"Spanish members of the French Resistance" Topic

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"French Resistance parade in Touluse after his liberation of the Germans. In particular, these men aren't French, they're Spanish fighters that after the defeat of the Spanish Republic and the invasion of France, joined the French Resistance to fight against the nazism and fascism.
They are wearing German helmets but it's very possible that a few of theme are using the Spanish M26 helmet that was used in the Spanish Civil war. They are using the French FM 24/29 and bolt rifles like thhe Mauser Kar98 and MAS36 (also it's possibly that some rifle could be a Nagant).
In the foreground, a man is carrying a flag, it's the flag of the Spanish Republic."

Found this and thought it would be interesting to some here.I hadn't seen photos of the Spanish members that were part of the French Resistance. Interesting mix of weapons and uniforms. Robert

Forgotten Heroes
Spanish Resistance in France 1939-45
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Spanish maquis crossing the Pyrenees.

"The formation of the AGE
Some of the Spanish refugees joined French resistance groups, while others formed autonomous groups. In April 1942 a meeting of several Spanish combat groups decided to take the name of the XIV Cuerpo del Ejército de Guerrilleros Españoles, considering themselves the Corps' successors.
In May 1944 the XIV Corps re-formed as the Agrupación de Guerrilleros Españoles (AGE, roughly Group of Spanish Guerrillas),[1] because they consisted for the most part of Spanish combatants on French soil. This conveyed the group's distancing from the Franc Tireurs Partisans (FTP), the armed branch of the French Communist Party, with whom they had previously worked closely. By this time, the Spanish resistors had participated in numerous armed actions against the German army, even liberating various populations in the south of France.
The numbers of Spanish combatants in the ranks of the Resistance vary quite a bit amongst sources, but in general they accept a number around 10,000.[2] After the German army was driven from France, Spanish maquis returned their focus to Spain."
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Thank you for the heads up! But. Yes. One of the shames for the allies after world war 2, besides letting Czechoslovakia and Poland in the communist sphere f influence, is forgetting about the authoritarian regime in Spain, while thousands of experienced warriors had kept fighting against the fascism both in occupied France and in the allied armies (and they were in the Soviet army as well).

In fact the first troops entering (and such liberating) Paris werethe "La Nueve" ex Spanish republic soldiers of the Leclerc division. When the maquis made their postwar bid against Franco, they were on their own, with no allied support of any kind.

And there was no cold war in '46, but allied fleet and air assets and an allied army (the size of the one fighting in Italy would have more than sufficed to cripple the Spanish army and would have been welcome by the people, who then had already seen through Franco's mask; neither Carlists or monarchists nor true Falangists were happy with him at all. A shame and 40 years of tiranny and repression from which Spain has never recovered.

The roots of Spain's problems are much deeper than Franco. He was a symptom rather than the cause. One might ask why Spanish governmental tradition has fared so badly in Spain and lots of Latin American countries, particularly why did their historic politics become so polarised.

I suggest that the allies did not move on to Spain because
1) They were exhausted and had no democratic mandate for extending the war. Britain was bankrupt and had they attempted to extend the war there would have been the danger of a military and trade union mutiny.
2) Franco had not come in on the side of the Germans when the temptation to grab Gibraltar must have been huge.. What credibility would the allies have had to start attacking neutrals? Would they have moved on Switzerland or Sweden?
3) There are many Franco haters and he was no angel, but he did largely keep Spain out of WW2 and thus avoid the massive casualties suffered by Germany and her allies. You cannot just blame him for the brutal civil war and not see that the actions of the Anarchists and Communists could be as bad. Civil Wars are nearly always cruel because people have become so polarised and both live in the territory so you must win completely, you cannot make peace and withdraw. Think about why was Spain so polarised and it is not just about sweetness and light on one side and evil on the other.

Lastly, why is it that volunteers for the International Brigades in the UK are praised, whilst jihadists from Luton who go to Afghanistan are pilloried? For some reason the SCW has a lot of myth associated with it.

You cannot just blame him for the brutal civil war and not see that the actions of the Anarchists and Communists could be as bad.

My grandparents and parents lived through the SCW and their understanding and explanation of the situation was much less ideological. It was all about who in the town got along. If someone had a piece of land that another coveted, that person was accused of being a subversive and reported so that they would get carted away and one could take the land.

After the war, everyone knew who the fascists were and who the non-fascists were for the rest of their lives. Those scars never healed. Even today, my mom, will pass a house and tell how that man is evil because he had many arrested and killed during the war.

"Lastly, why is it that volunteers for the International Brigades in the UK are praised, whilst jihadists from Luton who go to Afghanistan are pilloried? For some reason the SCW has a lot of myth associated with it."

Because the Nationalists in Spain were supported by Hitler and Mussolini, who would later become the enemies of Great Britain. Plus I've never heard of veterans of the SCW coming back home and then setting off bombs and suchlike.

International jihadis WERE praised as heroes up until the end of the Cold War. It's only after the 9/11 attacks that Britain, the USA, Australia and a bunch of other countries found themselves fighting them.

-Kosta

Also the British veterans of the International Brigade form the core of the Home Guard here in the UK.

And the majority of foreigners who went to fight for the Nationalists were fascists, although O'Duffys Irish Blueshirts were IRA. We don't tend to like either of them very much.

@ supermosca It is not so simple as might be thought. In 1936 Britain did not know that it would be fighting Hitler and Mussolini and arguably thought that we might be allied to them against Soviet Russia. Arguably all of Chamberlain's concessions to Hitler were motivated by the nought that other Germany or Russia would dominate Europe and that Germany was preferable. Citizens of Eastern Europe might well have agreed with him at that point.
The Spanish civil war veterans are loosely the same group as those who launched strikes in the docks of the UK to hinder the war effort when Stalin made a pact with Hitler to attack the Poles and enslave the Baltic States.

@phicks I relly doubt that the veterans of the SCW form the core of the Home Guard, it's core was a large number of trained WW1 veterans who had served their country 20 years before.

@MartinRapier, there were idealists and patriots on both sides in the SCW. We have a rosy idea about the leftists because we never had to live under Communism and fought the Nazis. Had we suffered as Eastern Europe suffered or as Russia suffered then we might see both as equally evil.

I think that while it's fair to say that most volunteers for the Spanish Republic were Communists, Socialists or Social Democrats, the repressive influence and direction that the Soviet Union had on Republican Spain was increasingly (as the war went on) the result of the fact that the USSR was the only country supplying arms in any quantity to the Republicans.

If the world's democracies had supplied arms to the Republic, or at least enforced the arms embargo, Soviet influence over the Republican government would arguably have been much lessened.

It would have undoubtedly been lessened, but then the 'West' was trying to operate in a non violent way. They just did not see that a conflict with Fascism was inevitable, whereas it was the Soviets who had a declared programme of overthrowing capitalist regimes. western views on Communist and Anarchist takeovers were heavily coloured by the Russian Revolution only 15 years before in which priests and middle class people had been extensively murdered.
iMHO people's decisions are extensively influenced by recent past events, but when we look back we take into account the next thing to happen and see it as inevitable, but in the minds of the people at the time it is only one possibility. Nowadays Franco is seen as a part of the Hitler/ Mussolini movement, but he did represent something genuinely Spanish and had his supporters within the country who doubtless felt that a Red victory would be the end of them… Particularly the RC Church.

If I can cast one more hand grenade into the debate. The position of the maquis in France is a dubious one. The British actively encouraged resistance to the Germans in France and attacked the French government that signed the peace of 1940. That seems fine in a life or death struggle, however, it meant that there was no recognition of Germany's victory in1940 and thus that war could not end. Similarly the British supported an illegal French army under de Gaulle that continued to fight against its own government. We should not be surprised that others learned the lesson of this.
Perhaps the Spaniards that fought on after the end of the Civil War only continued the conflict and the repression of the Spanish people and that seeking a just peace might have been better for all.
Mind you I doubt that Hitler or Stalin would have been bound by any agreement that did not suit them.

Mmm… Let's see. (Sorry for the long post)
Franco did not kepp Spain out of the war because of his will but because Hitler placed more value on a neutral Vichy France than on an allied Spain and a Vichy France welcoming the allies to recover its colonial possessions "ceded" to Spain in exchange of conquering and closing Gibraltar (Spain wanted Morocco at least). The entry of Spain in the war in those conditions would have sped Torch and could have put both French governments on the same side. It is interesting but not a good scenario for the axis if it wants to mess with the USSR… Also, Spain was not neutral. It became not belligerent and sent volunteer troops to Russia. BTW it was one good way to get rid of falangists back at home who were stirring because of Franco's treatment.

It is true that the anarchists hurted the republican cause to an extreme degree. The communists did not because they were not a driving force in the beginning, being minoritary, but became so influential, as Super Mosca rightly points out, because of the help the USSR was selling (dearly; Spanish gold reserves were depleted to satisfy this deal) to the republic. So a commie Spain was not a danger in '36 by any way. In '39, moderate left republicans wrestled army control from communists only to lose the war to the incoming last francoist offensive. Franco was a cruel, vain man (and not a military genius, but a practical commander), who conducted a brutal repression with massive killings and forced labour internments post war, keeping the country hungry and impoverished for a long decade until the American government decided they wanted him as an ally.

Combatpainter hit the nail with his comment. Largely, at least in the Spanish country, war was a way to indulge in long kept grudges. And while it is true that the Spanish state troubles were far older, and that the republican government did few things to better the situation, at least it was the legal, democratic government and took many initiatives which were slowly, in some ways, addressing it. So always keep in mind that while FAI people were bad people, and they and the commies acted like bullies, Francoists were the worst guys, period. There were also idealists and patriots in the SS, and they were the bad guys, no doubt.

Finally, while economics were tough in the UK and the rest of the allies, we are not talking about even '43 Italy but Spain. As said, an impoverished country in rationing conditions, with dated equipment and army. The military had lost scores to the civil war and Blue division casualties, and had no manpower reserves to draw upon. The security forces like guardia civil were no match for anybody in the western front, and the people would have welcome the liberation forces. A whole division could have been recruited from experienced maquis and regulars already in the French army*, and entering Spain would have been like slicing butter, really. Only drawback? The state of the roads, that's it. There was no politic will to keep fighting against fascism, that's all. Understandable, if you did not live in Spain or did not fight straight from '36 to '45 against fascism.
*The liberators of Paris fought from '36 to '39 in the republican army, then on the French foreign Legion in Narvik or France, then in Africa, Italy and France again, right up to the end and beyond. Some of them died in the 50s still fighting guerrilla style.

@Lewisgunner: Franco did not want, never wanted, a just peace. He wanted to exterminate his enemies once and for all; he also did not want to share the power, and ruthlessly used the dumb falangist and carlist movements to achieve that power. A few years after '39 true falangists were utterly disenchanted of Franco; Carlists even went to the other side and opposed him.
Cheers!

Hola Dogged
Are you really advocating that the Allies should have attacked Spain just because Franco was an unpleasant dictator? I am afraid it didn't work like that. Firstly, as I pointed out the democracies would have had no support in their own countries for this and no money and no mandate to have their young men killed for no advantage to their own state.
We did not declare war on Germany for ideological reasons. For the 1939 governments of Britain Nd France the problem was of Hitler getting too strong and dominating the Benelux countries and wanting Alsace Lorraine returned to Germany. His ideology was unattractive, but there was no reason to rerun the horrors of WW1 for that. (That is a big point for Britain and France).
After WW2 the big worry was the Russians , not dictators. The Allies were quite happy to see right wing dictators in power in Europe and SAmerica and Asia because that was an acceptable way to deny the Communists. The very idea that they should have handed Spain to likely allies of the Soviets was unthinkable.

Gogged wrote:

A shame and 40 years of tiranny and repression from which Spain has never recovered.

I don't doubt that, as combatpainter has eloquently pointed out, there are still scars. But, at risk of doghousing for mentioning politics, I think Spain fully proved its commitment to modern parliamentary democracy when King Juan Carlos went on TV to say that the putschistes of 23-F would succeed only over his dead body. Few western nations have such a recent or vivid demonstration of their commitment to democracy.

Lewisgunner wrote:

Lastly, why is it that volunteers for the International Brigades in the UK are praised, whilst jihadists from Luton who go to Afghanistan are pilloried?

I'm going to take a wild guess that it's the difference between fighting to resist fascism, and fighting to impose it.

the British supported an illegal French army under de Gaulle

And what law did it contravene, do tell?

@phicks I relly doubt that the veterans of the SCW form the core of the Home Guard

I recommend you to read Tom Wintringham's "New Ways of War", and look a little into the history of the Home Guard anti-tank school at Osterley Park.

All the best,

John.

My grandfather, 36 at the time, was reported by someone in the town. The fascists came knocking and took him away. Two days later, my mom, 13, had a neighbor tell her her father's body was up the hill on the side of the road. Mostly it had to do with vendettas and personal agendas. If you didn't like someone, report them and get them out of the way. The townspeople with guns were the most brutal. The would shoot you out of a tree as you were picking cherries and they had something against you. My mom witnessed that as well. There was nothing really organized in terms of the towns people in my part of the country. They were not flying flags or anything like that.

"Invasion of Val d'Aran ,Spain 1944" Topic
TMP link

Winteringham was a founder of the British Communist Party as dangerous to Britain as any Jihadist. However, in 1940 it suited him to set up Home guard training because he would have been on any Nazi death list. As I said earlier Communist dockers old not load ships when they thought that we might act against their Sofiet masters.
De Gaulle's army was illegal because the French government had surrendered in 1940 and laid down its arms. For soldiers to fight on after that is illegal. Of course if you end on the winning side as the Free French did then you retrospectively become legal.

My point about he maquis, the Yugoslav resistance , Greek Resistance etc is that if you fight a war and lose you make a treaty of surrender and abide by it. Resistance movements which the allies understandably supported have no legal basis. They are continuing the war and are bringing their civilian populations into the danger that the occupying power will just disregard the protections that the civilian population should have. If we follow a theory that resistance movements are justified then wars never end. If the war is not ended then why shouldn't the Germans just massacre the civilian population as we massacred their civilians from the air. Why should there be complaint about the Resistance fighters being shot when we did the same to German resisters after 1945, justifying their execution on the basis that they had fought on after surrender.

I am sorry that you see a difference between fighting to resist Fascism and fighting to impose it. Leaving your country to fight in someone else's war is illegal. The members of the International Brigades were fighting for a greater truth..generally Socialist Revolution, unfortunately the jihadists think that they are fighting for a supranational cause too.
But that's getting too near modern politics as you say.

Lewisgunner wrote:

I am sorry that you see a difference between fighting to resist Fascism and fighting to impose it.

Yes, that much seems clear.

John.

'Lastly, why is it that volunteers for the International Brigades in the UK are praised, whilst jihadists from Luton who go to Afghanistan are pilloried? For some reason the SCW has a lot of myth associated with it.,

Both were/are ideological fools.

Spanish Maquis in La Tresorerie
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O'Duffys Irish Blueshirts were IRA

No, Martin, they were not. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've nothing particularly good to say about the Army Comrades Association, but 'IRA' they were not.

The Army Comrades Association was founded in 1933. By 1935, it had been disbanded. Duffy subsequently formed an openly fascist National Corporate Party, with a paramilitary wing called the Greenshirts. Only 80 former Blueshirts joined the new outfit. That's 80 out of a reported 100,000 which is the generally accepted membership of the ACA. The contingent that went to Spain was composed of members of the NCP.

You want to see a pro-Nazi IRA type from that period of history? Try Frank Ryan.

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Take careful note of the side he took in the SCW.

"Basque units fought with the French resistance, in particular the FFI (Forces Français à l'Intérieur), and in small guerilla bands in the Pyrenees (Kurlansky, 1999).

Reference:

Kurlansky, M. (1999). The Basque History of the World. Canada: Alfred A. Knopf. "

@john DSalt
I think that you mistake what I said. My point is not that there is some morale equivalence between Fascists , socialists or jihadists, but that legally there is no difference in status when you leave your country to fight for a 'cause'. Mind you, in the hierarchy of evils I do wonder whether there is in some areas an ability to see in the 1930s Communist terror as somehow less bad than Nazi terror or a fundamentalist religious regime. I' rather have lived in Fascist Italy than Be a peasant in 1920s Russia.

@John D. Salt: I don't wanna enter modern politics neither. Suffice to say you may be surprised if you delve deeper into the 23F coup and king's role in the whole thing. Also, Spain's commitment to democracy is debatable and in fact being debated right now all around in Spain (and besides independentism).

@Lewisgunner: don't misunderstand me. I understand what you say and agree with most. But what is undeniable is that several thousands of foreigners fought along British and Americans against fascism. French got their state freedom back. Poles and Czechs did not. Spanish did not. It is not about Franco's unpleasantness that I am talking about (unpleasant he was, ridicolous and laughable as you may see here, as much as he was cruel, dangerous and insidious). I was not talking about right wing dictators being preferable to filosoviet regimes.

I was talking about a democratic, legal government overthrown by a totalitarian fascist regime neighboring France and less than 1000 miles from London. A country from which thousands of allied troopers and supporters came. It is not a legal question; as you yourself righyly pointed out the allies did not shudder about bombing Dresden, for example. There could have benn complaints but there was plenty of justification.

And the Spanish campaign would have not been a tough one. The maquis invasion (thanks kaoschallenged, great links) did not succeed because of low numbers and no support, and the country was, 5 years after the war, still exhausted, and the population scared to death by Francoist regime. And an allied invasion would have not brought a soviet like administration. There were plenty of Spanish non communist republicans around to form a new government. Bankrupcy? A liberated Spain would have been a contributor to war compensation, able to grant contracts and a staunch ally, right in 1945, no need to wait 'til 49 to just gain a likely ally. A few years later the allies were involved in Korea. It was lack of political will, motivated by whatever they wanted to appeal to.

EDIT: Of course I am kind of an idealist, I guess. Understand me please.

@Dogged,
I am in agreement with you up until your last paragraph. I don't think that you understand the Allies situation. Britain had fought for six years and was exhausted and broke. France was wrecked. The Americans were stretched or men and had to look after Japan as well as Germany. The Allies had to occupy Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece . Britain had to re occupy Burma and Malaya and hold India. Spain would have been way down on their radar because it was in safe hands. Unfortunately Spain could not be guaranteed to move from Franco to a parliamentary regime in 1945. From the Allies point of view Communists were a threat everywhere after the war and the record in Spain suggested that those who fled to France and would be in a position to seize power were hard-line leftists and, if Spain were conquered they might well be the beneficiaries of any regime change.
Sure, you are right that in 36 it would have been better for Spain had the legitimate government avoided the Franco coup or won the war quickly and pursued a programme of gradual reform. But that did not happen and Britain and France I'd not intervene because that wanted to pretend that , rather than the first shots in the next world war Spain was a local matter only. Spain was a backwater and its only strategic significance was Gibraltar. If Franco was fine on Gibraltar then why trouble him?
If they had been into intervention what about the Salazar regime in Portugal? That was britain's tacit ally in Ww2
Had the US been going to intervene anywhere after WW2 then China would have been the place because the fall of the Nationlists has involved the US in a vast cost in men and treasure over the years.

You should also recall that in large swathes of the world Britain ran (in1945 ) a regime that was racist and dictatorial and that the US supported dictators in SAmerica quite happily. The democracies did not have an agenda of exporting democracy, though they would have preferred states in Europe not to to be dominated by Russia.
So don't be surprised that Britain and the US tolerated Franco, before 1939 they had been happy enough t o do business with Hitler and Mussolini and they had just fought for 4years with Stalin as an ally.

Thanks Dogged. Glad you appreciated them. Robert

@Lewisgunner: it may be a thing of point of view. I fully understand the allied situation in 1945, both in economical and resources (human and material) capability. But it is not an excuse. The war could have gone for further and the allies would have had to fight through it. In fact they fought for 4 months more against Japan. And a full invasion had been planned. I can't believe that any economical argument can serve as an excuse. And then there's the obvious moral mandate to fix what a faulty and irresponsible one sided arms embargo brought on republican Spain. Obvious mandate doesnot equal mandatory, that's it.

The communist menace has been much exaggerated time and again. I repeat myself but I'll remember you than soviet like communist leaders, who only came to preeminence because of soviet help after beginnings of 37 was the main source of help for the republic, were ousted from the republican army by moderate and leftist republicans before war's end.

It was a low point on allied morality that partially invalidates all the fighting for democracy and freedom talk. It does not surprise me, it sickens me that even in such a moment they could not get over it.

P.S.: I am not a fan of the Spanish republic, mind it. Nor about the politicians who were in charge, be them leftist or not. But it was the lesser evil.
Cheers!

Franco's problem is that he won and survived. And therefore we know how horrible he was ( no way am I saying that he wasn't). We just don't know how the Republic might have turned out, would it have gone the way of becoming a Soviet satellite and then been invaded by Hitler in 1940? Whilst Spain would have been difficult to hold for an invader the Germans could count on the disgruntled rightist s, car lists etc to run a brutal Vichy style regime . Could the British have then held Gibraltar? I doubt it. So it is never so easy to just speculate on one variant historic outcome.
As to the Allies, they had the motivation of revenge, of the return of Empire and of great power status in the Pacific to fight Japan and crucially they had the consent of their people. Not intervening in Spain was the right decision in 1945 because they could not even intervene in Poland or Czechoslovakia.. Actually a large part of this was that Roosevelt and Truman had an optimistic view of Stalin similar to that of the British and French of Hitler in 1936. When Stalin showed that he was going to seize power all over Europe including Greece and Italy the Allies moved to intervention, but only against leftist regimes.
Even today the West is deeply worried about supporting the overthrow of dictators and ending up with the worse alternative of an extremist government. The Spain that emerged after Franco in 1945 might well not have been an ally, whereas Franco, now friendless promised the suppression of any Communist moves.
In the end countries follow their own interest . A move on Spain was just not in the democracies interest, just as withdrawing Spanish troops from Ceuta is viewed differently in Spain as against taking back Gibraltar.
Great to debate with you.
Cheers
Roy

Good to debate