August 25, 1944, Colonel Rol-Tanguy, together with General Leclerc, received the capitulation of General von Choltiz and the German garrison of Greater Paris.

p Francois Vittori, former commissar of the 45th International Division, organised the Resistance movement on Corsica, and later directed the liberation of the island.

p Doctor Pierre Rouques, former chief of the medical service of the Internationl Brigades, together with other veterans of the Spanish war—Dr Reboul, Dr Chretien and his assistant, Fanny Bre—organised the medical service of the Resistance. They hid wounded francs tireurs and guerrillas and gave them medical attention.

p Andre Breton, Fernand Belino, Honore Galli, Yvonne Robert and many others joined the ranks of the Resistance fighters from the first days of the occupation. Even those who came back from Spain wounded or sick, as for example, the author of this article, also took part in the struggle by doing such things as writing leaflets and setting up communications between the participants of the Resistance.

p Colonel Jules Dumont, organiser of the first armed anti-fascist groups, was arrested and shot by the Hitlerites. The Spanish war veteran Tourne, who was one of the leaders of the Resistance in the Lyons region, was seriously wounded and remained an invalid for the rest of his life. One of the leaders of the FFI, Boris Guimpel, together with Gaudefroy, led operations against the fascists in the southern part of the country. Jacquet represented the National Committee of Francs Tireurs and Guerrillas in the 154 headquarters of the French Armed Forces. Louis Blesy in Provence, and Delcamp in Toulouse, commanded units of francs tireurs and guerrillas. Spanish war veterans Taddee Oppmann, Jean Baillet, Appere, Fongarnard, Jean Hemmen, Just Heras, Lafond, Carre, Schmidt, Champion and Bessieres were, along with Beaulieu, Clouet, Lemaitre, Cotille and many others, among the organisers of the first armed Resistance groups. Many were killed in action, shot, locked up in prisons, or taken to Germany and thrown into concentration camps. Among these were Grandel, Jean Cathala (the Hitlerites guillotined him), Marcel Langer, Epstein, Hapiot, and Georges Vallet.

p Even in the gaols the struggle went on. For example, veterans of International Brigades Bernard, Marc Perrin, Henri Neveu and Jourdan were in the forefront of a prisoner revolt in the central gaol at Eisses. After the revolt was suppressed, Bernard was shot. In the liberation of the Buchenwald death camp, former international brigade officers Belino and Lagunas formed two companies out of prisoners who had risen up against their executioners.

p Former French volunteers in Spain often fought shoulder to shoulder with Spanish comrades in the ranks of the Resistance movement. Many soldiers and officers of the Spanish Republican Army who had to retreat into France ended up in concentration camps and so-called work companies. During the fascist occupation thousands of them joined francs tireurs and guerrillas and fought heroically side by side with Polish, Italian, German, Jewish, Hungarian and other former international brigaders who had also, in one way or another, gotten out of concentration camps. The names of Christine Garcia, hero of the French Resistance who was shot in Spain by the Franco police in 1946 along with eleven other Spaniards who had fought for the freedom of the French people; General Evaristo Luis Fernandez, commander of the first formation of Spanish guerrillas in France; Celestino Alfonso and the 23 heroes of Manusian’s group, among whom were five veterans of the International Brigades—all symbolised the indissoluble brotherhood-in-arms that had for all time united the fighting men of Republican Spain and the fighting men of the French Resistance in the common battle against fascism and for the freedom of all peoples.

p After the victory over fascism in May 1945, the veterans of the International Brigades formed their own association. L’Amicale des anciens volontaires franc.ais en Espagne republicaine (AVER). By that time, of the 8,500 Frenchmen who had left France to fight in the International Brigades, 3,000 had been killed on the fields of battle in Spain, and another 3,000 had perished fighting in the Resistance or in nazi concentration camps.

p From the first days of its existence, the AVER set about 155

The unveiling of a monument to heroes of the International Brigades at
the Eaubonne Cemetery
organising a broad programme of material aid to the many French veterans of the Spanish war who had come back sick or disabled and were still receiving no help whatever from the state. The AVER received help in this complex undertaking from trade-union organisations, municipalities headed by members of Left parties, the French Popular Aid Society (Le Secours Populaire Fransais), the IRA and numerous local Spanish war veterans’ associations both in France and in the socialist countries.

p The former volunteers in the Spanish war still feel profound respect and sympathy for the Spanish people, and in many ways continue to express solidarity with the tens of thousands of Republican soldiers who were forced after Franco’s victory to seek refuge in France. Many of these emigrants have married and now have families of their own; they take part in the French democratic and anti-fascist movement. In the beginning of the 1950s, during the most difficult period of the cold war when successive reactionary French governments persecuted Spanish anti-fascists living in France, who as a rule had fought in the Resistance, the AVER, together with all democratic organisations, waged an extensive campaign of protest against their arrests and expulsion from France. The AVER also came out against the brutal repressions in fascist Spain, and was one of the organisers of mass meetings of protest against the murder of Julian Grimau. In recent years, the AVER has been taking an active part in international 156 meetings in defence of the Spanish people and demanding amnesty for political prisoners.

p There are not many veterans of the International Brigades still alive today, but they are always among the first to show a readiness to resist whenever fascism again tries to raise its head. During the attempted counter-revolutionary coup in Hungary in 1956, fascist groups in France, protected by the police, made a raid on the editorial offices of the newspaper, L’Humanite, and tried to set fire to the building. Former Spanish war volunteers were in the forefront of the popular demonstration that upset the plans of the fascists. During that confrontation two workers were killed, and one of them, Ferrand, was a veteran of the Spanish war. In exactly the same way, during the war in Algeria, when the fascists tried to accomplish a coup d’etat and visited bloody reprisals upon democrats, former Spanish war veterans again fought in the ranks of the working class against fascism. In February 1962, during an anti-fascist demonstration in Paris, nine persons were killed by the police, and Fernand Belino, the President of the AVER, was seriously wounded.

p Today, the surviving veterans of the Spanish war, although much older, have not withdrawn from the struggle. On the contrary, their long experience has made them into tempered and courageous fighters for democracy, for peace, for a better life for the working people. Many of them are eminent political and public figures, such as, for example, Francois Bilious, member of the Political Bureau of the CC FCP; Henri Rol-Tanguy, member of the CC FCP; Andre Tourne, former deputy of parliament and now president of the Republican Association of War Veterans; Fernand Belino, general councellor of the Department of Seine, and the AVER Chairman; Andre Gregoire, Mayor of Montreuil-sur-Seine, a large suburb of Paris; Honore Galli, one of the directors of the France-Spain Association. Former Resistance fighters Gaudefroy, Blesy and Rol-Tanguy are on the board of the National Association of the Veterans of the French Resistance.

The veterans of the International Brigades remain true to the ideal for which they and their fighting comrades spilled their blood in the ranks of the Spanish Republican Army.