MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion: The Canadian Contingent in the Spanish Civil War 9780773582576

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
1 The Origins of the Spanish Civil War
2 The Organization of the International Brigades
3 The Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force
4 The Voyage to Spain
5 Dr. Norman Bethune
6 The Battle of the Jarama River Valley
7 Rest and Recuperation
8 The Battle of Brunete
9 The Scene in Canada
10 The Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
11 The Political Commissar
12 The Battles of Quinto and Belchite
13 The Battle of Fuentes de Ebro
14 Rest and Recuperation
15 The Battle of Teruel
16 The Retreats
17 Canadian Prisoners of War
18 The Battle of the Ebro River
19 The Way Home
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y

Citation preview

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Canadians! Do you love freedom? I know you do. Do you hate oppression? Who dare deny it? —William Lyon Mackenzie

In good and bad fortune, we are for the people. If they be illtreated, we shall not keep aloof, we shall not remain quiet, we shall defend them at every risk. We contend for principles, and if these are violated, we will maintain them against any authority whatsoever, so long as our hearts beat—so long as our lips can pronounce the truth, give vent to protest, or scatter reproach! —Louis Joseph Papineau

THE MACKENZIE-PAPINEAU BATTALION The Canadian Contingent in the Spanish Civil War

VICTOR HOWARD with MAC REYNOLDS

CARLETON UNIVERSITY PRESS OTTAWA-CANADA 1986

©Carleton University Press Inc., 1986 ISBN 0-88629-049-X Printed in the United States Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Howard, Victor The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (The Carleton library; no. 137) Includes index. Bibliography: p. First published: Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1969. ISBN 0-88629-049-X I. Spain. Ejército. Brigada Internacional, XV. 2. Spain — History - Civil War, 1936-1939 Participation, Canadian. I. Reynolds, Mac II. Title. III. Series. DP269.47.C3H68 1986

946.081

C86-090149-1

Distributed by: Oxford University Press 70 Wynford Drive DON MILLS, Ontario, Canada, M3C 1J9 (416)441-2941

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Lawrence Cane, for his assistance with the maps on pages 140, 164, and 174. Geza Karpathi, for the photo, "Canadians from the Lincoln and Washington Battalions". Hazen Sise, for the photos, "Refugees between Almeria and Malaga", and "Bethune, assisted by Sorenson, performing a transfusion". * * * ** Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing programme by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University.

(This dedication appeared in the original edition)

This book is dedicated with affection and esteem to Ronald Liversedge, Cowichan Lake, B.C. and Saul Wellman, Detroit, Michigan

THE CARLETON LIBRARY SERIES A series of original works, reprints, and new collections of source material relating to Canada, issued under the supervision of the Editorial Board, Carleton Library Series, Carleton University Press Inc., Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada. G E N E R A L EDITOR Michael Gnarowski EDITORIAL BOARD Leslie Copley (Physics) Bruce Cox (Anthropology) Peter Emberley (Political Science) Keith Johnson (History) David Knight (Geography) Michael MacNeil(Law) Thomas Rymes (Economics) John deVries (Sociology)

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

In 1976, the National Film Board released a handsome documentary about the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion called "Los Canadienses." The closing scene shows James "Red" Walsh, a legendary leader of the On to Ottawa Trek and then a political commissar in the Battalion, sweeping the sidewalk of a small neighbourhood park in Vancouver. Behind Red, some kids play tennis. Red works very carefully at his job, technically he is a good sweeper. And then his voice is heard over the picture; he is talking about elections and democracy and the right and the obligation of a citizen to vote. His is a rich, powerful, urgent voice, one that had served Red well in the old days. For some time before his recent death, Red Walsh held a job with the city, taking care of that park in return for a small stipend and a small apartment. It was there in his flat that the Film Board interviewed him, Red perched on the side of his bed, a huge TV set on a table behind him, a bed-sitting room one might call it. The ironies are palpable. A remarkable leader of the working class in the 1930's, the survivor of a terrible wound suffered in the Ebro Campaign in 1938, now the caretaker of an anonymous park where the children play and the grass grows and the sidewalk needs sweeping. I met Red Walsh in Vancouver in 1967, having been told that if he accepted my interest in writing a book about the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and in beginning research for a second volume on the On to Ottawa Trek (many who went on the Trek later served in Spain), that Red would be an indispensable resource and advocate. He agreed to help, we became good friends, and through Red I met the likes of Doc Savage, Perry Hilton, Johnny Johnson, Irven Schwartz, Lou Tellier, all of whom shared vivid adventures of Spain or of the Trek. For a week, Red stayed at my side, arranging interviews, setting up a meeting of the MacPap Veterans Association, taking me around the streets and alleys adjacent to the Cenotaph which once throbbed with the beat of marching strikers. And then we shook hands and I left, never to see him again until he appeared in the film, sitting on the edge of his bed, talking about Spain. It is their voices that I have with me, tape recordings of interviews made on that trip west or else conducted by my colleague Mac

viii

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Reynolds of the C.B.C. The interviews usually began with the question, "Where were you in July 1936?", when the Civil War began. And they often concluded with the sadly spoken memories of a lost cause, once in a while with the sound of an old man weeping. Their voices became an inventory of Canadian accents, Norwegian, Danish, British, French, Ukrainian, Finnish, German, but all Canadian. And all determined and sometimes struggling to tell the story of their time in Spain. The Canadians who served with the International Brigades were already, fifty years ago, rather older than, say, their American counterparts, a bit tougher, more used to sleeping under the stars, as Lou Tellier put it. Those who are alive today are getting on in years, to say the least. For three decades or more following their return from Spain, these men languished in obscurity, their commitment, their sacrifice scarcely known even to their contemporaries, much less to the generations of Canadians who have grown up since then. But several events transpired to draw the MacPaps from their obscurity. One was the fabled "1960V an era of domestic and international crisis which prompted many young Canadians to turn to the past for examples of heroic endeavour, for examples of idealism. Another event was the Vietnam War. And if Canadians were not really involved in that escapade (excepting the several hundred who joined the U.S. Armed Forces or the delegates to the International Control Commission), still there was a lot of sympathy for the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese and not always a lot for the United States. And this sympathy provoked an interest in the history of a group of men who had once before gone to the aid of a nation about to be overwhelmed by hostile forces. This book, itself, first published in 1969, played some role in drawing attention to the volunteers, as did the film "Los Canadienses." And then Franco died in 1975, and with the increasing democratization of Spain, some of the men went back there, as tourists but most particularly, as witnesses. These men should now know that their place in history is assured. This is especially important as the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War takes place. I have no idea whether the survivors or their children or their grand-children intend some sort of commemoration of that conflict and of the part Canadians played in it. It may be difficult for them to commemorate a war which they lost, but perhaps that won't

Introduction

ix

be a problem for they and their comrades fought well, valiantly, until only a handful, scarcely a platoon of the Battalion, was left in the field. Moreover, they may feel like celebrating the fact that a Socialist government is in office in Spain currently and that this government stands a very good chance of being elected to a second term just about the time the fiftieth anniversary begins. They may feel like celebrating the fact that the Communist Party of Spain is legalized and that Dolores Ibarurri, "Las Pasionaria," has some time ago returned from nearly forty years in Russia and that, presumably, there is no longer a need for a Republican government in exile in Mexico. For all this, the Spain that one finds today may not quite be the Spain that the MacPaps fought to save. It is once again a monarchy, though a constitutional monarchy, with a young King Juan Carlos who has been a key architect of the democratization that has taken place. The labour unions, noisy as ever, do not quite have the power that one might wish they had but this is due, in part, to the shift away from an industrial economy to one increasingly based upon services and technology. (Only this year has Spain been able to join the Common Market.) The unemployment rate is one of the fiercest in Europe. Regional nationalism has not been sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. Free, open elections are held, however, which is what Red Walsh had in mind. In August 1937, Republican troops supported by British, American and Canadian infantry, attacked a Nationalist stronghold in the Aragon called Belchite. At best, Belchite was a village of about 1 kilometres square. But the resistance was ferocious and the battle lasted for six days and nights, a nightmare concentrated in such a small place. The Republicans won, for the time being, while taking heavy losses. When the Civil War ended, Belchite was left to its shattered self. Another town with the same name was erected a few meters away. So the visitor comes on this unique battleground as it rises slowly over the hill, the first sight being the steeples of two churches that somehow stand. Observation and machine gun posts. "We were always afraid of the churches/' There is not a building left in old Belchite that can be inhabited by human beings. Stepping through the ruined lanes, peering through shellholes into rooms, edging along the banks of a steep gulley down which scampered brigaders seeking a vantage point from which to grenade Nationalist positions. It is a

x

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

precarious stroll. An old Spaniard who says he fought there appears around a corner, riding a bike. He becomes a guide, identifying the original purpose of this or that ruin, pulling one to the side of a building, pointing to a church and making the noise of bullets passing by: "Fffft Fffft." One asks: "Dónde están los muertos?" Where are the dead? And the old man leads on to a scuffy concrete marker which signifies a memorial to "los caidos," the fallen. But this is a memorial to the Nationalist dead, as would be any marker in Spain, from Franco's tasteless "Valle de Los Caidos" outside Madrid to this homely stone in Belchite. There are no such public monuments to the Republican forces. Who was there left to erect them? Canadians died there that summer, among them a giant of a man named Charlie Sands. A German emigre with considerable experience in the Communist movements opposing Hitler's Third Reich, Sands had moved to Canada, had helped organize the On to Ottawa Trek and then had gone to Spain, there to fall in Belchite. Like so many of the men who went to fight in Spain, Sands had a deeply felt political and ethical reason for volunteering. It may be said that he died well. East Lansing, Michigan July, 1985

PREFACE

Not long after I began collecting materials for a history of the Canadian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, I published a "letter to the editor" in several Canadian newspapers requesting documents, interviews, etc., relevant to the story. Immediately, I received this unsigned note, scrawled on Chateau Laurier stationery: Go to hell with this boring nonsense and rather devote yourself to some more thought-provoking work.

I did not go to hell but went ahead with my inquiries instead, and with some luck and the generous assistance of many Canadians and Americans, I eventually sorted out the narrative which is set down here. I soon learned that none of the obvious archives, the Canadian Army historical section or the Public Archives of Canada, had any material dealing with the volunteers. If there were records of any sort, they were still held by the men. To my surprise, I discovered that some thirty-five of the survivors of this unique force had contributed lengthy taperecorded interviews to the Program Archives Department of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1964-5. I have since collected a second and smaller tape library. This use of tape-recorded interviews made long after the event described requires some explanation. Oral History, as it has come to be styled, is still new to Canadian historians although it has flourished in the United States for twenty years. Since the respondents are expected to rely upon memory in their account of this or that episode, the scholar may well ask just how valid are such interviews. The memory is not the most reliable of instruments. But in the case of mass interviews conducted on a common subject, a common experience emerges from individual descriptions which can be authenticated by reference to the handful of pertinent books and articles available and which can be further authenticated simply by the fact that isolated men having little or no contact with one another over the years come up with essentially the same story again and again. Oral History is a technique that will more and more play an important part in the description of Canada in the twentieth century. The Program Archives Department of the CBC has long been involved in this activity; its files are laden with exciting, exceptional interviews,

xii

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

examples for any historian or archivist of the country who might wish to investigate this new method. A second useful source for this study has been the small collection of documents and memorabilia held by the Toronto Public Library, which was donated by volunteers and the CBC Program Archives. As yet still unavailable to the public, this collection should form the basis for a larger assortment of materials to be assembled over the next few years. In the main, these documents consist of letters, photographs, and propaganda leaflets but among them is a volume entitled The Book oftheXVth International Brigade published in Spain in 1937-8, and a card file of six hundred names of Canadian volunteers prepared originally by the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. A third important source of information is the papers of the late Edward C. Smith, commander of the Canadian battalion in Spain. Among these are many letters of specifically autobiographical nature written by survivors in 1939 for an editorial commission which hoped to produce a history of the Mac-Paps; World War II intervened before this book could be composed and interest in the project was never again aroused. Finally, there are the published volumes of memoirs and histories, European and American, which contain references to the Canadian participation. Most important are Edwin Rolfe's The Lincoln Battalion (New York, 1939), William Rust's Britons in Spain (London, 1939) and Arthur Landis's definitive The Abraham Lincoln Brigade. These three histories have provided the basic outline of the campaigns represented here. The only booklength memoir prepared by a Canadian volunteer is still unpublished: Ronald Liversedge's "A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War", written in Vancouver in 1965. A copy of this memoir is in the library of the University of British Columbia. From all these sources, I have gleaned the details which have gone into this history. From them, for instance, I have estimated that about 1250 Canadians actually served in Spain. This figure cannot be confirmed since the official records of the Canadian contingent were destroyed in Spain. It is based on contemporary reports, on the final report of the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion issued in the spring of 1939, and on the speculations of the men who were interviewed in recent years. In 1964, Mac Reynolds undertook to collect taped interviews of these volunteers for the CBC. Over an eighteen-month period, he

Preface

xiii

moved back and forth about Canada and the United States meeting with the men, persuading them to set down their experiences, winning their confidence through his own sympathy, admiration and warmth. Thereafter, Mr. Reynolds enabled me to examine these interviews and agreed to assist me with this enterprise as my research associate. I want to acknowledge his help and continued interest through the last three years. This book could not have been written without his assistance. A list of the individual Canadian and American veterans who were consulted during the period of research is appended in the bibliography but I would like to single out a few who have given so much of their time: Moe Fishman, New York City; Arthur Linton, London, Ontario; Walter Dent, Toronto; Alex Forbes, Toronto; William Beeching, Regina; Maurice Constant, Waterloo, Ontario; Lionel Edwards, Vancouver; Arthur Landis, Los Angeles; David Mates, Detroit. There are three veterans who have consistently and with great patience (not to say amusement) responded to my questions: Lawrence Cane, New York City; S. H. Abramson, New York City; Hazen Sise, Montreal. I have been aided at various and strategic moments by Mr. Graham Spry, Kingsmere, Quebec; Prof. H. Blair Neatby, Ottawa; Prof. Cecil Eby, Ann Arbor, Michigan; The Hon. John Pickersgill, Ottawa; Dr. Kaye Lamb, Ottawa; Mr. Robin Woods, Toronto; Prof, and Mrs. Earl Palmer, London, Ontario. I have received grants in aid of research from Middlesex College and University College of the University of Western Ontario. My colleagues at Western have listened patiently to my "war stories" and I wish to thank them. Professors John Graham, Paul Fleck, and A. M. J. Hyatt have always given me encouragement. Mrs. Sonia Beven and Mrs. Vida Blewett typed the manuscript. Miss Linda McKnight, my editor at Copp Clark, provided many insights. Finally, I have dedicated this book to two men, one Canadian and one American, whose unfailing courtesy, warmth and interest have long supported my endeavours. London, Ontario July, 1968

VICTOR HOWARD

xiv

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Contact with the veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was a unique experience for me. They ranged in age from about fifty to seventy-five and represented almost every ethnic group in Canada, apart from the notable absence of French Canadians. Their stories dovetailed so well and with such consistency that it has been possible for Mr. Howard to compile a history of the Battalion that I hope and predict will satisfy the men. This book should spark public interest in an unofficial but heroic event that does credit to so many Canadians who, without thought of reward or fame, followed a dangerous course to Spain. I found them, thirty years after, settled into private life, not bitter, not politically paranoid, but satisfied that they had done their best. Mac Reynolds

CONTENTS 1

The Origins of the Spanish Civil War

1

2

The Organization of the International Brigades

11

3

The Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

25

4

The Voyage to Spain

38

5

Dr. Norman Bethune

48

6

The Battle of the Jarama River Valley

63

7

Rest and Recuperation

78

8

The Battle of Brunete

89

9

The Scene in Canada

100

10

The Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

107

11

The Political Commissar

120

12

The Battles of Quinto and Belchite

125

13

The Battle of Fuentes de Ebro

141

14

Rest and Recuperation

151

15

The Battle of Teruel

163

16

The Retreats

173

17

Canadian Prisoners of War

196

18

The Battle of the Ebro River

205

19

The Way Home

224

Epilogue

239

Appendix

241

Notes

256

Bibliography

277

Index

281

This page intentionally left blank

CHAPTER ONE

'The poor, bewildered, courageous, dignified people." —Ronald Liversedge JARAMA, BRUNETE, Quinto, Belchite, Fuentes de Ebro, Teruel, The Retreats, The Ebro. These are the names of battlegrounds of the Spanish Civil War. If they do not appear in any lexicon of Canadian military campaigns, if they are not cited in Canadian histories, it is because Canada has forgotten that over twelve hundred of her countrymen took part in that bitter struggle that heralded World War II. Canada has forgotten that these men created the most unique military unit in her history: the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the XVth International Brigade of the Spanish Republican Army: "the Mac-Paps." Toward the end of the Spanish conflict, Frank Rogers, the American political commissar of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, told his men that, excepting France, no other country provided so great a number of volunteer soldiers in proportion to its population as did Canada: 1200 out of 12,000,000.x While this calculation can not be confirmed, it does still suggest that Canada's contribution was astonishing. Canada had no particular ties with Spain, no tradition of historical or emotional attachment. Why should Canada, of all countries, have given so much to a civil strife half a world away? Before this question can be answered, and before the story of this extraordinary group of volunteers can be disclosed, a brief account of the origins of the Spanish Civil War must be presented, for it is only in the context of this awesome episode in modern European history that the participation and sacrifice of the Canadians can be fully appreciated. The Spanish Civil War erupted on July 18, 1936, when a military junta moved to overthrow the incumbent Republican government.2 The rebellion was perhaps the inevitable consequence of five years of savage political, social and economic upheaval. King Alfonso XIII had gone into exile in the spring of 1931 after muni-

2

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

cipal elections in the larger cities had patently refused the monarchy and its recent succession of inept and corrupt governments, the best known of which had been the military dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. Advised that the army would not now rescue him from the indicated disdain of the voters, the king departed. Immediately exultant Spanish liberals created a provisional cabinet led by Prime Minister Niceto Alcala-Zamora. During the tenure of this government, April-October, 1931, the first liberal assaults were launched against the traditional sources of power in Spain: owners of large estates, the army and the Catholic church. The landowners were instructed to begin cultivation of unused acreage, the army was to be reduced from sixteen to eight divisions, the parochial schools would soon have to compete with a public system. These decrees would be expanded and supplemented under the new constitution which was prepared over the following months. Article 26, for example, abolished the Society of Jesus. The Agrarian Act moved to redistribute the land among the peasants and co-operatives. The new constitution was approved on December 9, and a week later Alcald-Zamora accepted the office of President of the Spanish Republic. Manuel Azana became Prime Minister. In his first cabinet were Indalecio Prieto (Finance) who would later become wartime Defense Minister, and Francisco Largo Caballero (Labour), a future Prime Minister. A member of the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, at this time was Juan Negrin, subsequently Finance Minister and then Prime Minister. From the outset it was apparent that the Second Republic would be jeopardized not only by its obvious opponents on the Right (who eventually were formed into the Conjederacidn Espanola de Derechas Autdnomas [CEDA] led by Jose Maria Gil Robles) but by the often eccentric position of the left-wing movements, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Confederacidn National de Trabajo (CNT), the Trotskyist Partido Obrero de UnificacMn Marxista (POUM), the Anarchist Federacidn Anarquista Ibtrica (FAI), and the Socialist Unidn General de Trabajadores (UGT). If the CNT and the UGT were agreed on the objectives of a commonwealth of the proletariat, they disagreed on tactics. The

Origins of the Spanish Civil War

3

UGT sought an orderly process, the CNT favoured general strikes. The Anarchists meanwhile declared for the overthrow of any centralized government and the return of authority to local communes. Numerically superior in the district of Catalonia, they added fuel to that region's aspirations for autonomy. The POUM was openly anti-communist and would exhaust itself during the next six years in fighting the rise of the Spanish Communist Party. The latter, which was to have such a profound influence on the subsequent wartime history of the Republic, numbered only three thousand members in 1933. While the Azana administration weathered the worst effects of a world depression, and while it made substantial progress in certain areas of reform, assuring, for example, the vitality of the crucial building trades through huge public works projects, it could not assuage the political unrest on the Left or on the Right. If the Spanish people had expected the Second Republic to usher in an instant Utopia, they were sorely disappointed and expressed their chagrin in countless street brawls, strikes, uprisings, and in their rejection of the Azana government at the polls in late 1933. Immediately following the election, President Alcala-Zamora invited Alejandro Lerroux, leader of the so-called centre Radicals, to form a government. Lerroux was supported by the leader of the right, Jose* Maria Gil Robles, who controlled both the CEDA and the newly-formed Spanish Fascist Party, the Falange. Gil Robles' parliamentary strength was sufficient for him to influence the government to repeal or circumvent much of Azana's reform legislation. The two years that followed this setback for the Left have been called Bienio Negro, "two black years." The Spanish Communists and the Spanish Fascists marked one another as enemies and then set about spilling blood. A group of young right-wing army officers formed the Unidn Militar Espanola, dedicated to the overthrow of the Republic. And in the autumn of 1934, in response to Lerroux's admission into his cabinet of three CEDA members, the UGT went out on general strike, Catalonia proclaimed its independence, and the province of Asturias rose up in a revolt led by the miners of the region. Both the general strike and the Catalonian movement were quickly put down but the Asturian uprising had

4

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

severe consequences. The army, directed from Madrid by General Francisco Franco, crushed the uprising within fifteen days and made bloody and brutal reprisals against the civilian populace. The gulf between Left and Right grew wider and wider. Gil Robles' refusal to allow commutation of the death sentences handed out to leaders of the Asturian revolution brought down the Lerroux government. Lerroux succeeded himself, though he had no choice now but to receive Gil Robles into the cabinet as War Minister. During his tenure in this office, the young leader turned over to Franco the task of rebuilding the ranks and traditions of the Spanish Army which had been reduced by the Azana government. The two black years drew to a close in January, 1936. Lerroux had resigned the previous October, and the continued refusal of President Alcala-Zamora to concede the reins of government to Gil Robles brought about the dissolution of the Cortes hi the new year. A general election was called for February 16. Inspired by the idea of the Popular Front which had come forward at the 1935 Seventh Congress of the Communist International, Spanish Left Groups—Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Trotskyists—aligned themselves against the CEDA and swept the polls. This victory was soon dissipated by a constitutional crisis which followed upon the removal of Alcald-Zamora as President. In May, Azana was elected his successor and the new president invited an old ally, Santiago Casares Quiroga, to take office as Prime Minister. Once more the Spanish Left began to split into factions while the Right became more and more unified in its opposition. It has been suggested that the group of conspirators who gathered a month later to initiate plans for an uprising of the Spanish military garrisons did so because they feared that the communists expected to overthrow the Republic and institute a dictatorship of the proletariat. However, one of Franco's recent and sympathetic biographers is convinced that the conspiracy was launched before this one particular fear had descended upon the plotters.8 In any case, plans were being made. Franco himself was a reluctant party to them for he still hoped that the government might call upon the army to bring order in the streets. As the government urged Spaniards to give up the political feuding that

Origins of the Spanish Civil War

5

nightly saw men assassinated and buildings levelled, the conspirators on the Right, most of them high-ranking army officials— Fanjul, Mola, Yagiie, Saliquet—moved to consolidate their organization, to determine plans of action for the various garrisons in Morocco and in Spain, and to win Franco away from his pessimism. By late June Franco had come round, partly because he now subscribed with particular vigour to the theory of a communist plot. As the rebellion grew to maturity, the various figures and groups represented in the conspiracy argued about the nature of the new regime that would emerge. The Carlists—militant Catholics and anti-democrats, the traditionalists of the Right—did not consent to the creation of a military dictatorship until July 15. The Fascists, who sought a corporative and syndicalist program, finally came in although they insisted on retaining their separate identity as military units. With these quarrels resolved, the generals called out the garrisons on the night of July 17-18, 1936. Their rallying cry: Fe ciega en el triunfo! (Blind faith in victory). . . . The Spanish Republic, the idea of Spanish democracy itself, had less than three years to live. When the Spanish Army went to war, its officers had one single motive which compelled them to rebellion: tradition. Hugh Thomas explains this tradition as the embodiment of a certain idea of a timeless supremely Castilian Spain, without politics, creating order and banishing all things non-Spanish (by which they understood Separatism, Socialism, Freemasonry, Communism and Anarchism). They could persuade themselves that their oath, as officers, to "maintain the independence of the country and defend it from enemies within and without" took precedence over their oath of loyalty to the Republic.4 Set against this tradition was the enormous hunger of the Spanish workers, peasants and lower middle classes for democratic government. A recent apologist for Franco has proposed that "The Spaniards are a deeply Manichean people, singularly unqualified for democracy (though this could change with literacy and affluence)."5 But if every citizen had to wait until he was "qualified," then he might never achieve his democracy for there would always be a few who would revise the qualifications. Presumably the

6

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Spanish people would never have met the qualifications for democracy so long as the monarchy endured. The Second Republic came into being because Spain was burdened with a swollen, selfindulgent ruling establishment; in attempting to rid the country of that establishment, the Republic was bound to encounter difficulties, and even to create a few itself. In any case, before the new government had a chance to prove itself following the February general election, the military junta had decided to take matters into its own hands. Everywhere men and governments turned to watch in dread and excitement. Some governments of the outer world reacted to the catastrophe according to the law of international diplomacy; others with a Machiavellian absorption in the experimental possibilities of new weapons; some were horrified at the tragic waste of human effort and achievement and all were driven by a desire not to burn their fingers uselessly.6 This outer world became quickly confused and then dismayed by the political configurations which emerged in Spain. Hitler and Mussolini pledged men and arms in support of the insurgents, who had taken the title "Nationalists." After a brief concession to the policy of non-intervention, the Soviet Union began to contribute equipment and advisors to the Republicans and to organize an International Brigade of volunteer combatants. This intervention on the part of three totalitarian powers prompted many residents of the outer world to the conclusion that the civil war amounted to little more than a premature showdown between fascists and communists. (This interpretation fatally damaged the Republican pursuit of aid, and it remains sufficiently alive today to discredit the survivors of the international force that eventually served in Spain.) Others reacted to the gravity of the situation positively. Fearful that the Spanish war might spill across Europe and envelop the civilized world, over five thousand representatives from thirty-two nations and innumerable trade unions, women's clubs, youth groups, veterans' associations and diverse political parties gathered in Brussels in the first week of September, 1936, to attend the Universal Peace Conference. The objective

Origins of the Spanish Civil War

7

was to create a permanent coordinating bureau for the many peace movements then current. The idea for the assembly is said to have originated with French and German veterans of World War One who had already engaged in a series of private conversations about the possibilities of war and peace. The steering committee, presided over by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, the organizer of the conference, moved immediately to adopt the slogan "Peace Is In Danger," then composed the following manifesto: Delegates will seek in common the best means of propaganda to make peace the credo of every person on this earth . . . The Congress will organize and unite the forces of peace until now scattered. No political doctrine, no conception of state, no social philosophy will be predominant. Only the will for peace, methods to organize it and means to assure it will be discussed.7 For three days, the visitors gathered to listen to speeches from dignitaries like ex-premier Edouard Herriot, V. Schwernik, secretary-general of the Soviet Trade Union, and Pierre Cot, French air minister. Meanwhile, twenty committees laboured over resolutions which, even then, must have appeared to some as pathetic: resolutions on disarmament, collective security, abolition of war profiteering, restoration of respect for treaties. The committees further proposed the creation of a permanent congress to operate on a budget of $2500 a month. This estimate apparently included the maintenance of an international air force which would police disarmament. At the last moment, a group of trade unionists suggested the adoption of Esperanto as a universal language. The conference closed with the inevitable sports rally where the guest of honour was Dolores Ibarruri, "La Pasionaria," who was well on her way to becoming the Spanish Republic's most flamboyant advocate. Beside Senora Ibarruri sat a wounded Republican soldier, a deserter from the rebel army, and a "renegade" Catholic priest. While Senora Ibarruri was forbidden the opportunity to make a speech, this awesome lady rose to her feet and received a great ovation. A few days after the close of the congress, the League of Nations in Geneva received Lord Cecil and some of his associates

8

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

from Brussels. The New York Times declared this delegation to be "the world's most important body of international opinion on peace."8 But while the League might have further distinguished the Brussels program by its indulgence, it was itself a poor object lesson in the maintenance of peace. Demoralized by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and by the German occupation of the Rhineland, weakened by the absence of the United States, Germany and Japan, the world body had no more resolution than France or Great Britain who were intimidated by any and all threats of war. So the Universal Peace Conference slipped into history, made impotent from the outset by the lack of official sanction from the great powers, denied the headlines it needed. Among the several thousand delegates to Brussels were twenty Canadians who had applauded the appearance of the fiery and controversial "La Pasionaria." Two of these, Tim Buck, national secretary of the Communist Party of Canada, and Allan Dowd, communist and social worker, visited Spain soon after the Brussels meeting ended. Dowd, who went in first, was invited to examine personally the character and conduct of the war and to carry home impressions which would nurture popular support for the Republic. Buck followed a few days later and remained in Spain for two or three weeks, interviewing Spanish leaders and examining the preparations in Madrid for the coming struggle for the capital. Of the two, Allan Dowd became most intensely involved in the conflict. Over the next two and a half years he became the principal envoy to the Spanish Republic representing that segment of Canadian society which gave its open and continuing support. On his third and last trip abroad, he negotiated the repatriation of Canadian volunteers of the International Brigade, a "diplomatic" assignment which was conducted with the full consent of the Canadian government. Dowd hastened into Spain on his first trip armed with a letter of introduction to the Republican ambassador to France, Luis Araquistain, whom he understood to be in Madrid at the moment, and with a plan whereby a group of Spanish diplomats would visit North America to counteract Nationalist propaganda. Araquistain immediately passed Dowd along to the Prime Minister, who consented to die mission and urged Dowd to arrange details with his

Origins of the Spanish Civil War

9

foreign minister, Alvarez del Vayo, then in Geneva. Dowd caught a train to Switzerland that same night and in another day or two met with Alvarez del Vayo and developed the proposition. Six weeks later, three Spaniards debarked in New York City where they were met by their host, Allan Dowd. They were Marcelino Domingo, former education minister in the first Republican government, Father Luis Sarasola and Senora Polencia, Republican ambassadress to Sweden. The party proceeded to Toronto where it made its first public appearance at the Mutual Street Arena. Over the next two months the Spaniards, accompanied by their advocate, Allan Dowd, toured Canada and the United States, collecting thousands of dollars in pledges for the defence and recovery of Spain. The solemnity of their procession was broken only once, in Chicago, when they were greeted by a local band which serenaded them with "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here."9 By the time the Domingo delegation arrived in North America, an organization called the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy or, more simply, the Spanish Aid Committee, was operating in Toronto. This committee, one of many bearing the same name created in democratic countries, assumed the responsibility for securing moral and financial support for the Spanish Republic. The committee never sought to recruit volunteer combatants, however; this activity was the special charge of the Communist Party of Canada. Activities in behalf of Spanish aid eventually amounted to a small industry in Canada. Hundreds of citizens contributed time and talent to preparing speeches, pamphlets, organizing rallies, canvassing, and operating branch offices in Windsor and Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg. A deluge of propaganda materials poured from the headquarters of the Spanish Aid Committee. Without question, the issue of the civil war was thus kept alive and in die foreground long after it would have naturally expired as a subject of concern to Canadians. If, as Tim Buck has said, the Spanish Aid Committee was at the least an "initiate" of the Communist Party of Canada, it very quickly became the enterprise of many non-partisan humanitarians.10 The Honorary Chairman was Rev. Dr. Salem G. Bland, the Chairman was Rev. Ben H. Spence, and the Vice Chairmen were Tim Buck, Allan Dowd, Dr. Rose Henderson and Graham

10

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Spry. An executive council of sixteen members was further advised by a national council of one hundred Canadians. The first important assignment carried out by the committee was the reception of the Domingo party. Yet, by this time an observer had already been dispatched to the battleground in Spain. Henning Sorensen, a young Danish emigre of several years' residence in Canada, had that summer begun to plan a private voyage to Madrid to offer his services to the Republic. When Graham Spry heard of his intention, he persuaded Sorensen to go over specifically to determine the condition and the needs of the medical facilities in the war zone. Sorensen, equipped with press credentials from Canadian Forum and New Commonwealth, arrived in Spain in early September, 1936. Soon after, a second volunteer was dispatched from Canada, a man who was to win world-wide acclaim for his work abroad: Dr. Norman Bethune. Dr. Bethune responded to an article written by Graham Spry for New Commonwealth, calling for the creation in Spain of a Canadian-sponsored hospital. Allan Dowd recalls, however, that Bethune was reluctant to go to Spain and confessed that even if he should go, he did not guarantee to remain long. Dowd, knowing his man, argued him out of his indecision and persuaded the surgeon to go to Spain and to stay for as long as he was needed.11 Dr. Bethune and Henning Sorensen thus became the first Canadian volunteers to the Spanish Civil War. These two men, a mildmannered young Scandinavian with a great love for the Spanish people, and a passionate, eccentric doctor who loved no one race so much as he loved all races, were the vanguard of a Canadian force that grew to twelve hundred men. The war in which these twelve hundred fought and in which nearly half of them died in Spain, provoked feelings as no other conflict in recent history has. No other conflict has created such passion, such anger, such recrimination, and such disappointment as the Spanish Civil War.

CHAPTER TWO

"The first units of that strange band of volunteers at first sight romantic and later cold-bloodedly realistic ..."—Vincent Brome WITHIN A WEEK of the eruption of the civil war, both the Republicans and the rebels had secured promises of assistance from "friendly" powers. General Mola's envoys flew off to Rome and Berlin in search of desperately needed aircraft, while the new Prime Minister of the Republic, Jose Giral (Casares Quiroga had resigned on July 18), approached France with an order of £, 140,000 worth of airplanes, guns and ammunition.1 Germany and Italy moved immediately to make the support of the rebels a profitable business. Both states established special departments to oversee the collection and dispatch of men and weapons. The Germans located their office in the war ministry despite the protests of the Minister, Field Marshall von Blomberg, and his chief of staff, von Frisch, who together with Ribbentrop, the head of the foreign office, doubted the practical advantage of intervention. The Germans formed two holding companies to handle the actual details of shipment and reimbursement.2 The Italians similarly subsidized the Nationalists. The first public knowledge of any intervention in the conflict came when three Italian airplanes were forced down in French Morocco on their way into Spain. The crews carried orders dated July 17, the day the Rebellion began.3 By late October, twelve thousand to fifteen thousand Italian soldiers had gone ashore at Majorca, although contingents of infantry did not reach the mainland until December. By mid-summer of the next year, fifty thousand of Mussolini's troops had entered Spain. They brought with them 763 airplanes, 1900 cannon, 10,000 machine-guns, 240,000 small arms and 7600 vehicles. The men and machines were supplied gladly by Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Italy's most enthusiastic supporter of the Spanish rebellion.4 The first real competition the Germans and Italians encountered

12

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

in their efforts to insure Spain's destiny came from France. Prime Minister Giral's request for arms, dispatched on July 20, had originally met with favour. Such assistance seemed to the French premier, Leon Blum, the natural thing to do. But almost immediately, news of the agreement leaked to the right-wing press, and the proposed sale of armaments, which involved the larger issue of intervention, became material for crisis. Under great pressure from his cabinet, Blum finally refused shipment of the arms while sanctioning private transactions. Eventually, the original order did clear France, once proof of Italian intervention came to light. (Prior to this discovery, it was thought that the delivery might be made through Mexican channels.) Paradoxically, the same cabinet session which approved shipment also produced an appeal for a non-intervention policy among the nations of Europe.5 The policy of non-intervention may be expedient and even honourable. But the specific policy determined by twenty-six countries in the two months following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War will occupy a grim and embarrassing page in the history books. Fear of war dictated the decision, and the one man who must bear the responsibility for its implementation is Leon Blum. France's premier had all the fabled handicaps of the intellectual in politics. Too scrupulous and too moral to make compromises, too devoted to the welfare of humanity to attend to the necessities of the political movement which he led, Leon Blum fell back from the specific horror of the Spanish conflict in order to protect the rest of the world from contamination. With Giral's request for arms very much on his mind, Blum attended a meeting in London on July 22 of the principal ministers of Great Britain, France and Belgium. The expressed subject for discussion was the Locarno Pact; the Spanish problem apparently was not on the agenda. Yet there is little doubt that the new crisis was examined. There are those historians, among them Alvarez del Vayo, former foreign minister of the Spanish Republic, who believed that it was on this occasion that Blum was informed by the British that any further support of the Spanish government by France might provoke Germany and Italy into a war with the benefactor nation. Therefore, Great Britain would not feel obliged to honour mutual de-

Organization of the International Brigades

13

fence pacts between that country and France in the event of a war. Although there is no documentation of such a threat, and while the truth was probably not described so brutally for the benefit of the French premier, even a moderate interpretation must assume that the influence of the British was strong and that the reluctance of his ally undermined Blum's confidence.6 In any case, there was enough opposition to intervention within the French cabinet alone to cause loss of nerve. The idea of a non-intervention agreement may actually have originated with Alexis Leger, Blum's foreign minister, and with the permanent officials of the Quai d'Orsay.7 Embarrassed by the shift in his own family, Blum sought to resign his office near the end of July, but he was persuaded that his departure might destroy the popular front in France. Once he had agreed to remain, Blum "began to defend the non-intervention policy as though it were his from the very beginning—as the proper course of action both to aid the Spanish Republic and to prevent a general war."8 The first assembly of the would-be members of the Non-intervention Committee took place on September 9, 1936. The executive consisted of Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Russia and Belgium. The British Foreign Office made its communications facilities available, while the member nations absorbed operating expenses. Because the committee held a de jure existence, it voted to incorporate a company wherein the treasury could be located. For the duration of the civil war, the Non-intervention Committee occupied itself with three assignments: the control of access available to intervening powers—ports, ground and sea lanes; the discouragement of volunteers; the withdrawal of those volunteers who were not discouraged.9 Canada, like the United States, never entered into the agreement. In fact, the Spanish tragedy did not seem greatly to concern the Canadian House of Commons until debate began in early 1937 on a proposed revision of the Imperial Foreign Enlistment Act. In January, the Prime Minister indicated that his government was considering the question of special action regarding the "control of enlistment in Canada for military service in foreign countries "10 The government's position was fixed in April by adoption of a new

14

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Foreign Enlistment Act which made it a criminal offence for any Canadian to enlist "in the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state." On July 31, 1937, the Act was applied to enlistment in either the insurgent or the Republican armies in Spain. Over five hundred Canadians had gone into Spain by this time; another seven hundred followed in the next fourteen months, fully aware that if they survived the war, they might not escape prosecution upon their return. Russia consented to the policy of non-intervention but very soon set upon a course of obvious interference. By the end of October, Russian workers contributed over 47 million rubles (eight million dollars) for Spanish relief.11 Thereafter, as foreign aid to the rebels increased, Moscow launched new campaigns for relief funds and finally began to initiate arms shipments. The Soviet secret police sent supplies from Odessa while Comintern agents in western Europe purchased munitions from private firms in France, Poland, Holland and Czechoslovakia. The reasons for such aid by Germany, Italy, and Russia assuredly went beyond humanitarian or altruistic motives. For the fascists, a victory in Spain would mean a monopoly of the Mediterranean that would be all but invulnerable. And the menace to France alone would be worth the risk and sacrifice. Mussolini publicized, as did the Germans, the need to destroy communism in Spain, but there is also evidence that the dictator had an extraordinarily crass interest: the desire to maintain Italian military units at fever pitch by submitting them to periodic combat.12 Berlin had good cause to dread what it assumed would be a communist seizure in Spain, but Goering made it clear to his Fiihrer that Spain also represented a grand opportunity "to test my young Luftwaffe in this or that technical aspect."13 The Russians intervened for different and probably more subtle reasons. Although a fascist Spain did not threaten Russia's borders, the overall intimidation of the Mediterranean could not go unnoticed. Another ally for the axis powers was certainly not relished. There was, also, considerable good will to be obtained from the defence of democracy. Yet, the Soviet leaders knew that fierce revolutionary interests in the Spanish Republic might, in the

Organization of the International Brigades

15

course of the war, or as a consequence of victory, attempt a proletarian dictatorship. Such a revolt could only embarrass Moscow for it would immediately turn away the moderates who would assume that the only alternative to Spanish fascism was communist revolution; and the Russians weren't willing to support a revolution in Europe at this time. "The solution—an unsatisfactory one, which we may guess caused Stalin to regard the whole Spanish affair with distaste—was to have the Spanish communist party induce the Republican elements to pursue ostensibly moderate policies."14 Whatever the reasons and whatever the feelings of fraternity announced by these three powers in going to the assistance of the combatants in Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union expected to be reimbursed for their generosity, not only in terms of influence, but in hard cash. In 1941, Italy submitted to Franco a war debt of seven and a half billion lire; Germany is known to have spent over half a billion reichsmarks in aid, of which 88 million were written off in salaries and similar expenses. Presumably Franco owed the remainder, although no figures exist that describe the extent of reimbursement. Russia had secured the bulk of the Republican gold reserve from the Bank of Spain in December, 1936. This fortune, in 7800 cases, left the country with the full and voluntary consent of Juan Negrin, then Minister of Finance, and Largo Caballero, Giral's successor as Prime Minister. It was to be held in Russia for safekeeping and as security against arms purchases made through Soviet agents. In 1956, Moscow announced that the Republic still owed fifty million dollars over and above the worth of the bullion.15 The single most important contribution made by a foreign government, so far as this history is concerned, was Russia's decision to assist in recruiting a force of international volunteers to fight for the Republicans. The first foreign volunteers to come to the assistance of the Spanish government had been handfuls of Europeans—French, English and German—who were in Spain when the war broke out. Vacationers, workers, students, these first soldiers became "the true precursors of the International Brigades."16 Three groups appeared at the front in the first weeks of battle: the German Thaelmann Centuria, the Gastone-Sozzie

16

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Centuria formed of Swiss, Germans and Italians, and the Paris Centuria composed of French, Belgians and English. Often these bands found their way to the conflicts around Madrid and in the Aragon in the company of Spanish militia. Whether or not this handful of foreigners thought of themselves as worthy of special acclaim or, for that matter, worthy of imitation, they did provide the necessary example. Late in that first summer of the war, Tom Wintringham, an English military historian and tactician, proclaimed to the men of the Thaelmann Centuria his idea of an international brigade. Here, in little groups like this, you can do a lot. But a largerscale example of military knowledge and discipline and largescale results are needed, too. You have to treat the building of an army as a political problem, a question of propaganda, of ideas soaking in. You need things big enough to be worth putting in the newspapers. . . . Individuals would come to Spain, or little groups, but they must work without the limelight, the recruiting "boost" that would bring many others flocking out. The military need is for a body of troops able to earn the limelight, in Spain at least, able to do real things that would stand out in the way of fighting.17 Wintringham's point had merit. Only a large international expedition could be guaranteed headlines, and headlines meant sympathy, and sympathy meant support: more men, more money, more munitions. (Lest Wintringham be regarded as only a publicist, in the months to come he would perform heroically as commander of the British Battalion, and after receiving a severe wound, would direct the International Brigades' officer-training camp at Pozo Rubio.) By advancing the theoretical basis for an international force, Tom Wintringham must certainly be given a share of the credit for its eventual creation. In September an Italian Emigre named Pacciardi tried to interest the government in an independent Italian company, but Largo Caballero failed to appreciate the implications of such a move and rejected the proposal. Only when Maurice Thorez, leader of the French communists, flew to Moscow and argued the idea of an international brigade before the Comintern

Organization of the International Brigades

17

was there any genuine interest aroused. Forthwith, the Comintern began to create an apparatus for the recruitment of volunteers.18 The various communist parties in Europe and the Western Hemisphere were charged with the actual task of organizing and dispatching men. Within days, the first recruits began to move through the International Brigades offices in Paris and from there, to Spain. The rallying point for the volunteers once they reached Spain was the city of Albacete, midway between Madrid and Valencia, which remained the headquarters of the International Brigades until the spring of 1938. In the nearby villages of Tarazona, Madrigueras and Villanueva de la Jara, the battalions of the XVth International Brigade, the "English-speaking brigade," trained for the war. Cadre offices representing the various units remained in Albacete after the battalions moved to the front, and successive groups of volunteers drilled in the area until they received their assignments. The first large group of internationals arrived in Albacete on October 14, 1936. In the manner of so many succeedings drafts, these men formed unkempt ranks in the city's bull ring from which they were recruited into battalions then being formed: The Edgar Andre*, German; the Commune de Paris, Franco-Belgian; the Dombrowski, Polish-Hungarian-Slav. "Reinforcements" came immediately from the devastated ranks of the three centuria which had already been at the front. The commander of this motley force was a Comintern agent called Emil Kleber (his real name was Stern), a veteran of the Russian revolution, a graduate of the Frunze Military Academy, and, since 1927, a member of the military division of the Comintern. Kleber represented himself to the world as a soldier of fortune, a naturalized Canadian of Austrian origin (a claim not confirmed by the Canadian Department of Manpower and Immigration) and a convert to communism. The "fact" of his association with Canada made his brief career in Spain of great interest to the Canadian left-wing press. The Toronto Daily Clarion reported on one occasion that Kleber was missing in action and for several days waited anxiously for news of his whereabouts; eventually, he was "recovered." As late as mid-February, 1937, the Daily Clarion ran

18

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

a biographical article on the officer. But by this time Kleber had been removed from his post at the insistence of jealous Spanish elements; he later reappeared as commander of the 45th Division.19 Kleber directed the organization of the Edgar Andre, the Dombrowski and the Commune de Paris Battalions into the Xlth International Brigade in the first week of November. (The five international brigades formed that winter bore the designations XI through XV in an attempt to mislead the enemy as to the exact strength of the volunteers, a ploy which probably never caused much confusion.) On November 8, the Xlth International Brigade moved into the streets of Madrid, on its way to the "front" at University City in the southern suburbs. On November 16, the Xllth International Brigade entered the capital; this unit comprised the Garibaldi, the Thaelmann and the Andre Marty Battalions. Its commander was one Lukacz, an associate of Kleber. The leader of the Garibaldis was Pacciardi, the same officer who had argued in September for an independent international force. Within a month, the two brigades suffered fifty per cent casualties in and around the capital. With the release of the Xlth and Xllth International Brigades to the front, the operations and training staffs at Albacete turned to the formation of three more such units. The command of the staffs was divided among three men: Andre Marty, base commander and formerly a communist deputy in Marseilles; Luigi Longo, Inspector General; and Guiseppe di Vittoria, chief political commissar. Dissident elements in the brigades soon called Marty "The Butcher of Albacete" because of his harsh treatment of agents from across Europe who hoped to use membership in the brigades as a means of committing espionage or gathering intelligence. The stories about Marty are legion; his unstable temper vented itself again and again on individuals and units. Canadians en route home at the end of the war had occasion to hear his invective when he berated them for "deserting" Spain. The five brigade headquarters were in an enormous villa built around a courtyard through which volunteers filed daily. At the beginning Albacete resounded with the cries, songs and laughter of the burly foreigners who were clad in "the most imposing boots and pistols in Spain," topped off by a marvelous conglomeration of

Organization of the International Brigades

19

hats, caps and helmets. The men flocked to the benches outside the Gran Hotel, drank anis, coffee, bad cognac, vermouth, and examined one another carefully, while "the French darted from table to table like agile fish, with new assignments of work, with exclamations of 'Formidable' and 'Bourgre' and with plans, scandals, news from the front."20 The stores of the city were crammed with delicacies: fruit, goat cheese, native marmelade, cognac, almonds, marzipan. The volunteers "did not know as yet that La Mancha is the granary of Spain, but they found evidence of it everywhere. . . ."21 The English poet, Stephen Spender, visited the city during this time and came away with the impression that "the whole of Albacete smelled of olive oil frying."22 When the last of the internationals evacuated Albacete in March, 1938, the area had been reduced to a silent ruin. An air raid a year earlier plus fifteen months of war strain had exhausted municipal facilities. Food was rationed, clothing for civilians was all but non-existent. All of the satellite training towns were similarly affected. The streets were empty; there was nothing to sell. There were no street lights, and at night, all windows were darkened against air raids, and the entire population of the town walked out through the streets, strolling, conversing in low tones . . . And after the noon and evening meals (beans or rice with burro meat, which has a smell and taste all its own), we frequented the canteen on a neighboring street . . . Here you could occasionally buy a ham sandwich (\Vi pesetas), a cup of burnt barley called coffee (50 centimos) or you could drink muscatel or mm, malaga, anis or vermouth, all bad. There was no tobacco to be had. . . . The hunt for tobacco was pursued by everyone with determination and deathless patience.23 But during the first months of the war, Albacete and the smaller towns nearby teemed with life, glamour and promise. To these bases came men who would die very soon at Jarama and Brunete, die so quickly that their comrades-in-arms would hardly recall their presence. There came many thousands who would survive Spain, survive World War II, survive purges and investigations. In

20

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

all, over forty thousand international volunteers would come to Spain. Through the winter of 1936-7, three more international brigades emerged in Albacete: the XHIth, composed of Franco-Belgian, Balkan an$i Polish battalions; the XlVth, of French battalions with the addition of a unit of young Spanish Anarchists; the XVth, of English, American, Latin-American and Yugoslav battalions. The senior English-speaking battalion in Spain was the British Battalion which, for a while, was designated "Saklatvala" after an Indian communist M.P. of the 1920's. The British Battalion emerged from the handful of survivors of No. One Company which had already served with the XlVth International Brigade on the Cordoba front and in the Guadarrama offensive at the end of 1936. In its ranks was a young poet named John Cornford. At the end of the war, eight of the original members of this company were still with the battalion. ". . . there is no greater claim to honour amongst the British veterans of the International Brigades than to be known as a *No. One Company Man'."24 The English volunteers became riflemen, first and foremost, simply because their machine-guns were antiquated. But they were fortunate because their rifles, miracle of miracles at this early date, turned out to be "clean and well-shaped weapons." It might have been otherwise; the Englishmen might have been issued the ruins handed out to volunteers just three months before: derelict Swiss and Austrian things, Steyrs, most of them, that never looked as if they would fire at all and did, in the majority of cases, jam quite seriously after the first bullet was fired through them. I remembered the odds and ends of rifles that some battalions of the foreign volunteers had "made do" with for a time, until better stuff came through; clumsy bolts and sights battered to inaccuracy, a mixture of calibres and cartridges, Ross, Remington, Japanese, Turkish, Polish rifles, Mexican mausers, even cavalry carbines, all in odd lots.25 A witness to this period is Jack Reid who left a career as a seaman to join the British Battalion in its formative weeks at Madrigueras, and survived three campaigns before receiving the wound that took him out of the war. Reid separates the original British volunteers into four categories: there were the adventurers

Organization of the International Brigades

21

who came for the excitement and fighting; many of these became excellent soldiers. There were the "holiday-boozers" who created considerable trouble when they discovered that the civil war promised little recreation. There were the idealists, men of conviction and stamina; among these were trade unionists, seamen, intellectuals; they made the most important contributions to this or any other volunteer battalion, not only because they comprised the greatest number but because their esprit never wavered before the enemy or before political tensions. Finally, there were the communists who performed astonishing feats of heroism because their concern with the war was intensely political, though it must be said that their esteem for the Spanish Republic was only slightly less than their devotion to their party. Reid placed himself in the third group, with the idealists. Perhaps it is this fact that enables him to describe with candour the struggles of the British leaders to mold a battalion. The training was quite poor at the outset apparently because the men could not be impressed with a sense of discipline. The attitude of the "holiday-boozers" was particularly depressing and infectious. While the majority of the Englishmen were salty veterans of trade union activity and of the fitful years of the depression, while most were confirmed in their desire to aid the Spaniards, while most "wanted to be disciplined, knowing that discipline is a force," they lacked the experience and the habit of obedience. Unfortunately, many of the original officers in the battalion failed to win the confidence of the rank and file or to impress upon them the need for military routine.26 By the time the British Battalion appeared on the Jarama Front in February 1937, many of these problems had been solved or at least eased. Men like Sam Wild, Jock Cunningham and Fred Copeman emerged as aggressive leaders. All three had reputations for the parts they played in mutinies against the British military system, Wild and Copeman against the navy at Invergordon, Cunningham against the army while he was stationed with the Argyll and Sutherland Highland Regiment. Pride in the exploits of No. One Company coupled with pride in their growing confidence in drill finally turned the rabble into soldiers. While the British Battalion collected many deserved tributes

22

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

during its history, the unit never quite escaped internal tension even when it was led by some of the finest officers in the XVth International Brigade. One Canadian volunteer named Robert Bell encountered twenty-eight Englishmen in the Albacete military prison after his assignment there as a medic. Bell asserts that the prisoners had thrown down their rifles and left the line after eightysix days at the front without relief. Many more had attempted to leave but these had been turned back after "three of their number had been shot down." After two weeks in Albacete, the twentyeight men volunteered to return to the battalion.27 The American Abraham Lincoln Battalion, which was created during this same interval, had five weeks in which to prepare itself for war. The American volunteers were like their British counterparts except that there were few "holiday-boozers". An Englishman could skip across the Channel and slip south into France, all within a day. The proximity of England to the continent may have reassured a few who thought they could duck home if things got too rough. But the Americans faced an arduous Atlantic crossing plus all the small anxieties that accompany travel in a foreign country plus the added discomfort of moving illegally. It is doubtful that "holiday-boozers" would have undertaken such an expedition. There were adventurers among the contingent, who went to Spain because it was the only war around, but those who survived the first battles more than likely "got religion"—the spirit of adventure could not sustain them for long in such a terrible war. The majority of the Americans were idealists, morally and politically sensitive to the implications of the civil conflict. The Americans represented a broad range of vocational experiences. Statistics compiled long afterwards reveal that nearly six hundred in the group of thirty-three hundred were seamen, nearly as many were students, one hundred and fifty were teachers, some seventy were truck drivers, over a hundred were longshoremen and that among the remainder were newsboys, labour organizers, cooks, composers, and electricians. Sixty-eight per cent were in their twenties, 21 per cent in their thirties. A majority of the Americans came from New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania but forty other states were represented. The volunteers tended to come from the cities, 25 per cent were Jews. Such details

Organization of the International Brigades

23

suggest that the American volunteers were not "a true version of American social groups in miniature," as one historian put it, although one could discern among the men a cross-section, if disproportionate, of the United States.28 For a short time, it seemed that the training of these men would never begin. They had no officers of their own, and the brigade headquarters in Albacete neglected to send any advisors. Meanwhile, the Lincolns busied themselves with introductions to the townspeople of Villanueva de la Jara, with transforming the monastery assigned them as quarters into proper barracks. "The stones of its walls had been weathered by the winds and rains of many hundreds of years, and the steps to its bell-tower had been worn down a full four inches by the abrasion of countless sandals."29 If Villanueva de la Jara at first seemed an anachronism to the curious foreigners, they soon learned that the ancient village of one thousand souls had plunged into the civil war with a vengeance. Jules Paivio, a Finnish-Canadian who arrived in Spain in March, discovered that when the rebellion broke out, the local priest climbed into the bell-tower of the church with a machine-gun and fired on the people below as they tried to get water in the plaza. In desperation, a young man scaled the outside of the tower and knifed the priest.30 The church itself later became the mess hall for the Lincolns, although many preferred eating with families about the village who were only too anxious to share their ordinary diet with the new champions. After a week, two Americans arrived to direct the training of the battalion. One was an obscure personality named Harris who proved, from the beginning, to be woefully inadequate and who was eventually relieved. The other was Robert Merriman, a onetime economics instructor at the University of California. Merriman served as Harris's adjutant and then as commander. More than any other American volunteer, Merriman influenced the course and history of the XVth International Brigade. At his death in 1938, he had achieved the rank of brigade chief of staff. Merriman drew up a table of organization which called for two infantry companies and one machine-gun company. Commanding these were John Scott, an Englishman; Stephen Daduk, an American veteran of the air battles over Madrid the previous fall; and

24

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Douglas Seacord who was said to have been a civilian lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. When the battalion went into action on February 23, Eugene Morse had replaced Daduk as commander of No. Two Company in which many of the first Canadian volunteers served.31 The routine of training was simple if rigorous: rifle practice with outmoded Ross rifles, field tactics and maneuvers, lectures on the military and political issues and implications of the civil war, special courses for signallers, armourers, cartographers. The men grew frustrated by the exotic collection of weapons which they would use to rout the insurgents. Hazen Sise, a member of the Canadian Blood Transfusion Unit in Madrid, visited the Lincolns during the first weeks of its existence and discovered on the table in Merriman's tent "a sort of little wooden box with a lot of little slots in it and sticking up in each one of these was about twelve different rounds of rifle or machine-gun ammunition of different shapes and sizes. I said 'What the hell is this?' and he said, 'Well, those are samples of the ammunition we have to have. We have so many different kinds of rifles and machine-guns that we literally have to have about twelve kinds of ammunition.' "32 Formed in January, 1937, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion had twenty-one months of life. During that time, the battalion, like the other volunteer units, grew in capability and in character. The history of the International Brigades in Spain is the history of their evolution from hastily organized shock units into a force capable of prolonged and complicated maneuvers in the field. By the time the brigades withdrew from the war in September, 1938, the volunteers, those who survived, could count themselves among the most seasoned and versatile infantry produced in modern warfare. Luigi Longo, Inspector General of the International Brigades, described the formative period as a time "when we could be satisfied if our men had a thorough understanding of the rifles and machine-guns entrusted to them."33 But the brigades gave much more. Raggle-taggle they might be, ill-equipped and haphazardly managed, yet they would endure, sustained perhaps by the example of the first German volunteers "who brought to the International Brigades an offensive spirit, a bitter desperate courage—at rare intervals, priceless, but always costly."34

CHAPTER THREE

"In our own country, in Canada, volunteers have sailed in order to enlist in the red army of Spain. This, I admit, does not give me sorrow; it will rid us of these undesirable people, provided they do not return here. . . ."—Maxime Raymond, in House of Commons, February 15, 1937. SYMPATHY for the Spanish Republic undoubtedly derived from the fact than an insurgent army, aided by drafts of professional soldiers and airmen from abroad, had set out to overwhelm a democratic government. This fact was evident in spite of the scarcity from the beginning of "hard" news from Spain. Propagandists of all kinds, on the Right and on the Left, exploited the war, the issues, the atrocities, to such a degree that an intelligent assessment was always difficult to secure. This same decade had already seen cruel invasions taking place in Manchuria and Abyssinia, but these countries, remote, alien, never quite provoked the concern caused by the Spanish Civil War. Perhaps the European and the North American could only be aroused by a clash on their doorsteps. Perhaps, too, the wars in the East involved the wrong races. The survivors of the International Brigades cite one motive for their willingness to volunteer: the horror of fascism. Fascism presented a threat to liberty; if, thirty years later, that particular menace seems a museum piece, then the observer is pathetically short of memory and imagination. Men who fought in Spain believe emphatically that Germany and Italy used that conflict as a laboratory for perfecting their war machines: Spain was the overture to World War II; five months after the Republicans capitulated, Hitler invaded Poland. Fascism threatened not only Spain but the whole of Europe, the whole world. The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, meeting in 1935, had reported that "a culturally highly developed country [had become] a hotbed of European reaction, a gruesome torture chamber, the instigator of a new war."1 The Congress called for a united front of socialists and

26

The Mackenzic-Papineau Battalion

communists to oppose the new order in Germany, to contain and then to eradicate European fascism. "Our slogan is—Fight Fascism!"2 The communists won great influence over the Spanish government's conduct of the civil war because they already had a history of combat against the Right. The Seventh World Congress had officially sanctioned a confrontation, and thereafter the Left invoked this assembly as one explanation for the prompt arrival of international communism in the conflict. It was the Left which rallied support for the Republic and which kept alive the issues. In Canada, the Left was not alone in identifying the fascist threat. One did not need to subscribe to dialectical materialism to understand the danger. Even so, many Canadians preferred to withdraw from Europe and European politics. James Eayrs, the political economist, elaborates: Totalitarianism was thought to be merely an aggravation of that malaise from which Europe traditionally suffered; there was little if any suspicion that it might be a distinctively twentiethcentury phenomenon arising from the tensions and insecurities of twentieth-century man. The fascist apparition was no new menace for which the old responses would no longer suffice, but a rebirth of the intrigues, the rivalries, the nationalisms of prewar European diplomacy. Thus it required no special explanations; created no new problems; needed no exceptional precautions.3

Men went to Spain to fight fascism, to defend democracy. A number certainly went to seek adventure. A few must have gone to get away from their wives. Without question, the volunteer whose identification with what one might call "war aims" remained steadfast was more likely to be a better soldier than the mercenary or the adventurer. "But the soldier in battle is not forever whispering, 'My cause, my cause'. He is too busy for that. Ideology functions before battle to get the man in; and after battle by blocking thoughts of escape."4 Ideology and war aims combine with the personal well-being, the personal history and future of the individual. A specific horror of fascism therefore gave the volunteers the courage to venture abroad and it sustained them even after it was patently clear that the rebels would win. If the rude noises from Berlin and Rome were not disturbance

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

27

enough in the thirties, there was the Great Depression which, in North America at least, vied with the distant drums in exhausting hope and dignity. It could be said that the passionate response to the Spanish Civil War on this continent was due not only to the rise of fascism in Europe, but also to the depression in North America and particularly in Canada. The depression had nothing to do with Spain directly. Spain did not inaugurate the depression nor, for that matter, was the depression the raison d'etre for the civil war. But the depression did create among certain Canadians the disposition to strike at oppression. No other Canadian prime minister has been so vilified during his tenure as was R. B. Bennett who directed the affairs of Canada between 1930 and 1935. Bennett bore the burden of responsibility for failing to discover and nourish the strength of a nation in its struggle against a paralyzing economic and social disaster which lasted for ten miserable years. His failure was a failure of imagination, and if this is a very human flaw, prime ministers can't afford it. One consequence of Bennett's inability to deal forcefully, creatively, and dramatically with the depression was the alienation of a major section of the Canadian people: the working class. This class had little patience with any traditional political party, but it heaped its scorn on the man whom it dubbed "Iron-Heel." Bennett's attempt to deal with unemployment, a particularly poignant result of the economic crisis, eventually paid its dividends in the relative facility with which volunteers to Spain came to the attention of the Canadian communists. While this may appear to be an unlikely proposition, particularly as Bennett had already departed his office when the civil war broke out, yet it is demonstrable. The key factor is the organization of unemployed workers. From October, 1932, until June, 1936, the Canadian Department of National Defence operated Unemployment Relief Camps for single men. In four years, 170,000 "microcosms of misfortune" passed through these camps which had been established as a refuge, of sorts, for those who couldn't obtain work or were otherwise ineligible for relief subsidy.5 If the government thought this enterprise would win the gratitude of its constituents, it was sadly misinformed. True, the plight of the transient unemployed worker was pathetic; true, such men might be "a threat to life and prop-

28

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

erty"; true, the men received food, clothing and shelter if they went into the camps. Nevertheless, camp life was distasteful to the inhabitants. No one liked being there. The camps were often located in magnificent scenery, but scenery was no substitute for work with wages. The relief camp workers loathed the 2(ty a day pay, the unappetizing meals, the obvious make-work which neither exercised them nor trained them or challenged them. Many men worked off their 2(ty in the first half hour and then idled for the remainder of the long day. Boredom led to despair. The workers came to feel that they might very well spend years in such camps. They would never find work, never be self-supporting, never have families. Inevitably, the radical Left in Canada discovered in the inhabitants of these relief camps what it deemed flagrant examples of the abuses of capitalism and a reactionary government. So the communists began to organize the relief camp workers for the great class war that loomed in the near future. The principal effective instrument was the Workers Unity League, the Canadian arm of the Red International of Labour Unions. Its manifesto: To organize the Canadian workers into powerful revolutionary industrial unions, created on the axis of the widest rank and file control; to fight for the defense and improvement of the conditions of the working-class; mobilizing and organizing Canadian workers for the final overthrow of capitalism and for the establishment of a Revolutionary Workers' Government. It shall be the task of the Workers Unity League to initiate aggressive campaigns of organization in every field of industry where no organization obtains. The organization of the unorganized must be the main and central task of the W.U.L. in Canada. In all campaigns unemployed workers must be organized and their activities linked up with the general activities of the revolutionary working-class struggle. The unemployed workers must become an integral part of the revolutionary working-class movement. The Workers Unity League of Canada shall organize left wing oppositional groups in the reformist unions; these oppositional groups must be regarded as the nuclei of industrial unions within the framework of the craft and patriotic unions and every

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

29

effort shall be made to win the membership of the reformist unions for the revolutionary "industrial unions".6 In 1932 the League issued a charter to the Relief Camp Workers Union despite the fact that the Department of National Defence had forbidden the creation of any such group. Frustrated, forgotten, the workers saw in their union the one chance for provoking renovation in the design and purpose of the camps. On April 4, 1935, about three thousand workers in British Columbia walked out of their camps and hitch-hiked to Vancouver where, for two months, they struck for improved conditions. Their demands were (1) work with wages: 50 cents per hour minimum wage for unskilled labourers, union wages for skilled workmen, a six-hour day, a five-day week, a guaranteed minimum of twenty days' employment per month; (2) extension of the Workmen's Compensation Act to the relief camps; (3) adequate first aid equipment in the camps; (4) recognition of representative camp committees; (5) removal of the camps from the authority of the Department of National Defence; (6) extension of the Workers' Social and Unemployment Insurance Act to the relief camps; (7) the right to vote.7 When speeches, demonstrations and sieges failed to move any of the municipal, provincial or federal governments, the strikers decided to go to Ottawa and confront the Prime Minister. On June 3, they set out riding on the top of a seaboard freight train, On-toOttawa. The trek was halted in Regina while its leaders sped east to meet with Mr. Bennett. That conversation failed miserably. As the trekkers moved to disperse in Regina, the RCMP attempted to arrest the leaders under Section 98 of the Criminal Code and precipitated a riot in which one city policeman died and scores of citizens, trekkers and constables suffered injuries. The men who came out of the relief camps that April and who finally fought the police on Dominion Day, 1935, in Regina were well organized, highly disciplined and very confident. For three months they conducted themselves with a restraint which won the admiration of citizens in Vancouver and across the prairies. There is no question that several hundred of them fought in the streets once the riot began in Regina. But their frenzy was induced by the strain of weeks of journey and agitation climaxed by the arrest of

30

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

their leaders. Two years later, when the communists began to seek out volunteers for Spain, they found the largest single response among the veterans of the relief camps and the On-to-Ottawa Trek. These experiences, as one of the men has put it, had "conditioned the men who volunteered to go to Spain to make the decision without much soul searching."8 Across Canada, the depression dispersed families, drove tens of thousands into the humiliation of welfare, eventually intimidated even the most optimistic. Whether or not Bennett or any leader could have eased this misery, the Prime Minister became the scapegoat. It is his administration and not Mr. King's which is "responsible" for the subsequent use made by the Left of the Spanish Civil War as a surrogate for the conflicts in Canada. In supporting the cause of the Spanish conflict, many Canadians may have felt they were getting a lick in at their own government which had done so little for them in the first half of the decade. In the end, every man who went to the war held reasons, public and private, which were inextricably woven together. Alvah Bessie described his reasons in Men in Battle: Men went to Spain for various reasons, but behind almost every man I met there was a common restlessness, a loneliness. In action these men would fight like devils, with the desperation of an iron-bound conscience; in private conversation there was something else again. I knew, about myself, that the historical event of Spain had coincided with a long-felt compulsion to complete the destruction of the training I had received all through my youth. There were two major reasons for my being there: to achieve self-integration, and to lend my individual strength (such as it was) to the fight against our eternal enemy —oppression; and the validity of the second reason was not impaired by the fact that it was a shade weaker than the first, for they were both a part of the same thing. It was necessary for me, at that stage of my development as a man, to work (for the first time) in a large body of men; to submerge myself in that mass, seeking neither distinction nor preferment (the reverse of my activities for the past several years) and in this way to achieve self-discipline, patience and unselfishness—the opposite of a long middle-class training—and the construction of a life that would be geared to other men and the world-events that

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

31

circumscribed them. There is much truth in the old saw—for a desperate disease, a desperate cure.0 Despite the absence of records kept by the Canadian international force, despite the fact that scarcely two hundred and fifty of the volunteers are alive today, it is possible to establish a profile or composite portrait of the Canadians who went to Spain. One of the very few relics of this expedition is a collection of some six hundred 3 x 5 file cards, each of which bears the name, age, home town, country of origin and date of departure of a Canadian volunteer.10 In many instances the cards bear further annotations describing the loss or wounding of men. Most of the cards have passport photographs attached. The file was prepared by the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a group devoted to the care and welfare of the men abroad and to the provision of a liaison between the volunteers and their families in Canada. While the cards represent only half the number recruited, they are also the only roster which survives. A casualty list prepared in Spain and bearing the names of 550 men of the Canadian battalion is not only incomplete but does not distinguish between Canadians and Americans who served together in the unit. If there are only six hundred names set down, these are enough by which to venture some speculations about the character of the entire force. It is apparent from the ages given that the Canadians were somewhat older than their American counterparts. AGES OF 366 CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS

Under 20 20-29 30-39 40-

8 131 193 34

61.5 per cent of this group were over thirty, a calculation which takes on unusual significance when it is compared with a similar study of 291 Americans which revealed that only 28.9 per cent were over thirty.11 The reason for the greater age of the Canadians may be that young men were restrained from going to war. It may also be that young men were not attracted to radical movements

32

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

in Canada. One other reason may be that an inordinate number of Canadians were landed immigrants or naturalized citizens who had arrived in Canada during the decade previous to 1936. They had come as adults, anxious to find their way in a new world but not willing to succumb to traditions, political or social, in that new world which seemed contrary to their notions of liberty and democracy. Many were already hardened veterans of radical movements in Europe. But Canadian national or recent immigrant, the volunteers came out of a generation which, by experience and inclination, was disposed to active participation in the struggle for justice. In Spain, because of their age and experience, the Canadians proved particularly sober, durable soldiers well versed in a life of hardship and exposure. Two hundred and sixty-two of the cards bear the identification of the individual's homeland, a specification which presumably implies that the man was a fairly recent immigrant to Canada. Not every card bears such a designation, perhaps because the information was not available or forthcoming, certainly because many of the men had been born in Canada. The great majority of the Anglo-Saxons have no such specific reference although many of these undoubtedly were "new Canadians." NATIONALITIES OF 262 IMMIGRANTS IN CANADIAN CONTINGENT

Finland Ukraine England Hungary Poland Scotland Czechoslovakia Ireland Croatia Russia Bulgaria Sweden Germany

40 38 27 25 22 21 13 11 10 10 9 6 6

Denmark Rumania Lithuania Switzerland Macedonia Norway Australia Italy Flanders Netherlands Greece Austria

5 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

33

In Spain, one American observer noted that the Canadians seemed divided into three major national groups: Anglo-Saxons from British Columbia, Ukrainians from the prairie provinces, and Finns from Northern Ontario. The Finns, by the way, found their calling in the machine-gun companies just as, remarked one veteran, the Irish always go into politics and the Jews into the garment industry!12 Writing thirty years later about the Canadian volunteers, Tim Buck vehemently protested the allegation that because so many of these men were recent immigrants they couldn't truthfully be called "Canadians."13 When, in fact, does an immigrant become a "Canadian"? When he becomes a naturalized citizen? When he has lived here for one, three, five, ten years? When he speaks fluent English? The Ukrainian population in Canada produced a noteworthy group of volunteers for the Spanish Civil War, and since this population has been carefully studied by scholars, a political profile might be useful at this point. One statistic seems important: the Ukrainian population doubled in size in Canada during the twenty years following World War I; by 1941, 65 per cent of these people were Canadian-born. Ukrainian nationalism in Canada took on significance after the First World War, although this impulse was divided between a majority which agitated for the liberation of the Ukraine from the Soviet Union and a vocal minority which espoused a Soviet Ukraine. The Ukrainian Social Democrat Party, founded in Winnipeg in 1907, was the forerunner of a particularly militant leftwing organization called the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association which was incorporated in 1924. By 1930, the 800 Ukrainian-Canadian communists formed the largest wing of the Communist Party in Canada. The influence of communism among Ukrainians in this country has been attributed to the autonomy granted the Soviet Ukraine, a gesture which impressed many emigres who had despaired of the tyranny of Czarist Russia. Crucial to the dissemination of communism and socialism among the Ukrainians were newspapers like the ULFTA organ, Narodna Gazeta (People's Gazette), which followed the Comintern program through the thirties.

34

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

A man who had emigrated to Canada in 1928 would, by 1937, have been well on the way to assimilating a "Canadian identity1' whether he meant to or not. However much he preferred to remain close to a Ukrainian settlement in, say, Manitoba, the exigencies of the great depression might have forced him to travel about the country seeking the elusive job. One link to the old country would have been the foreign language press like Narodna Gazeta, and there he might learn of the civil war in Spain. It is possible, therefore, that such an emigrant was drawn to the war as much by his knowledge and recollection of European intrigues and entanglements as by his new familiarity with social, political and economic issues in Canada. Did a man go to Spain perhaps out of some loyalty to his native environment or did he go because he had an investment in the future of Canada? The answer is not readily forthcoming, quite obviously. One final question: did many immigrants to Canada expect, eventually, to return to their homelands? If a man assumed he would return home one day, then he might well have used a free trip to Spain as a means of getting to Europe. Many Ukrainians left Canada between 1922-30 bound for the Soviet Ukraine which they had been told was now rejuvenated, but this "voluntary repatriation" fell off during and after the dreadful famines of the early 1930's and seems never to have revived.14 In any case, there were easier and safer ways of returning to Europe than by joining a volunteer army. While it has been difficult to document, the speculation persists that some survivors of the Spanish war went on to their original homes in Finland or Russia or Hungary or the Ukraine instead of returning to Canada. But on the other hand, many men chose to come back to Canada rather than stay in Europe for a visit or for permanent residence. The likelihood of a second world war might have discouraged some; others were already political refugees. But most Ukrainians, Finns, and Hungarians simply believed that Canada was their home. The majority of the Canadian volunteers evidently came from Ontario and the western provinces. The largest single group was "Our Boys" from British Columbia, although not all of them were natives of the region. One rumour that continues to circulate

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

35

among the veterans is that New York City and Vancouver supplied the greatest number of volunteers from North America. POINTS OF ORIGIN OF 465 VOLUNTEERS

Vancouver Toronto Winnipeg Montreal Port Arthur Windsor

124 114 53 51 51 15

Hamilton Calgary Edmonton Regina Sudbury

14 11 13 10 9

If the volunteers tended to come from the larger towns and cities, still Guelph and Delhi, Vanguard and Sioux Lookout, Taber and East Coulle sent men. Finally, there were at least three dozen French Canadians among the contingent, more than one would expect considering the opposition raised by the Catholic Church to the Republican government. Monsignor Antoniutti, Papal Delegate to Canada and Newfoundland, exemplified the sympathy for Roman Catholic Spain when he introduced the rebels as the "army of heroes, justly called Christ's militia'."15 It may be assumed that most volunteers came from the working class. Scarcely any had attended university, though a handful of the younger men did matriculate after World War II. The Canadian contingent represented a militant proletariat; it could not be said to have reflected any sort of cross-section of the Canadian populace, unlike the American group which included workers, writers, teachers, actors, lawyers. This distinction may have been due to the reliance of the communists on the quasi-organization which grew out of the earlier protest movements. One final affiliation which is not set down on these cards is membership in the Communist Party of Canada or in the Young Communist League. Out of six hundred cards, scarcely half a dozen cite such information. Obviously this statistic is greatly understated. There is no way of telling just how many of the Canadian volunteers actually belonged to one of these organizations. One figure of 60 per cent has been proposed for the entire body of

36

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

the internationals; the likelihood is that the Canadian percentage would be somewhat higher, given the particularly aggressive direction taken by the working class during the years prior to the outbreak of the conflict in Spain.16 Beyond these bits and pieces, there is little more on the cards to identify the volunteers, except, of course, the photographs. The men look out, intent, serious, mature, already inscribed with the knowledge that they are setting out on an historical voyage, already aware that they will never be the same again. Henning Sorensen and Allan Dowd were the first Canadians into Spain. No one knows the identity of the last volunteer. Perhaps it was thirty-year-old Jack Steele of Toronto who served two tours of duty with the brigades, one concluding in October, 1937, and the other ending with his death on some forbidding crag near the Ebro River in July, 1938. Who went to Spain? Maurice Constant went to Spain. Constant was one of the very few Canadians to serve on a brigade staff. Despite his extreme youth, he became adjutant of the intelligence section and commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the XVth International Brigade. "Red" Walsh went to Spain. Walsh abandoned a career as a steelworker on New York skyscrapers in the twenties after losing two brothers in falls. He became involved in the Relief Camp Workers Union and, as an organizer of the Vancouver strike and the On-to-Ottawa Trek, he had met with Prime Minister Bennett in Ottawa a few days before the Regina riot. Arthur Linton went to Spain. As a youth, he had run away to sea, jumping ship in China to serve for a while with a Chinese regiment in the war with Japan. Between ships in 1937, Linton volunteered for Spain. A practised machine-gunner by the end of the civil war, he saw action at Dieppe, Normandy and the Falaise Gap. In 1946, recovering from war wounds, Linton rejected an offer from a central American government to serve as a master gunner. Louis Tellier went to Spain. Tellier and his brother had been through the relief camps as well as the Trek. To avoid detection and to harass Vancouver police officers, the brothers went under

Creation of the Canadian Volunteer Force

37

the names Summers and Winters, while insisting that they were indeed brothers! Nilo Makela went to Spain. This Finnish-Canadian from Timmins, Ontario, became the best-loved officer in the MackenziePapineau Battalion. A proud and arresting figure, he was thought to be indestructible. When he died, his loss was so tragic that the brigade withheld the news until the men came out of battle. Lucien F. went to Spain. He returned to Canada on May 31, 1938, "on his own." This cryptic notation on his file card signified that he did not employ the same offices returning as he had going over. The record adds the poignant explanation: "Fairly good record until taken out to the front the last time when he broke." Nicholas Myers went to Spain. An Albertan, he had been a goldminer, a logger and a "free-lance worker." But the work he loved best of all was blacksmith ing. In Spain, Myers would become an officer in No. One Company of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Baden Skinner went to Spain. "Taffy" died on the last day the Canadians were in the line, September 23, 1938. And more: Eino Heikka, Port Arthur, Ontario; Joseph Baranowski, Toronto; J. M. Cowie, Calgary, Alberta; Waldstan Gawda, Port Arthur, Ontario; William Henderson, Calgary, Alberta; Michael Kakos, Edmonton, Alberta; Andrew Kiss, Lethbridge, Alberta; Bert Beaulieu, Vancouver; Nicholas Billows, Kirkland Lake, Ontario; Napoleon Brais, Montreal; Joseph Brown, Toronto; Roy Buss, Regina, Saskatchewan; Michael Chodur, Port Colborne, Ontario; James Cochrane, Toronto; Thomas Bailey, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan; John Ziemskim, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Lawrence Heinche, Windsor, Ontario.

CHAPTER FOUR

"It was heaven to us from the Bald Headed West to see such country."—Thomas Bailey

THE MOTIVES for volunteering were there. The decision to go required little soul-searching so conditioned were most of these men to retaliating against what they considered oppression and tyranny. Even so, there was little opportunity for impulsive actions. While a man might be eager to depart, he usually had to wait several weeks while his "credentials" were certified and his passport prepared. The Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy kept carefully away from the task of recruiting volunteer combatants.1 The representatives it did dispatch were obviously destined for medical or relief work. The search for volunteer soldiers was conducted by the Communist Party of Canada which was presumably prompted to this assignment by the Comintern as well as by its own assessment of the struggle in Spain. Details regarding organization and financing of this enterprise remain, to this day, beyond the reach of historians outside the party. It is apparent, however, that the recruitment of volunteers was in the hands of local offices, that the funds simply appeared when they were needed and that many men actively engaged in securing and processing candidates knew that the Communist Party was in charge but beyond this, knew and needed to know little more.2 The criteria employed in screening the volunteers were simple enough: a volunteer must evidence liberal, democratic tendencies though he need not be a member of a political party. (If the candidate had no history of involvement in any Left endeavour, he might have trouble, at the outset, discovering access to the appropriate people.) A man must also not be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or an adherent of the disgraced Trotsky. Ironically, Trotsky's assassin, Jacques Mornard, entered North America in the late thirties on a Canadian passport bearing the name Jackson. The document had originally belonged to one Tony

Voyage to Spain

39

Babich, a volunteer from Princeton, British Columbia, who had been killed in Spain.3 The many volunteers who came from British Columbia had served in the relief camps and thus knew one another; security thereabouts was fairly easy to maintain. But at least one RCMP officer is reputed to have slipped in somewhere along the way and to have made it to Spain where he fell in battle.4 No one doubted that the federal government realized what was going on. A memorandum furnished the Prime Minister by the RCMP on January 19, 1937, reported that nearly fifty men had boarded a train that evening in Toronto bound for New York and Spain. The source of the information was a police informer.5 So used were the veterans of strikes, illegal unions and protest marches to the presence of undercovermen that, while they would surely turn out any discovered informer, they were accustomed to them and assumed they would always be around. The communists never seem to have been bothered by the irony inherent in the desire to obtain legitimate passports for the men: "that one, in offering to risk one's life in a noble cause, had to be careful not to run afoul of the law in doing so. . . ."° While many Europeans made their way to the war without the aid of passports, it was almost impossible for a Canadian to negotiate the long trip across the United States, across the Atlantic Ocean and across half of Europe without the precious document. Even after the Canadian government moved, on August 10, 1937, to halt the issuance of passports "except under definite restriction and guarantees",7 Canadian volunteers continued to leave the country, but their passports now bore the notation: "Not Valid for Spain." The acquisition of a passport involved the signature of a responsible citizen who could vouch for the character of the applicant. Many of the British Columbians sought out Dr. Lyle Telford, a CCF leader in Vancouver and, eventually, mayor of that city. The object of the trip for which the passport was requested was usually given as the Paris Exposition. Ronald Liversedge of Cowichan Lake, B.C. recalls thinking that "somebody in the Passport Office must be wondering at the sudden interest in the Paris Exposition on the part of all these single young men in Vancouver

40

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

and how it was that Dr. Telford knew them all."8 Once the important document was obtained, the volunteer waited for his travel orders. Toronto remained in this period the principal station the volunteers passed through en route from Canada. The traffic in and out of that city was carefully regulated so that large numbers of rather conspicuous travellers might not congregate. Men came into Toronto by freight if they could not afford to pay their own passage or had not been given funds at the point of origin. Sometimes they left Regina or Sudbury or Edmonton utterly anonymously with only a friend or two on hand to see them off. Once in a while, they left home with great fanfare. When Ronald Liversedge received word that he must leave Vancouver within the hour, he was standing in Stanley Park watching the 1937 May Day Rally. As he turned to leave, Tom McEwen, a long-time communist official, called out over the public address system that a volunteer was at that moment on his way to Spain. So Liversedge came away with the sound of ten thousand voices raised in personal salute.9 The Canadians often spent a week or longer in Toronto waiting for their turn to entrain for New York. The office established to process these men was on the corner of Queen Street and Spadina Avenue in the Seamen's Union Hall. Two men in particular organized and directed this station: Paul Phillips and Peter Hunter. Phillips was originally from Bessarabia and by 1936 had become one of the most popular leaders of the Young Communist League. Fluent in several languages, an organizer among emigrant groups about the country, he was an obvious choice to join the Toronto office. Peter Hunter had been attending university in Moscow when the Spanish Civil War broke out. He remained in that capital until February, 1937, while various other students from Spain and the continent returned to their homes, and then set off to the war. Of the fourteen young Canadians at the school, half left for the front. Hunter came back to Canada at the orders of the Communist Party and served for a brief time as secretary of the Young Communist League for southern Ontario before settling down to work with Phillips. The Toronto station provided a number of crucial services. A

Voyage to Spain

41

cover story was completed for each volunteer although it was bound to be superficial. A second-hand suitcase was purchased at the Salvation Army so that the traveller might look like a tourist off for a holiday on the continent. If the man had no decent clothes, he was given a suit, also found at the Salvation Army. Rooms were secured and a dollar a day for expenses allotted Meanwhile Hunter and Phillips continued to screen the volunteers, searching for RCMP officers and for Trotskyites; as Hunter put it, "we didn't know which we hated the most."10 To expedite the transatlantic passage, the communists created a travel agency where reservations and tickets could be obtained. In early May, 1937, the agency was embroiled in an argument with steamship companies which were becoming reluctant to sell blocks of space to such groups. However, no obstacle of this sort ever seriously threatened the traffic out of Canada.11 While Toronto was the hub of this activity, it should be noted that volunteers frequently sailed from Montreal on Canadian Pacific steamers. Many of these men came from Quebec, but a number were apparently sent on from Toronto, perhaps to avoid taxing the New York embarkation facilities. Finally, one or two smaller groups actually entered the United States from British Columbia and bussed across the entire breadth of the country to New York City! With the departure from Canada, the volunteers went underground. Many had already lived under assumed names and moved in the shadowy ways of hunted or ostracized men, but nothing in their careers had prepared them for the experience to come. For all, the cloak and dagger operations devised for their passage into Spain seemed a great joke, though they understood the necessity for it. The typical expedition to New York City is represented in the passage of Ronald Liversedge, who left Canada in early May, 1937, in charge of a group of fifteen men. Liversedge carried enough money to feed and house the travellers when they reached New York as well as a small silk flag sewn in the lining of his jacket; by this flag, the Canadian would identify himself to any contact.12 The trip south passed without incident, the American border guards giving their consent without a murmur. But when the men

42

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

sought out the American agent in New York, they encountered their first "character." This fellow seemed absolutely unimpressed by silk flags or sixteen Canadians. For a moment, Liversedge thought he and his men would be abandoned to walk the streets. Finally, the American revealed a further address. "I had expected my contact to display some caution, but it seemed as though this man was playing a role. Many Americans, I have found, seem to have a flair for self-dramatization. They take the role of some cinema star; there will be James Cagneys, Gary Coopers, etc., and this one I met, I think, was an Edward G. Robinson." Subsequently, Liversedge's group received directions to the YMCA's Sloane House where they remained until embarkation, four days later. The men discovered that the Americans had established a training camp in the country where a former U.S. Army sergeant gave two-week courses in military drill. Liversedge declined an invitation to enroll in the school, attesting that "we've had quite a lot of experience the last few years, including some battles with the cops." The routine in New York, as it was in Toronto, as it was to be in Paris, was "waiting for money, waiting to be made into groups, waiting for transportation to be arranged."13 But once at sea, and a surprising number of volunteers went to Europe aboard the SS President Roosevelt, the volunteers settled down to their favorite pastime, the identification of other volunteers on the ship. While the men were instructed to act like tourists and not to congregate, inevitably everyone recognized them for what they were. And no wonder. The men dressed alike in nondescript, secondhand clothes and carried worn pieces of luggage. They might as well have been in uniform. One Canadian even saved a snapshot taken on his crossing: twenty-five or thirty volunteers grouped together on the promenade deck; in their midst, an elderly couple obviously not bound for the international brigades, with a lifesaver bearing the ship's name prominently displayed. Some underground! As the ship neared Europe, the excitement of the volunteers naturally grew. When one vessel stopped briefly at Cobh, Ireland, an Irishman named Paddy O'Shea gazed fondly at the green land and murmured, "Just over those hills, boys, there is my home."

Voyage to Spain

43

As he spoke, a seagull swooped by and dumped a bit of lime on O'Shea's hat. "Paddy took off his hat and said, There, boys, that's the Irish for you. Generous as ever'." Like all "tourists," the volunteers were confused and intrigued by foreign lands. One American, seeing Gaelic script in a copy of the Cork Examiner remarked, "Christ, I never knew there were so many Jews in Ireland." Occasionally, a voyage might be marred by the failure of a man to keep the peace. One fellow stole an expensive piece of luggage from an authentic tourist and had to be caught and shaken down by his companions who dreaded any notoriety. This same culprit dodged off the ship at Le Havre before official debarkation notice was posted and returned drunk hours later. Certain that he had volunteered only to get passage to Europe, the other men kept him under close surveillance until they reached Paris.14 Paris was the final station on the way to Spain. Volunteers came there from all over the world, and it was there that the flavour of the international effort in behalf of the Republic first became evident. The headquarters for all the aid committees was in a huge trade union complex on Rue Mathurin Moreau, not far from the Metro. In the first months of travel, Canadians visited the American cadre office, though eventually they installed their own man who was known to them as Johnny. Meal tickets redeemable at a co-operative restaurant enabled the men to conserve their precious funds, while lodging was provided in inexpensive hotels. The volunteers were given the usual directions about checking in daily and staying out of trouble; otherwise, they were free to see the sights and, if they so desired, to visit the Paris Exposition. If most of these men were filled with confidence and great expectations, a few were beginning to get edgy about the awesome influence of the communists on the direction of the volunteer movement. One such man, Robert Bell, early became disenchanted with the whole effort to preserve Spanish democracy. Bell's description of Paris is nowhere filled with excitement or happy anticipation. On the contrary, he asserts that by no means were all the volunteers able to move freely about the city. Only those who were "politically reliable" received this indulgence. The rest remained in their rooms, leaving only for meals and twice-a-day

44

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

orientation lectures. Furthermore, Bell arrived in Paris at the same time as the American socialist Debs Column of volunteers, six men, and he maintains that the other recruits were kept away from the socialists in order to avoid contamination.15 Just as the character of the international force changed as the war itself changed, so, no doubt, did the temperaments of those charged with conducting volunteers across Europe. Bell may very likely have encountered restrictions because the Paris station at the time of his stay there was under the direction of particularly militant communists. Bell went across at the end of February, 1937, when the movement was in its infancy and when the Battle of Jarama threatened the gates of Madrid. There were many "politically unreliable" men in the brigades, but this designation did not necessarily damage reputations or imply special caution. It certainly did not mean that a man was to be denied access to the front. After a while, it seems not to have mattered greatly what political stripe one bore so long as one wasn't a fascist or a Trotskyist. The perennial tension between communists and socialists was not to be resolved during the Spanish conflict, but it was distinctly eased by the doctrine of a united front, by the need for men and by the overwhelming majority held by the communists. Whether or not a volunteer "saw" Paris, his vacation there soon ended, and he went on his way to the Spanish border. Thirty years after the Spanish Civil War, many of the survivors are still plagued with dreams and nightmares of that ordeal. For one man, Maurice Constant, the recurring dream represents his frantic search, through Kafkaesque subway stations across Paris, for his small valise which he left behind in a luggage-rental box when he went away to the Spanish border.16 The trip from Paris had to be conducted with special regard for secrecy. The nearer the men came to the border, the likelier they were to come under the surveillance of Spanish Nationalist sympathizers. There was also the threat of arrest by French police who sought to prevent any embarrassment to the French government which had been, from the first summer of war, in pursuit of non-intervention. The volunteers were conspicuous and while everyone along the way knew who they were, it was important that they not be exposed unnecessarily.

Voyage to Spain

45

The briefing the men received now was more solemn and serious than any that occurred earlier. There was, first and foremost, the identification of contacts. "When you reach Orleans, you will leave the train. On the platform will be a girl, sitting on a bench close to the news-stand. She will be dressed in a black skirt, a red leather short jacket, a red beret and she will have a poodle dog on a leash and will be reading a magazine." Understandably the men were greatly amused by these instructions, but they had no choice but to be diligent in their pursuit.17 One group was introduced to a contact who would precede them to Marseilles. The men were told "to take our time, look this man over very carefully, from the front, side and back view, to get him fixed in our minds so that we would know him in a crowd." Before these recruits might see their contact again, they could have been in and out of trains, buses and taxis, down to the waterfront and back to the Hotel Camard "where we would register and give the proprietor a certain word."18 As always, the security varied in intensity and accomplishment. Many men recall walking or driving through villages in the south of France where the citizens rushed out to greet them with fists upraised in the popular front salute! Once the volunteers reached Perpignan, however, the joking ceased as they prepared to scale the Pyrenees. The timing then became essential because the crossing had to be negotiated in the dark if French border patrols were to be eluded. From Perpignan, the travellers ventured into the foothills where they hid in ditches, culverts or farm houses until dusk. One group rode to this point in a brilliant red bus, an irony not lost on them. There were several paths across the mountains. Each set of guides, and these were thought to be professional smugglers, had its own particular route. For one party, the march took fifteen hours, for another six, but for all, crossing the Pyrenees was a nightmare. The men began by stripping off the few articles they still carried from Paris. Only cigarettes were hoarded. The men moved in single file, sometimes forced by the darkness and the treacherous terrain to hold hands. No one was allowed to smoke because the fumes might linger for hours and alert guards to groups coming later.

46

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Men tumbled off the trails and into freezing mountain streams. Sprained ankles became the occupational hazard, and if a man was too injured to continue, he had to be abandoned until the guides could pick him up on their return. Most of the men now wore arpagatoes, rope and canvas sandals, which they would wear throughout their time in Spain. Occasionally men collapsed from exhaustion and had to be carried over by their friends. So they went through the night, stumbling, shaken figures who were little more than children, so reduced were they by the thin atmosphere, the cold, the deep snow in the hollows, the slimy rocks, the interminable climbing. But the sight of Spain from the summit of the Pyrenees remains one of the cherished memories of the whole adventure. I shall never forget that moment as I gazed for the first time on Spain. I shall always remember also the last sight when I was leaving. A wealth of experience, of love and hate, are between that first glimpse and the last. Fascism and war seemed a long way off. Everything was so peaceful.15'

By daylight, the volunteers had descended into the foothills where they were welcomed by Republican outposts who fed them and then secured trucks for a ride to Figueras, the first station inside Spain. Figueras is dominated by an enormous castle-fortress, and this structure remained throughout the war the first landmark visited by the internationals. The weary men found billets in the castle, sometimes in the dank, humid dungeons below. For a few, military instruction began at Figueras, but for the majority, the stay in the town was a short one for they were quickly moved to Barcelona and from that city by train south to Albacete, the headquarters of the brigades. In the end, the majority of the forty thousand internationals got into Spain by scaling the Pyrenees. But several hundred missed that trek because they moved by ship from France to Barcelona. This passage carried its own risk: attack by fascist bombers or submarines. On May 29, 1937, the Ciudad de Barcelona, bound from Marseilles with two hundred and fifty volunteers, was torpedoed off Malgrat, Spain, by an Italian submarine. Some twenty Canadians were aboard the vessel, and their account of the disaster is related here.20

Voyage to Spain

47

Many of the passengers boarded the vessel four or five days before sailing and hid in the deepest compartments until open sea. During this interval, the men were fed bread, fish and wine twice a day and were shoved regularly into darkened spaces when local police searched the premises. Finally, on the evening of May 28, the Ciudad de Barcelona put to sea, its cargo of flour already sabotaged, its passengers exhausted from the confinement. But now the men could be brought on deck and assigned to quarters, as often as not in the first class area. After a supper of octopus stew, a concert and a wrestling match by two Australians and one New Zealander, the men turned in for their first night of sound sleep in days; while they rested, the ship moved along the coast to its death. In the morning, the vessel encountered Republican patrol planes which circled about at mastlevel receiving the clenched fist salutes of the delighted passengers. By early afternoon, the news of arrival at Barcelona by 5:00 P.M. had been passed about, and the men settled down to one last nap, one last bull-session. The torpedo struck at 2:00 P.M., blowing such a hole in the side of the ship that it began to go down by the stern within seconds. The few who scrambled on deck found that they could step over the rail and into the sea without a fall. One lifeboat forward was hacked loose but it plunged with fifty men into the water and straight to the bottom. Within minutes those survivors who had not found a boat were in the water swimming frantically away from the capsizing freighter. One pathetic man, a Canadian named Karl Francis, was seen to scramble forward hand over hand along the rail to the very peak of the bow where he embraced the little jack mast. Men screamed to him to jump but the shocked man held on "and then the ship quietly sank and that was the last of Karl."21 Five minutes after the torpedo struck, the living and the dead were alone in the water with the oil-streaked debris. Now a Republican seaplane flew by and dropped depth charges in the immediate area, blowing up great gouts of water and rupturing several swimmers. Then the plane, distinctive because of its single pusher propeller, landed nearby and coasted over. One noteworthy hero of this disaster was a Canadian named Ivor "Tiny" Anderson, later to become a favourite member of the Mackenzie-

48

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Papineau Battalion, who now swam about dragging men to the plane and boosting them up on its wings. Finally, laden with fourteen battered survivors, the plane taxied the mile to shore. The remainder of the men from the ship were picked up by fishing boats and "that is how some of us came to Spain."22

CHAPTER FIVE

"Bethune had a little roadster which he left with us when he went to Spain. The car was just like the man. When you started it up, it threw you forward in your seat and then it threw you backward." —Miriam Kennedy THE LITTLE STATION WAGON bore the inscription, Service Canadien a Madrid de Transfusion de Sang, and the three men inside wore distinctive blue coveralls, "siren suits," with a Canada flash on the shoulders and a huge red cross on the breast. The men were gripped with excitement though, being strangers to one another, they were careful to appear at ease. They were excited because they were off to war, and while they would not be combatants, still as a medical team they would be in occasional danger. Besides, the inscription on the side of the station wagon provoked cheers and salutes from roadworkers and peasants in the fields and this evidence of sympathy was moving, to say the least. On the other hand, that same inscription could be read by stony-faced Frenchmen who had no patience at all with the Spanish Republic. So the excitement came from happy anticipation but also from anxiety. The three occupants of the little car were Canadians: Dr. Norman Bethune, Henning Sorensen and Hazen Sise. Bethune and Sorensen had met a month previously when the Montreal physician arrived in Madrid to contribute his services to the Republic. Sorensen, fluent in the Spanish language, had directed him about the great city, introduced him to the Spanish and international leaders, and translated their conversations. Sise was a newcomer, recently recruited by Bethune to assist him in the creation of a blood transfusion service. As the trio drove down the Rhone Valley into the south of France, they exchanged personal histories and privately made estimates of one another's characters and motives. Sorensen had arrived in Spain the preceding September and,

50

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

until Bethune's arrival nearly two months later, had followed a disillusioning career as a journalist. The young Dane had prepared a handful of articles for The New Commonwealth whose credentials he bore in Europe and for a socialist newspaper in Copenhagen. But so dismayed was he by the "scoundrels and prostitutes" who professed to be newspapermen, so revolted was he by their apparent indifference to the passion and misery of the Spanish Civil War, that he leapt at the request from the Canadian Spanish Aid Committee that he serve as Bethune's assistant. Sorensen was devoted to the Spanish people; "a very sweet, softspoken, dreamy character," he had a simple, direct approach to matters, an approach which had little room for political maneuvering.1 For the first month Bethune was in Madrid, Sorensen never left his side. Dr. Norman Bethune is firmly placed in the legends of three countries: Canada, Spain and China. Before his departure for Madrid, he was a brilliant surgeon and a noted humanitarian in his own country. Following his return from Spain, he rushed off to China where he developed a medical service for the Eighth Route Army in the war against Japan. On November 13, 1939, in a small, obscure Chinese village, Bethune died of blood poisoning. Between life in Canada and in China, there was Spain. Bethune had gone to Spain at the suggestion of the Spanish Aid Committee. Whatever service he might render, it would be the first concrete sign of Canadian concern for the beleaguered Republicans. In agreeing to go abroad, Bethune realized that his career as a surgeon might be jeopardized, both because of an indefinite absence from practice and because of the political repercussions which could follow his public dedication to a cause that was not supported by his own government. Still, he went, and now he is a legend. The doctor arrived in Madrid on November 3, and with Sorensen's help toured hospitals, met his Spanish colleagues, and took a subway to the front which was then in and around the grounds of the University of Madrid in the southern suburbs, where he mingled briefly with the haggard survivors of the German Thaelmann Battalion.2 The Spanish medical service proposed that Bethune work as a surgeon in the military hospitals, but the

Dr. Norman Bethune

51

Canadian demurred. While he would work with the Republic, he would work on his own terms, not because he had lost interest in surgery but because he sought some more dramatic activity, though not for the sake of drama. As Hazen Sise has put it, Bethune "had an inborn sense of public relations." This, coupled with a forceful personality, determined for him that his contribution should be so distinctive and so identifiable as Canadian that a greater sympathy for the plight of the Republic would be elicited in Canada. Bethune did not have to venture into Spain to add to his laurels. In fact, he was in some danger of losing those he had earned at home. He was an egotist, yet a man who could command loyalties, surmount great obstacles, create much good by the sheer power of his character: "the sort of person who could say 'Rise and follow me' and you would follow him."3 Bethune's great vocation was first articulated while he and Sorensen sat uncomfortably on a slow-moving train to Valencia. They would organize a blood-transfusion service and then make that service available to the Republic. Blood was life, and in a country which already possessed a powerful and primitive sense of blood-mystique, the transfusion of blood for the saving of lives promised to be something more than a medical enterprise. Perhaps Bethune did not understand this association as yet, but according to Sise "it was a brilliant choice because the Spanish people took us to their hearts and the response was enormous and was strongly emotional "4 Bethune knew little about blood transfusion beyond what any surgeon would ordinarily have to understand. Blood transfusion was still in its primitive stage, in any case, so at the end of his first month's stay, the physician left for Paris and London, in the company of Sorensen, to organize his unit and to purchase equipment. At the same time he burrowed into libraries in these cities, collecting and studying furiously all that was available about the history and practice of transfusion. What Bethune undoubtedly came to realize during that frantic cramming in London was that his unit would be unsophisticated in experience and application but that it could do the job, nonetheless. In London, Bethune found a second recruit, a young Canadian architect named Hazen Sise. Though both men were from Mont-

52

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

real, they had never met. Sise had been abroad for three years and was, in late 1936, just settling down to his first commission. He had already made many visits to the continent and his reaction to the mounting political tension was sharp and anxious. A few days before the outbreak of war in Spain, Sise had watched in fascination as the French Popular Front paraded across Paris, behind the dim form of the last survivor of the Commune of 1871, to the Place de la Nation where "amidst a sea of clenched fists" the health and prosperity of this political alliance was pledged. Later that day, Sise and his friends met for dinner on the Champs Elysees, and while we were sitting on the terrace having our drinks we could see expensive racing cars—Bugattis and such—dashing up and down the Champs Elysees with young bucks perhaps from the Jockey Club doing the Fascist salute. And it was very evident to me that on that day, France was very close to civil war. The powers of the right, the Camelot du Roi, the various proto-fascist groups were mobilising in the west end, let us say, of the Champs Elysees-Etoile area whereas in the east end, in the area of the Place de la Nation, there were enormous crowds of people of the left-wing parties, and if they had ever met, there would have been blood shed.5 Four days later, the Spanish Civil War began. For the next few months, the young architect found himself preoccupied with the war in Spain and he shared his misgivings with other young intellectuals, John Cornford and Stephen Spender, and the group that revolved around E. M. Forster. Bethune and Sise were introduced by a mutual friend, and Sise found his new acquaintance "a ramrod-erect man, almost six feet tall, wearing a trench coat and pork pie hat and a bristling military moustache."6 (Sorensen noted that Bethune resembled a Coldstream Guards officer on leave.7) Once apprised of Bethune's mission, Sise, normally reticent and detached in manner, blurted out his wish to return to the war with the new unit. After a day or so Bethune agreed, and the young architect promptly went underground while he closed his office, transferred his first commission to a colleague and otherwise made himself ready for what he knew,

Dr. Norman Bethune

53

as so many others found, was to be the "great turning point in my life."8 So the three Canadians went to Spain aboard a brand-new Ford station wagon, jammed with medical equipment, a refrigerator powered with coal oil, and their personal belongings. They wore blue overalls, a romantic gesture and useful too, because many of the workers in Barcelona adopted such a dress and because the Republican army published a newspaper called el mono azul, the blue monkey. Later on, the members of the unit removed the red cross to avoid confusion with the world-famous organization, and in its place they put a Maltese Cross set in a wreath, the emblem of the "Sanidad Militar," to which they would be attached. In Paris the men ransacked the city for gas masks, mainly at Sise's insistence because "I am a boy scout at heart and always wanted to be prepared for any eventuality."9 What with the nervous condition of Frenchmen at this time, the masks were almost all sold out. They found some eventually and stood in the store trying them on, feeling a little foolish, "and the saleswoman fluttering around saying, 'Oh! it looks fine, you know' and 'It fits beautifully!' just as if she was selling a coat and possibly holding in the fact that it didn't fit properly in front."10 South were the Pyrenees, and the breathtaking approach to the mountains moved them to silence. Beyond the Pyrenees was Spain. Each man who went there formed an impression of the countryside, an image that he carried with him and that became his "version" of the land. For Hazen Sise, architect, the image was of "the geometrical villages climbing up the hills and the vast naked skeleton of the landscape."11 In Madrid the Canadians found temporary quarters in the Grand Via Hotel, at that time the gathering and watering place for journalists. Meals were obtained in a grill found in the basement, and there the transients consumed the traditional wartime diet: chick peas soaked in oil, sardines "and odds and ends of things like that." At night they fell asleep with the rattle of machine-gun fire in their ears. The front was scarcely half a mile away. Within two or three days, Bethune set up his institute in a large apartment located in an upper-class residential neighborhood. The location was a welcome one, for this district was seldom bombed,

54

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

perhaps because there were many fifth columnists in the area. The place had formerly been occupied by a lawyer who had been a legal advisor to the German diplomatic corps prior to the outbreak of the war. Much to their surprise, the Canadians discovered that the former tenant, in his hurry to depart a hostile Madrid, had left behind documents revealing the extent of the German collaboration with the rebels. Sise dumped these into a huge laundry basket, drove with it to Valencia and proudly turned his discovery over to Foreign Minister Alvarez del Vayo.12 The unit was not yet a unit. Bethune needed a week or more to ready his equipment, to advertise for donors, and to train his small staff. Two Spanish doctors were placed on temporary assignment, one brought several relatives along, two or three nurses came forward and a pair of militia girls volunteered to cook and keep house. Butane refrigerators replaced the coal-oil machine the three Canadians had hauled from London. Despite the magnificence of their quarters, the Canadians soon discovered just how primitive life could be in a besieged city. There was no heat available except what they could coerce from small electric heaters which were only as reliable as the city utility service. Baths were taken in cold water, and everyone wore their heavy coats indoors. Travel at night was incredibly difficult because of the darkened city and the wreckage strewn everywhere. Groping along the street, one could hear the murmur of voices, the strumming of guitars, "and you found that the doorways would be full of people just sitting quietly talking, and singing. Life all around you in this pitch blackness."13 Despite Bethune's cramming in London libraries, he arrived in Madrid ill-equipped for the work ahead: few blood needles and no syringe-pumps. The first transfusions were performed by the gravity method with glass canulas sewn into veins. Soon, the team imported more needles and a quantity of 10 c.c. Joubet pumps and found squat 500 c.c. bottles. There appeared to be no laboratory available for Kahn or Wasserman tests so they proceeded with untested blood on the premise that a patient would prefer to have his life and a venereal disease rather than to lose his life. When they did discover a private lab, the doctor who performed the examinations reported a percentage of positive reactions so far below

Dr. Norman Bethune

55

the known national average that his services were abandoned. Subsequent police investigation suggested that this man was a fascist sympathizer. Eventually, idle technicians at the Madrid Rockefeller Institute took over the job. Moss and International classifications of blood-groups were employed throughout, with Madrid hospitals supplying the bulk of the grouping serum. Cross-matching was conducted though there was often no time for this. In Madrid itself, the team extracted only blood groups II and IV with two-thirds to three-quarters of the total amount being group IV, universal. Particular care was given to the ticketing of the bottles not only for the protection of the patient but so the unit could compile statistics on its work. Within a month after the arrival of the Canadians in Madrid, they learned of the work of the Spanish physician, F. Duran Jorda of Barcelona, who had created a pooled blood-transfusion service of superior proportions. Bethune and Sise made at least two trips to Duran's base and came away with valuable information as well as respect for the Spaniard. The preservation of the blood in ampoules involved still another risk. If sodium citrate was mixed with the blood, then preservation could be guaranteed for about ten days. But if the fluid was agitated greatly, then it broke down and became useless. And there was considerable danger of agitation, for the unit had to deliver the ampoules across city streets littered with wreckage and into mountain retreats to field hospitals. Such experiments were not only necessary to the perfection of the transfusion technique, but they were considered in another light as appropriate to the subordinate function of the unit: medical research. The word "institute" was selected for just this reason. At least two scientists joined the Bethune operation for short-term investigations: I. B. S. Haldane, the British biologist, whose attempts to develop a home-made gas mask proved hilariously abortive, and Dr. Herman Mueller, an American geneticist. By and large, however, the research programs conducted at that time came to nothing since Dr. Mueller had to return to America. There were a few uneasy moments as the Canadians prepared to open the doors of their institute. Unsure about the Spanish appetite for blood transfusion, the men simply did not know

56

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

whether their call for donors would be heeded. But the two thousand people gathered in the streets before their office on the first morning dispelled any further doubts. Thereafter, Bethune and his staff were celebrated throughout Madrid, and in fact became the source of much exotic copy despatched by the foreign press. As the weeks passed, the unit became accustomed to the daily shelling, to the sounds of combat from University City, sounds that receded as stalemate was reached there and then increased again as the Nationalist offensive at Jarama began. Bethune now purchased three more vehicles for the transportation of the precious blood about and beyond the city: a German DKW, a Renault truck and an unidentifiable yellow roadster. It was Hazen Sise's unenviable duty to deliver the ampoules to field hospitals, and nothing was quite so eerie as those trips deep into the Guadarrama Mountains in the yellow roadster in the bright moonlight. The initial campaign of education had proven successful, and Sise came to relish the excursions into the sierras where he met isolated groups of soldiers huddled near the snow line. Once he stood high on a ridge and looked into a river valley far below crossed by a bridge which, Sise believes, later became the object of the partisan attack described in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. In the city one moved, as best one could, through the filth and horror of war. In a letter home, Hazen Sise described one errand to a local hospital. The hospital is a large one, of many pavilions connected by glass-enclosed corridors. As a modern architect, I am all for glass and lots of it, but in war-time, I don't feel so enthusiastic. Flying glass makes a shell or bomb about three times more effective. Groping, with the aid of a flashlight, along those corridors, it seemed at first as if the place was deserted till one noticed constellations of glowing cigarettes and a hum of quiet, noncommittal conversation from those less exposed corners where the few wounded still able to walk had congregated. The rest lay quietly in their beds and listened. The explosions seemed uncomfortably close and my architect's brain could not but try and picture the rather complicated plan of the building, to see whether we were moving towards the exposed side. Such little preoccupations become automatic

Dr. Norman Bethune

57

in Madrid though one knows they won't do any good. At last we were blinking in the brightness of the operating room, that cool room with green-flowered tile walls where I have seen things that I would like to forget; seen men die on the table in undignified and unmentionable ways before we ever had a chance ot" pumping new blood in them. Our man lay in the central pool of light with two surgeons working on him. He was a civilian, wounded not two blocks away from the hospital. I peered over their shoulders. It was shell-splinters in three places. Ugh! By comparison your nicklesteel bullet (Canadian nickle!) is a polite, almost courtly method of destruction. Except for the rapid honking breathing of the unconscious man, it was very quiet That brilliant spot of light in a darkened world made us feel curiously isolated; a camp-fire gives you the same sensation. The surgeons mumbled over their work, the nurses stood by, the anaesthetist sprinkled the ether and a man in civilian clothes stood close, watching every movement, but with a perfectly expressionless face. Probably a relative. With a can of hot water I warmed up the bottle of nearly ice-cold blood while Loma lays out the little gleaming syringepump and examines the veins at the crook of the man's arm. The shells began falling closer, rattling the windows and making the instruments jump about in their glass cases. A nurse with a beautiful, grave face suddenly smiles at me with just the slightest suggestion of a twitch about the lips. The anaesthetist grins cheerfully and sprinkles the ether. A doctor grunts. "God damn them", I think, "they know perfectly well there's a hospital here; it's by far the biggest thing on the map of the district." Loma slipped in the needle and we started connecting up the tubes, I holding the syringe, our arms entwined in a complicated way. We are all bending over different parts of the man who is breathing so fast that his whole body is heaving about with the effort. It's a frightening thing which you take a long time to get used to. The surgeons quickly sew up one wound in the abdomen and start on the leg. Loma begins to pump. Soon a doctor mumbles "350 cc is enough" and we're finished. We wash up, pack up and as we turn to the door they call softly, over their shoulders "Salud!" "Hasta la vista." The anaesthetist suddenly laughs and raises his clenched fist.14

The blood transfusion unit was Norman Bethune's brainchild,

58

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

and to the end, Bethune guided, cajoled, nagged it on its way. All his life the doctor had possessed great ambition, great vitality, and in Spain he found the sort of challenge which not only humoured him but brought him to a maturity which moved those who met him in Canada in the brief interval between Madrid and China. Always a sensualist, Bethune carried to Spain his love of good food, cultivated friends and superb women. (During his visit to London, he purchased a handsome set of monogrammed silk shirts.) His sensibilities never altered while he lived in Madrid; he was always the artiste manque. But something happened to him during those months: the incredible suffering, the quiet patience of the Spanish people, their devotion to their Republic, perhaps these sobered him. When he went to China, eventually, he was a changed man: intense, serious, stable. In Spain, in his middle-age, he found his vocation. Yet, in Spain the man could be vexing as a child. He loved to lecture his friends on the issues of the war and on the potential of socialism. Most of those in his "audience" knew as much of the subject as Bethune did. J. B. S. Haldane, himself a dedicated scientist and socialist, would listen politely to the Canadian's harangues and then reply, "Yes, teacher." Bethune was an instinctive democrat but he was also an instinctive autocrat. After a "lecture" on socialism in a cafe, he could turn about and brusquely call for a waiter, "Hey there!"15 Bethune revered the Spanish people, but he regularly flew into a rage when he uncovered some failure or oversight on the part of Spanish doctors or when bureaucracy confounded his plans. Allan Dowd, a representative of the Canadian Spanish Aid Committee, arrived in Madrid in the spring of 1937 to resolve differences Bethune was having with the Republican medical establishment. Bethune could be a nuisance, even when it was evident that he was in the right. The fact that Dowd had to be despatched as a peace-maker suggests that at this period, Bethune may have been on the verge of exhausting Spanish hospitality.16 In a war and in a country that produced many exotic figures, Norman Bethune proved to be one of the most colourful of men. And if he could be eccentric and unpredictable on occasions, at other times, at moments of profound stress, his strength, perhaps his genius, emerged.

Dr. Norman Bethune

59

In January, 1937, Bethune became anxious to expand the facilities of the unit to other cities, Valencia, Barcelona, Malaga. But the question that had already proved an irritation remained: how to preserve the blood over such long trips? Bethune and Sise thought that they had found a solution when Bethune bought a large Renault panel truck in France and had it revamped in Barcelona to include a refrigerator and a generator. Then in the company of a young Englishman with the unexpected name of Cuthbcrt Worseley, the Canadians set off on a trial run south along the Mediterranean coast to Malaga. In spite of warnings in Valencia that Malaga was besieged by Nationalists, the men pressed on. Beyond Almeria they ran head on into the war. Malaga had fallen, and tens of thousands of refugees thronged the road, their destination any place in Spain but Malaga. The people ran towards the truck, "like snowfiakes rushing at one's windshield."17 By this time night had fallen, and Bethune realized that it was pointless to continue their expedition, so they turned to assist the frightened hordes. Bethune got out of the truck and confronted the refugees, "Nlnos! Solamente n'mos!" Only children. Not unexpectedly, great cries went up all about him. No mother could be persuaded to give over her child to a stranger, even if the separation was only to be temporary for the truck would discharge its passengers in Almeria, a hundred kilometres away. But Bethune continued to bellow and then to charge into the crowds, grabbing children up, pointing out others. Still mothers fought to keep them back, and still Bethune, Sise and Worseley fought for their rescue. At some point Sise took a photograph of the madness, and engraved there is all that one need know about war and loneliness. A peasant woman is standing at the rear of the truck, peering into its shadows, her arms flung out in appeal. But there was no room for her though there was for her children. The van held twenty small bodies and Sise drove these to Almeria while Bethune walked through the night with the distraught people. For four days and nights the three foreigners made their way back and forth along the highway, taking only the children and ignoring with agony the dozens of forlorn figures that littered the roadside. The two Canadians and the Englishman became frantic in their efforts to save the children. Once, Sise left his truck to

60

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

stand by the wayside, a jar of guava jam in one hand and a spoon in the other. As the crowds pressed by, he called children over and shoved the jam into their mouths for quick energy. In one respect, the Malaga tragedy was the climax of Bethune's career in Spain. Along that desolate, anonymous road, the Canadian lived his finest hours. The only way to ease horror and ugliness is to lay on hands, and this is what Bethune, all his life, sought to do. And he never performed so well as he did in those four days, walking with the Spanish people to Almeria. Back in Madrid, the exhausted men threw themselves into the work of blood transfusion. Sleep and food and whiskey restored them, though it was evident even then that Bethune's stamina was diminishing. More and more, he resorted to afternoon naps, sinking to the floor or onto a cot as if he were in a faint. The unit was now reinforced by the addition of an enigmatic young Canadian named Allen May and by a journalist named Jean Watts Lawson. This lady, one of the two or three Canadian women who served in Spain, later worked as a censor in Madrid and then concluded her career there by volunteering as an ambulance driver with a British hospital.18 The Canadians found relief also in the antic behaviour of men desperately at war. J. B. S. Haldane came to live with them for a while. The huge bear of a man was determined that he would develop a makeshift gas mask that any civilian, especially the wine-loving Spaniard, could make. Haldane broke the bottom off a wine bottle and stuffed the remaining section with charcoal and bits of grass; then all one did was simply suck air through the mouth of the bottle. Sise and Haldane located a fume cabinet in a hospital and there Haldane hoped to prove his theory. Within two minutes, the scientist was signalling frantically for help and was then dragged out of his prison, wretchedly sick. The chlorine gas set off in the cabinet had no respect for grass, charcoal or fanciful theories. To avoid demoralizing the citizens of Madrid, Haldane was kept incognito at the unit's offices until he recovered.19 By June, 1937, the Canadian blood transfusion unit had completed its mission: the period of instruction was over. The Canadians had been awarded honorary commissions in the Republican army, these in lieu of actual ranks which might have compromised

Dr. Norman Bethune

61

them under the Canadian Foreign Enlistment Act. Bethune decided to return to Canada, probably because his health was so poor, and because his relations with the Spanish doctors had become difficult; certainly because he was anxious to report directly to the Canadian people his experiences and impressions of the civil war. Soon after, Sise, May and Sorensen followed him home. In the 1920's, Norman Bethune had discovered that he was seriously ill with tuberculosis. In an effort to ward off inevitable death and to augment the research for correction of the affliction, he submitted himself to the then experimental thoacophasty operation, and his life was saved, though he had but one lung left. Bethune had believed that he would die, and when he didn't, like other men who have survived that strain, he believed that his life thereafter was a bonus. So he subjected himself to whatever ordeal or discomfort was necessary in Spain in order to carry on his work. But he did give his life two years later in China and, in a last letter to Canada, written as he lay dying, he said, "I have been very happy."20 A number of Canadians performed elsewhere in Spain with medical detachments. Samuel Abramson joined a British Medical Mission led by Major Douglas Jolly of New Zealand. An ambulance driver, Abramson was at Quinto and Belchite and at the Ebro offensive. He was later joined by James Southgate, Art Siven and Roy Braden.21 Marvin Penn of Winnipeg fought with the Lincolns at Jarama, Brunete and Quinto-Belchite. After the last battle, he accepted a transfer to the brigade medical corps. For a time, Penn moved back and forth from Spain to France escorting convalescent Canadians to Paris on the first lap of the voyage home. In the final months of his own stay in Spain, Penn helped organize and direct a brigade hospital in Barcelona.22 Bell, the same volunteer whose distrust of the communists emerged in Paris, held a variety of posts with medical units, as a first-aid instructor in Albacete, as a male nurse in the city hospital, then as a first-aid man in the 20th Battalion of the 86th Brigade on the Cordoba front. His last assignment took him to Villa Paz where a brigade hospital had been established in the summer home of the

62

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Infante Beatrice, sister of the former king, Alphonso.23 Dr. Aaron Magid joined the XVth International Brigade in time for the Brunete offensive. His service there is described elsewhere in this history. One of the strangest of all stories involving any Canadian volunteer concerns Dr. Eugene Fogarty, born in Vancouver in 1897. Dr. Fogarty was on the staff of the International Hospital in Villanueva de la Jara, near Aibacete, when on March 6, 1937, he married Senorita Jacoba Moreno Cordoba, by whom he subsequently had two children. When the Civil War ended, he moved with his family to a little town called Iniesta, where he established his own practice. In 1940, however, he disappeared. Presumably he escaped from Spain after the Second World War began, but he did not take his wife and children with him. They returned to Viilanueva de la Jara for a short time and then moved to Barcelona. The doctor seems to have been swallowed up in the world war; a brother of Mrs. Fogarty has said that the Canadian died in the Far East. Inadvertently, Dr. Fogarty was instrumental in saving the life of a Spanish colleague in Villanueva de la Jara. The Spaniard was sentenced to execution because of his alleged fascist convictions. Execution was delayed until the townspeople could confirm the arrival of another physician. When Dr. Fogarty appeared on the scene, he proved to have such an unimpressive bedside manner and so poor a reputation that the Spanish doctor had his death sentence revoked so that he could remain in practice. Dr. Fogarty is still well known about Villanueva de la Jara: Dr. Eugenio Furgarte, that is.24

CHAPTER SIX

"We lost very many comrades. . . ."—Book of the XVth International Brigade THROUGH THE FIRST SUMMER of civil war, Spain resembled nothing more than a heavily travelled highway. Columns of soldiers marched back and forth between cities and villages, clashing in small, expensive skirmishes that often determined the allegiance of the district for the remainder of the war. Two large Nationalist units converged on the passes through the Guadarrama Mountains north of Madrid in an effort to force those approaches; their artillery and greater experience brought abou{ the capture of the two passes, but the rebels lacked the momentum to press on into the capital. Meanwhile, two other fascist expeditions moved into the Basque provinces where, in August, under the grand title of The Army of the North, they seized San Sebastian and Iran, the latter taken literally before the interested eyes of foreign observers who stood along the international line nearby. In the south, Republican forces laid siege to the Alcazar, a huge fortress-academy which dominated Toledo. For two months the defenders thwarted all efforts to blow them out of their stronghold. On September 28, Toledo fell to Nationalist troops and the Alcazar was relieved. By the end of the summer, Spain was cut in two: the line dropped from the Pyrenees, skirted east of Huesca, Saragossa, Bclchite and Teruel, moved abruptly west to Guadalajara, south then past the western approaches to Madrid, southwest through Toledo, then veered east again to end on the Mediterranean coast of Granada. The country west of this line belonged to Nationalist Spain; that to the east belonged to Republican Spain. By late summer also, General Francisco Franco had joined the junta which led the rebellion. On October 1 he was named head of state amidst the high exhilaration that swept Nationalist Spain upon the relief of the Alcazar. Franco's new designation also coincided with the final inarch upon Madrid. The dictator's military

Madrid—Jarama

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

65

reputation, which was considerable and justified, had been won in Africa, and so it was understandable that he would personally supervise this triumphant campaign to be conducted by the socalled Army of Africa. At the beginning of October this Army of Africa was a surprisingly small force: four columns of about twelve hundred Moroccans and Spanish foreign legionnaires, each with the usual support elements, and one battalion of Falangist volunteers from Seville. By the time this army reached the outskirts of the capital, it had grown to twenty thousand men, still a slight number for the task assigned. From the beginning, Franco sought and found air superiority.1 The Army of Africa drew up before Madrid on October 10 in anticipation of seizing the city on the 12th, a date personally selected by Franco. The militia forces of the Republic had retreated in horror and panic before the infamous four columns, as these swept north across a forty-mile front. Since they persisted in keeping to the roads as they fell back, the Republicans were systematically chewed up by air and artillery bombardments. But if the militia units in the field were vulnerable, those which waited inside Madrid held an advantage which Franco and his staff well appreciated. Street fighting is always an ordeal for both sides involved. The movement of tanks is impeded by buildings and narrow lanes; the houses and office complexes afford endless threats of entrapment. Supply routes can be cut, mended and cut again in an hour. Worst of all, battalions lose their identity and cohesion and disappear from the view and control of their commanders. The capture of Madrid was to be the culmination of Operation Magic Fire, the name given by the German General Staff to its intervention in the rebellion. Franco needed Madrid, for without its seizure Germany and Italy were reluctant to recognize the new regime. Thus, while Madrid might consume thousands of lives in the Army of Africa, while the campaign might take weeks, there was no alternative. Almost immediately the October 12 deadline was forgotten as the Nationalist force paused to regroup and assess the routes into the city. Magic Fire was not helped by the surprise Republican

66

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

thrust out of the city on October 28 against the fascist right flank. This counterattack, reinforced by Russian tanks, penetrated twelve kilometres, but succumbed when infantry failed to take advantage of the armored spearhead. Franco's field commanders, Varela and Mola, had no choice now but to commit their columns. Assault battalions would advance from University City, the site of the University of Madrid, and Casa de Campo, a great park across the Manzanares River from the university. The battalions rolled over the outlying hamlets and suburbs and drew up on the edge of the park on November 6. The next day, the 7th, University City was to be stormed at nine points. It seemed to all, attackers and defenders, that Madrid would soon fall; few had the nerve to suggest that the city would not surrender for two and a half years! Inside the capital, on November 6, the stunning news was released of the evacuation to Valencia of Premier Largo Caballero's two-month-old administration. Though orders were left behind, creating a junta to direct the defence of Madrid, most of the intelligence files had disappeared with the bureaucrats. General Jose Miaja made what sense he could of the orders, which had neglected to specify the actual members of the junta, then set about taking inventories of war materials and manpower, appealing to the trade unions for volunteers and mining the open avenues into the city. Had Miaja waited several hours before opening his orders, as Caballero had requested, he would have had no time to prepare for the attack. When the Nationalist assaults and barrages finally began, rude barricades had been manned, thousands of citizens had flocked to the aid of the militia, and the issue, for Varela's army, was already in doubt. Of immediate help to the Republicans was the discovery, in a destroyed tank, of the fascist plan of attack; acting on this information, Miaja re-deployed his defenders. On the 8th, the first sections of the Xlth International Brigade moved through the streets toward Casa de Campo on its way to forging the example that would so inspire the Spanish battalions of the Fifth Regiment, Madrid's famous defence force. Within a few days, the Xllth International Brigade arrived in the city after failing in a poorly co-ordinated attack on the Nationalist flank. The savage fight for University City continued into early December with the Army of Africa seeming to derive little inspiration from

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

67

the premature recognition by Germany and Italy, on November 18, of the Nationalist government at Burgos. The international battalions and the Moroccans and Foreign Legion fought each other with a desperate fury in the university buildings. They fought as though the outcome of the entire campaign in Spain depended upon which side occupied a building, a hall, a room. They fought at close range with knife, with bayonet, with grenade. All the cunning of African veterans was pitted against the skill of men who had learned street fighting during Leningrad's Red October; in street riots on the Place de L'Etoile, in Clichy. Germans of the Edgar Andre and Thaelinann, who had fought Noske and Hitler in streets of Berlin and Hamburg, ambushed Berbers under the busts of Aristotle and Spinoza in the Hall of Letters and were ambushed in- turn in the dark halls of the Clinical Hospital.2 There, in the litter of textbooks and blackboards, amid the cries in a dozen different languages of rage and terror and pain, the International Brigades began to gather up the traditions of endurance and sacrifice which persevere to this day. The Nationalist assault was contained and, by the end of 1936, successfully stalled. Franco's bombers killed a thousand civilians between November 16 and 19; Boadilla and Villanueva de la Canada, on the western approaches, had been seized after a ferocious battle along the Madrid-Corunna highway. But Madrid held. The victory belonged to the people of the city who manned the barricades, endured the wild and malicious rumors circulated by the fifth column of terrorists and spies within the metropolis, and put aside the first signs of hunger and thirst, conditions which would only increase as the siege hung on over months, and then years. By mid-January of the new year, the Reichswehr advisors to the Army of Africa had devised a strategy of encirclement by which the Madrid-Valencia highway would be cut and Madrid isolated from any effective control by Republican forces in the east. The primary objective was Alcala de Henares, due east of the capital. The offensive would begin from a line running north and south below Madrid, anchored on the south at Ciempozuelos, and move northeast through Arganda toward the highway. Between

68

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

the baseline and Arganda ran the Jarama River, and the battle that followed became known as the Battle of the Jarama River Valley; it would last four months.3 On February 6, 1937, forty thousand men, formed in five brigades, supported by six 155 mm artillery batteries and a German group of 88 mm cannon, began their move on an eighteen-mile front. Within forty-eight hours the Nationalists had penetrated eight kilometres and had brought the Madrid-Valencia highway under fire. By the time the offensive reached the Jarama River, battalions of the XI and Xllth International Brigades had been arranged in defensive positions on the ridges east of the river. Because of rain, the river was not fordable, so the bridges at Pindoque and San Martin de la Vega came under fierce assault. On February 10, after wiping out one company of the Andre Marty at Pindoque, fascist troops crossed the Jarama and ran into the remainder of that battalion, now reinforced by the Garibaldi and Dombrowski. These units turned aside the attackers before Arganda, then proceeded to effect a strong line on the northern, that is, the right flank. Varela, once again commander of the attacking army, now turned his main thrust toward Morata where he met, on the east side of the river, on February 12, the Xlth and XVth International Brigades. The XVth had just come into battle for the first time and for the moment comprised two battalions, the British and the Dimitrov. The left flank of the Republican line was held by the British under Tom Wintringham, the "English Captain." Throughout the 12th, the battalion manned a slight ridge forever after called Suicide Hill by the survivors; the battalion lost nearly three hundred men, but so discouraged the fascists that they never learned that for three miles beyond the ridge to the south, there was a gap in the defences. Wintringham had managed to place three companies on the ridge though he despaired of the position. He could not expect relief or permission to withdraw until nightfall. Two company commanders were killed, a third ran away, and Wintringham danced impatiently several hundred metres to the rear, maintaining communication with his companies only through an occasional valiant and lucky runner. What is more, through a stupid error the

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

69

machine-gun company in the British Battalion was made impotent for several hours by the failure of brigade armorers to supply the proper ammunition.4 Present throughout this long day was John Reid, a diminutive ex-seaman. Reid was Wintringham's runner, and it was he who discovered that their flank was utterly exposed: "I ran over to Wintringham and said, There's nothing there! Nothing!'" Reid made one perilous trip to Suicide Hill just as the enemy began their attack and he witnessed there the first casualties taken by the doomed companies.5 Soon afterwards, Moorish infantry gained a height to the north and enfiladed the English positions. In the evening the remnants of three companies staggered off Suicide Hill. As the exhausted men dropped into new trenches, the frustrated members of the machine-gun company finally received the missing ammunition in time to repulse a Moorish charge. The next evening, however, the gunners were overrun and twenty of them captured, including Burt "Yank" Levy of Windsor, Ontario, probably the first Canadian volunteer to see action in the Spanish Civil War and certainly the first to be taken prisoner. This is Levy's story: The enemy is concentrating troops against us. We can see them in blots of 25 and 50 ... working up ridges and beyond several hills on our front. Our position in front of us is bad; there is too much dead territory. It stretches out in a gentle slope for about twenty feet and then drops abruptly away. We do not know how badly the Brigade has been hit on the 12th. The enemy is breaking through on our right and left. About 4:00 P.M. on the 13th, Overton [a company commander] sent word to retire. Fry, who is second in command of the battalion, goes back and returns, telling us we are to hold the line. Wintringham comes up with the same message and a word of commendation. We are under intermittent shell fire all day long. Branches, twigs, leaves, sand, dust and shrapnel are showering us all the time. The spirit of the boys is good. Again Overton sends us word to retire, and again we are told to hold the line. It is about 6:00 P.M. Darkness is near and we are to be relieved. I was aiming at a bush on the slope of a hill about 800 yards ahead, when to my utter amazement, twenty feet right in

70

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion front of me and directly in the line of my sight, stands a fascist. Someone on my left shouts, "Blimey, who's that?'* I don't know. They are shouting "Comrades" and they are all along our front, with their hands raised in the Red Front salute. Some of us shout "Who are you?" and they cry back that they are comrades. They had sneaked up on us, pretending that they are surrendering. Everybody is shouting, mg's are rattling when suddenly from the stone wall to the right of us, several fascists come running. They open up with small sub-machine guns. They surround us from the left. Many are out of the trenches fighting with empty guns. Bombs are tossed at us. I drop back into the trench. One of the fascists throws a bomb. I drop on Doran's body and count four slowly. Bang! Off it goes. The fascist runs on. I rise and start for the rear thru the olive grove. It is practically over. I work back about twenty yards with Stevens about twenty yards ahead of me. A fascist points his rifle at me and shouts "Venga!" I turn back and he shouts for Stevens to come. But I yell at him to keep going and I walk slowly towards the gun . . . We are run down the hill for about one hundred yards. A fascist attempts to throw a hand grenade into our midst but an officer stops him.6

The British Battalion fought on through the 14th and 15th, driving off successive attacks by tanks and infantry, "an island in the midst of a Fascist division."7 Wintringham was wounded and evacuated, and the Englishmen then came under the command of Jock Cunningham. Jack Reid continued to serve as runner for his new captain. The soldier recalls reporting one night to Cunningham that he heard movement in front of battalion headquarters. "Cunningham got mad and said 'You're windy!' He stepped outside and called 'Who's there?' Of course they wouldn't answer." A disgusted Reid stomped off and promptly walked into a patrol of three Moors. So close were they and so bright was the moonlight that the runner could make out sergeant's stripes on one man's sleeve. "We looked at each other and then walked away." A day or so later Reid found himself by accident in the vanguard of a skirmish line and thereupon confirmed one of the elementary truths of warfare: "I knew that the faster I ran down this hill toward the bushes, the safer I'd be...." The British island was eventually rescued, and the survivors

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

71

wearily found another position on still another ridge. They were joined on February 16 by the newest member of the XVth International Brigade, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, which had just come up from Albacete. The Americans arrived on the scene, Jack Reid relates, with characteristic cries of bravado. But the Englishmen were glad to see them. "It was becoming a tough, bloody war."8 The Lincolns, reinforced at the last moment by forty new recruits, had marched from Villanueva de la Jara to Albacete on the afternoon of the 15th. Once again they filed into the bullring, this time to be outfitted with new rifles, grenades and gas masks. The battalion commander was Robert Merriman, and the rank and file comprised Americans, Englishmen, Canadians and Cubans. Andre Marty visited the unit at this time, embracing the French Canadians he found there. In the evening, the men headed for the front in trucks which soon became part of "a long weaving chain which writhes up and down hills in twisting progress." Once, near dawn, the convoy halted as planes droned over; then, at daylight, it stopped again for several hours to avoid detection. During this interlude the men were permitted rifle practice, five rounds each fired into the hills. For some this was their only practice.9 The Canadians in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion at this time numbered about forty. Among these were the first five volunteers dispatched from Canada: Larry Ryan, Thomas Beckett, Henry Scott Beattie, Clifford Budgeon and Frederick Lackey. They were soon joined by Liege Claire, Adrian Van der Brugge, M. Waselenchuk, George Laskowsky, Joseph Campbell, Andrea Garcia, Michael Russell, Elias Aviezer, Nick Marinoff, Peter Johnston and Arthur Morris.10 The battalion arrived at Morata in the evening; the men ate a hot meal while they listened to the crash of artillery. Then the Lincolns hiked to a nearby hill which overlooked the MadridValencia highway and here they spent the rest of the night "grubbing" trenches. Before noon the next day the newcomers had endured their first air attack, within twenty-four hours their first shelling. Worst of all, before they had fired a shot or even seen the enemy, the Lincolns had lost their first men. A truck in the convoy apparently turned off at a crucial junction and drove into the

72

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

fascist lines. On board was young Thomas Beckett. Beckett's friend, Larry Ryan, reported to the parents of the missing boy that the twenty-four men aboard the ill-fated vehicle were apparently executed over the next few weeks. However, another Canadian volunteer, Wally Dent, who appeared at the front two weeks later, suggested that the truck ran into a fusillade of enemy machinegun and mortar fire, and that the truck and its occupants were destroyed. The wreckage was pointed out to Dent soon after his arrival.11 On the night of February 21, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion went into the line beside its sister units of the XVth International Brigade: the British Battalion with 125 effectives out of 600 who had gone into battle eight days earlier; the Dimitrov Battalion with 200 survivors of originally 800 men. As the Lincolns moved up, heavy machine-gun fire plus a pitch-black evening confused one section of the machine-gun company, which wandered off. When the section leader discovered their dilemma, he guided his men on an angle which he hoped would cut across their new position. Suddenly the lost section overheard strange voices and, panic stricken, dove on their faces in the dirt. Carefully, the frightened men edged back along the route they had just covered. Then, "as if a curtain was being raised on an opening performance of a Broadway show, a round of extended and hearty applause shattered the stillness of the night." The Lincolns found themselves "on stage" before a company of Frenchmen of the Sixth of February Battalion who sat on the parapet of their trench. "There were thirty of us and we got to our feet slowly. To say that we were embarrassed would be the understatement of the year."12 A day later, the battalion moved across the road by which they had entered the area, and from this line, six hundred metres from the Nationalist trenches, the unit made its first assault of the war. The exact purpose of this attack, and the exact strength of the attacking force are unknown. Was the Abraham Lincoln Battalion to go it alone or was it to move out with the Dimitrovs? The objective must have been the trenches in front of them, but once in these trenches, should they hold or take prisoners and withdraw? All that anybody can be sure of was that it was to be a bayonet charge. "All in all, some four hundred and fifty Ameri-

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

73

cans, Cubans, Irish and Canadians were advancing against a wellentrenched enemy. And they were doing it without air support, without artillery and with only the covering fire of four antiquated machine-guns, two of which went out of action before they had completed the firing of a single belt."13 Even so, the assault was well formed. The men used what cover they found to good advantage. Some were quickly upon the fascists and lobbed grenades into the dug-outs. Others dug in across No Man's Land, securing concealment from which they could throw down rifle-fire at the fascist automatic weapons which swept the small valley. Larry Ryan of Toronto has left a graphic description of the charge of No. Two Company in which most of the Canadians were serving. We in the olive grove gasp in expectation as suddenly we see Company One leap out of the trench and race into No-ManV Land. The trench is at the edge of the olives where it joins an open field, a vineyard which at this season is only evidenced by the pruned stubs protruding a foot above the earth. Almost before Company One is out of the trench, we are up, on the run, dive into the trench, so shallow that one crouches to lay a rifle on the parapet. In the gathering darkness, we glimpse the comrades ahead. In waves they go—up, run, down, up, run, down, ever ahead. . . . It is but a pause before we follow. Out across the field, a few shells are bursting ahead of us—or are they grenades?—we are still too green to know. . . . As we go over the top, one of our tanks is hit, bursts into flame and is now a flaming torch at our backs, silhouetting us against its brilliance. The enemy has machine-gun nests which sweep in a V-shaped crossfire. The blaze of the tank is fading and if you hug the earth, they can't see you. In an answer to the agonized cries of "First aid, first aid" which pierce the tortured night, the stretcher-bearers flit through the gloom, picking up the wounded and as they bear them away, appearing momentarily like shadows. The machine guns spew leaden death and the shadows crumple.14 While the Lincolns were still out in the field, a Spanish battalion

74

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

came up behind them and began to lay down cover fire so that the Americans could withdraw. Night had fallen and there was no sense in pressing an attack under such conditions. Many of the men later wondered why, then, an attack had been launched in the first place, at dusk. The approach of twilight which had thwarted the attack had, mercifully, provided additional cover for the retreat. As soldiers coming out of battle will do, the Lincolns walked about looking for friends and finding them with "hushed cries and silent pressure of hands." The casualties taken on the field were relatively light. John Scott, commander of No. One Company, was dead. Rodolfo de Armas, leader of the sixty-man Cuban section, was dead. Eugene Morse fell wounded at the head of Larry Ryan's company. Dead, too, was thirty-eight year old Elias Aviezer, a Russian emigre who had come all the way from Montreal, Quebec, "to lie in the starlight," the first Canadian volunteer to die in the Spanish Civil War.15 By February 26 the Abraham Lincoln Battalion had been shifted to another section of the line formerly occupied by the Dimitrovs and the Sixth of February Battalion. William Henry, leader of the Irish James Connelly Centuria which had been transferred, on its own volition, from the British to the American battalion, replaced Scott in No. One Company. Martin Hourihan took over from the injured Morse as leader of No. Two and Oliver Law, a Chicago Negro, became commander of the Machine-Gun Company. Hourihan and Law subsequently became battalion commanders. The following day, February 27, the XVth International Brigade, in conjunction with one brigade of the Spanish Army, left its trenches in a headlong assault against a series of heavily defended hills which stretched before the Jarama River. The longrange purpose of the attack was the elimination of all Nationalist positions on the east side of the river. The arrival of seventy-three men from Albacete on the morning of the 26th had restored the lists of the Lincoln Battalion to about four hundred and fifty men. Unfortunately, these reinforcements had little or no training; most of the men had come into Spain in the previous week. A typical "new boy" was Walter Dent of Toronto.

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

75

Early in the morning of the 27th, we moved into the front line trench. Hot coffee with ham sandwiches were rationed out. One of the boys remarked: "Ham sandwiches! We must be going to attack today!" He was right. I was surprised at how some of the boys had aged, people I had known before, bewhiskered and gaunt, with signs of their experiences in their drawn, tired faces. No one but the newcomers smile.16 Dent was posted as a runner, and as he waited in position for some orders, he saw several men shot in the head and face as they peered at the fascists through peep-holes in the parapet. The attack had been set for 7:00 A.M. but was postponed until noon after a Spanish unit next to the Lincolns faltered and then stopped dead in its tracks. Merriman passed the rest of the morning arguing with the brigade commander, Vladmir Copic, about the impossible task now presented the Americans: if the Spanish brigade would not get on its feet, then the Lincolns must go it alone with unreliable support fire. The promised umbrella of twenty aircraft had diminished to three, the artillery fire, what there was of it, came from one battery of dubious French 75's, the tank support turned out to be two armoured cars which popped up briefly, fired one salvo at the fascist lines, and then scuttled off. All that morning the men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion stood by in the pouring rain which had followed them for over a week now while their commander raged into a field telephone. Copic was adamant, however, and so at noon, the infantrymen went over the top. The ghastly crossfire into which they ran hardly came as a surprise; they had listened to it since dawn. Within a few moments, one hundred and twenty-seven men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion were dead in the mud. Only two officers escaped death or injury. Merriman was immediately hurled back into the trench with a severe shoulder wound. The debacle resembled the worst ordeals on the Western Front in World War I. In certain trench sections along the line, whole groups of men would barely reach the top of the parapets before being smashed back into the trenches by the withering fire ... Each time the pitiful line rose to continue the advance, the deadly cross and

76

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion direct fire of whole batteries of guns cut into them, thinning their ranks so that entire squads and sections were melting away in death and agony.17

Behind the Lincolns, the 125 men of the British Battalion moved out in the company of the Dimitrovs, but these units quickly saw the futility of any further charges and so withdrew. The rain turned from drizzle to torrent midway through the afternoon, and this fact may have finally persuaded the Lincolns to fall back. In any event, few of the survivors in the field could return until nightfall, and when they did crawl back they were left to slump "exhausted and inconsolable in their trenches at the end of the day, with the rain coming down, soaking the trenches and freezing their skin."18 For Wally Dent the whole experience was enormously mystifying. Dent had come to the front unarmed, but corrected this oversight by confiscating a rifle from the corpse of a Lincoln killed by a sniper. When the charge began, Dent was engaged in a furious attempt to re-assemble his weapon after cleaning it. As his company commander jumped over the parapet, Dent finished the job and then paused, wondering "Am I supposed to go out there with him?" Once over the top, Dent joined the officer a few dozen yards out and the two began to scrape a foxhole out of the muck. We have a trench big enough for one. His leg is cramped so he crawls in to work up the circulation. I am watching him bend and twist his leg while pebbles are thrown in my face from striking bullets. One clouts me over the head and knocks me dizzy, another on the arm. My head is ringing. I put my hand over the spot and have a look. My hand is covered with blood. I am startled.19 Dent recovered his senses and eventually, like the others who still lived, crawled through the rain back to his own lines. At least nine Canadians died in that assault: Joseph Campbell, Liege Claire, Andrea Garcia, Fred Lackey, George Laskowsky, Nicholas Marinoff, Arthur Morris, Michael Russell and Adrian Van der Brugge. Russell was the youngest at 27, Campbell the oldest at 41. "They had not thought to die so soon, nor for so little reason."20

Battle of the Jarama River Valley

77

The attack of the 27th, like that of the 23rd, had failed. This time, though, the Lincolns had not been let off with light casualties. Sixty men remained to guard the trenches while another forty scoured the battlefield through the night for the missing and wounded. The rest: dead or evacuated. But like the assault four days earlier, the attack inspired bitter protests. In spite of Merriman's accurate assessment of the enemy's advantage, he had been ordered to direct a futile charge. The expected support had never materialized, and the Spanish brigade which was to join in the attack had evaporated. But there was nothing one could do except scrape the mud off one's rifle and return to duty.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Death comes in quantity." — Charles Donnelly THE BATTLE of the Jarama River Valley reached a stalemate after March 1, for neither the Nationalists nor the Republicans could find the strength to shape new offensives or counter-offensives. If there was a victory, then it probably went to the Republicans since they had halted the movement to isolate Madrid from the rest of Spain. But the fascists still sat on the east side of the river. Both armies now settled down to an indefinite period of waiting. Trenches were enlarged to make them useful for the long weeks of habitation. Men dug, walked sentry posts, dug some more. As the shelters were completed, they became bunk-houses, mess-halls, classrooms and theatres for the International Brigaders. The men took time for recreation, the first such opportunity they had had since entering Spain. The Abraham Lincoln Battalion produced the Jarama Valley Quartet whose rendition of their theme song, inspired by "The Red River Valley," became known across the entire front. There's a valley in Spain called Jarama; It's a place that we all know too well, For 'tis there that we wasted our manhood And most of our old age as well. Probably the battalion song-bag was enhanced by the enterprise of Paddy O'Daire of Saskatoon who had already gained some fame in Canada as the author of working class melodies such as "When Mounties' Eyes are Smiling" and who was now with the Lincolns. The men discovered the presence of an English-language radio station broadcasting in Madrid so they arranged three loudspeakers about one small radio and listened in fascination to the news programs; to the dance orchestras and singers: Henry Hall and his B.B.C. Orchestra, the Boswell Sisters; and to sports programs like the Tommy Farr-Max Baer contest in London. They devised theatricals in which volunteers displayed their talents. One

Rest and Recuperation

79

was a hypnotist who found ready subjects. "We stuck pins into them, and they were made to dream and everything was on the level."1 Fifty yards behind their position along the Madrid-Valencia road, the Lincolns set up ping-pong tables, a baseball diamond and a soccer field. As the spring came on, the front was overrun by journalists who came to collect material for their newspapers and magazines. Herbert Matthews of The New York Times was there, and he would return again and again even when the war was undoubtedly lost eighteen months later. Ernest Hemingway came and looked and then invited any and all brigaders to his rooms at the Hotel Florida in Madrid. On his second excursion to Spain in 1938, Hemingway set up shop in Barcelona, since Madrid was by that time inaccessible, and there, too, he entertained wounded or furloughed internationals and educated them as well, for he had an enormous map of Spain on a wall across which he plotted the advances and retreats of armies. But if there was diversion on the Jarama front, there was also tedium, routine, and more tedium. Hugh Garner of Toronto arrived in the Lincoln Battalion in late March and in a series of letters home, he conveyed the sense of this strange life. 6.10 A.M. I wake up cold and wet. Last night the fascists tried to launch a surprise attack during a hail storm. As soon as their rifle volleys began cracking, we were ordered to stand-to in the trench. I was reclining on my blanket in my dugout at the time, and when I heard one of our group shout "Come on, boys," I rushed headlong into the rain. My tunic was off. I jammed on my helmet, slung my bandolier over my shoulder, picked up my rifle and ran up the communication trench to our machine gun. In my haste to get up to the trench, I dragged my tunic into the rain and stepped on the inside of it with a muddy boot. What a mess! I did not notice it until it had become soaked with rain. My letters fell from the pocket and were mud-stained and wet. After the attack had been thwarted, I returned to my dugout, soaked to the skin and with my boots and trousers caked with yellow clay. Consequently, I asked someone who was passing if the coffee had arrived yet. He answered "No," so I turned over in my blanket (all this time I was fully clothed, including boots and overcoat), and closed my eyes to try and sleep a little more.

80

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion 7.15 A.M. Breakfast time. The boys have brought up bread, butter, coffee and oranges. The sun is trying to shine a little now. We gather in a group and spread the butter over our bread. We eat it while we crack jokes about the night before, and kid one of the boys about the fascist that he claims to have shot. We smoke a welcome after-breakfast cigarette, and I go back to my dugout to read a New York Daily Worker for a while. I finish reading and lie thinking about writing this synopsis. 7.45 A.M. I go up to the gun to stand my morning guard. I clean and oil my rifle and refill my bullet clips. The sky is cloudy. Two of the comrades come up and begin cleaning the machine gun. I talk to a Spanish comrade who is wreathed in smiles. His wife has just given birth to "dos pequenos" Two boy twins! A real excuse for parental pride. I smoke a few cigarettes and chat with a fellow from the British Battalion. 9.30 A.M. I have been relieved of my guard. I return to my "parlor, bedroom and bath" (the roof leaks), and cut a young lady's picture from a "Daily Worker." I decide to write to her, which I do. I certainly hope she receives my mail and writes back, because a letter from a pretty girl would be more than welcome here. It might even lift me so that I'd perform deeds of bravery with my razor. (I haven't shaved in two weeks.) After writing her my letter, I recline again on my meagre pallet and contemplate the roughhewn roof of my domicile (it's funny what trench warfare does to a guy). I eat my oranges and search around for any elusive crumbs that I might have missed the night before. I decide to go down to the barber's dugout, but it is raining and the barber is probably playing poker anyhow. I rearrange my goods and chattels so that they only get wet in spots. I lie down again and read. 12.25 Noon. The grub has arrived. The menu consists of bean soup, bread, boiled meat, boiled rice and lemonade. I find that my mess kit has not been cleaned since the previous meal. I mumble a few naughty words and scrub it out with dirt and water. Then I eat. After dinner I sit around and smoke. I read accounts in the papers about the Spanish Civil War. It seems as though the Loyalists are winning all right. I was always sticking up for them. We take up a collection to send a telegram to the National Convention of the American Young Communist League. An argument develops as to how to word it. 3.15 P.M. I go on guard duty again. We have spotted a new

Rest and Recuperation

81

enemy machine-gun nest. I sit around in the trench and contemplate my navel. All quiet on the western front—except rifles, machine-guns and a few trench-mortar bombs. I check up with my section leader to see how many anti-tank bombs we have, how many mills-bombs, how many fuse-bombs, how much rifle ammunition, how much machine-gun ammunition. It is just like taking stock. Three months ago I was stock-taking in a men's furnishings store. So many ties, so many pairs of size 38 B.V.D.'s . . . It seems like three years ago. It is a different world altogether. 5.00 P.M. I am relieved of my guard. The comrade who relieves me says that I owe him thiry-four minutes guard duty. We kid each other about it. I leave him to guard that anti-fascist front while I retire to write some letters. I love writing letters. I also like getting them. I spend the remainder of the time before supper writing letters and bumming envelopes and a pencil. 6.30 P.M. Up the path from the kitchen comes a caravan of food-carriers. Harbingers of good-will. Bringers of ever-lasting joy. They bear on their shoulders baskets full of the "staff of life." Dixies full of aromatic soup, and a wonderful stew of potatoes, carrots, beans and canned meat. There are oranges and a little chocolate for each man. And coffee. And a packet of cigarettes. We eat again very heartily. I trade my cigarettes for a package of French tobacco. It lasts much longer. 7.00 P.M. The radio begins playing dance music from Lyons, France. Some of the boys put on impromptu concerts. The card games get going again. Candles are lighted in some of the dugouts. I read the news on the bulletin board. There is a humorous sheet written and typed by the boys. I sit down and listen to the radio. A crooner sings "The Way You Look Tonight" . . . he's telling me! 9.30 P.M. I retire to my boudoir. I pull out my folding-bed (A blanket can be folded into such a small space!) I lie down and light my candle. I read some old letters over again. I look again at the photo clipping that I have cut from the "Daily Worker." I smoke a few cigarettes. The enemy machine guns are spraying explosive bullets outside. There is the dull boom of trench-mortars and rifle-grenades. I go on guard again from 1.00 to 3.30 A.M. I decide to go asleep. I hunch in my blanket and decide to leave my boots on again tonight. They will help to

82

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion keep my feet dry. I make a promise to myself to dig out the water in front of my dugout.2

One last excerpt from Garner's letters is worth quoting if only because it indicates that the monotony could be relieved. Last night I was sent out to an- observation post about twenty metres ahead of our front line. It was a moonlit night and I was left alone at this post. In front of me were a few sandbags, and I lay in a shallow hole about six inches deep. Occasionally a fascist sniper would let one go at me, and it would sing overhead. I tried to put more and more of me into the hole while I clutched my rifle and prayed that the sniper would go blind or something. The sweat ran cold over my face and my heart pumped jerkily under my tunic. When relief came, I nearly tore the buttons off my coat crawling back to my trench. I was scared! The bullets go streaming overhead as I lie here and it is an effort for me to walk out of my "hotel.'* I duck instinctively when a bullet explodes near me.3 One gruesome tragedy of the Jarama fighting was the wounding of an American named Robert Raven. On March 14, a fascist drive overran a two-hundred-yard section of the trenches held by the XVth International Brigade. Raven and a Canadian were racing to the fray when they bumped headlong into a detail of fascist soldiers. In the ensuing melee, the Canadian handed Raven a grenade which exploded in the American's face moments later when he attempted to throw it. Crippled and blinded in both eyes, Raven subsequently received considerable attention from the foreign press. In his memoir of these first battles, Jules Paivio describes the episode as it was related to him by his Canadian corporal identified only as Nick: Nick was walking quite a piece in advance of the squads down a curving trench which was actually in no-man's-land. Suddenly, he comes face to face with a fascist sergeant also in advance of his patrol, around a corner. Nick had a hand grenade with the pin pulled all ready to throw in his hand. They were both equally surprised, but the fascist got his wits back quicker. He

Rest and Recuperation

83

asked for Nick's gun, and in a daze, Nick gave it to him, not realizing he was also being made a prisoner. All of a sudden, Nick's predicament dawned on him. Furiously, while the fascist had his hands full with the two guns, he started beating his opponent's face and body. Most of his blows landed on the ring of the helmet and his hands became all bloody. With a sudden jump, Nick darted back behind a protecting corner of the trench and ran back. Apparently the fascist had had enough for he did not give pursuit. A comrade whom he did not recognize in the dusk [Raven], seeing his bloody hand where he still gripped the drawn grenade, sent him to the first aid post to get the wound bandaged. The comrade, disregarding Nick's warning that the pin was pulled on the grenade, took it from him and so Nick trotted away.4 On April 5, the lull was broken by an engagement in which the Lincoln Battalion went to the aid of the Garibaldis who were endeavouring to throw back a Nationalist salient. Only one Lincoln company, No. One, was actually engaged, and it suffered about twenty casualties. Cited for his bravery in rescuing a wounded man under heavy fire was Roger Bilodeau of Montreal who received a watch and ten days leave. Bilodeau was one of a number of Canadians who were now moving into the ranks of the XVth International Brigade. On April 17, a forty-man reinforcement came up to the Lincoln Battalion from Albacete, and it included Jules Paivio, John Deck, Joe Armitage and Bob Kerr, all of Canada. Paivio participated in most of the campaigns of the following year, joining the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion after its creation in the summer of 1937. Deck shone briefly as Chief Scout of the Lincolns but fell in July at Brunete, as did Armitage. Kerr returned to Albacete after a short time, where he functioned until 1938 as the Canadian commissar at that installation.5 Near the end of April, several sections of the Lincoln Battalion went to a rest camp at Alcala de Henares, the one-time objective of the Nationalist offensive at Jarama. The Lincolns celebrated May Day with a parade in the streets of the town, and then turned to assist with the harvest in the local fields by which valour they sustained several more "casualties": Spanish scythes were too

84

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

much for them. They gave a party for the children of the town, and, most interesting, they held a public trial of the handful of troublemakers who took advantage of the furlough. But the promised two weeks of leave were cancelled suddenly when the fascists began a series of probing actions along the XVth Brigade front. Once this excitement died away, the men left the lines in small parties for sight-seeing and holiday in and around Madrid. Jules Paivio went to the capital to see a dentist and managed to take a street-car ride to University City where he found the defenders securely fortified with steel and concrete emplacements.6 On June 13, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion left the Jarama River Valley for the last time and made its way to the village of Albares, thirty kilometres to the east, set in a lovely valley replete with a "winding tree-lined road beside a gurgling brook." In Albares, the men spent some of the best days of the war. Quite a few of the boys acquired girl friends, and I will tell you of my particular method of getting an introduction to one. Tony, a friend, and I asked two Spanish girls to dance, and after it, we could not converse sufficiently; so a Cuban chap volunteered to interpret for us. Thus, while I talked of the weather and the green grass, my worthy friend and interpreter was proposing to the girl for me and assuring her of my undying love, etc., etc. I wondered why they giggled and appeared embarrassed until the Cuban told me. Whoopee! I'm telling you, it sure did the trick and I went by leaps and bounds after that. We went for long walks down the shady paths together, Juliana and I. We had a splendid time while it lasted.7 During this interval, a forty-man section of Canadians was transferred from the newly-created George Washington Battalion of the XVth International Brigade into the Lincolns. "As a section, they were better trained and disciplined than any other section in the battalion. They were paraded up and down the streets of Albares as an example of what a well-trained unit should look like."8 Doubtless, the weary veterans of Jarama fled from the tree-lined roads, the gurgling brooks and the giggling girls to applaud the "example of what a well-trained unit should look like." The George Washington Battalion had been created in Albacete

Rest and Recuperation

85

in late February. Unlike the Lincolns which had Irish and Cuban sections, the new unit was made up entirely of North Americans. Trained at Tarazona de la Mancha, the Washingtons were originally led by Mirko Marcowitz, a Yugoslav-American. The political commissar was Dave Mates. The company officers were Hans Amlie from Wisconsin, No. One Company; Edward C. Smith of Toronto, No. Two Company; Edward Jardas, of Winnipeg, No. Three Company. Walter Garland, an American veteran of the first days at Jarama, became machine-gun company commander after his recuperation from wounds. Among the rank and file of the new battalion were two future commanders of the Lincolns: Milton Wolfe and Philip Detro. Shortly before the Lincolns departed the Jarama front, they were joined by the Washingtons who took up a reserve position.9 By early summer, some five hundred Canadian volunteers were in Spain. Many of these were in the XVth International Brigade though a considerable number were to be found in the XHIth International Brigade and in assorted support and artillery units. Within the English-speaking brigade, perhaps eighty were dispersed between the Lincolns and the Washingtons; the rest were assigned to a third, unnamed battalion which came into existence sometime in late April or early May. Two months later, this battalion became the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The following Canadians are known to have been in the Lincoln and Washington units on the eve of the campaign at Brunete, that is, by the first week of July, 1937. Lucien Armitage Thomas Bailey Ivan Beranic Roger Bilodeau John Oscar Bloom Walter Bohmer Liege Claire Bryce Coleman James Dames John Deck Walter Dent

Emil Koskela Fred Kostyk Antal Krizsan Issie Kupchik Mike Kushni George Leseske Tauno Lind Vasil Logovsky Nels Madsen Walter Marinuik Patrick McGuire

Marvin Penn Adam Pretz John Rackey Thomas Russell Larry Ryan Saul Shapiro Baden Skinner Edward C. Smith Jack Steele George Steer Gabriel Szysz

86

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Hugh Garner Nick Harbocian Harvey Hall William Halawell Jack Hoshooley Edward Jardas Gabor Jeney James Kane Joseph Kelly

Alick Miller Joseph Miljkovic Arthur Moffat Nick Nivirinsky Abram Neufield Paddy O'Daire Paddy O'Neil Jules Paivio Charles Parker

Pat Stevens Lucien Tellier Tom Traynor Martin Trier Charles Walthers William Wilson James Wolfe Mike Zagar

These Canadians were on duty in nearby units. Jack Lawson, British anti-tank battery Henry Meyer, Spanish company Anthony Mangolie, John Rackey, Milan Sirdar, Skopljec, Dekan, William Kardash, Spanish armour.10 Besides Edward C. Smith and Edward Jardas who were company commanders in the Washingtons, unofficial reports identify Bill Halawell as commander of No. One Company of the Lincolns, Tom Traynor as commander of the Lincoln section of Canadians with William Wilson as his political commissar.11 There is considerable confusion about the organization of Canadians within the Lincoln and Washington complex at this time. The report of the arrival of a forty-man Canadian section at Albares suggests that some attempt had been made to arrange the men in their own small force. The Book of the Fifteenth Brigade, a three-hundred-page illustrated account of the brigade's history through October, 1937, mentions a Canadian section in the Lincolns at Brunete and even addresses it as a "Mac-Pap section." But this designation may have been adopted by the editors of the book after the creation of the Canadian battalion that summer. Unquestionably there were Canadian sections, or rather, after the amalgamation of the two American battalions midway through Brunete, a Canadian section. Bill Brennan of Toronto drafted an account of the campaign for use by brigade historians and there describes with great care the movements of the Canadian group in battle. Brennan himself led the section until he took a wound and was replaced by Charles Parker.

Rest and Recuperation

87

The paradox is that several of the Americans who fought with the two battalions then have no recollection of Canadian sections; Steve Nelson, probably the most highly revered American officer in Spain at this period, and political commissar of the Lincolns, doesn't recall such a unit.12 Yet, apparently, Nelson is mistaken. Whether or not the group was addressed as Mac-Paps is another matter. Probably the title was known among the Canadians and may have even been represented as a likely name for a battalion, but it seems not to have been employed officially or even very often in a colloquial manner about the Lincolns or the Washingtons.

Brunetc

Fascist Thrust

CHAPTER EIGHT

"There they began to improve upon their military knowledge." —William Brennan WHILE THE XVra International Brigade recuperated from the savage fighting along the banks of the Jarama, elsewhere the military and political struggles raged on. On March 31, the Nationalist Army of the North invaded the Basque provinces for a second time with the intention of finally suppressing the defiant populace. On April 6, Franco initiated a blockade of all ports in northern Spain, Bilbao in particular. On April 26, the German Condor Legion pulverized the town of Guernica and thereby created one of the lasting symbols of tyranny and violence. And in the first week of May, a "second" Spanish Civil War broke out in Barcelona when anarchists and members of the POUM, a predominantly Trotskyist organization, fought with government troops. TTie issue was Catalonian sovereignty and the consequences: over four hundred dead and the resignation of Prime Minister Largo Caballero who refused to outlaw the POUM.1 President Azana then invited a relatively obscure politician and one-time finance minister, Juan Negrin, to form a new government. Two months after the Barcelona crisis, the Republic deployed its armies in its first offensive of the civil war, the attempted seizure of the fascist-controlled western approaches to Madrid. Since November, 1936, Franco's battalions had been entrenching themselves in the hills and ridges called the Heights of Romanillos, and from these positions they laid down artillery barrages on the capital. The campaign that was to be called the Brunete offensive after the largest of the villages that lay scattered on the plain below these heights was mounted on July 6, 1937. The Republicans mustered three army corps of eight divisions with two divisions temporarily in reserve. The XVth International Brigade with the XIII "Dombrowski" Brigade comprised the Fifteenth Division of the Eighteenth Corps. Opposing this con-

90

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

centration on the first day of the offensive were three fascist divisions, the 12th, the 13th and the 150th. Within a week after the attack opened, Franco had committed dozens of battalions, batteries and squadrons: among them, the Fourth Brigade of Navarre, which lost over a thousand dead and wounded in one day of battle; the Ninth Tetuan Tabor; the Fifth and Sixth Melilla Tabores; the Fourth and Fifth Divisions. The tragedy of Brunete was that the Republicans were never able to summon reinforcements of any consequence: every available brigade was dispatched on the first day. The Nationalists, on the other hand, not only commanded the high ground which was heavily fortified, but they could and did call in, day after day, fresh well-equipped units. On July 5, the XVth International Brigade arrived at the town of Valdemorillo on the Madrid-Corunna highway. The road was jammed with thousands of infantry, tanks and trucks: "There was only one direction and that was 'moving up*. "2 Somehow the ten divisions managed to slip past Madrid and into the olive groves near Valdemorillo without being detected. At midnight, the assault columns turned off the highway and began to shuffle south. The way quickly became littered with bedrolls, ration boxes and clothing which had been thrown aside in the unbearable heat and growing tension. Three or four miles of forced march exhausted the men. In the Lincoln Battalion, Jules Paivio "fell asleep on my feet and woke to pick myself up from the ditch in surprise."3 At dawn on the sixth of July, the battalions drew up on the ridges west and north of the battlefield. On the left flank waited the 34th Division, next the 15th Division with the two international brigades, then the llth Lister Division and on the right flank, the 43rd Division. Fully awake now after his tumble, Paivio looked out over the route of attack. With the sun rising over the horizon, a panorama of colour and breathtaking beauty unfolded before our eyes. In awe we stood on a high ridge overlooking a vast valley, forty miles long and by ten to fifteen miles wide, with picturesque sleeping towns dotted here and there. Here the coming battles were to take place with which we hoped to break the fascist semi-circle around Madrid and University City.4

Battle of Brunete

91

The Lincolns and Washingtons formed skirmish lines and moved gingerly to the edge of the bluff down whose slope they would charge. Suddenly, an American nicknamed K.O. Knockout because he had once been a professional prize-fighter began to sing loudly "A Bunch of the Boys Were Whooping It Up." The nervous soldiers giggled and then grew quiet. As the light of the day grew about them and the fascist artillery opened up, a Finnish boy yelled "Don't shoot, there are people here!" And with that, the men went down into the valley.5 Immediately the brigades descended, the panorama dissolved in noise and dust as men and vehicles wheeled and careened about the floor of the valley. From this moment on, divisions and battalions became lost to one another's sight as they beat their way through the picturesque sleeping towns, creeping ever closer to the first range of hills which was their objective: Mosquito Ridge. The XVth International Brigade deployed before Villanueva de la Canada, with the Lincolns and British assigned to seize the town, while the Washingtons and Dimitrovs slipped past into the plain. An unexpectedly fierce defence of the town was offered by a banderia of Falangists so the attack ground to a halt. The rebels had erected concrete pill boxes and trench fortifications protected by barbed wire on the outskirts and within the town limits. The ground over which the brigade travelled offered little cover. Heavy artillery batteries had dropped behind in the advance from Valdemorillo, and the guns of the anti-tank group attached to the British Battalion were of no use against the fortified buildings. Republican tanks came forward but gave up their attack after two were quickly blown up. By 3:00 P.M. the town still held out. The Lincolns had arrived on the south-west flank, astride the Canada-Quijorna road, about 600 metres from the nearest buildings. Nearby lay the British Battalion. Unexpectedly, while they were still exhausted from the long and hot march, the Lincolns were ordered into three long skirmish lines and sent towards the town. The only support came from their own heavy machine-guns. The companies advanced over a ruined wheat field where many of the men fell under intense fire from the outlying buildings. The squads in front came up to

92

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

the barbed wire but then withdrew and began to scrape earthworks with their bare hands. There they lay through the afternoon, taking cannon barrages from guns stationed within Villanueva de la Canada. "I believe it is worth mentioning that a shell landed about fifteen feet from me, bounced right over my head, churning the ground in its progress."6 As twilight settled, the Lincolns withdrew, one man at a time, waiting for the explosion of a shell and then streaking off before the dust had settled. By now the British had moved to within 500 metres of the town and the Dimitrovs had gone around to the far side so that a sort of crude pincer was being effected. The Lincolns had retired to a reserve position and had been replaced by the Washingtons. If the battalions did not get into Villanueva de la Canada that night, they would be vulnerable to concentrated air attacks the next day. The Canadian section in the Lincoln Battalion had already taken its first casualties. John Oscar Bloom, a 24-year-old Edmonton youth, had leaped to his feet when the battalion moved down the ridge that morning; he dashed forward crying "Come on, Mackenzie-Papineau!" and was struck dead instantly. Paddy O'Neil, commander of the section, was wounded in the first minutes, refused evacuation, then was hit again and died.7 Tauno Lind and six other Lincolns fell with shrapnel in their bodies. Lind was heard to call out "Help me, boys, help me,"8 but before the aidmen could get to him, he had succumbed. Lucien Armitage, Bryce Coleman and James Kane were also dead. At least six other Canadians had been wounded. The Lincolns watched from their reserve position that evening as the British began to storm Villanueva de la Canada. Abruptly, a crowd of civilians burst from the gates and walked toward the advancing battalion. Anxious to bring the frightened people to cover, some of the men rushed forward and were shot down by fascist soldiers hidden in the throng. In the confusion, the fascists tried to include themselves in the ranks of the British. Cries of "Donde commandante?" (Where is the commander?) rang out as the intruders sought to identify the Englishmen and then grenade them. Finally, Fred Copeman, the battalion captain, ordered his men back a few metres, reformed ranks, shooed the

Battle of Brunete

93

fascists into the enthusiastic arms of Spanish friends, then, at the head of two files, took his companies through the streets. Behind, on the road, little Jack Reid lay sprawled, wounded but still conscious.9 With the Dimitrovs arriving simultaneously at the heart of the town, the fighting soon ended. The last stronghold to fall, inevitably, was the church. During the house-to-house search for the defenders, a Canadian and a Spaniard entered one door and called out for the occupants to surrender. One scared boy threw his rule down the stairs and then descended. They called again and this time, 25 rifles and 25 scared Falangists tumbled out crying "Long Live Russia!"10 The next morning, as the Lincolns moved on, a horrified Jules Paivio walked by the corpses of peasants killed the night before during the flight from the town. "The relentless Spanish sun" had taken its toll that first day as it would continue to do through the coming weeks. Bryce Coleman was not the only man killed while he searched for water. Most of the brigaders emptied their canteens within an hour after the initial charge into the valley, and they found little relief until the morning of the 8th. According to Tom Bailey of Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, a rifleman in the Lincolns, only twenty-one of the forty Canadians in his section were present for roll call the second day. Eleven of the missing were dead and wounded, the rest were victims of heat exhaustion. The muster was taken by Tom Traynor, successor to Paddy O'Neil.11 By the morning of the 8th, the Republican front was advancing rapidly toward the Guadarrama River. The divisions to the north had come up to the neighboring towns of Villanueva del Pardillo and Villafranca del Castillo; the 46th Division led by a fabulous Spaniard called El Campesino, The Peasant, had passed beyond Quijorna. The XVth and XHIth International Brigades swept across the Guadarrama which was scarcely a trickle of water and onto the slopes below Mosquito Ridge. "There was fierce joy and excitement in that mighty surge forward. Nothing but superhuman odds could have stopped us then. The enthusiasm gripped everyone and no commands were needed to drive us forward."12 Yet, three kilometres beyond the river, the attack faltered as the Nationalists threw down murderous fire from the ridge, as the sup-

94

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

porting Republican tanks turned back from the deep arroyos that crossed the plain, as the oppressive heat and lack of water wore the men down. What is more, the delay at Villanueva de la Canada had given the fascists time to reinforce the Romanillos. So the headlong movement of the brigades ground to a halt. The Lincolns, the Washingtons, the British and the Dimitrovs lay below Mosquito Ridge, unable to move any sizeable force up its slopes, unwilling to withdraw. Scarcely six hundred men remained on their feet in the two American battalions and these held a front a kilometre and half wide. Five subsequent drives were launched by the internationals during the next few days, but none carried enough weight to win the crest. Tom Bailey described one of the advances: One morning the fascists got on a bluff and tried to drive us out of our position. So we opened up on them with our heavy machine guns and up over our trenches we jumped. Boy, what a terrific fire! Comrade Mangel of Toronto got one in the wrist. One hit some dirt and slapped it all over my face. We gave five rounds rapid fire and on again. I could see big Charlie Walthers and Charlie Parker of Vancouver way ahead with Walsh of Toronto, and all the rest of the boys going to beat hell. Two fascist armoured cars came up and opened fire. We burnt them up with anti-tank bullets; then we set them on fire with incendiaries. They bombarded us with artillery. We got into a waterhole. One nearly got me. I was moving to the water-hole and one dropped a few feet away. I was deaf for several days.18 On another probe, a five-man squad of Canadians led by Chief Scout John Deck became separated from the larger force and found itself isolated in No Man's Land. Pursued by machine-gun bursts, the men dashed one at a time across exposed ground back into their lines. Deck was the last man out. One day, the members of the Lincoln machine-gun company watched in fascination as the Washington battalion kitchen truck drove inadvertently into fascist lines. At the last minute the gunners opened up on the truck, smashing its engine. The next day they crawled out to the wreckage and brought the rations in. As the Nationalist opposition mounted, as squadrons of German bombers roamed overhead and added their salvos to the artillery

Battle of Brunete

95

shells that fell on the brigade, the XVth mustered its "support": five tanks, one of them piloted by William Kardash of Winnipeg, made their way to a knoll where they remained for five days, unable to concentrate a fire that could secure the advantage for the infantry.14 The anti-tank battery attached to the British came up with three cannon, one revolver and precious little ammunition; it, too, was of no help.15 Another day, the entire Canadian section of the Lincolns was cut off from the battalion and had to take over in a small olive grove. Tom Traynor ran back and forth, securing orders from the battalion and then bringing the missing party out under enfilading machine-gun fire. Nick Harbocian, a member of Deck's lost patrol, died in the escape. Deck himself had fallen the day before. Traynor sustained a face wound and "calmly reported to the commander before making his way down to the first aid post." He was replaced by William Brennan, the third leader of the section in five days.16 On July 13, the depleted battalions withdrew to the far side of the Guadarrama where the Lincolns and the Washingtons were merged into one force. Mirko Marcovitch, the Washington commander, now led the integrated unit, Oliver Law of the Lincolns having died. Steve Nelson was the commissar. Two Canadians, Alick Miller of Edmonton and Edward Jardas of Toronto led, respectively, Nos. One and Three Companies. Owen Smith, an American, took over No. Two. Edward C. Smith, the other Canadian company officer in the original Washingtons, had been evacuated with a shattered hand. About 350 survivors formed the ranks of the "new" battalion. One day later, the men were dispatched to Villanueva del Pardillo on the left flank of the Republican front, several kilometres from the Madrid highway. That whole sector was beginning to wilt before furious counter-offensives which had been launched on the 12th. Through one entire night, the battalion filed along the dry bed of the Guadarrama, an exhausting, perilous elevenkilometre forced march. Unfortunately, they did not reach their objective before dawn; ten German bombers intercepted them and wheeled over the prostrate men for two hours. "The moaning and thunder of the plane motors, ear-splitting crashing of the bombs,

96

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

brilliant flash of each explosion, stones and debris flying all over, the ground trembling so violently that I held on to the grass desperately."17 Somehow, despite the pointblank bombardment, the battalion escaped annihilation; only nine men died. The friendly Spanish troops who stared in horror from their positions, "watched the death-fires flickering over the hollow where the Americans lay." Steven Nelson literally wept when the battalion emerged from the smoke and dust, its companies strung out in skirmish lines.18 Orders came to man the trenches immediately. Under the resumed artillery fire, we deployed and raced past dead horses and mules, shattered trucks. Thrilling at the action, shells bursting around us, we rushed in on the Spanish to bolster and brace them. They started cheering like mad.19 The Lincolns came up just in time to help repulse a Moorish charge that was one of the most awesome sights of the entire campaign. Line after line of soldiers ran forward, crying wildly; at the last moment, the Moors were devastated by misdirected shells from their own artillery and by intense heavy machine-gun fire. That night, brigade patrols crept out among the rows of bodies and took away rifles and ammunition. "We organized raiding parties and we terrorized that part of the line every night... ."20 For two days, the battalion gave its support to the Spanish units. Then, on the night of July 16, it made its way back to the reserve area across the Guadarrama from Mosquito Ridge. In the middle of the welcome breakfast of boiled eggs, coffee and marmalade which waited the Lincolns at the end of the march, Spanish soldiers from a labour unit began to run through the camp shouting that the Nationalists had broken through across the river. The breakfast thrust aside, the men scrambled back into action for a brief skirmish. Incendiary bombs were dropped by the enemy causing grass fires, once nearly bottling us up, though we gleefully got two enemy snipers and a machine-gun nest when the fire suddenly changed its course. The few days here were hell; my nerves

Battle of Brunete

97

were so frayed that bombers could be half a mile away and I was already shaking like a leaf.21 The skirmish concluded, the Americans returned to the rest area where, for the next day and a half, they slept, changed their socks and underwear and even took a shower provided by a Russianmade vehicle especially designed for such luxury in the field. On July 18, six Nationalist divisions threw themselves against the entire Republican front between Villanueva del Pardillo and Quijorna: 20,000 men, 100 tanks, 100 planes. The decisive, and for the Republican offensive, the tragic days had come. For a week, the two forces fought desperately across the Brunete valley, battalions colliding and bouncing off one another to hurtle into another deadly engagement somewhere down the line, when there was a line. More often than not, the fights were conducted on the run as the combatants clawed their way up and down the barrancas. Gradually, the southern part of the Republican sector began to crumble. The British Battalion barely escaped envelopment in its defense of the far right flank. Brunete itself was captured after barrages of artillery shells literally smashed the town to pieces. Perhaps the last action of the Canadian section occurred on July 24th, as described here by its leader, Bill Brennan: On the morning of the 24th, the section was ordered to stand to by the company commander [Alick Miller]. They were then instructed to go down to the position held by the company of the 16th Brigade [Republican] and hold them in the line at all costs as they were deserting their position. The section arrived at this place to find that the company had left the line and there wasn't a soldier in sight. They took over the entrenchments dug by the deserted company and immediately began to scout for the position of the enemy. That didn't take long. . . . Small groups of Moors approached the sector held by the Canadian section and it was necessary to open up with heavy fire. In a very short time the section began to run out of ammunition. They were spread out over an area formerly held by a company which made their task most difficult. It was noticed that the fascists were attacking on the right flank on the plains in front of Brunete and our troops were retreating. The section

98

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion then sent back three runners at intervals for more men and ammunition. These men could not locate the company which had been ordered to retreat with the battalion. The runners were unable to get back to the section to report that the battalion had retreated. The section pulled out of its position after its leader had gone back to investigate for himself and returned to order the withdrawal. They pulled out just in time to avoid being cut off and reached the battalion three hours later.22

The offensive spent, the Republican army began to leave the battleground on July 26. They went out at dawn, ten thousand bedraggled men, harassed by a dozen German tri-motor bombers. The plain lay smoking and ruined after twenty days of war, littered with thousands of bodies, shell holes, blasted vehicles. If there was a breathtaking view that morning, Jules Paivio does not recall it. Scenes of Brunete remained vivid in the memory of the survivors for years afterward: two Canadians, Turnbull and McGrath, faint from lack of food and heat exhaustion, dragging a third wounded Canadian, Moffat, across hundreds of metres to an aid station; the exultant cries of German volunteers during the charge across the Guadarrama on the third day; the loss of Major George Nathan, English chief of staff of the Fifteenth International Brigade who, as he lay dying, "ordered those around him to sing him out of life;" Wally Dent running through stubbled corn fields in his bare feet; the gaunt figure of Jack Hoshooley, 47 pounds lighter after a month at Brunete; the strickened silence at the news that the Lincoln Battalion might have to go back into battle on the 26th: "There was something awful in the way men knew they should not go back, some even couldn't, but every man was there grimly waiting for that fateful order to march ten kilometres into the inferno again. At that moment," says Jules Paivio, "I thrilled at being one of them."23 Many survived: "Pop" Cochrane, Windsor, Ontario, at 54, certainly one of the oldest soldiers in the battalion. It was said that Cochrane could keep up with the younger men because of his voracious appetite. He was accidently left behind at the withdrawal from Mosquito Ridge and only located the Lincolns after three days of wandering about the plain. "For the first time, his

Battle of Brunete

99

red wrinkled cheeks were grey with exhaustion."24 Aaron Magid, M.D., Winnipeg, Manitoba. The physician had joined the Lincolns at Albares where he won everlasting acclaim by setting up a flyproof meat-cutting room near the kitchen. At Brunete, he placed his dressing station underneath a highway bridge; ambulances streamed back and forth along the paved roads which connected the towns, drawing incessant artillery and machine-gun fire.25 Alick Miller, Edmonton, Alberta. A company commander in the Lincolns, Miller won the admiration of the American commissar, Steve Nelson, for his discipline and stoic courage. Nelson recalls that the Canadian volunteers could be distinguished from the Americans by their sobriety in battle, their easier accommodation of the gruelling three weeks in the field, their reluctance to abandon their personal belongings, bedrolls, packs, rations, when exhaustion did set in. At Brunete, the Canadian volunteers began to win their unique identity among the Internationals.26 Many died: The loss of John Deck was felt throughout the battalion. Had he lived, the Canadian might well have become one of the legends of the war. At 31, he had already been a sergeant in the U.S. Cavalry, a marine engineer, a Wobbly, a member of the Dimitrovs, adjutant to the Fifteenth Brigade chief of staff. Deck was notoriously outspoken, and when this trait provoked his removal from the brigade staff, he joined the Lincolns as Chief of Scouts.27 Stewart "Paddy" O'Neil, who fell at the head of the Canadian section on the first day, had served in the British Army in World War I, and was among the delegation from the On-to-Ottawa Trek that waited on Prime Minister Bennett in 1935.28 Gabor Jeney, a promising soldier from Timmins, Ontario, was killed on July 17 during the brief fire-fight which disrupted the Lincolns* breakfast. He and Tom Bailey were digging a pit for a light machine-gun when a burst wounded Bailey in the head and struck Jeney down. The next night, Bailey and another man crept out of the lines, and dragged Jeney's body into a hollow where they buried him.29 Twenty-four Canadians were known to have fallen at Brunete, about one-third of the number which fought there.*0

CHAPTER NINE

"Personally, I am in favour of neutrality, but that neutrality must be thoroughgoing." —J. S. Woodsworth THE SIGNIFICANCE of Canadian involvement in Spain became all too apparent to Canadians at home as the spring of 1937 broke across the nation. Two important actions were launched at this time, and though they were in direct contradiction to one another, they suggested that the issue of intervention could neither be ignored nor suppressed. On April 10, Parliament assented to the Foreign Enlistment Act, which was applied to the war in Spain on July 31. On May 20, a group of Canadian citizens created The Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.1 The Friends organization now joined the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy in striving to alert Canadians to the struggle abroad and to involve Canadians, morally, financially and politically, in the support of the Republic. The senior of the two groups, the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, was some nine months old at this time and had already developed a sizeable apparatus for sustaining public sympathy. The executive of the Committee comprised members of the Communist Party and the C.C.F. The latter party had, from the outbreak of the war, asserted its belief in humanitarian assistance and to this end was instrumental in sending Dr. Norman Bethune abroad. Thus, Graham Spry, chairman of the Ontario C.C.F. executive committee, took his place as a vicechairman of the Committee in personal response to the horror in Spain but also in order to safeguard the interests, political and humanitarian, of the C.C.F. As Spry has recently recalled, "The Communists had launched their program for troops and volunteers [though not through the offices of the Committee] which was a familiar communist technique, but which did not appeal to most C.C.F., and which was completely contrary to the pacifist wing represented by J. S. Woodsworth, to the isolationist wing represented by quite a number of academics in the C.C.F., and which

The Scene in Canada

101

ran generally against the non-violent program or attitude of most C.C.F. members. Nevertheless, there were eager C.C.F. volunteers and an extremely lively interest from many who did not volunteer."2 Relationships among the members of this executive remained cordial, however, so that its important objectives were not endangered by internal quarrels. All the major Canadian cities had Spanish Aid Committees, each branch having considerable autonomy. The Montreal committee, for example, moved as rapidly as did the Toronto office to publicize its efforts. Led by Norman and Donna Lee, Jacques Bieler and Miriam Kennedy, wife of the poet, Leo Kennedy, the Montreal group enjoyed an active, productive and often exciting career punctuated by a riot at the Mount Royal Hotel in 1936 when a gang of "East End" boys tried to break up a Committee rally, and by the arrival of Andre Malraux, one of the early heroes of the International Brigades, whose blonde lady friend was gently separated from the public by the committee.3 The announcement of the creation of Friends of the MackenziePapineau Battalion was made in the Daily Clarion in a letter accompanied by twenty signatures, among which was the name Beatrice Colle. As executive secretary of the Friends, Miss Colle was regularly involved in the transactions of the organization, in correspondence with the men in Spain, and in the reception of wounded or disabled veterans. Perhaps more than any other Canadian, Miss Colle assumed the burden of care for the volunteers. The Friends were primarily concerned with the men in Spain and to this end solicited contributions of money, clothing and foodstuffs to be distributed to the Mac-Paps. The group had nothing whatever to do with recruiting volunteers, although at the end of the war it became involved in the repatriation of survivors. On occasion, the Friends sought to persuade the government to alter its policy in non-Spanish matters. On November 21, 1938, Mr. King received a cable from the "B.C. Section" of the Friends informing him of these resolutions which it had adopted the day before: that Canada lift its arms embargo against Spain, that the Prime Minister break off all relations with Germany as a result of that country's program against the Jewish people in Germany.4

102

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

The frequent coincidence of the respective duties of the Spanish Aid Committee and The Friends is suggested in the announcements late in May of a memorial service to be held in Massey Hall in Toronto on May 30, sponsored by The Friends, and of a nationwide Spanish Aid Week, May 30-June 9, organized by the Committee. The memorial service specifically singled out the known Canadian dead at Jarama: Aviezer, Van der Brugge, Lackey and the others. The Spanish Aid Week publicized several goals: $2500 in donations for a Mackenzie-Papineau Ambulance, the creation of public interest through subsequent rallies and memorial services, the indictment by the Canadian government of the bombing of Guernica and the removal of the trade embargo directed towards the Republicans. By June 16, the Committee could announce proudly that two ambulances could be furnished out of the contributions.5 Following the May 30 ceremony, the Friends of the MackenziePapineau Battalion set about its work. The Reverend A. E. Smith and Wally Dent, who had returned from two campaigns in Spain, were sent on a tour of the country. Reverend Smith had already made a brief visit to the battleground and his appeals, confirmed by Dent, carried authority. The good minister also took with him a plentiful supply of Spanish cigarettes which he handed around in the hope that Canadians might wish to rescue the volunteers from at least this one hardship.6 Before the summer had passed, the Friends began collecting Christmas parcels for the volunteers. In early December, fifty-five cartons of clothing, food and toilet articles were shipped to the Mac-Paps. By February, 1938, five shipments worth $38,000 had been sent overseas. A further $ 12,000 worth of goods was sent off in April, 1938, the "Easter shipment": 2600 pairs of socks, six thousand chocolate bars, 2300 cartons of biscuits, 1700 tins of meat, 1700 cans of milk, 1300 pounds of sugar, 1500 tins of cocoa and 500 pounds of fruit cake.7 The Friends regularly advertised its ambitions as well as its achievements in the pages of the Daily Clarion which already had a vested interest, as a newspaper and as a political organ for the Left, in the Spanish conflict. The organization forwarded letters from volunteers, casualty reports, eyewitness accounts of battles.

The Scene in Canada

103

The material was often weeks old but the Daily Clarion published it anyway, since its own coverage obtained from Canadian correspondents like Ted Allen and Jean Watts and from wire services was often no more timely. On October 13, 1937, the date of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion's introduction to combat at Fuentes de Ebro, the Clarion announced an appeal by the Friends for aid in rehabilitating veterans, twenty of whom had already returned to Canada. The organization had pledged itself to supply medical examinations and treatment and grants of money to sustain the men until they found employment. A committee of physicians in Toronto was recruited and a list of rooms in private homes was compiled. A year before the internationals were withdrawn from the Republican Army, the Canadian organization was preparing for the return of the volunteers, whether they came home in victory or defeat. The matter of victory or defeat was of no concern to the Canadian government when in February, 1937, it moved to replace the Imperial Foreign Enlistment Act with a modern counterpart which would acknowledge the rapid means of communication and transportation brought into use since 1870, when the first statute was adopted. On February 18, the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Ernest Lapointe, moved to introduce Bill 23, the new, revised act. (See Appendix for a transcript of the act.) A second reading took place a month later and on April 10, Parliament gave its assent. On July 31, the act was applied to the Spanish Civil War. The acts consisted of twenty sections, the crucial one so far as this history is concerned being Section 3: If any person, being a Canadian National, within or without Canada, voluntarily accepts or agrees to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state at war with a friendly state, or, whether a Canadian National or not, within Canada, induces any other person to accept or agree to accept any commission or engagement in any such armed forces, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. Subsequent sections made liable a person who knowingly gave passage, within Canada, to "any illegally enlisted person"; a person, within Canada, who built, equipped, dispatched or delivered

104

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

a ship to be employed "in or by the armed forces of any foreign state at war with a friendly state"; a person, within Canada, who fits out an expedition "to proceed against the dominions of a friendly state." Section 14 fixed punishment for violation at a maximum fine of two thousand dollars and a maximum of two years imprisonment. If the government and the members of parliament anticipated eventual application of the act to the Spanish War, they seemed in their debate of the bill not to have examined this possibility with any particular care. The discussion following the second reading was amiable and quiet. The two outstanding sources of concern were the original Section 3 which omitted inclusion of insurgent armies, and Section 19 which gave discretionary powers of application to the government.8 J. S. Woodsworth argued that such powers as offered in Section 19 really decreed "government by order in council." The reply to Mr. Woodsworth's concern was reiterated in the subsequent discussion of the identification of insurgents: the government needed Section 19 with its built-in elasticity. One member noted that the bill was so worded that, in essence, it was lawful for a Canadian volunteer to join an insurgent army at war with a friendly state. Mr. Lapointe moved to alleviate both of these fears by asserting that the government must be given not only the means but the power to determine just when a disturbance has escalated to the stature of a civil war. Such transitions can occur in "the twinkle of an eye." Thus, the need for a flexible clause and thus the need to refrain from any exact specification of insurgency. This discussion of the character of the insurgent army was obviously conducted in terms of a hypothetical situation. But it nevertheless bears considerable if inadvertent overtones of irony since the probable intent of the act was to prevent Canadians from enlisting not just in Franco's army but in the army of the Spanish Republic. The debate on Bill 23 closed with questions concerning the status of Section 2 (b). The government had already amended the statement so that it now excluded medical and "other services" engaged in humanitarian work from the definition of "Armed Forces." Lapointe explained that the act was retroactive but neither was it meant to disrupt the activities of such units in Spain.

The Scene in Canada

105

However, the minister did urge that this activity should properly be conducted under the auspices of the Red Cross. While Norman Bethune's blood transfusion unit was not introduced into the discussion, quite probably this was the chief example in everyone's mind. On March 30, Mr. Lapointe had occasion during a discussion of civil liberties to allude to the many letters and cables he had received denouncing the Foreign Enlistment Act. He cited two letters from two different sources in Montreal, letters which were identical in composition: "I protest against the embargo and the interdiction to go and help the democratic legal government of Spain and against Canadian rearmament."9 The minister suggested that these and other protests were really the result of a great propaganda effort designed to discredit the act and to prevent its passage. Of course, he was right. On the other hand, the minister could and did cite support from concerned citizens like Mr. Maurice Duplessis who published this note in Le Devoir on January 26, 1937. I declare that in our province communistic recruiting has been going on, that our young men have been enrolled to fight for the communists in Spain, that Canadian passports have been procured for them for Spanish ports, not for one or two young men, but for several, which shows that an organization exists, and indicates that there is something lacking somewhere.10 A year later, in May, 1938, the Prime Minister offered a justification for the act: it was proposed, he said, "to prevent Canada from being drawn into foreign conflicts by the actions either of manufacturers of munitions or of organizers of recruiting."11 If political expediency dictated non-intervention, it apparently did not prevent the Prime Minister from airing his private opinion about the civil war. On April 13, 1937, three days after Parliament assented to the Foreign Enlistment Act, Mr. King registered his dismay at criticism of the government's position from an American friend: I am at a loss to understand how you or anyone else could be of the opinion that my sympathies in the Spanish Civil War have been with Franco and the rebels. As a matter of fact, as the tragic event has continued month after month, I have be-

106

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

come increasingly of the opinion which I have held from the outset, that only the gravest sense of oppression on the part of the rural and urban elements of the population alike could account for the determination and endurance they have shown throughout the entire struggle.12 Friends of the Spanish Republic were quick to interpret the Foreign Enlistment Act as a measure of oppression directed at the Canadian volunteers. Writing in his memoir in Spain, William Brennan noted that men who violated the act would "be subject to a maximum penalty of twenty years' imprisonment . . . and will also forfeit their citizenship,"13 a drastic exaggeration in view of the fact that, in debate, the government had established that violations could be dealt with by a magistrate or two justices of the peace and that two years' imprisonment were involved.14 Nonetheless, the act continued to enrage the men in Spain though it does not seem to have succeeded as a deterrent. A year later, O. D. Skelton, Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, indicated to the Prime Minister that he understood that London and Washington would not prosecute veterans of the international force. "The effort of the United Kingdom to facilitate return of all volunteers would make it very difficult hi any case to aid such return and then to prosecute the men returned."15

CHAPTER TEN

"When we came to Tarazona, I went to see Major Merriman and Joe Dallet and I asked them why did they always try by their American way to appropriate everything for themselves alone, and how many Canadians were already in Spain and if it would not be fine to think about Canada, that we need a battalion too "—R. Martineau

ON OR ABOUT JULY 1, 1937, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the XVth International Brigade was formally mustered into service in Tarazona de la Mancha. After six months of anxious waiting, the Canadian volunteers had received official recognition of their service on behalf of the Spanish Republic. A combination of circumstances, initiative and luck produced the battalion; it is no exaggeration to state that if the designation had not been granted at this time, it probably would not have been available at a later period. No one knows for sure who first proposed in Canada the creation of such a force. More than likely, the first volunteers to enter Spain were urged to agitate for some sort of organization since a succession of delegations sought to win such recognition from the XVth International Brigade staff through the spring of 1937. In April, Canadian members of the Lincoln and Washington Battalions met to discuss a formal petition requesting formation of their own company in one of the two battalions. The group included Edward C. Smith, Edward Jardas, Walter Dent, Harry Rushton, Francis Poirier, Joseph Kelly and Robert Kerr. The men agreed on the name "Mackenzie-Papineau" and dispatched Kerr to the base commander with the petition. This officer, presumably Allan Johnson, an American, replied that the request would be taken under consideration. That same day, the Canadians cabled the Spanish Aid Committee in Toronto informing them of the vote.

108

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

A second cable was composed and sent off to Prime Minister King: We implore you from the depths of our hearts to do everything possible to help Spanish democracy. In so doing, you are serving your own interests. We are here for the duration until fascism is defeated.1 The request for a Canadian company was not then granted though it is clear that some time that spring Canadian sections emerged in the Lincolns as well as in the Washingtons. Whatever the Prime Minister's reaction may have been to the telegram sent him, interested persons in Toronto were aroused to great expectations for on May 20 the Daily Clarion published the announcement of the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, even though there was no battalion and no real assurance that there might ever be one. Not until a third American force was organized in Spain in May did the hopes of the Canadian volunteers rise again. Even though the names of Tom Paine and Patrick Henry were prominent in the discussion of a designation, no decision was reached perhaps because the Americans felt no anxiety about competing claims from other countries. Perhaps, too, the Americans could not make up their minds. In any case, it is this procrastination that is, in great measure, responsible for the eventual Canadian designation. The very fact that the Washington Battalion was not reformed after Brunete suggests that two and at the most, three, American battalions were all that were required in the brigade. It is possible that another brigade might have offered the Canadians the opportunity to organize their battalion, but if the idea ever arose it apparently did not have wide circulation. In early June, a group of bedraggled volunteers arrived in Tarazona, survivors of the Ciudad de Barcelona which had been torpedoed by an Italian submarine as it moved between Marseilles and Barcelona carrying 250 internationals. Among this group was Ronald Liversedge. In Tarazona, Liversedge found his countrymen angered by the attitude of the XVth International Brigade staff. All attempts to get down to real discussion about the necessity for the formation of a Mac-Pap battalion were met by concealed

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

109

scorn and a studied assumption of the patience of a father trying to explain to an ignorant fractious child. Our friends said that the argument usually went thus: "Well, fellows, we're all in this together. We're practically one people. There are more of us [i.e. Americans] here. The people of Europe don't know very much about Canada; they actually think we're one nation. The U.S.A. can provide more aid, etc., and after all, the fact that there are Canadians with us is being publicized in the U.S.A. and so on." All of which, even apart from the political necessity for Canada to have a MacPaps, didn't explain that a contribution of twelve hundred men from a population of twelve million was a slightly better effort than the contribution of three thousand men from a population of one hundred and forty million. The Washington boys told us that despite the close fraternity in the battalion, there was still the tendency on the part of a certain section of the American political and intellectual coterie to regard the Canadian cousins as poor relations.2 When the Washingtons moved up to the Jarama front in June, Liversedge and a few other Canadians approached Robert Merriman, commander of the unnamed battalion "to urge once more" a Canadian force. Merriman argued that the decision was not his alone but did propose that a Canadian company be organized in the new battalion, to be No. One Company, with Liversedge as its lieutenant. Liversedge agreed to this compromise and set about a table of organization: William Skinner as second-in-command, William Tough, Hugh McGregor, Pat O'Shea and Alexander Melnychenko as section leaders. The original company roster included Yorky Burton, George Page, Tom MacKenzie, Red Prange, Perry Hilton and Len Norris. There the matter rested through June.8 At this time, Robert Kerr had been stationed in Albacete for several weeks as Canadian commissar acting as a liaison between incoming volunteers and the battalions. Kerr would go down to the bullring to meet each contingent and stand with other commissars exhorting his countrymen to identify themselves and to sign up with him. "Signing up" with Kerr meant that a Canadian, regardless of his proficiency with English, would be taken into one or the other of the English-speaking battalions. Thus, the volunteer would be among his fellow Canadians. By no means did Kerr

110

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

coerce the men; they were not ordered into the appropriate battalions just to maintain quotas. Kerr used his position at Albacete and his contacts with brigade to campaign for Canadian recognition and it was he, apparently, who had some hand in the final decision by the brigade to create the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.4 By late spring, the English and American leaders in Spain had become engaged in a critical struggle for power. Although the XVth International Brigade was already known as "The Englishspeaking Brigade" (and in many quarters as "The Abraham Lincoln Brigade"), it was not completely English-speaking: the Dimitrov Battalion had been assigned to it since its inception. Even if the Slavs were outstanding fighters, there still persisted the feeling that an all-English force was required. The question arose, who would then direct such a brigade, the British or the Americans? Kerr believes that the British hoped to place their own people as military and political commanders while the Americans expected that Allan Johnson, the brigade training officer, or perhaps Robert Merriman, would lead the reorganized unit. It was, says Kerr, "a bitter maneuver for key political positions."5 Ironically, the Canadians were consequently courted by both factions in the hope that they might express their allegiance to one or the other. In the end, neither the English nor the Americans succeeded though Robert Merriman became chief of staff of the Brigade. Vladimir Copic remained in office as commander. The Canadians, meanwhile, won a concession: their own battalion. Kerr does not explain which faction granted the concession: perhaps both sides agreed separately. The final step in the Canadian progress toward their own battalion occurred when Allan Dowd arrived in Spain for a second time, his mission on this occasion being the arbitration of difficulties between Norman Bethune and his Spanish medical colleagues. Dowd managed to ease the bitter feelings, though when Bethune did leave Spain a short time later, he went off exasperated and furious at the Spaniards. Dowd spent several weeks visiting among the Canadian volunteers at Albares, at Jarama and at Tarazona.6 Sometime in late June, he addressed the third battalion at Tarazona in a speech of two hours' duration in which he re-

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

111

capitulated the early history of Canada, then, with great force, described the current world scene. "There was a standing ovation for Dowd; the Americans had never heard anything like it. . . ." Ronald Liversedge recalls that Dowd then asked for the creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and "he got it one hundred per cent."7 A second and official vote was taken a day or so later by the battalion commissar, Joseph Dallet, an American. What happened then is described by a French-Canadian volunteer, R. Martineau: . . . after morning parade, Joe Dallet made a speech outlining the effort of Canada in the fight for democracy, asking those who were already in the battalion what they think of calling this battalion a Canadian battalion and by the name, MackenziePapineau, and everybody vote for it, so it is how our battalion came to birth.8 Dowd has said that the decision to form the Canadian force had already been made before the occasion of his speech, a statement that confirms, in part, Bob Kerr's representation.9 It is highly unlikely that the Americans on the brigade staff would have permitted their influence over the designation to slip away in the burst of enthusiasm generated by Dowd's speech. No one could have prophesied the excited response to the address, but once it was evident, probably it was simply seized upon as the appropriate moment to propose the matter to the men and to let them ratify a decision already reached. The Mac-Paps had a second title; they were the 60th Battalion. The source of this designation was probably the Republican Army. The British were 57th Battalion, the Lincolns, 58th Battalion and, to make matters more confusing, the 24th Spanish-Latin American was also the 59th Battalion. Over the years these titles have been forgotten by veterans, but they were mentioned regularly in the pages of The Volunteer for Liberty, the XVth International Brigade newspaper. Commissar Dallet was never in doubt that the Canadian designation was warranted. In a letter to his wife, dated July 9, he wrote: The problem was that the Canadians have done wonderful work in Spain. Canadians have fought splendidly in many battalions

112

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

here but always their national origin and national traditions have been swamped in the publicity splurges for the Lincoln Battalion, etc., for up to now they have never had a battalion of their own. . . . The Canadian movement has something in Spain to rally around. . . . The Americans took it fine and voted unanimously for it. The Canadian comrades, who are a fine lot, are blissfully happy at having won their objective.10

Dallet added in the same letter that the Canadians had also accepted the continuation of the American military and political leadership of the battalion, "for the time being." While there were a few Canadian officers present in the brigade, these were either assigned to the Lincolns, like Edward Jardas, or else they were recuperating from wounds, as was the case with Edward C. Smith. A number were attending the officer's training course at Poso Rubio, under the tutelage of Tom Wintringham. With the exception of one Canadian and two Spaniards, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was staffed with American officers during its first summer of existence. Robert Merriman continued as commander for a short time and then was replaced by Rollin Dart, a former U.S. Army Air Corps officer who is remembered because he immediately revised the hour of reveille from 5:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M. Dart soon turned over his office to Robert Thompson who had been adjutant. Thompson's career in the battalion was relatively brief but he must be credited with directing the careful and thorough training in these formative weeks. A cheerful young American, Thompson subsequently had a distinguished combat record in World War II, and in the post-war years became a leader of the U.S. Communist Party. Thompson's replacement as adjutant was Harry Schonberg. The commissar was Joseph Dallet, and William Wheeler, Isadore Schrenzel, Joseph Dougher and Nilo Makela were commanders of Nos. One, Two and Three Companies and of the Machine-Gun Company. Makela, from Timmins, Ontario, was the only Canadian at this level of command in the Mac-Paps. All other junior officers appear to have been Americans with the exception of the Spanish adjutant and commissar in Schrenzel's company which was composed, in great part, of Spaniards.11 The ranks of the battalion were dominated by Americans who

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

113

outnumbered their Canadian colleagues by at least three to one. The Machine-Gun Company was, from its inception, filled with Finns, many of whom came from Ontario. The gunners took for themselves the name "Ilkka" after a Finnish patriot of the middle ages. No. One Company, under Wheeler, was entirely American. No. Two, under Schrenzel, contained one section of Canadians, most of them Ukrainians from the prairie provinces. No. Three Company, under Dougher, included one section of "Our Boys from British Columbia." The battalion, at full strength, held 600 men.12 In the absence of battalion records, it is virtually impossible to ascertain such routine matters as exact numbers of men in each company; the numbers, names and frequency of replacement drafts; the extent and nature of casualties. For instance, it is difficult to determine just how many Canadians served in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion during its history. Nor can the number of American members be calculated. More than likely there were always as many Americans as there were Canadians in the unit at any given time after these first months. The three-to-one ratio in favour of Americans was likely reduced once the battalion was operational, for hundreds of Canadian volunteers had yet to arrive in Spain. If this history concerns the Canadian participants, it must not ignore the contribution made by Americans, a contribution which has already been described in The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a definitive volume written, incidentally, by an American veteran of the Canadian battalion, Arthur Landis. Prominent American members of the Mac-Paps included Sam Romer who had come to Europe in the Debs Column and whose wife was a nurse at an International Brigade hospital at Benicasim. Romer was, in succession, a Mac-Pap transmissions operator, battalion paymaster and a prisoner of war at Burgos. Sol Rose began his career in Spain as a company officer in the Washingtons, took a wound at Brunete, served at the base at Albacete while recuperating and then joined the Canadians, where he was an adjutant when he was killed early in the Ebro offensive in 1938. Particularly durable soldiers were Abe Smorodin and Jesse Wallach who were battalion runners, Joe Gibbons, battalion quartermaster, Milt Cohen, chief clerk, and Chick Chaiken,

114

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

armourer. All of these men, assigned to the battalion headquarters staff, took part in a crucial and celebrated skirmish during the battle for Teruel in January, 1938. An American physician named Julius Hene served as chief medical officer for the Canadian unit. Added to this brief roster are names like Martin Sramek, Milton Herndon, Carl Cannon, Ruby Kaufman, Abe Asheroff, Leo Gordon, Cohn Haber, Milton Epstein, James Hill, Archie Kessner, Manny Mandel, Tom Rissane, John Rossen. Some seventy or eighty American Negroes served in the International Brigades; one of them, Oliver Law, becoming commander of the George Washington Battalion. If there was ever any racial prejudice demonstrated by their associates, it has been carefully kept secret. The one incident described by a Canadian veteran took place in late July. Just before his transfer into a medical unit, S. H. Abramson learned from a Canadian friend, Harry Rushton, that "the Negro comrades had met last night to discuss open racial discrimination in the battalion. We were quite surprised to hear about it and were unanimous in feeling that it should be openly discussed and condemned. I later heard that the matter had been thrashed out, the trouble was caused by a few, and there were no more problems of that kind."14 Prominent among the Negroes in the Mac-Paps was Milton Herndon, brother of Angelo Herndon, a leading Negro communist in the United States. Irving Weissman, an American veteran of the entire life-span of the Mac-Paps, relates that the Canadians at this period seemed to fall into three major ethnic or national groups: Finns, Ukrainians and Anglo-Saxons. Weissman recalls also that the Ukrainians marched about the training base chanting "One, two, three, Communists are we, fighting for the working class against the bourgeoisie!"13 Only one French Canadian stood out at this time, Amede*e Grenier, called "Frenchy", of course. Grenier remained with the battalion to the end. And what of Lt. Ronald Liversedge, the first officer of the original No. One Company? Within a few days after the creation of the Mac-Paps, Liversedge had resigned his commission and returned to the ranks because he refused to adhere to Merriman's admonition that all officers should eat in the officer's mess. Liversedge, said Merriman, was too democratic.15

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

115

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was the last unit to join the XVth International Brigade and may have been the last to be incorporated into any international brigade. When it did take its place in the lines, it was reputed to be the best and most extensively trained volunteer battalion to come forward. While occasional replacement drafts were taken from its ranks and sent to Brunete and, later, to the Aragon, the battalion remained essentially intact through the summer of 1937, absorbing party after party of American and Canadian volunteers who continued to come into Spain. The training program, nearly four months long, resembled those devised earlier for the Lincolns and Washingtons, except that the Mac-Paps had the advantage of experienced veterans of Jarama and Brunete who conducted lectures and field maneuvers. Dallet noted that "the raw recruits who, two days ago, turned in four different directions at the same command of 'Right Face', today turn as one man and click their heels together in right smart military fashion. We do not put much emphasis on parade ground fancy dress parade, but we do stress quick response to command in order to bring about the mobility that is required in action."10 As Ronald Liversedge recalls, there was no such thing in the Spanish Army as a uniform manual of arms of training. We went at it in our own ways. We Canadians with our platoons, forming fours, right turning, about turning, and the Americans bawling right face, about face and so on. We never throughout the war had a uniform method, and after a while, and when we were front line troops, officers would give commands or instructions, mixing up equally Spanish and English words and everybody would understand . . . although the Spanish might themselves have difficulty understanding all of it." The weapons drill, though ample, must have been somewhat frustrating since the weapons used in practice were not to be taken to the front. These were not issued to front-line troops until September when the Mac-Paps finally joined the XVth International Brigade in the Aragon. At that time they received heavy Maxim machine-guns which rode over the ground on wheels, Dicterovs and Tukerovs, Russian light machine-guns, and an assortment of

116

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

rifles, many of which had been made in the United States for the short-lived Kerensky government in 1917. When Kerensky fell from power, the American government refused shipment of the arms to the succeeding Soviet regime. Thereafter, the story goes, the rifles mysteriously turned up in Mexico where they sat until they were sold to the Republican government. Whatever their history, the guns proved next to useless for the bolts seized after the first few rounds were fired and had to be pounded free with a rock. "This could be very embarrassing... ,"18 Groups of trainees were regularly detached and assigned to special schools: officer and non-commissioned officer cadres, cartographic courses, armaments courses, transmissions courses. The graduates returned to the battalion where they organized classes of their own among the ranks. A few were chosen to remain behind as instructors, a few more were reassigned to other battalions. While the men understood the need for specialized training, not all agreed that officer's school was worth the assignment. Ben Goldstein, an American Mac-Pap, attended OTC briefly and then resigned in indignation: "It seemed to me that it would take ten years to learn all this bullshit. It was like a bourgeois army, not like a people's army." Though he refused a commission, Goldstein took pleasure in being singled out by Dallet as the fourth in command of the battalion. There was the commander, the commissar, the adjutant and the battalion beefer. And that was Goldstein.19 Particular stress was put on the identification of skills during these weeks at Tarazona. Men were shifted from one job to another within a company so that all might understand all that they might have to do during battle. "Elasticity thus made for greater efficiency; and compensated for understaffed cadres."20 Similarly, the achievement of commissioned or non-commissioned rank depended on performance and need; a soldier could be promoted and demoted and then promoted again in the search for his appropriate place in the organization. The Mac-Paps were hampered in their dedication to the training program by poor diet and illness. Breakfast consisted of burnt barley coffee and a loaf of bread which was intended to last the day, dinner and supper of rice fried in olive oil, bacalao made of dried codfish cooked in stew, garbanzas or chick peas, mule or

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papincau Battalion

117

burro meat and strong sour wine which, after a period of indoctrination, became "our strength if not our redeemer." And the men needed all the strength they could muster, for most contracted dysentery immediately and continued to pass blood for the next few months: their only relief was charcoal tablets. The diet and the heat and the illness seemed to cancel out the physical hardiness resulting from the actual training. "The food," recalls S. H. Abramson, "did things to your system. A year after I had arrived I found that small scratches tended to fester, and it was an ordeal to brush your teeth, the gums bled so much. I lost four teeth through decay; they had to be pulled after my return home. But at that, we ate better than the civilian population."21 Midway through the schedule, the men received a preview of the months of combat ahead of them when survivors of the Lincoln-Washington battalion arrived in Albacete. Thin to the point of emaciation, bloodshot, pus-running eyes, facial bones sticking out prominently, and in reply to questions, brusque to the point of rudeness. So we saw what a battle did to men in the Spanish war. I could not remember seeing men quite so drained of all vitality in France in the First World War.22 For that matter, a man could see all the misery he could bear in the figures of the mutilated and demoralized soldiers who drifted about Albacete, unattached to any unit, desperate for friendship and a passage home. Among these were men who had marched off grandly to the defence of Madrid and to the Jarama and Brunete campaigns. But if war always seemed in evidence, there were many opportunities for diversion and recreation. Dallet writes of a two-day maneuver which included forced marches, night assaults and the conquest of hills "without any casualties whatsoever."23 The river along which the battalion drilled was so inviting that the battalion concluded the exercises with a picnic and a swimming party. Robert Merriman's wife was in Tarazona at this time and accompanied the battalion on maneuvers, marching with the medical detachment. The last weekend in August was given over to a sports rally

118

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

which featured mushball, horseshoes and wrestling. The rally seems to have been the grand finale to a series of "socialist competitions" which ranged back and forth from the maneuvers in the field to the entertainments in camp. Sections and companies competed in a program of elimination exercises involving military prowess as well as volleyball and soccer. The winning units carried the battalion banner on parade. The occasion of the last sports tournament is described by Joseph Dallet. Last night the boys put on the best show the battalion has had, including several very good skits, one serious wrestling match between the ex-champion of Finland and the ex-champion of the U.S. Navy, and a burlesque between two guys who were great acrobats, excellent wrestlers and better actors. They threw each other all around the ring with proper grunts, groans and facial contortions, and finally, as they were rending each other limb from limb and were in the death throes of their agony—or vice versa—your hero, the referee, dove in head first to separate them so they could each die separately in peace, and all the seconds, coaches, managers, handlers, masseurs, etc., dove in on top of all of us and the curtain rang down amidst scenes of wildest hilarity.24 Soldiers in what was theoretically a people's army, members of an international force which had long since begun to be discredited because it was allegedly designed and directed by communists, yet somehow these men retained their sense of humor and their perspective. That they were not automatons is evident in the following anecdote. One day in August, the Mac-Paps were alerted to the imminent arrival of a distinguished political figure. Training details were postponed and the men were summoned to the town church to meet this personage. The only ones exempted from the muster were the sentries. Dallet excitedly introduced the visitor and warned the assembly that they must not write home about the visit of the speaker. After extolling the man's virtues and praising his achievements in the cause of workers' movements, etc. Dallet dramatically introduced "John Stron-gfort". With the buildup Joe gave him, we all expected someone at least 6'4" and half Cherokee Indian.

Creation of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

119

A little man, not much over 5' came in from one of the wings of the platform. When he opened his mouth and said "Comrades" in a thick East European accent, many Canadians and Americans became convulsed with laughter. Dallet was furious. That greeting with the accent was to be repeated many times in Tarazona when a man wanted to dramatize a beef or to poke fun at the camp leadership.25

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"How is the coffee?"—anon. THE MACKENZIE-PAPINEAU BATTALION was named for two Canadians who led a rebellion and populated by men who hoped to put down a rebellion. But the distinction is not so great after all because both Mackenzie and Papineau and the many hundreds of men who served in the Mac-Paps believed that they must act or else lose their freedom, not to say their self-respect. As the battalion grew through the summer of 1937 its members received military instruction, drilling in "mimic warfare." The Mac-Paps also studied the issues and context of the war, for without such study and understanding they might not prosper and endure as soldiers. The most sensitive position in each company, battalion and brigade was that held by the political commissar whose chief function it was to unite the military and the political commitments of the soldiers. So crucial was this function that the commissar shared equivalent rank and authority with the military leader of the unit, though in battle he was subordinate to the latter. The history and purpose of the commissar was explained to the volunteers in The Book of the XVth International Brigade published in the second winter of the war. Acknowledging the earlier examples set by Cromwell and the French and Russian Revolutions, the editors of the book, themselves attached to the brigade commissariat, described the need at the outbreak of the Spanish rebellion to train and educate amateurs, not only for the defence of the constituted government but for the conduct of a war of ideology. The Commissars are an integral part of the army. Primarily, their role is to inspire their unit with the highest spirit of discipline and loyalty to the Republican cause and establish a feeling of mutual confidence and good comradeship between Commanders and men. In the People's Army discipline is not based on militarism but on the conscious realization that the interests of the people and its government are the same.1

The Political Commissar

121

Ideally the commissar emerged from the people, the rank-andfile; he was their advocate but he was also a representative of the political establishment. Yet the fact that the commissar was a political officer first and foremost did not prevent the men who served in this capacity from adapting the office to serve immediate needs. George Watt, an American rifleman in the Mac-Paps for a short time, became commissar of the Lincolns near the end of the war. "In an army which had to be motivated by ideas and by political viewpoints," Watt relates, "you had to have some way of indoctrinating and clarifying these viewpoints. The commissar also served as a buffer between the harsh discipline and realities of military life and the men in the ranks. He was a welfare and morale officer, as well."2 According to Joseph Dallet, the volunteers depended on the political commissar for "proper food and proper clothing, and bandages for the feet when the shoes rub and soap and towels and newspapers and cigarettes and sufficient instruction and not too much instruction and seeing that the canteen carries the favorite drink of each and that the toilets flush and sufficient disinfectant is on hand "3 It may be argued that the men who came into Spain needed no political instruction. Was it not already apparent by their very presence that they comprehended the issues? Yet even the hardiest can become reluctant when the ranks are decimated, when it becomes painfully obvious that the enemy has more guns, more planes, more tanks, more men, more time for waging the war. The volunteers wanted to live but most would have died if they thought their deaths would carry meaning. When, later in the war, the odds became overpowering, when death became so regular that one almost forgot about life, then men began to waver. And it was at such times that the commissars literally threw themselves into the breach, literally struggled with their friends so that they might all keep the faith that had first brought them to Spain. The great majority of the survivors of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion describe these political officers in the most favourable terms: brave, loyal men whose position in battle was always in the vanguard. There are a few dissenting opinions, however, that should be noted. It is charged that some of the commissars took

122

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

advantage of their rank and power to secure creature comforts. It is also charged that, as the war moved to a climax, the discipline effected by these men became excessively harsh. One Canadian reports that he was sentenced to execution for alleged antisemitism, and was only saved by the intervention, paradoxically, of another commissar. The commissars, whatever success they may have had individually, were, of course, representatives of a political movement, Communism. The ideology they advocated was, however, not so much Marxist as liberal-social. Everyone knew that the commissars were expected to be party members, but the "education" these men passed on was not hard-line Marxism so much as the moderate politics of the Spanish Republic. (Remember that the Comintern did not seek to provoke proletarian revolution in Spain at this time.) Every unit had not only its commissar but also its party secretary who was, as often as not, a rifleman, and who had responsibility for the organization of the party members within his unit. This person did not necessarily have to belong to the official hierarchy in the organization nor did he necessarily have any influence on military activities unless he happened, by coincidence, to have some command responsibility in his role as a soldier. At times, the logic of the communists appeared grotesque and unreasonable, even to men who were loyal to the party. There seems, for instance, to have been some anxiety about men who were "politically unreliable." Walter Dent was placed in charge of a machine-gun crew in the Lincolns even though, by Dent's own admission, there was a young American in the group who was far better suited for the post. But the American was not "reliable."4 The communists fostered the spirit of egalitarianism among officers and men, yet when Ronald Liversedge refused to dine with the officers, he was accused of being too democratic. Such eccentricity seems not to have prospered. The men would not have stood for it, certainly, and common sense dictated that such hair-splitting, whatever importance it seemed to hold for the political context of the war, was simply ludicrous. The political intrigues went on, no doubt, the quest for power went on, but the effect these had among the men may be summed up by an incident disclosed by Lionel Edwards of Vancouver. One morning, during

The Political Commissar

123

a lull in the fighting at Teruel, an officer moved down the line, inquiring of his men, checking casualties. He approached one salty veteran and asked, "How is the coffee?" The veteran replied, "Well, it depends. If I'm politically reliable, then it tastes great. If I'm politically unreliable, then it tastes like horse-piss."5 Conditions in the world were such that during the thirties the Communist Party seemed to offer the only hope for relief and renovation. For this reason, and because the party always stressed its identification with the people, many men and women embraced communism. Whatever the movement actually represented then, whatever it might become as the Soviet Union more and more abused the socio-political philosophy which was the mainstay originally, the hope that communism appeared to offer to men inspired a loyalty and an affection that is not likely to be matched again. The political commissars in the International Brigades were, like those they led, men of hope. For the most part they performed their tasks with good will and good nature, if with zealous attention to the political implications of the war. And the men they led were not transformed into passionless robots by their commitment to Spain or their services under the commissars. The tragedy of Joseph Dallet is sufficient evidence that the volunteers, even those who were steadfast communists, could and did rebel against what they considered to be authoritarian rule. Dallet died in the first minutes of the first charge made by the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion at Fuentes de Ebro on October 13, 1937. During the preceding four months, the battalion had come to regard the commissar with fascination, awe and considerable antipathy. Dallet came from an American family of some position, had attended Dartmouth College for a brief time and then had gone into tradeunion activity. Quite obviously, the fact of his alienation from the middle class appealed to the volunteers: here was a member of the bourgeoisie, a college man if you will, who had joined the working class. Robert Merriman had similar credentials; in fact, he had come from a teaching post at the University of California. Yet the Mac-Paps came to resent Dallet whereas they never had any but the most favourable impressions of Merriman. In one sense, Dallet was the inadvertent victim of the very

124

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

system which he sought to sustain. By the summer of 1937, the International Brigades were well along the way to becoming a military machine which could be manipulated in battle. While the deep attachment of the volunteers to egalitarianism was never contested, that attachment alone did not guarantee victory. But such a spirit located at the heart of a well-trained, disciplined military force could make that force invulnerable. It was necessary that the volunteers "submit" to discipline. Pallet's demand for "right smart military fashion—in order to bring about the mobility that is required in action" has its point. Unfortunately, there was something in Dallet's manner which irritated and then infuriated many of the Mac-Paps. Perhaps he could not completely cut himself off from Dartmouth College; perhaps he was simply naturally aloof. More than likely, he just didn't understand the sort of men he was expected to lead. In any case, his career with the battalion was a stormy one. The men came to believe that he was unnecessarily strict, that he was a "boy-scout," a martinet. The growing need for effective discipline as it was articulated by this one man resulted in a small tragedy. On the evening of October 12, the night before the Mac-Paps were to assault Fuentes de Ebro, several dozen members of the battalion met to determine whether Dallet was to continue as commissar. While commissars were seldom elected, they could be deposed if the weight of popular opinion was against them. The meeting was a heated one in which criticism of Dallet, who was present, ran strong and deep. A principal speaker was Bob Minor, an American Communist Party official who was visiting the battleground at this time. Complaints against Dallet as well as more conventional griping about the quality of the food continued for several hours. Dallet was terribly shaken by the ordeal and admitted that, "if that's the way they feel, perhaps I should quit." Because of the impending attack and the need to avoid demoralization in the ranks by switching leaders at the last moment, Dallet retained his office. After the meeting, he walked about the hillside with a young lieutenant, Saul Wellman. Dallet was passionate in his desire to lead the men into battle; he would prove his worth to them and the worth of the discipline which he had advocated. Wellman instinctively knew that Dallet would die the next day.6

CHAPTER TWELVE

"We were always scared to death of the churches." —Lou Tellier THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES had little time in which to recuperate from the holocaust at Brunete. Not only had casualties run into the thousands, but morale was severely shaken. The XHIth International Brigade was so exhausted that its men refused to return to battle. Some solace was found in the return to Albares, where a young Canadian walked again briefly with his Juliana, and to Ambite, also east of Madrid. The days passed quickly as the units regrouped and began to review the experience gained at Brunete. The brigaders discovered that they had a capacity for growth and that in conjunction with the Republican Army they could initiate an offensive, select the time and the place. The Lincoln Battalion remained a consolidation of the Washingtons and the original Lincolns; the XVth International Brigade now consisted of one American, one Slavic, one British, one Spanish-Latin American and one Canadian battalion. The 24th served with the brigade until the conclusion of the war; the Dimitrovs were shortly transferred to the 129th Brigade and then to the Xlllth International Brigade. The strength of the XVth International Brigade one month after Brunete was about 2500 men, two-thirds of its designated table of organization.1 Colonel Vladimir Copic was brigade commander, Steve Nelson, the hero of Brunete, was commissar, Robert Merriman was chief of staff. Malcolm Dunbar was the senior ranking Britph officer in his role as chief of operations. The brigade quarterm&ster and the brigade transport officer were Americans as was one of the two adjutant commissars. The new Lincoln commander was veteran Hans Amlie; the commissar was John Robinson. Leonard Lamb served as adjutant at this period. Alick Miller the Canadian from Edmonton, returned to lead No. One Company. Charles Parker stayed on as leader of the Canadian section; he had been the last of four com-

Aragon

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

127

manders of that unit at Brunete. In keeping with the desire to integrate Spanish troops into international battalions, No. Two Company was made up of Spaniards although its commander and adjutant were, respectively, English and American. No. Three Company was led by Owen Smith, formerly of the Washingtons. The Machine-Gun Company, in which served many Finns, was commanded by a young New Yorker named Manny Lancer. The Finns gave themselves the name, "Toivo Eintiganen."2 The XVth International Brigade now became a permanent wing of the 35th Division led by one General "Walter," whose real name was Karol Swierczewski. Years later, this officer became Minister of Defence in Poland, 1945-1947. Many of the veterans of Jarama and Brunete were now leaving Spain. Wally Dent and Hugh Garner returned to Canada, Dent to assist in cross-country speaking tours in behalf of aid to Spain. Henry Beattie, an early volunteer, came back to Toronto and apparently engaged in a public denunciation of the Republican effort and the assistance from the left that was being organized. The Friends described him as mounting "disruptive activities against Spain." The Daily Clarion dismissed him as a Trotskyist.3 Dozens of Canadian volunteers arrived in Spain through the summer of 1937. While many entered the Lincoln and MackenziePapineau organizations, just as many more were attached to other forces, artillery batteries, medical teams, transportation companies, as well as infantry battalions in other brigades. A few entered the ranks of the British Battalion. Louis Tellier of Montreal was transferred from the Lincolns to the British unit after Brunete. He joined the transmissions section where he remained through the Aragon campaign. Hugh McGregor from Ayr, Scotland, by way of Vancouver, also left the Lincolns for the British Battalion, served through the Aragon and then departed for officer's training school. The number of Canadians who preferred enlistment with the British was far less than one might expect. The earlier volunteers also had chosen to go into the American unit in the first months of the war probably because of the stronger identification with a North American contingent than with one deriving from the parent nation of the Commonwealth. Despite the fact that many of the Canadians

128

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

were born in Great Britain, they seem to have responded to their newly-gained residence in Canada. Several Canadians found their way into heavy howitzer batteries of the 68th Division which served on the Cordoba front John Malko, a veteran of the Austrian Army in World War I, a machine-gunner in the Russian revolutionary forces, most recently, a Toronto shoe repair man, served in Spain with Artillery Unit 65.A which operated a cannon made in France in 1887. In February, 1938, Ronald Liversedge transferred into the 35th Artillery Battery which manned antique weapons that were little more than barrels with breeches set on two wheels. None had any recoil mechanism whatsoever. Wilfred Robson of Vancouver was a member of the American John Brown field artillery battery on the Toledo front. Very little is known of the careers or fates of the many Canadians who fought with the XHIth "Dombrowski" International Brigade or with Rakosi Battalion (Hungarian) and the Mazaryk Battalion (Czechoslovakia). Undoubtedly, most of the men who entered these units did so in order to serve with contingents from their homelands. Of the survivors, some probably chose to remain in Europe after the war. These men are known to have served in one or the other of the units mentioned here.4 Majik Bzumik F. Cizek Missing Vincent Dubel Joseph Franchuk Waldstan Gawda Killed W. Gologowski Stefan Hryszczysrin Stevan Hchyshyn MikeKudebsky Killed Alex Koziel Stefan Kozniychuk Peter Mazzeppa NickNikita ? Pongales Anton Samuelis

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

129

Frank Swatak Jan Sypka Stefan Sztumic Killed Antoni Wijatyk Killed W. Yurinchuk Killed Three Canadians are known to have served with guerrilla teams operating behind the fascist lines: Utamo Makela, Reino Keto and Toivo Saair. In addition, the last battle commander of the Mac-Paps, a Finnish national named Gunnar Ebb, fought in this capacity.5 Makela appeared one day in Albacete, an awesome figure, "dressed in leather jacket, corduroy pants, blue beret and strapped to his side one of those large wooden holsters, as big as a leg of lamb, which held an automatic pistol, the kind that, with the addition of a screwed-on butt, could be used as a tommy gun "6 Apparently these guerrilla teams operated on direct orders from the Republican general staff. Their two-fold task: sabotage and the organization of Spanish peasants. The missions these men undertook often lasted two or three months and required a penetration of nearly a hundred kilometres behind the enemy's front. The teams varied in size but usually included, besides the leader, a doctor, experienced scouts, sharpshooters and demolition experts. When they were not blowing up trains and bridges, the guerillas carried on political orientation among the civilians, at the same time recruiting espionage agents. However, they were usually frustrated in their efforts to equip the civilians because of a lack of arms. Railroads were a principal target. In one three-week period near Jarama, eleven railway officials were executed by the fascists for their failure to break up guerilla attacks. In an attempt to discourage these attacks, the fascists painted the rails white and lay protective shields wired to sound equipment over strategic sections. On one mission near Granada, Toivo Saair, in charge of a team of five Spaniards, mined a length of track running alongside a swamp. The men took cover behind a hill a half-kilometre away. No explosion. Saair and two others went down to check the charge and were attacked by fascists who had observed their activity and had removed the explosives. Weakened already by an ulcer,

130

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Saari rolled into the swamp and hid there for three hours. Finally, he staggered into a ditch filled with water up to his shoulders, circled the fascists and then scattered them with sub-machine gun fire. Finding his own patrol had departed, Saari walked to a nearby river, swam it, rejoined his men who had gone back to their horses and made his escape.7 Meanwhile, the men of Ambite went on leave to Madrid. They walked in the plazas, drove up to University City, visited Hemingway, drank a little wine. Despite Nationalist artillery bombardments timed to coincide with the exit of audiences from the theatres, the volunteers went to the movies to see Jimmy Cagney, the Marx brothers (with Spanish voices dubbed in) and Charlie Chaplin. Four months later, after the Aragon offensive, they would come back for furlough in the capital and see the same films. Too soon, the XVth Brigade packed up and set off to war, leaving in its wake the fledgling Mac-Paps. The new mission involved a broad sweep into the Aragon in the north of Spain, into a country that has been described by one who fought there as "capricious and unpredictable" in its broken, tumultuous, dry surface.8 The Republican offensive in that region was dictated by several factors: the land, while not yet completely fortified by a Nationalist line, was still dominated by strategic towns like Quinto, Belchite, and Fuentes de Ebro. To the north of these sat Saragossa, a major insurgent stronghold. A strike there could remove these nationalist outposts, bring pressure on Saragossa and, indeed, bring about its capture. Furthermore, such a move would restore the confidence of Anarchists and Catalans who despaired of the Republicans ever making a strong gesture in their vicinity. Finally, a line across the Aragon would help to repel a Nationalist thrust to the Eastern coast, a move that many felt had to come. The attack opened during the night of August 23 and involved six divisions comprised of seventeen Spanish and four international brigades.9 The line deployed from Zuera, a town to the north of Saragossa, to Belchite. The strategy: an armoured column would sweep through Zuera and move down on Saragossa while Modesto's 5th Corps, including the XI and XV International Brigades, would break around Quinto and Belchite and take the high ground between those towns and Saragossa. Quinto and Belchite were thus

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

131

to be bypassed and left for supporting brigades to conquer. However, in a confusion of orders at the last moment the two strongholds were attacked almost immediately by the battalions of the XVth International Brigade. Quinto came first. The town lay tucked out of sight in a small dip in an interminable plain. About one kilometre to the south-east rose Purburell Hill, its slopes and crest infested with tunnels and concrete and steel bunkers constructed by German engineers. A battalion of several hundred held the height. Quinto itself was ringed with barbed wire and machine-gun nests and literally swarmed with snipers. At 6:00 A.M. on the 24th, the brigade moved up, the Dimitrovs to Purburell Hill where they were rebuffed almost instantly by the heavy fire, the Lincolns to the west within several hundred metres of the outskirts on the edge of the town cemetery. After one unsuccessful attempt by No. One company to force the cemetery, the battalion withdrew and shifted to the south-east, maintaining the same distance from the town. Alick Miller had taken a bad head wound in the early skirmish but managed to walk a kilometre to the nearest aid station. The attack on Quinto presented a heartening example of the collaboration that could be effected among infantry, armour, air and artillery. About ten French 75's and American 105 howitzers provided continuous shelling of the town so that its defenders were never able to man their forward positions with any great enthusiasm. Eight Russian light tanks spearheaded an almost classic formation of armour and infantry which broke through the barbed wire in midafternoon; within an hour, the perimeter had been breached, the cemetery overrun and the streets invaded. Before the assault squads could advance, however, dusk fell and forced the Lincolns to withdraw into the trenches which they had just captured. There, and in the cemetery, they passed the night. The British Battalion had moved up behind the Dimitrovs and after that unit failed in its initial drive up Purburell Hill, the Englishmen took their turn. Encouraged by the information that only a dozen men now held the crest, they started up. But there were hundreds of men up there, not a dozen, and the British reeled before a barrage of machine-gun fire which killed their com-

132

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

mander and wounded their commissar. There was little that could be done against concrete and steel until artillery fire could be arranged, so the British scratched holes and waited through the night. On the morning of the 25th, the attack on Quinto was resumed by squads of Lincolns which advanced cautiously under intense sniper fire. Much of the initial infiltration was conducted by members of the battalion's section of scouts led by a young Canadian named Maurice Constant. Reinforcements which came forward now included members of the brigade staff, Merriman and Nelson in particular. In Quinto, the Lincoln Battalion took its first real lesson in street fighting. Sections broke in half and then moved up a street in two files, each file looking for snipers above the heads of the other. Before each building, the men stopped, banged on the door, shouted to its inhabitants and then, if there was no reply, broke through with a beam which they hauled along for this very purpose, lobbed in a grenade or two and passed on. Two men who neglected such precautions and ran into one house were promptly bayoneted by the defenders within a step or two of the doorway. Carl Bradley, an American, led a ten-man attack against one building whose walls were at least three feet thick and whose windows bristled with machine-guns. Artillery bursts drove the defenders away from the windows allowing Bradley's men to run up and pitch in bottles of nitroglycerine. After two or three trips for more bottles, Bradley's bombardiers rolled a drum of gasoline through the door. As we wended our way back, we met hundreds of our soldiers standing on the hill, watching enthusiastically the wiping out of this Fascist stronghold that snuffed out the lives of so many of their comrades. The building burned all night. . . .10

Gradually, the Nationalist soldiers who survived such treatment withdrew into the town church. The British anti-tank battery, Canadian Jack Lawson still part of the crew, came forward and directed its fire point-blank upon the church walls. These guns had already destroyed the defenders in nearby Codo, where machine-gun posts had been located about the village's church at

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

133

the stations of the cross. Now, they tore hole after hole in the building at Quinto until the defenders, mostly Requetls, and thus unusually fanatic in their loyalty to the rebellion, were either blown up, burned to death or driven to surrender.11 At last, the church was seized by the infantry, Lincolns and Dimitrovs who came in from opposite sides. The Slavs forced the main door with a beam and the Lincolns threw bundles of hay and hand grenades in through windows in an attempt to set a fire. As the internationals drove into the church, the surviving fascists began to spill out on all sides. So, Quinto fell. Casualties were heavy, so heavy that existing medical facilities were soon strained. Canadian Marvin Penn and a physician named Krause commandeered a motorcycle and careened about the countryside collecting ambulances which were then herded back to Quinto to relieve the many wounded soldiers.12 The final charge up Purburell Hill took another five hours. A Nationalist water detail had wandered into the brigade's lines the night before and had revealed the exact and depressing extent of the defences. Nonetheless, the British, supported now by Lincoln companies and the 24th Battalion, started up again. The fire was as heavy as before but this time the attackers were saved by the bombs of a fascist squadron which missed their target and blew up their own men instead. The Nationalists raised a white flag, but then opened fire as the British moved in. In a few moments, the crest was stormed and German and Spanish officers were falling all around, most preferring suicide to capture. One of the first brigaders to reach the top of Purburell Hill was Nels Madsen of Vancouver. Madsen lay with a section of the Lincoln heavy machine guns at the foot of Purburell for the first two days of the attack. His position was on the left flank of the British Battalion. After the disasterous air raid, a man carrying a white flag emerged from the fascist trenches and started to run down the slope towards Madsen's gun. Intense fire from both sides was still being maintained at this point. Madsen saw that the flag bearer had been wounded so he leapt over the parapet, calling for his own men to cease fire. He ran over to the fallen Nationalist, saw he was severely wounded in the head and then sped on past and up the hill, unarmed! At this moment, a general lull in the

134

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

shooting had fallen, but as yet, in Madsen's sector, no infantry movement had been launched toward the crest. Only the Canadian ran forward. As he neared the fascist trenches, Madsen was overwhelmed by joyous soldiers who sought to surrender to him. The brigader signalled to them to throw down their rifles and walk to the rear. Then once again, he bounded forward although by this time he was beginning to have some doubts about the wisdom of his adventure. Taking up a rifle, he crept into the foremost trench and immediately came upon one defender who stood poised, seemingly ready to shoot the intruder. As Madsen stood to fire, he discovered that the Spaniard was missing his head. Beyond this trench, he came on another Spaniard lying wounded on the ground but with his arm raised about to throw a grenade. Fortunately, Madsen was joined now by a brigader who could speak Spanish and while the Canadian stood by, his finger on the trigger, the other volunteer coaxed the grenade from the fallen soldier. Now, Madsen clambered to the very crest of Purburell Hill where he came upon the prostrate bodies of half a dozen officers, one of them still alive. They were suicides, but Madsen hadn't the heart to help the wounded man on his way.13 A few kilometres northeast of Quinto lay Fuentes de Ebro, the last fortified town before Saragossa. The Republicans had just learned of the defeat of a civilian uprising in Saragossa; the survivors had gone underground but promised to emerge if an attack could be made against the city immediately. For this reason, the XVth International Brigade was removed from Quinto before it had scarcely come down from Purburell Hill and dispatched to Fuentes as part of a flying column that would sweep through that village and lay siege to Saragossa. For three days, the brigade lay in front of the little river town, waiting for support battalions to come up. But these reinforcements were inadequate and so the maneuver against Saragossa never materialized. Now, as August closed, the brigaders turned south again, past Quinto and on to Belchite. During this march south, Maurice Constant, just appointed chief of the brigade's scout platoon, took a little ride. Mounted behind the driver of a motorcycle, Constant rode north from Quinto

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

135

through the night looking for the battalions of the German international brigade. His secondary mission was to determine if the road had been cut by fascists. So, without telling his driver of the dangers involved, Constant halted the cycle every few hundred metres and listened. Finally, the puzzled driver asked why and Constant told him that he was listening for sounds of the road being cut and blocked. The implication was that if the sounds could be heard, there was little chance of the two men escaping. But, the night passed, Constant found the friendly battalions and returned safely to Quinto, his driver, no doubt, a wiser man.14 It was said that Napoleon could not take Belchite during his Peninsular campaign but the Republicans, whatever their strategy had originally been, had no choice but to take it now. The Spanish 32nd Brigade was the first to storm the town, but this unit, already exhausted from a hard fight to seize Codo from Moorish soldiers, was thrown back from the superbly deployed pillboxes and trenches which in turn were protected by iron stakes and prongs fixed in the ground. Unfortunately, Anarchist propaganda in Barcelona had "revealed" that the town had just been taken by some of the Anarchist battalions in the sector! Rather than risk embarrassing the government and demoralizing the Spanish people, the Republic had to commit its own units in order to substantiate those headlines. The march on Belchite was made all the more grim by the realization that the armoured sweep south from Zuera had failed to take place and that Nationalist counter-attacks were beginning to build up. The Lincolns hiked through the night of August 31, twenty kilometres from Quinto through Codo where, in the ruined barricades, they found "sheaves of religious pictures . . . a composite photo of Franco, Christ and Mola . . . in that order."15 Near Codo, Samuel Brown of Vancouver collapsed with diarrhoea and vomiting. When a doctor offered assistance, Brown lisped in a high voice, "You son of a bitch. I'm not scared." Ever after, he was known as "Squeaky."16 Minus the British Battalion which had been diverted east to Mediana, the XVth International Brigade went into Belchite, the lesson of Quinto either forgotten or ignored. The battalions had no support except from the anti-tank battery and from one piece

136

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

of heavy artillery which succeeded in shelling its own people. By nightfall of the first day, the Americans had dug in along a series of ditches only one hundred metres from the Church of St. Augustin, situated on the edge of the town. The church, not unexpectedly, was the strongest position held by the fascists. A series of brief grenade skirmishes failed to empty the houses which lay directly between the church and the attackers. The next morning, the Lincoln companies sought to storm across the terraces into the town; they took then as many casualties as they had suffered throughout the entire battle of Quinto. Here, in a few hours, nearly every officer was shot down. Alick Miller's old company, No. One, was on its third commander by the end of the day. Miller himself had been shot early in the morning as he stood lecturing to a new replacement about the need to take cover. David Mangel of Toronto, a Brunete veteran, ran over to administer first aid. His work finished, Mangel stood up to look for other injured men, sprawled on the ground at a cry of warning and was promptly drilled through the foot.17 Hans Amlie, the Lincoln commander, faced a dreadful situation: he could not order his men up and into a headlong charge which would destroy the battalion but he couldn't let them remain in their present position outside the town for they would be picked off, one by one. Steve Nelson came forward then to scout the perimeter around Belchite. Fortunately, he discovered a sheltered ditch which led into town and by this route he found an empty olive-oil factory across the street from the church! Here, the Lincolns established their headquarters and from this vantage point, they began to negotiate the dangerous way to their objective. Sections of the companies still waited outside the town's limits while brigade scouts under Maurice Constant tried unsuccessfully to break into nearby houses. For the next two days, the battalion threw out probes, bombing parties which fought dreadful skirmishes for the possession of half-ruined houses. In three days, the ranks of the Lincolns had wilted to two hundred men. Finally, on the fourth day, the Republican command began to pay attention to the dilemma at Belchite, where the Lincolns and the Dimitrovs punched without much success at the opposite sides of the town. Six tanks arrived to assist the anti-tank battery

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

13 7

in a methodical, house-by-house, block-by-block destruction of Belchite. On the fourth day, the Church of St. Augustin finally fell. The defenders of the church had endured three days of bombardment by the simple expedient of dashing out of the building and into the town when the shells began to drop and then returning when the fire ceased. Under supporting fire from heavy machine-guns and from the newly arrived tanks, two attack groups moved against the entrances to the building. One fell away quickly, most of the men wounded or dead. The other broke through the side door and into a corridor. At the end of the corridor, the opposite side entrance stood open and beyond it sat a fascist machine-gun which sprayed the internationals as they rushed inside. Three men went down, but the remainder rounded a corner to safety. They hoisted their own machine-gun into the gallery, broke through the outer wall with picks and hand grenades and finally destroyed the fascist post from above.18 While this emplacement was secured, the doors below were being barricaded with sandbags even while Lincolns fell all around from sniper activity in adjacent houses. Dying in the church courtyard was Jim Wolf of British Columbia. "War seemed to stun Jim up to the attack on Quinto. There he appeared to have made up his mind to fight in the front ranks at every opportunity. . . . A hand grenade exploded near his face smashing one side of the jaw and neck. . . . He could not smoke so he gave me his cigarettes."19 With the church in the hands of the brigaders, the fascists began to fall back, escaping through tunnels to a large building on the far side of town. Here, some of the worst combat took place, although the capture of Belchite was no longer in doubt. We would sneak up the gully as close to the street as we could, heave a grenade over at the house in an attempt to make it bounce off the house and into the street where the fascists were barricaded. We tried to have the grenade bounce off in many different ways but none of them proved very successful. The fascists had a higher position and therefore their grenades travelled further than ours and they threw plenty of them into the gully to keep us inside the factory. Next we tried to make our way to the end of the street by

138

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

breaking through the walls of the adjoining house. But this also was a failure. We also tried another method. We filled up sandbags with dirt and threw them into the gully, attempting to build up a barricade of our own. Every time we threw out a sandbag, the fascists countered with a hand grenade or two and the barricade therefore was not a very good one.20 If the battle for University City had its unique horror in the use of the elevators in the buildings to send ignited grenades to the floors above where the enemy lay hidden, Belchite had its own in the struggle to break through the walls of adjoining houses to avoid the machine-gun fire and sniper fire that swept the streets. As the fascists began to falter, Dave Doran, the wounded Nelson's successor as commissar, armed himself with a loudspeaker, hurridly composed an eloquent argument for surrender and drove about the town calling for the defenders to give up. Doran's voice quickly stilled the explosions of guns and the brigaders could sense the Nationalists straining to hear every word. While Doran urged his audience to recall the travesty of government that would ensue if the fascists won the war, his chief and most impressive point was that if they did not all give up, they would all die. Their machine guns had ceased firing; the voice had silenced them all. There was an unearthly hush. The word "Morte" seemed to have taken on a shape, a living form, stark and grim, ghastly and enormous, pressing down with ever-increasing monster weight on the fascist lines.21 Then, the defenders lost their nerve. Shots were heard as they executed some dissenting officers. Shouting Republican slogans, the anxious rebels began to cross over the barricades. The last night of fighting in Belchite is described by Canadian Pete Nielson, adjutant of No. One Company of the Lincoln Battalion. With a dozen other men, Neilson lay behind a barricade which cut off one of the last streets held by the fascists. My guards were so tired that they only awoke when grenades were thrown up the alley in the early hours of the morning. I was standing with my back to a doorway stroking the muzzle of a starved burro when suddenly the strains of beautiful music floated over the city for some minutes followed by a speech over

Battles of Quinto and Belchite

139

a loudspeaker, followed by rifle and machine-gun fire and grenade explosions. More music and speeches then a short silence and then a terrific bombardment of hand grenades thrown at our barricade, followed by fascist shells thundering over our heads and down the street. Our comrades in the alley on the other side of the barricades retreated fast and our little group was cut off. But we soon discovered that the explosions came from fascist officers who were trying to make a getaway, not to attack. . . . The whole night was like a fantastic melodrama, wierd, beautiful, dangerous and delightful because we knew victory was ours.22 Belchite fell after nearly six days of brutally close combat. In the last moments of the battle, some Nationalist soldiers sought to flee the town under cover of civilian hostages, much as they had attempted to exit Villanueva de la Canada. With grim satisfaction, the Spanish-Latin American 24th Battalion ran these men into the nearby olive groves and killed them. The casualty figures for the Lincolns at Belchite remain vague. One source claims that less than a hundred men were on their feet when it was over, and these were drooping with exhaustion.23 While they had won, they had done so only after valued soldiers like Jacob Locke of Guelph, Ontario, died leading charges against machine-gun emplacements and men like Charlie Walthers, of Vancouver left their assignments with the brigade armoury, picked up bags of grenades and threw themselves against fascist batteries.24 The Lincolns were disgusted with what they conceived to be poor tactics used to take a heavily fortified town. One tactical maneuver which never materialized involved sending the anti-tank guns hitched to trucks crashing through the barricades and into Belchite. At this news, says Jack Lawson, "we all wrote our letters."25 But other maneuvers were carried out, and because the town was so well defended, and the buildings were so well built, the infantry carried the brunt of the attack. And afterwards, there were the dead: hundreds of corpses scattered about, decaying in the summer sun. The stench overwhelmed the survivors; they could not walk in the streets without masks. Almost immediately, disposal teams began collecting the bodies for great funeral pyres. The men could not escape the smoke.

Fuentes de Ebro

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Things were not as well organized as they should have been." — B. Boyak. THE SUMMER suddenly came to an end. The Aragon offensive had been launched on August 23 and on September 4, the MackenziePapineau Battalion was alerted to an imminent departure for the front. A parade was held in the plaza at Tarazona on the 5th and the men were addressed by commissars, generals and other dignitaries. For the next two days, the volunteers waited for trucks to bear them to railway depots. During this interval, they came to appreciate once again the devotion of the Spanish people who came to their ranks bearing fresh water, wine and fruit to relieve the nervous and heat-prostrated foreigners. Finally, the Mac-Paps mounted their trucks and set out for Albacete and the railway terminal there. It was raining. Still the people always saluting, calling "Salud! a la frente." The women who wept, the girls who smiled and laughed, the children who cheered—then the woman in black standing alone at the edge of town, her one hand stroking the head of her boy, the other saluting with tightly clenched fist, and the tears streaming down her cheeks.1 For two days and two nights, the train crept north into the Aragon, passing village after village from which poured peasants who cheered and saluted the crowded cars. At one stop, some of the volunteers met a band of fascist prisoners on its way to Valencia. "After Valencia, they want to return, they say, and fight with us against Franco, whom one described by a finger across his throat. 'Obreros Totos? he says of us all. *Bueno\" The train rolled past villages that suddenly jumped out of the "vast brown smudge of a landscape dry with a hard blue and white sky."2 The men on board became tired and soot-streaked and hungry. Not unexpectedly, they became mildly depressed as well, after the long excited wait in Tarazona. All about them, the Mac-Paps

142

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

could see the debris and business of war: camouflaged guns, columns of dusty soldiers, ruined towns and fields. At Azaila, they left the train to join the other battalions of the XVth International Brigade. You get the impression of an army of guerrilla fighters, a real, volunteer people's army. The uniform supply from the War Ministry has not as yet been enough to supply the needs of men —particularly men in the rigours of battle campaign—and the better trousers, sweaters, coats, hats, belts, revolvers, almost anything worn by fascist officers and men, have been appropriated by our men from the dead in battle.3 There was just enough time at Azaila for the new troops to rush about greeting old friends, before the whole brigade marched to Albalate, a day's walk across the hills facing a high, cold wind that blew down from the Pyrenees. Their packs had been sent along by truck, and those belonging to No. One Company were misdirected so the men spent a bad night camped in an olive grove. The Mac-Paps were visibly upset by the appearance of the other battalions. They found the Lincolns despondent over the "needless hardship and disorganization" that had afflicted the assaulting companies at Belchite. Their morale was shot and the Mac-Paps did not help matters with their incessant rifle practice or with their battalion bugler. After one or two rude awakenings, one of the Lincolns stole the bugle and stuck it under the rear wheel of a kitchen truck!4 Finally the men, new and old, were brought together by Robert Merriman who lectured on the lessons learned at Belchite and who replied to the complaints and anxious speculations with commentary that satisfied just about everyone. Two weeks later, a half-dozen American and Canadian volunteers did desert their battalions and attempted to cross the border into France in a stolen ambulance. They were caught and returned to the XVth International Brigade where, unlike any professional army, the fate of the deserters was left to the commissariat and through this office, to the volunteers. The commissars expected to retain the right to a final decision and their attitude is apparent in the direc-

Battle of Fuentes de Ebro

143

tive from Dave Doran, the brigade commissar, to his colleagues at battalion and company level. These men must speak for the death penalty. The rank and file, however, were opposed to execution and, in the end, the six deserters were returned to their units.5 Huesca lay forty miles north of Albalate, in a section of the front which had been relatively inactive since the first summer of the war. After several days of drill and forced marches, the MacPaps moved up to take a third reserve position before Huesca. "Our life on this front was nomadic," by which Ronald Liversedge means that their duties consisted chiefly of observation of enemy lines and shuffling hikes back and forth from ridge to ridge. The only disaster that befell the Canadian battalion at this time was a sudden flood down an arroyo in which the men were camped.6 One Canadian who saw a bit of the countryside around Huesca was Toivo Ryynanen who was assigned to a thirty-man party of muleteers. These men pushed, dragged and cursed thirty-four mules from one battalion to another, carrying water, food, ammunition and the occasional bottle of anis to the men. One night, moving up to the English trenches, Ryynanen and a friend were caught with one mule in No Man's Land by fascist machine-guns. The men took cover and waited for the fire to cease. "Then the bloody mule opened wide its mouth, lifted its head and let out a loud bellow, 'Hee Haw, Hee Haw'." That was as much as the two men could stand. They jumped up and made a dash for the trenches and then waited until the fascists had gone back to sleep before they crawled back to the mule and brought the water kegs in.7 After three weeks in front of Huesca, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion returned to Albalate to rejoin the brigade and become part of the impressive movement of men, trucks and guns bound for a town called Fuentes de Ebro. The convoys sped through tiny hamlets which, only hours before, had been shelled or bombed. The frantic inhabitants were too busy digging out to wave to the men whizzing by. The volunteers continued to be plagued by dysentery, pleurisy and pneumonia; the weather was alternately hot, cold, damp and dry. And there was always the diet. "I don't think there was ever

144

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

an army less fit to go into an attack, but the main worry amongst the boys was that they might be sent back by the doctors without having had a crack at the enemy."8 The XVth International Brigade drew up before Fuentes de Ebro through which it must pass to reach Saragossa. The offensive would be launched on October 13, 1937, and in the waves of infantry crossing the fields and slopes leading into the town would be the men of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The approach to Fuentes lay across a mile of open fields, and the XVth International Brigade, which was assigned to assault the river town, was given no alternative but to move out from the far edge of that plain. So, on October 12, the battalions took their positions in a network of shallow trenches previously occupied by Republican soldiers who, it was rumoured, had become so complacent in their work that they organized soccer games with the fascists in the town! The defending forces within Fuentes itself were units of the 150th Division reinforced by Moors and Foreign Legionnaires from the 13th Division and by a mobile column stationed in nearby Saragossa. The assault was originally scheduled for dawn but a traffic jam developed on the road to the trenches with the result that the convoys were halted for a mile in the rear. Three hours were lost because of the disorder and by the time the Mac-Paps were up, the debarkation zone was under sporadic machine-gun fire. A small panic developed as the brigaders moved from trucks into their trenches but the men were calmed by the appearance of an English officer, probably Malcolm Dunbar, superbly arrayed in uniform and swagger stick, who sent the soldiers swiftly on their way. Even so, the Mac-Paps had taken their first casualties: Douglas Hitchcock of the battalion staff was badly wounded. What was almost as disastrous, the Machine-Gun Company had to drop some of its weapons in the rush to safety. Once settled, the gunners returned for their precious Maxims. The layout was formidable. We were on a plain gradually sloping up to the town almost a mile away. The town was perched on a high ridge, probably two hundred feet, and in front of the town was a deep arroyo. All it needed was water in the arroyo to make this a very very large medieval fortress, and we had

Battle of Fuentes de Ebro

145

almost a mile of open plain to cross to get there. . . . Below the. town on the far side of the arroyo from us was a line of fascist trenches and from the town down to these trenches was a steep communication trench down which were coming troops.9 The Mac-Paps lay directly in front of the town walls, the Lincolns on their right flank with the two battalions meeting on the Quinto road. To the right of the Lincolns stretched the British Battalion with its far flank brought up on the Ebro River. The internationals waited until late morning for an air bombardment that would soften the enemy positions. Finally, nearly fifty bombers flew by, made a turn to the right and came over the town in a single file. The shock of explosions carried over the plain to the brigaders. Now, they must wait for the tanks which were to drive across the field and into Fuentes with the lines of infantry mopping up behind them. Aboard the tanks rode the Spaniards of the 24th Battalion whose job it would be, once the town was forced, to form a column and hit the Nationalists' rear. But the interval between the bombers and tanks stretched to an hour and a half and while the internationals fumed in their trenches, the defenders of Fuentes de Ebro crawled back into their lines, and restored their barricades. At noon the tanks arrived with the 24th Battalion sprawled across their backs, a dozen men per tank. Someone, it was said, had seen this maneuver in a film.10 The tanks crunched across the Canadian positions, breaking down parapets, the frightened passengers even firing into the brigade position. Off the armour went across the field at 30 to 35 kilometres per hour, completely disregarding its orders to pace the walking infantry up to the fascist fortifications. The battalions, left far behind, clambered over the top and ran forward into enfilading fire that was shocking. The immediate destination and the first real cover was a slight rise about half-way out, but few men went that far. Those that weren't cut down by machine-guns found what shelter they could by digging pathetic holes. "The ground in Aragon is hard, and a tin dinner plate a poor shovel, but machine-gun fire is a good persuader."11 Those Mac-Paps who moved to the crest of the rise died there or sprawled in the dust until nightfall when they crept back. The most wretched sight of all was the destruction of the tanks, blowing up before

146

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

the town, and the Spaniards swept off by the dozens. Those vehicles that plunged through to the streets of the town were trapped in the narrow lanes and destroyed by anti-tank batteries. In command of a section of five tanks was William Kardash of Winnipeg who managed to take his force in among the fascist trenches. There he encountered the ravine which halted his progress and brought him under attack by enemy soldiers armed with fire bombs. Kardash's tank was set aflame, and of the three men in the crew, only he survived. Fleeing the ruined vehicle, Kardash was wounded by shrapnel and only escaped because another tank stopped for him.12 The advance of the Mac-Paps was covered by two sections of Nilo Makela's machine-gun company although that fire was generally ineffective because of the great distance. These guns were located on a slight ridge above the Canadian trenches and from that vantage point, Makela watched the battalion go to ground. One gunner crawled on top of the parapets with a Maxim and remained there completely exposed while he gave supporting fire. As the infantry was being driven to the left, a section of machine-guns moved over to give them support. Two members of the squad were struck dead as they attempted to get into position.13 Out on that deadly plain, Corporal Lionel Edwards of No. Three Company thought "how marvelous and wonderful the earth was and why had I been so long in getting acquainted with it."14 Irving Weissman, the only survivor of a thirteen-man section, found himself near Commissar Joseph Dallet who walked along, pipe in mouth, exhorting his men forward; but Dallet almost immediately ran into a machine-gun burst that tore him apart.15 George Watt was shot as he stopped to aid an injured friend, but he managed to crawl away.16 One of the most inspiring sights on the battlegrounds was two Mac-Pap first aid men, James Black and James Rose of No. One Company who moved out with the first waves, stopping to attend the wounded, dragging men into shell holes. Again and again, through the day and far into the night, Black and Rose dared the fire to save lives.17 By four o'clock, there was no question that the assault had

Battle of Fuentes de Ebro

147

failed. Corpses littered the way toward the town; the explosions of tanks could still be heard over the machine-gun bursts. Living and dead lay under the sweeping fire until evening when the survivors began to straggle back. The battalion commander, Robert Thompson, was near collapse from a prolonged fever; the commissar was dead; one company commander, Izzie Schrenzel, had been fatally wounded when he jumped on the parapet of his trench to calm a section of Spanish youths who cowered before the enemy fire; another, Bill Neure, was dying of wounds; and a third company commander, Joseph Dougher, was so badly injured that he left active service.18 Those men who had been driven to the left found cover in an abandoned trench from where they witnessed the hopelessness of the attack. The American and English battalions had fared no better, and were now staggering back to their trenches. Jack Reid, an observer with the English, ran out into the plain despite his discovery of anti-tank guns dug in before his battalion.19 Hugh McGregor, another Canadian with the English, moved back and forth through the afternoon 400 metres out on the field distributing ammunition.20 But to no avail. That evening Saul Wellman buried his friend, Dallet, and then assumed his place as battalion commissar. Lionel Edwards crept about the darkened fields looking for French-Canadian Lauradin Roy who had set out jauntily that afternoon wearing a helmet which he had carefully caked with white mud. Edwards saw moonlight glinting off the helmet and found his friend shot through the head.21 Gradually, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion came out of the shock of its first charge. The men had done all they could but circumstances beyond their control had ruined any chance of victory. Now, the battalion dug in several hundred metres in front of their old trenches. Those still on their feet prowled about picking up the wounded. Several squads were organized to bring in the few tanks that had been abandoned nearby. Ronald Liversedge went along with one group of four Austrian mechanics and another rifleman. While the mechanics crawled about a tank, Liversedge lay out in front listening to the approaching sounds of a Moorish patrol. The tank could not be saved, but before the

148

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

men could fall back, the Moors were up and Liversedge had to scatter them.22 By the time Liversedge's detail found its way back to the new line, the battalion kitchens had devised a hot meal of rice and beans, though they had no water with them. As the men ate, they watched Spanish sappers arrive to construct fresh trenches. These sappers were convicts who had been released from prison to help with the war effort. They found their vocation in this trench construction. "They came up at nights and left before dawn, and they worked always under fire, and they always had casualties and they had all my admiration."23 The XVth Brigade remained in these positions for two weeks, taking casualties from sniper and artillery fire, unable to mount another attack on the town. One hundred and fifty men had died on the first day; the Canadian battalion lost 60 dead and nearly 200 wounded, most of these in the first hour of the march across the plain.24 But if the first day was the worst, those that followed were no less memorable for their tedium punctuated occasionally by desperate moments. One detail from the Mac-Paps occupied two small trenches on the inner slope of the ravine directly under the fascist lines. These trenches were scarcely two feet deep. The five men had one tin dinner plate for digging but were so exhausted that they gave up all efforts for improvement. The only way we could occupy that bit of trench was by laying flat with our heads at opposite ends and one of us with our legs on top of the others. That was the beginning of the longest day of my life.25 The men endured a whole day of shelling and aerial attacks. By dusk, Our cramped position and our terrible thirst was becoming an agony, and I was wondering what we could do if the fascists counter-attacked, not having room to set up the gun. After a while, we decided to take turns with the plate, scooping some dirt from beneath us and heaving it out in front. Every time we tried it, the fascists opened up with a machine gun knocking sandy dirt down upon us, and I was afraid for the gun as I could not keep the sand off it, and that it would not fire with sand in the mechanism. . . . It was a terrible ordeal, no food,

jFrom the card file kept by the Friends ;of the MackenziePapineau Battalion

(above) The journey over (below)

Canadians from the Lincoln and Washington Battalions, June, 1937

(above)

The Canadian Blood Transfusion Unit: Hazen Sise, Norman Bethune ancUdknning Sorensen, with three members of the Socorro Rojo (below)

Bethune, assisted by Sorensen, performing a transfusion

(left)

SaulWeilman

(above}

Frank Rogers

In the trenches at Teruel

(ofottf) The Mac-Pap soccer team. Summer, 1938

(Mew) Ferry Hilton, centre, and the Mac-Pap field kitchen

(left)

Saul Well man and Edward C. Smith

(below) Members of the machine-gun company. Makela is second from right.

A hospital station at Hoyo de Manzanares during the battle of Brunete. Edward C. Smith is on the stretcher.

Battle of Fuentes de Ebro

149

and worse, no water. We were steadily dehydrating and already the sweet acrid sickly stench of human dead was thick on the atmosphere. It doesn't take long in hot weather.26 With darkness, the squad was able to crawl back over the crest and rejoin the battalion. Liversedge, one of the five men, could barely stand on his feet; he was suffering severe stomach cramps, the first signs of a prolonged bout with pleurisy. On October 17, the Spanish Vlth Brigade came up on the right and drove out into the plain in a successful effort to recover some of the abandoned tanks. From then on until the 23rd, the front settled down. The men were able to gain a measure of satisfaction out of this stalemate, apparently. A French Canadian, R. Martineau, fondly recalls the "entertainments": grimy soldiers huddled two and three to a hole singing folk songs accompanied by Fred Mattersdorfer on his guitar; the same men who had plunged into a wall of machine-gun bullets now listened bug-eyed to ghost stories. But they took their greatest satisfaction from counting the dud shells that bounced about them: four out of five were duds, it was claimed. But the fifth burst, and men still went down. And there was the proverbial nonchalant Mac-Pap who was caught by the fifth shell while visiting the latrine. "So it was going, grim duty and grandest time mixing in one to the other. . . ,"27 The survivors of the battle recall all sorts of strange trivial details. Larry Cane, an American rifleman in No. One Company of the Mac-Paps, can verify that Fuentes was exactly 23 kilometres from Saragossa because ". . . for three days, I sniped at all movement in and out of a house at the juncture of the roads that ran from Codo and Puebla de Alberton to Fuentes de Ebro, and the house had the legend 'I km. Fuentes, 23 kms. Saragossa' painted on a pastel blue wall."28 B. Boyak, a young Canadian from the officer's training school in Tarazona, came up as a replacement on October 17. He found that the main topic of discussion among the Mac-Paps was the death of Joe Dallet. "The general opinion was that Joe had guts."29 So after all, and perhaps unnecessarily, Dallet proved that he was worthy.

150

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

There was one other topic of conversation which Boyak does not mention: the disaster of October 13. The men of the XVth Brigade do not seem to have been as angry as they appeared after the slaughter at Belchite but there was little doubt in their minds that the charge on Fuentes should never have been organized in the first place. After all, even the most cursory observations revealed the town was heavily defended. It took little imagination or experience in war to appreciate the disadvantage of having to cross a mile of open ground under intense fire. And then, to insist on that crossing when the element of surprise has been thrown away by criminally poor coordination! The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was as badly hit as any battalion and the miracle is that the unit was not completely demoralized after such a debacle on its first operation in the field. Yet, the men came through. Their reluctance to panic is vividly demonstrated by the ordeal of the indefatigable Ron Liversedge. On the fifth day, Liversedge was evacuated with pleurisy and returned to Quinto in an ambulance driven by J. Block of Winnipeg, "who put his foot down and kept it right there, as we were under fire. .. . Before I felt the shock of the explosions, I saw the ground rising up behind us and following us. The shock wave from the last stick of bombs lifted the ambulance off the ground, and when it came down, the jar threw the two of us who were sitting at the back into the ditch. The stretchers were luckily tied into their frames. Block helped us into the ambulance and we went to Quinto."30

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"It is my opinion that, as communists, we have a lot of things to catch up on."—Pete Nielson THE MAC-PAPS did not know why the attack on Fuentes de Ebro had to fail; rather, they did not have an official explanation although rumours abounded. However, before the XVth International Brigade departed the Aragon that autumn, its commissars joined other 5th Corps officers at a meeting in Lecera called by the chief commissar of the Army of the East. The subject of the conference was the debacle at Fuentes. Statements varied from "an emotional oration" on the losses of the Canadian battalion given by Saul Wellman, the Mac-Paps' new commissar, to "some sort of political diatribe" delivered by Dave Doran, successor to Steve Nelson as XVth International Brigade political officer. Doran's speech became so heated that he was asked to leave the rostrum. One published source states that the failure of the assault was laid to "sabotage" of the tank commander.1 Thirty years later, Saul Wellman recalls that the blame was put on "Tuckashevsky officers" in the brigade, i.e. Russian advisors who, loyal to the Soviet marshall whose life and career were on trial at Moscow, had undermined the whole campaign.2 The most plausible explanation is that the men who dreamed up the attack across a mile of open terrain were fools who expected more of their soldiers than they had any right to do. Around November 1, the XVth International Brigade withdrew from the Aragon front and moved to the countryside east of Madrid, where it went into reserve. Coincident with this respite came the news that the Republican government had published a decree which brought the International Brigades into the Spanish Army. While Prieto, the defense minister, had prepared the announcement in late September, it did not receive wide circulation until The Volunteer for Liberty, the newspaper of the brigades, carried the full text in November. Prieto stated that the International Brigades "are formed as units of the Spanish Army," that no restrictions were to be placed on the employment of these units, that they were to be subject to the Code of Military Justice

152

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

and to Army Statutes, that the brigaders would wear the same uniform as regulars except for their own unique emblem, that Albacete would continue as the headquarters of the International Brigades, that any veteran of a year's service in Spain was eligible for Spanish citizenship, that all members of the brigades were in the war for the duration, that Spanish soldiers would be assigned to the brigades, that the defense ministry and the brigades would share equally in the filling of commissioned and non-commissioned officer posts.3 An interesting and important definition was given by Prime Minister Negrin to a group of correspondents shortly before the Fuentes campaign.4 Negrin agreed that the international brigades were composed of foreigners "who have come to Spain to defend an ideal." But let no one misunderstand the status of the brigades with respect to the Republican government and its army. The brigades "as a body, as an entity, are absolutely Spanish, and are absolutely subordinate to the Government of the Republic." Replying to Italian charges that the Republicans opposed removal of internationals from its army, Negrin asserted that because the internationals were truly volunteers, as contrasted with German and Italian contingents fighting with Franco, "consequently, the Republican volunteer forces can be withdrawn from our country when the Government sees fit, and this will be the case on the day when we are certain of reciprocity." Such recognition confirmed the fact that the internationals were essentially regulars and that, consequently, they must conduct themselves as though they were members of a professional army. Inevitably, this meant close attention to discipline. If such was not made explicit by the minister, an editorial in a December issue of The Volunteer for Liberty left no doubt. Whereas even recently the internationals had been just as ready to "discuss the merits of an order instead of jumping to obey it," from now on they must understand that such discussion is not necessary and certainly not opportune. Resentment of authority had become a habit because the authority in the past had so often been corrupt. Now, "the authority under which [the internationals] served is on [their] own side." Once again the matter of discipline seemed to be epitomized in

Rest and Recuperation

153

the saluting of officers. The Volunteer reminded its readers that rank came about through "merit and service alone" and that any man could succeed to a commission. Saluting expedited the delivery and obedience of orders. Only in such an army as this could the following explanation make sense. The soldier who is reluctant to salute is reluctant to obey; his reluctance means that his mind is occupied with the thought that he is "as good a soldier" as his officer, and if that is the case, he is likely to consider his own decisions as good as those he receives.5 This renewed call for better, more conscientious discipline may have been prompted, in part, by the introduction of the international brigades to two new tasks. Luigi Longo, the commissarinspector of the brigades, declared during this interval that the volunteers must proceed to the military and political training of new recruits in their units. At the same time, they must develop increased numbers of Spanish cadres to assist in the instruction of the Spanish soldiers now being inducted into the brigades in greater numbers than ever before. The International Brigades more and more would become integrated units; eventually, the Spanish soldiers would have to carry the burden of the war, so now they must begin their preparation at the side of veteran combat troops.6 With such provisos in mind, the men of the XVth International Brigade gathered in small towns near Madrid where, for the next six weeks, they underwent intensive drill, received new recruits and new officers and took well-earned furloughs in the capital. The Mac-Paps found their billet in an ancient castle called Pezuela de las Torres on the Madrid highway near Ambite. A detachment of Finns from the Xlth International Brigade helped fill in the missing places in the ranks; otherwise, replacements came up the usual route from Tarazona. The Canadian battalion had been blooded at Fuentes and if its members were not yet as salty as the older Lincolns, still they could swagger a bit now. In a post-war letter to his former commander, Maurice Constant of the brigade reconnaissance section, R. Martineau of Montreal wrote: "Do you remember this flour mill where we stayed at

154

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Ambite; the pain you were giving yourself to teach us something . . . the banquet we had there on the visit of some big shot from Division Headquarters, the moving picture of Charlie Chaplin so old that we kept on laughing at our renewed youth . . . ?"7 During this time, Perry Hilton, the Mac-Pap chief cook, began to endear himself to the battalion. "Squeaky" Brown, newly transferred from the Lincolns, washed his clothes in one of Hilton's coffee cauldrons and forgot to remove a pair of socks. The next day, the men discovered the socks in their coffee and came crying to poor Hilton: "By God, this is a fightin' man's coffee!"8 When Hilton had accepted the assignment to the kitchen, Robert Merriman had called him over and asked him what rations he had at his disposal. Hilton said, "Beans, rice and water. And when the beans give out, we'll go on rice and water, and when the rice gives out, we'll go on water." Merriman continued to call Hilton in every day for the next week, putting the same question to the cook, receiving the same reply. Merriman finally got the point and scrounged more appetizing food for the indignant Canadian: bully beef.9 The Mac-Paps were one campaign old and, though the men could not know it, they would take part in four more gruelling battles within the next year. Still, that one assault on Fuentes de Ebro taught the volunteers a great deal about what they could do under fire and about how they might react to battle. What they still had to learn was the extent to which men could condition themselves to the acceptance of terror and wounds and death. Not long after the American volunteers returned from Spain, a Yale University research team persuaded some three hundred of them to answer a series of questions devised to measure the impact of battle stress upon soldiers. That study reflects, in a graphic way, the ordeal of the volunteers. Some of its conclusions are introduced at this point, both to "commemorate" the first anniversary of the Americans' appearance in Spain and to indicate, with intended grimness, the character of the struggles yet to come.10 The typical informant was "a rifleman, non-commissioned, poorly trained by American Army standards, wounded." Though they by no means resembled a cross-section of the populace of

Rest and Recuperation

155

the United States, they were experienced soldiers; thus, they were an index of opinion that carried considerable validity. Particularly, these volunteers "had in common the belief that by volunteering, they were fighting for democracy." Here, then, is what the MacPaps were to learn. Fear in battle is normal, and a man must not be ashamed of his fear. Panic is not unexpected: nearly two-thirds of the respondents admitted that they "lost their heads for a moment, couldn't control themselves and were useless as soldiers for a little while." The important thing was that fear did not necessarily inhibit movement in battle. As the men who waited to advance on Fuentes could testify, fear is more often experienced before battle than during or even after. "When you lay around waiting for something to happen, you may worry." The soldier who wondered at a "roaring or ringing sensation in his ears" during combat would be relieved to know that he was not alone, although most men signalled their fear with pounding hearts, muscular tension and the proverbial sinking feeling in the stomach. Less than one man in two hundred fainted. "Despite the propaganda of childhood," few men despaired of being shot through the heart. Those wounds most dreaded (because most often sustained, perhaps) were taken in the stomach, eyes, brain, genitals, limbs, face and torso, in that order. And the weapons that caused such havoc and that were most widely feared were bombs, mortar and artillery shells. As months of combat drifted by, the hardened veteran became less fearful, sometimes to the extent of becoming careless. The decrease in fear quite naturally came from the growth of confidence. On the other hand, men could develop specific fears which would never leave them; they were witnesses to "all those different ways of getting killed and maimed," they reckoned their own percentages for survival and soon learned that their chances of survival diminished with every battle. Something of both the character of the American volunteers and the nature of the war in which they fought can be inferred from the suggestions for treatment of panic-stricken soldiers. Seventy per cent of the respondents believed that the chronic deserter should be shot; but 70 per cent also advised that if a respected

156

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

veteran broke down, he should be removed from the lines; only 3 per cent recommended execution in this case. The strange compassion of experienced soldiers revealed itself in the treatment of green men who refused to go into battle: 16 per cent for removal from the lines; 38 per cent for therapy from his own squad; 12 per cent for leaving the man alone; 15 per cent for kidding him along; 17 per cent for shaming him; 25 per cent for making him face the action; 8 per cent for execution. Certainly the principal medicine for combatting fear in battle was personal identification with the war aims of one's army. It goes without saying that few soldiers in modern warfare have held such powerful convictions about the cause for which they struggled. The Lincolns quite obviously derived further encouragement from the knowledge that they were shock troops and that they were members of a unique, celebrated military unit. Despite the concern of the brigade commissariat for saluting and other manifestations of discipline, ninety per cent of the Americans interviewed in this study accepted that discipline, recognizing that it made them better soldiers. One other factor in the high morale of these soldiers was the knowledge that the presence of each man in Spain was somewhere, somehow a matter of record. The story of the Canadian cadre office at Albacete is worth telling here, for the men who operated that office were worth their weight in gold in so far as they sought to identify and locate every Canadian in Spain. ~" About the time the Mac-Paps left Tarazona for the Aragon front, Jack Lawson was detached from the British anti-tank battery and directed to Albacete where he was to establish the Canadian Servicio de Cadres, "Canada in Spain," as his colleague, Ronald Liversedge, called the office. Through that autumn, Lawson laboured to compile records of Canadian volunteers, to locate each Canadian in Spain and to make that man's address known to the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. In other words, the cadre office became a sort of central personnel bureau. Occasionally, Lawson's files would be examined by one or another officer interested in locating a man with a special skill or aptitude. Lawson also cooperated with Bob Kerr in the assignment of Canadian volunteers to the Mac-Paps.11

Rest and Recuperation

157

The soldier at war expects to face death. Ordinarily, he will go into battle "comforted" by the fact that his superiors know he is there. But it has always been the unfortunate fate of replacements, the men who join a unit after it has been formed and trained, after it has been blooded, that he might die before his presence has been felt or even acknowledged. How many replacements have been killed before their squad leaders learned their names? This tragedy can occur in even the most sophisticated of armies. The international volunteers in Spain confronted a particularly harrowing variation of this dilemma. Many bore aliases the whole time they were in Spain, so that when they died even their friends in the brigade could not know who had really been at their side. Company and battalion records were not always maintained with much exactness, so that it was possible for a man to die in battle in Spain without his name ever having been marked down anywhere. This was the loneliest death imaginable and it came to many volunteers. Jack Lawson was joined in December, 1937 by Ronald Liversedge, who had recovered from pleurisy, and the two men shivered through the second winter of war in their unheated, ceramic-tiled cadre office. They could, however, take some comfort in the fact that they had identified and located over one thousand Canadians in Spain. Diligent inquiry after every clue and the presence of several hundred passports turned in at Albacete enabled the pair to compile a roster that would have done justice to any clerk in a regular army. The two veterans had one interesting advantage: they recognized faces among the passport photographs: chums from the relief camps and the Trek whom they had known as Red or Salty or Frenchy but seldom by their real names. Where were the Canadians? There were some two dozen international battalions, plus innumerable others in the Spanish army. Add to these artillery batteries, medical units, transportation squadrons, quartermaster sections. Then consider the informal way in which a man might be assigned to an organization and later transferred from one detachment to another. Canadians were scattered throughout the Republican forces. Yet, Lawson and Liversedge persevered in providing an invaluable service. The tragedy is that all their records were destroyed when Albacete

158

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

fell to the fascists during the chaos of the last days of war. One important duty passed on to the Canadian cadre office was the circulation of gift parcels sent by the Friends to the Canadian volunteers or to the Spanish people. One such shipment of forty pounds of candy for Spanish children was dispersed in Albacete during a ceremony attended by the mayor and his staff, the press, representatives of political parties and "everybody else who had received information on the grapevine." Such ceremonies were thrilling but exhausting for Jack Lawson, who made speech after speech in English and then again in "LB. Spanish." Shortly after Lawson departed Spain in January, 1938, Liversedge received word that a Christmas shipment had arrived for the Canadians: fifteen huge boxes filled with hundreds of parcels individually addressed. The cadre office had never had any permanent means of transportation and had only one wounded Spanish soldier as an assistant. The Canadians were scattered all over Spain; the war inhibited movement to the various fronts. How to distribute each parcel to each designated man? Liversedge considered ripping off the labels and passing the packages around, but he discovered that in removing the labels he broke open the wrapping. There was apparently nothing to do but track down every Canadian and give him his Christmas gift, despite the fact that each parcel contained the same articles—tobacco, gloves, candy, gum, socks. The frustration grew when Liversedge circulated the gifts among the men who happened to be in training in Tarazona. First, he had to open all fifteen cases, arrange all the packages on the floor of a small warehouse, labour through lists of names given by the XVth International Brigade as well as his own office, and check names against labels. In this way, over ten days, Liversedge separated half the shipment and sent it off. Meanwhile, the news of the cases flew about the region, and interested, amused and jealous spectators began to gather around the warehouse, eyeing the activity with great care. Finally, Liversedge worked his way down to two hundred parcels which he packed into three cartons and carried by truck to the cadre office. Among the gifts was a separate shipment of fifty thousand cigarettes donated by the Hungarian Workers Association of Van-

Rest and Recuperation

159

couver. Upon Liversedge's return to his office, he was besieged by an angry officer from the Hungarian battalion who insisted that the cigarettes be turned over to his unit! No wonder the cadre officer was "heartily sick and tired of the parcels." It may have been this consignment of cigarettes which provided Saul Wellman, the Mac-Pap commissar, with his most embarrassing moment in Spain. Wellman approached Luigi Longo, one of the directors of the Albacete base, to plead that the cigarettes be turned over to his battalion. His men, he argued, were suffering from sore throats because they had to smoke cheap French brands. Longo replied, "And do you think a Pole or a Hungarian has a tougher throat?" And so Wellman slunk away carrying his unit's small ration.12 As the autumn of 1937 passed, the Mac-Paps recuperated from the devastation at Fuentes de Ebro under the leadership of a new commander, a new commissar and three new company commanders, not to mention a new brigade commissar. The latter figure, Dave Doran, is probably a good example of the fact that while most men in the brigade subscribed to the principle of egalitarianism, there emerged those individuals in positions of high rank who seemed distinctly at odds with the social philosophy generally espoused. One version of Doran's career in Spain proposes that he was one of the true luminaries among the North American detachments, a leader of great skill and insight. This image is due, possibly, to the efforts of Republican and international brigade publicists to highlight all the principal officers, to exalt such men so that the world, not to say the volunteers, would understand that the war in Spain was being waged by heroes. If this is propaganda, then so be it. However, by other accounts Doran was, after all, only a man.18 It is alleged that his political credentials were not unusual; he had engaged in Communist Party organizational work in the United States, but then so had many others. His prowess as a military leader was only average. Most important, his rapport with his men was slight and uncomfortable. Yet Doran was an effective bureaucrat and a strict disciplinarian, and such qualities were important to the direction of the XVth International Brigade as it approached the first anniversary of its formation. Now it was a

160

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

unit of the Spanish Army, now it was a professional force. Doran belonged to that small group of volunteer leaders from North America who must forever remain enigmas. Joseph Dallet was such a man, complex, remote, if well meaning. Another was Edward C. Smith who, in early November, succeeded an ailing Robert Thompson as commander of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. It is to Smith's credit (and luck) that he saw the longest service as a battalion commander of any of the many men who led the British and American units. Smith left his post near the end of the Retreats in March, 1938, but returned to direct the MacPaps in their preparation for the assault across the Ebro River in July. He was wounded early in that offensive and never again went into battle. Smith was known to have had some professional training as a soldier in the years before Spain. The Book of the XVth International Brigade states incorrectly that he was a veteran of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry.14 Some of the men who fought with him understood that he had served in South America as a mercenary soldier. Smith had been a company commander in the Washingtons and took his first wound at Brunete when a bullet exploded off his rifle and into his hand and arm. Thereafter, his assignments until his arrival as leader of the Mac-Paps are vague. He was not at Quinto or Belchite, it seems, nor was he at Fuentes de Ebro. The likelihood is that, like so many other officers, his wound kept him in hospital through the summer, and thereafter he was posted to Albacete as a staff officer. Smith, therefore, was relatively unknown to the Canadian battalion when he took command. A man in his early thirties, Smith was of medium height, chunky of physique, with a round, florid face. He wore a moustache and thick, steel-rimmed glasses. His features were small and delicate. "He looked," recalls one veteran, "like a beefy college professor in uniform."15 Prior to his departure for Spain, the Canadian had been a journalist in Toronto. This evidence of intellectualism joined with his considerable military experience probably gained for him the command of a battalion. While there were other leaders with much the same background, Smith seems to have been genuinely torn

Rest and Recuperation

161

between his aptitude as a military man and his concern for the welfare of the progressive movement. This strain became evident early in his career with the Mac-Paps in his dealings with his commissar Saul Wellman. Wellman was, in so many ways, the antithesis of Smith. Whereas Smith was aloof, often withdrawn, Wellman was distinctly at home with the sort of men he led; he had been a truck driver in the United States. Whereas Smith was a trained soldier, Wellman had no such experience. Though both men were Marxists, Wellman's devotion to the theory and practice of that philosophy was absolute. Smith seems to have resented the intrusion of the political officer in military operations even though he must have understood the rationale for such intrusion. Wellman was a natural soldier, brave as a lion, and quite willing to admit his errors or lack of experience. Smith's pride, for such may have been the source of his inscrutable nature, too often inhibited candour when candour would have resolved differences of opinion. On one occasion, however, Smith spoke to an associate with painful honesty, revealing his anxieties about his performance. The witness was Maurice Constant who, as chief of brigade scouts, was in regular contact with the battalion officers. On one such mission, sometime after the withdrawal from Teruel, Smith admitted to Constant that he believed he was better suited to lead a company than a battalion.16 Nonetheless, for all his complexities of personality, Smith was a competent, courageous officer. At Teruel he organized his headquarters staff into a defence line which threw back a fascist cavalry charge. At Seguro de los Banos he directed a battalion sweep that was a classic of its kind. During the first stages of the Retreats, he worked himself into a state of exhaustion akin to shock in his efforts to bring his men through. On December 11, 1937, the XVth International Brigade passed through Albacete on its way to that country which lay between Belchite and Barcelona, the Ebro basin. Here, in a cluster of small villages, the battalions waited in reserve while divisions of the Spanish Army moved on Teruel in an effort to dissuade by force the threatened fascist offensive on Madrid. There was a good chance that the XVth International Brigade might not have to join

162

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

in the attack, but few men really expected to escape a winter campaign. In the meantime, the brigaders celebrated Christmas with parties among the units and with the Spanish citizens. The Mac-Paps all got drunk and were promptly ordered out on a forced march back to their area. And in one of the villages, Mas de las Matas, as Christmas came, Gus Wildegan got his paper to get out of the country and the same day he received a big box of gifts from home so it happened that he didn't know what to do, to keep going away or to stay there to share all this with the boys, and we cheered him and took everything he gave us, eating cake, smoking, and chewing gum for the first time in quite a while.17

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"I forget some of the names, but the faces are all very clear before me now." — Lionel Edwards

IT is ONE THING to launch an offensive; it is another thing altogether to launch an offensive in order to prevent your enemy from launching his. No one in the Republican government doubted that Franco would move on Madrid before the end of 1937; if sixteen Nationalist divisions could break past the Guadarrama Mountains, Madrid would surely fall and the war, just as surely, would end. On December 15, two Republican armies totalling one hundred thousand men converged on the city of Teruel in an effort to divert those sixteen divisions from Madrid and to force a counteroffensive that would take place on ground of the government's choice. As in the Brunete campaign, the Republicans sought to fix the place and date of battle. They sought, as well, to make the Teruel attack a Spanish affair; no international troops were involved at the outset. The assault opened on December 15, 1937, and within a week the Republicans had pushed through and around Teruel and had arrived at a line which was anchored at Rubiales on the south and Concud on the north. Franco, whose own offensive on Madrid was to have been opened a day or two later, finally brought his divisions around on the night of the 28-29. Forty-eight hours later, the Republican center had withdrawn into Teruel itself. There, in mid-January, the XVth International Brigade returned to war. The brigade left Mas de las Matas on the morning of December 31, foregoing as a result a New Year's party. For the next nine hours, the trucks skidded perilously along slippery mountain roads which took a dreadful toll in vehicles plunging into the valleys below. Finally, in the evening, the convoy halted at Argente, some forty kilometres north of Teruel. Shortly, the battalions deployed in adjacent villages so that their "line" afforded some protection against assaults directed at the Teruel-Rudilla highway east-

Teruel

Battle of Teruel

165

ward. Loss of this road would deprive the Republicans of a vital route of supply to the north. The Mac-Paps remained in Argente, or what was left of it. The Lincolns, the British and the 24th Battalion went on to Cuevas Labradas, south of Argente and east of the Sierra Palomera, a ridge known to the men as the "Heights of Celades." For ten days the XVth International Brigade lay in the open, the appalling cold sapping all vitality and inhibiting the construction of fortifications. One veteran, Bill Beeching, became so numbed by the exposure in his section of trench that he had to be lifted out of the position by friends. Beyond patrol activity, the brigade took part in no action although the Lincolns did witness the successful destruction by Spanish brigades of a series of fascist attacks that emanated from the stronghold at Celades. According to Frank Bobby, a rifleman in No. One Company, the Republican battalions went into the fracas yelling "Cowards!" at the international battalions who were kept in reserve.1 Toward the end of this period, the Mac-Paps joined the rest of the brigade to form a secondary line of defense behind the Republicans. Unlike the Lincolns who had found shelter in a decrepit, stinking railroad tunnel, the Canadians slept in the snow. Lionel Edwards, soon to become commander of No. Three Company, tells of one Mac-Pap patrol sent out to scout an Italian outpost guarding a larger position against which Edwards' company might have to hurl itself. Led by an American who wore earrings, the patrol crawled to within thirty feet of the enemy barbed wire. Finding the area quiet, the men prepared to set off a flare which would signal the charge. But, simultaneously, the flare failed to ignite and a dog wandered in among the prostrate figures. Someone hurriedly stuffed a scrap of food in the animal's mouth, and the party withdrew.2 On another night, Smith and Makela proposed to crawl to the outskirts of Celades, a journey which would take them through the fascist lines. The same trip had already been accomplished by a Lincoln patrol, but on this occasion the Canadians were spotted outside the barbed wire and barely escaped beneath a furious uproar of machine guns.

166

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Not everyone got away. Yorky Burton of Vancouver strayed into enemy hands while laying a telephone line and eventually was executed. Burton was remembered for having hiked into northern British Columbia on snowshoes to deliver the first copies of The Worker seen in that region. At least two other Mac-Paps met similar fates near Teruel.3 In the Lincoln Battalion, an American named Frank Rogers passed the days leading a small squad on scouting missions which often took them ten miles behind the fascist positions. A few months later, Rogers became the Mac-Pap commissar, a post which he held until the end of the war.4 Meanwhile, Franco's counter-offensive raged on. The Xlth International Brigade, the Thaelmanns, had arrived in Teruel as the XVth was digging in around Cuevas Labradas. After ten days of brutal pounding, the Germans were relieved by the Englishspeaking brigade. The positions manned by the XVth for the next two weeks play such an important part in the total comprehension of the Teruel campaign that a careful description is warranted. Teruel rests at the head of a sierra salient. The valley that flows north from the city and the ridges just beyond the city's limits became the battlefield for the brigade. Directly west of Teruel lay a seventy-foot-high ridge called La Muela. Immediately north was a hill called Santa Barbara, atop which rested the city cemetery. Two miles northeast of Santa Barbara was another hill, El Muleton. The valley floor beneath these points was shaped by much smaller hills, knolls in fact. A dry river bed ran north and south up the middle of the valley, and a railroad ran parallel to it. In the middle of the night of January 14-15, the battalions slipped into position. The Lincolns were lodged among the shattered buildings on the outskirts of the city itself. Some of the sections found quarters in an insane asylum operated by Dominicans. (The Lincolns confiscated clothing from Teruel shops, vying with one another in outrageous battledress: silver fox furs, opera hats, cloaks. Neil Wesson, later a Mac-Pap, killed a sniper who was firing on the Lincoln command post, found the dead man clad in a priest's robe, and appropriated the garment for his own use.)5 The British manned a thousand-metre line atop Santa Barbara so that they looked down on the valley and across to

Battle of Teruel

167

the fascists. The 24th Battalion lay along the northern slope of this same elevation. The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion had the dubious honour of depositing itself among the knolls on the valley floor. Nilo Makela's No. One Company (he had been moved from the Machine-Gun Company but would, in the spring, return to that command) scaled the cliffs of La Muela and settled on the very edge with its back to the valley. No. Two Company led by Richardo Diaz, a Spaniard, moved to Makela's right flank, but on the valley floor, taking advantage of a barranca for its cover. No. Three Company, led now by Lionel Edwards, dug in beyond Diaz so that its front faced north-west. The Machine-Gun Company, led by an American named Jack Thomas, was dispersed among the rifle companies. Nels Madsen, for instance, set up his weapon in a shoe factory west of the city, which placed him in support of Makela's men. The Mac-Pap position was secured on the far right by a brigade of Spanish marines. Two days after the Canadians settled in, the onslaught came. On January 17, sixty thousand soldiers of Aranda's Corps of Galicia, supported by six hundred cannon, struck along a front extending from Celades to Teruel. El Muleton, where the Thaelmann now waited, took the brunt of the initial attack in the Teruel sector. The Canadians, threatened by the First Navarrese Division, were spared only because the British anti-tank battery atop Santa Barbara fired over the heads of the Mac-Paps and broke up the fascist trenches. The Germans held through the afternoon, until the Nationalist brigades which had set upon them fell back, regrouped and started for the marineros and Edwards' company. Again the British, firing over friendly positions, hurled back three successive waves of infantry. The Canadians in No. Three Company, needless to say, ripped into the fascists with pointblank fire. There then occurred what the New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews called "the story of stories."6 Despite the great losses suffered from the marineros and the Mac-Paps, the fascists apparently came to believe that these forces had withdrawn. In hopes of driving around the Canadian rear and through to the very limits of the city, two squadrons of Moorish cavalry swept past El Muleton and in between the Cana-

168

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

dians and the British atop Santa Barbara. Paced by a rolling artillery barrage, the cavalry cleared El Muleton and rushed directly towards the knoll which shielded Smith's headquarters detachment. The Mac-Pap command post was situated in a small railroad tunnel and comprised a handful of cartographers, transmissions people, runners, the battalion clerk, Milton Cohen, the adjutant, Harry Schoenburg, and Smith himself. The commander, in his first test as leader, reacted instantly. Gathering his small staff about him and manning the three heavy machine-guns at his disposal, Smith met the Moors head on. Men and horses wheeled and collapsed amid the banners which they had carried in with them. Desperate to avoid the fire, the survivors turned and fled out of the valley. But as they clattered off, they ran into the machine-guns of the British and the Mac-Pap third company. The next day, January 18, El Muleton fell. The Germans, battered by artillery and infantry assault, lacking any support from their own side, simply could not withstand such cruelty. By evening, the hill was cleared and the remnants of a superb brigade had joined the British on Santa Barbara. This day, the Canadians suffered only desultory shelling while their ranks were being reinforced by sections of the brigade machine-gun company and by Lincoln riflemen. But on the 19th, the fascists once again took to the valley floor. The immediate approach to Teruel from the north was guarded by three small chalk knolls; across these lay the marineros and Edwards' company. Through that long day, these positions were pounded by hundreds of shells which literally reduced the heights of the knolls. Edwards managed to extend his right flank further up into the valley, where he took over still another small hill with thirty men and four machine-guns. After two days of hellish combat, all four guns were wrecked and only Edwards and five others remained on their feet. This is Edwards' description: The end had to come. Mechanized might and overpowering numbers finally told. Our machine-guns were all blown to pieces, we were under fire from nearly every side, and no more reinforcements could reach us as the hill to our right had been taken. There was only a handful of us left and our only arms

Battle of Teruel

169

were rifles. We had to make a decision. It was time for retreat. Carrying a wounded man, five of us, the last of the living, stumbled out to make a run of it. One of us was killed and with him the wounded man. We four finally made it. We took up a position well to the rear of the hill and waited for the enemy to take over, but we waited a long time. He was taking no chance that some of us might still be there. But he occupied the hill at last and with that, ended the defense of outer Teruel.7 The same afternoon that Edwards' position was given up, some forty young Spaniards in No. Two Company, persuaded by cries from the fascists that they were surrounded, broke and ran out of their trenches and into the enemy's hands. Riflemen in Makela's company nearby fired on them but to no avail. The only excuse for such an act was that the soldiers, most of them still boys and new to the war, simply panicked after two of their officers had been killed and all communication to the outside destroyed. However, Smith quickly filled the gap with the sturdy members of his headquarters staff.8 During Edwards* fight, the British had rushed three infantry companies down from Santa Barbara to shore up the Canadian line. One company, the Major Attlees, had been caught in hastily prepared trenches and were badly mauled by artillery. Finally the British moved into a blockhouse nearby, but in so doing left Edwards' flank exposed. The Mac-Pap third company, already a shambles, had no choice but to withdraw from its original positions which it had fought so bravely to maintain. However, thereafter the fighting died away. On January 22, a last frontal movement into the valley failed to penetrate the new line thrown up by Edwards and the British. If the storm had passed, men still fell wounded or dead. Ross Russell of Toronto, a machine-gunner in the Mac-Paps who was in his first battle, was blown up ten days after he came into the valley. For ten days Russell had endured the pounding artillery because his gun was dug into the earth and covered with logs and dirt. A log bunker, in other words. There were other positions with similar construction. Though the logs offered protection against near-misses, they could not deflect direct hits. By the end of the campaign, Russell's bunker was smashed in and numerous

170

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

men had been injured by the crashing logs. When Russell was wounded by an artillery shell, his feet had become so frozen that he did not recover feeling in them for several weeks. Thirty years after, he still bears the marks of bruises collected when Jack Thomas, his company commander, dragged him away from his gun to safety.9 Many of the men who endured and survived the two weeks at Teruel have great trouble remembering the experience. Listening to their reminiscences, one conjures up the image of constant darkness and deadly cold. Once in their positions, few Mac-Paps left the valley, unless they were messengers or were wounded. Yet, despite this stationary period, the survivors are extremely vague about the passage of time, and their struggle there. Perhaps it is because they stayed in one place that the days cannot be differentiated. Perhaps it is that after thirty years the cold and the terror of the falling shells still have not left their minds. One hero of Teruel was little Saul Wellman who was in his first action as battalion commissar. Wellman was everywhere, carrying ammunition forward, bringing the wounded out, encouraging the men in the line, taking his own place in the line. One day, about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I sent a message to the rear which stated something like this: "Please send someone up here who knows more about the situation than I do!" I was exhausted, overwhelmed. I stayed there, but the thing was over my head. I had never been subjected to a thing like this. Guys were dying all around me. We're holding, o.k. but for how long? Later on, I asked Makela about the message and he said, "You knew as much about it as we did."10 On February 3, the XVth International Brigade withdrew from its position at Teruel and began the long trek to the south where it would regroup and begin the familiar but always welcome process of rest and recuperation. The first assembly point was at Kilometre 19 south of Teruel. Here a draft of replacements joined the battalions, among them Arthur Linton of Windsor and Robert Weir of Calgary. The Lincolns went ahead on a feeble wood-burning train to Valencia, the British, Canadians and 24th following a day later. However, just as the Americans arrived in

Battleof Teruel

171

Valencia and while the other battalions were still en route, word came of an enormous fascist counter-attack from the north through the Celades region. The XVth International Brigade was summoned at once, and so the battalions turned in their tracks and began the long, excruciating return, by foot and by train, not to Teruel but seventy-five kilometres beyond, to the town of Seguro de los Banos: together with the Xlth International Brigade, the XVth would hit the fascist movement from the rear and force those units nearest Teruel to pull back. The actual objective was a pair of fortified hills: Atalaya, assigned to the Mac-Paps, and Pedigrossa, which the Lincolns were to take. Despite the intense cold and the considerable exposure to that cold, despite the days of marching and countermarching, the men of the XVth International Brigade now prepared for an assault which, in the end, may have been the one successful offensive action taken by the brigade in the war. Guided by local peasants, the Mac-Paps and the Lincolns moved off on the night of February 16 in a squall of sleet and snow. The Canadians spent some five hours getting into position and cutting the barbed wire nets that encircled the lower slopes of Atalaya. At a signal, the companies plunged up, catching the defenders absolutely by surprise, and happily receiving only a handful of casualties. One Mac-Pap, the famous Ben Goldstein, took a wound, stumbled off in the darkness looking for an aid-station, bumped into a young fascist—"He has a gun, I don't." Goldstein grabbed the rifle, slugged the soldier, then staggered on with his prisoner until he fell into his own lines.11 One of the few Mac-Pap dead was James Cochrane of Windsor, Ontario. The Lincolns meanwhile ran into heavier resistance on their way to Sierra Pedigrossa. One company commander died hurdling the barbed wire, grenades gripped in his hand. Close-support artillery fire helped considerably, but in the end the fascist trenches had to be cleared with rifles and hand grenades. The Mac-Paps had taken nearly a hundred prisoners, along with provisions of food and ammunition and several machine-guns. But as soon as they caught their breath, they turned south toward the

172

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Sierra Pedigrossa and assaulted still another hill that lay between them and the Lincolns. They never made it to the barbed wire, however; the fascists sat scarcely twenty feet on the other side of this obstacle and when the Canadian battalion came up, the moon broke suddenly over them, illuminating the companies for the benefit of the defenders. A hail of small arms and machine-gun fire drove the attacking troops back and so the hill had to be skirted and then ignored. Nevertheless, the Canadians did join up with the Lincolns, and the British moved in so that a line of sorts was effected. At dawn, the fascists began to counterattack and while their infantry was driven off again and again, scores of XVth International Brigade men became casualties because of the heavy artillery and mortar shelling endured over the next two days. On the 19th, the brigade left its position and trucked hurriedly south into the countryside around Celades where it waited in reserve for a brief spell before being dispatched still further south, past Teruel to Kilometre 19. Teruel was falling now, the fascist counterattacks proving too much for the many battalions which had held the city since mid-December. Before the XVth International Brigade quit the Teruel front, Juan Modesto, commander of the Republican Fifth Army Corps came forward with decorations and promotions for leaders of the British and Canadian battalions. Smith became a major, Diaz and Edwards became captains, Saul Wellman received a citation.12 A few days later, the brigade left the scene and proceeded, in a somewhat circuitous manner, to the Aragon where the promise of rest which had been revoked early in February was now at last carried out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"At night we were heroes, but in the daytime, we had no chance."—Joseph Schoen

To THE EAST of the Aragon lies the Ebro Basin, a triangle of desolate country dominated by the Pyrenees to the north and locked in from the sea by the Catalan Hills. Steep ridges break the monotonously rolling plains; a considerable part of the landscape is steppe country. Farther east, barrancas cut back and forth in great confusion so that cross-country travel is extremely difficult. The average altitude drops from 1500 feet in the extreme north-west to 700 feet in the south-east. The Catalan Hills, consisting of the Sierra de Caballs and the Sierra de Pandols, raise their barren, rocky crests as high as 300 feet. Because of the availability of mountain streams flowing from the north, the basin is extensively irrigated; life is maintained. On March 9, 1938, the Nationalist Army broke out of the Aragon and drove into the Ebro Basin in an effort to reach the Mediterranean coast and thus effectively cut Republican Spain in two. Four Spanish and one Italian Army corps with two divisions in reserve were supported by twelve companies of German tanks, thirty German anti-tank companies, and twenty-five German fighter and bomber squadrons.1 The line of offensive dropped from Huesca to Teruel, although the most powerful columns were directed through and around Belchite, where nearby the International Brigades were resting from the winter campaign. The volunteers have never been ashamed to call the battles over the next month "The Retreats," for they took their worst casualties of the war during this time, and they and the Republican Army did blunt the headlong assault though they could not deflect it. A corridor in north-east Spain was kept free for the eventual flight of hundreds of thousands of refugees into France. And if the Republican brigades were decimated during The Retreats, they were not eliminated nor was their spirit crushed. In July, a Republican

The Retreats

The Retreats

175

offensive was launched back over the Ebro River, and for the next few months a great battle was fought in the Catalan Hills, a battle which successfully drew away many Nationalist battalions from other missions in the south. The Retreats, so far as the XVth International Brigade was concerned, incorporated two phases: the first began on March 9 and concluded about March 20. During these days, the withdrawals had distinct order; the battalions were able to turn and deflect Nationalist columns, even while sustaining 75 per cent losses. There was an interval between the 20th and the 31st of March when the line stabilized between Caspe and Gandesa and the XVth was able to go into reserve. But the second phase, which began on April Fool's Day, was a disaster. By the third of the month, the Republican brigades were fleeing east toward the Ebro River which courses roughly north and south just beyond the Catalan Hills. Most of the survivors crossed the river that first week, but small groups and individual stragglers continued to creep about the mountains for another ten days, dodging patrols, slipping down to the banks of the river, swimming to the far shore and falling into the arms of their friends, naked, speechless with exhaustion, often bleeding from wounds that could be a month old or two hours old. On March 6, three days prior to the opening of the first phase, the battalion commanders of the XVth International Brigade were alerted to a fascist offensive and assigned a reserve status in the towns where they were camped: the Lincolns in Belchite, the British in Lecera, the Mac-Paps and the 24th in Letux. The 95th Brigade of the Republican Army prepared to strike the right flank of the fascist thrust through the Belchite area. There have been more futile counterattacks in war, perhaps. By 10 A.M. on March 10, Mac-Pap patrols were encountering panic-stricken soldiers from the 95th and the 153rd Brigades and their attached artillery units. The fleeing men had already discarded their arms and were burdened instead with suitcases and bedrolls. Two battalions of the 95th had remained behind, isolated, outside Azuara, south-west of Belchite.2 Over the next few days, the enormous effort of the Nationalists was felt by battalions in the line which broke again and again on the rolling tide of armoured spearheads. A few defenders gained

176

The Mackenzic-Papineau Battalion

high ground from which they watched with fascination and dread the files of vehicles and infantry crowding the roads. Maurice Constant, chief of the XVth International Brigade reconnaissance platoon, made his way to the crest of El Lobo, a two-hundred-metre high hill south of Belchite.3 For two days Constant had been moving back and forth along the brigade "front," scouting enemy movements, seeking natural strongholds from which his own battalions could mount resistance. El Lobo offered such a possibility. Once an actual fortress, capable of shielding a whole brigade in the many tunnels and trenches which coursed like arteries through its mass, the hill was now deserted, a great, grotesque dead thing squatting on the ground. It was a good day for walking: fragrant, spring weather. So Constant took six of his men and his precious German binoculars with their magnification of 80 and climbed El Lobo. Beneath the men, the land swept west across a shallow valley to a series of ridges two or three kilometres away. At the foot of the hill a road cut north to Belchite with a fork disappearing around the side and out of sight. The view was magnificent, though off on the horizon German Stukas wheeled and dove on Belchite. (And in that town, a Canadian named William Fodey from Toronto scurried back and forth among the rooms of an old factory to escape the strafing airplanes that were trying to drive him from his observation post.)4 Constant's men relaxed in the morning sun; the fortress about them made them feel secure. Then, as the young Canadian scanned the valley below, he caught glimpses of trucks and men scurrying among the distant ridges. The Stukas edged closer and closer to the hill until they were roaring by at eye-level. Two hours passed. Nationalist convoys began to pour along the road to the north, and now, when Constant looked across the valley, he discovered lines of infantry and tanks turning east towards El Lobo. Without question, the ugly, empty fortress was about to be attacked. When tanks started to turn along the fork to the rear of the hill, Constant and his men made their way down through the dank, dark catacombs to the exits below. As they darted along, they ran into three Spanish deserters who cowered in the tunnels. Constant coerced these fugitives into fleeing the fortress, then he made his own

The Retreats

177

escape, skipping across the road between tank patrols, eluding strafing aircraft and finally making his way back to brigade headquarters. The Mac-Paps were ordered up with the 24th Battalion on the night of the 9th to destroy the salient created by the surrounded battalions of the 95th Brigade. The Canadians' No. One Company, led by an American named Jack Thomas, remained behind at Letux to form the only organized line of defence around that town. At midnight we passed through the ruined village of Azuara. Progress after that was very slow as scouting patrols guarded our flanks and scouts went ahead to give warning when contact was made with the enemy. Being a very dark night, we worked under the most difficult conditions imaginable. About one o'clock the main body was led into a small ravine till the scouts had made the full reports on their findings. I will always remember that spot for the stench was horrible. Falling over what I first took to be a few of the boys resting, I found nine battered dead bodies. A little further on were the remains of three dead mules. As there was very little room, we rested between the dead mules and the dead men.5 As the two battalions took up their positions around Azuara, they were alerted to further orders. The 24th filed on into Belchite while the Mac-Paps called in their detached company in anticipation of a similar move. But no move was signalled, so by dawn of March 10 the battalion was entrenched in an arc 1.5 km. north of Azuara, and by 7:00 A.M. was taking bombardment from planes and artillery that would last for six straight hours. To make matters more precarious, brigade telephone central had evacuated without informing the Canadian transmission section.6 Through the day, the pressure on Azuara was intensified not only by the fascists but also by the nuisance effect of fleeing Republican troops who continued to pass through the town and to cross the bridge over the bank of the Ebro just to the south. When the MacPaps tried to prevent the rout, the frightened Spaniards went downstream one kilometre to a ford. By 2:30 P.M. the last elements of the bedraggled 95th Brigade had departed the area. One battalion commander of that luckless unit had promised Major

178

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Smith that he would stay on; "however, his men were leaving and although he shot four or five of them, he was unable to stop the retreat."7 The ferocity of the fighting at Azuara is apparent in the adventures of a single machine-gun squad of No. Three Company of the Canadian battalion. The roster of the squad at this time lists Amed£e Grenier as leader; "Blacky" Sanborn, an American seaman as first gunner; H. J. Higgins of Saskatoon, second gunner; Raymond and Stanley Henderson, brothers, and James Cameron of British Columbia, as ammunition bearers.8 The first night before Azuara, an American sergeant named Darsey led the squad on a patrol of their immediate front. On their return, the men were sent to the battalion left flank to set up their gun at all costs in anticipation of an attack. In an effort to place the gun on a pile of rubble a hundred yards out, Sanborn and Darsey were cut down. Higgins grabbed the weapon from Sanborn and, after sprawling on his face twice, dragged himself to the rubble in time to kill three of the five-man party which had fired on the squad and caused the casualties. Grenier and Raymond Henderson now "belly-slid" over to Higgins with more ammunition. In time, Higgins' fire enabled two more crews to come forward and secure the sector. That evening the squad returned to its company to find, according to Higgins, 63 men left standing of the 130 who had gone into action earlier in the day. For the remainder of this first phase of the Retreats, Grenier's squad disappears among the files of brigades making their way east. They will appear again in the second phase, their numbers noticeably altered after three weeks of brutal combat. By the time Grenier and his gunners had rejoined No. Three Company, a telephone circuit to the Mac-Pap kitchen in Letux had been completed, and Major Smith was able to confer with officers in the rear echelon. Presumably the commander was instructed to exercise his judgment, for on his own initiative Smith decided to withdraw across the river behind Azuara.9 And with good reason. Reinforcements from the Xlllth International Brigade had failed to come forward, and while the XVth International Brigade machine-gun company had appeared, it had no machine guns and

The Retreats

179

few rifles. By twilight, fascist patrols had infiltrated on the left flank and were firing on the Mac-Paps from cliffs to the south. As the Canadian battalion moved back, Smith finally received a relayed call from the 35th Division commander, General Walter, asking him to report to Walter's outpost near Letux. As Smith drove to the meeting, his battalion cleared the heights across the river and dug in. The Mac-Paps were particularly grim now because they had just seen their personal effects and the battalion funds and records which had been stored in wooden huts in Azuara blown up by artillery fire. "The entire area was littered with fragments of the battalion funds—all in paper pesetas. They were found in tiny bits, as if a maniac had torn them to shreds."10 One section of No. Two Company led by newcomer Henry Mack was housed in a monastery in the town. When the building began to be hit by artillery shells, the men sprang away. Curley Wilson, a long-time favourite among the B.C. boys, fell dying. The others dragged him to cover and waited till the man died muttering "Cover me up." Wilson was buried on the spot with an Ace of Spades stuck in his shirt pocket to commemorate his renowned skill as a poker player.11 Azuara fell at dawn on the llth just as Smith returned with orders to withdraw again along the Belchite-Lecera road to the outskirts of the latter town, nearly twenty kilometres away. This route was rapidly becoming the principal if not the only way out for the beleaguered battalions of the XVth International Brigade. (Maurice Constant found himself at this time at the head of a column of several hundred brigaders bound out and away from the holocaust around Belchite and into Lecera.)12 When the Mac-Pap evacuation began, the men discovered that a Republican brigade on the left had evaporated during the night with the tragic result that a Canadian machine-gun crew and one squad of riflemen were cut off from the main body. The gun was situated on the face of a cliff and was receiving heavy fire when Makela and Wellman crawled over to call the men in. The two officers yelled and fired their pistols in a vain effort to alert the men but the noise of battle drowned them out. Two stranded gunners ventured along the edge of the emplacement and were struck down immediately. Makela and Wellman risked their

180

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

own capture for over half an hour but then turned back to join the battalion. Probably all of them died, holding their positions to the very end. We know that those two crews held up the enemy advance at that spot between eight and twelve hours. From a point twelve kilometres away, we could see through our field glass the overhead shrapnel bursting against that cliff.13 One man survived to tell the story of the doomed squads. Perry Hilton, one of the B.C. boys, had recently joined the machinegunners after a career as battalion cook. According to Hilton, twenty-eight men crouched on the ledges of the cliff-face throwing down a withering fire on the approaching fascists. Hours after they took their position, the men climbed back over the cliff in a vain attempt to regain the battalion. Within seconds, they discovered that they had been left behind and that they were being rushed by fascist soldiers. Frank Whitfield, a Canadian veteran since the organization of the Mac-Paps, a man named Rose from Regina and an American officer, probably Leo Gordon, commander of the Mac-Pap machine-gun company, fell dead. The survivors, Hilton among them, were surrounded, led to a nearby building, lined up twice and threatened with summary execution. The majority of the prisoners were Canadian-Finns whose blond hair meant only one thing to their captors: Russians. These unfortunate soldiers were quickly shot. As Hilton was about to be despatched, an angry officer walked up, brushed aside the Canadian's would-be executioner and placed the startled Hilton under personal arrest. A few hours later, Hilton was led across the crest of a nearby hill from which he saw the vast array of fascist men and vehicles stretching to the horizon.14 Ronald Liversedge, at that time a cannoneer in the 35th Batteiy, writes of these days: All the country around us was one huge eruption, the earth shaking with the explosions of shells and bombs, by day the air thick with the fumes of cordite and falling bombdust, and at night, the sky lit up with the explosions of shells and bombs. Food came up and we ate and drank automatically, hardly knowing or caring what we ate. Our sense and perception were deadened.15

The Retreats

181

Meanwhile, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion marched on to L6cera, its hours numbered as a coherent effective unit. The mortar section "left" the battalion when the truck in which its weapons had been placed came under fire from two tanks not fifty metres away. The truck with most of the section aboard careened away into the hills, stumbled into the British Battalion and fought with these friends through the next twenty-four hours. In Lecera that afternoon, Major Smith received three different sets of orders within fifteen minutes assigning the battalion as flank guards along the escape route to Albalate. The final set, on which Smith decided to act, put the unit astride the road two kilometres below Lecera. Immediately the Mac-Paps were engaged by tanks and infantry which occupied a nearby hill and which consequently threatened to cut the highway. Shortly after this skirmish opened, a divisional staff officer ordered the Mac-Paps to still another site three kilometres away, insisting that the troops in front of the Canadians were from the Xlllth International Brigade! While this officer flourished a detailed map which appeared to corroborate his opinion, Smith maintained just as vigorously that the Xlllth was on high ground on the left and furthermore friendly units located on the map had already left for Albalate. Ultimately, Smith lost the debate and took his men away to the north-east, leaving a hole to be filled in by whatever battalions remained on hand.16 By late afternoon of the llth, Lecera itself had fallen, and a counterattack by the Xlllth International Brigade with the MacPaps in reserve failed to recover it. That night, these two units hiked away from the area with the Canadians deployed as rear and flank guards for the larger force. The Xlth International Brigade had already escaped and the British and Lincoln battalions were somewhere in between the two brigades. Through the night, the battalions made their way toward Albalate only to find, near dawn on the 12th, that this town had been captured. Pausing only long enough for a hasty meal, the column swerved north to Hijar and into a nightmare. The road was jammed with infantry who plodded along dully after three days of steady fighting and withdrawal. Their ranks were split open time and time again as tanks, trucks, ambulances and cavalry swept past, drivers and passengers leaning out and

182

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

screaming that the fascists were right behind. The confused infantry spilled of! the road and then poured back on, and each time the battalions and the companies lost a little more of the cohesion that remained. As other units crowded along the road, the MacPap companies became separated. Wounded and exhausted men began to wander away, their weapons cast off, their courage and will to survive depleted. It was along this road that Bill Fodey gathered a dozen Lincolns around him in a cave. When Colonel Copic came over and asked their mission, Fodey yelled, "These are the Lincolns—we've set up the line here!"17 Near Hijar, the rear of the column was cut by fascist cavalry which then set up machine guns on the road. The Mac-Paps, already "in several places at the same time" along the way, were further disrupted by this attack which threatened to drive the men into the hills. However, Smith managed to collect a substantial body in Hijar, and through the night of the 12th and all the next day held a position east of that town in one more attempt to delay pursuit. At midnight on the 12th, the Canadians were dispatched with the XHIth International Brigade into and through Hijar. "When we emerged on the end of the town, a challenge rang out. No reply was given. Again came the challenge followed by a burst of machine-gun fire. Immediately the whole hillside came to life; bullets and hand grenades made the night hideous."18 The fascist fire was high, fortunately, and the battalions retired to their trenches. During the succeeding twenty-four hours, the Mac-Paps beat off a tank and then a cavalry assault and "had some sport" shooting at enemy planes that continued to strafe their lines. Not until early morning of March 14 did these remnants clear Hijar and take to the road for Alcaniz. Again, the Mac-Paps brought up the rear and flanks. On the retreat from Hijar, [writes Gerry Delaney of Vancouver] I was nearly captured within two kilometers of Alcaniz which was already in the enemy's hands. Not knowing this, and riding a skeleton-ribbed and razor-backed young mare discarded by the cavalry, I was within three hundred yards of the victorious army marching on the highway when I noticed a limousine in the line bearing the yellow and red rag of Franco. At the time I was miles away from the Mac-Paps and all alone holding a

The Retreats

183

rifle on my back as a lance. There were a few trees between me and them otherwise I would have been noticed like Don Quixote riding down Main Street. I turned about and urged my unwilling mount up the terraces as fast as its rheumatic legs could take it. I came to a deep hollow where I stayed till dark. During the wait a fascist observation plane flew very low within two hundred yards of me. Nothing could have kept more still than me and my steed. It took me and the mare five days to get anywhere near the battalion.19 Major Smith now discovered that his battalion was separated into two large contingents, but he managed to maintain control over these by scurrying back and forth in an ambulance. Inevitably, word soon came that the highway to the next destination, Alcaniz, had been cut. No matter how quickly they moved, the escaping soldiers could not outrun the fascist tanks and patrols which flanked the columns by side roads and sped into towns which might have offered a few hours' respite. Now Alcaniz was lost, and the only alternative left was to leave the highway and cross overland to Caspe. Those Mac-Paps near the head of the column were rescued by trucks and taken to this next town by nightfall. But those in the rear, Smith included, never received word of the severed road so that, when pressure suddenly built up, the men fled on foot into the countryside, circled around Alcaniz and plunged on toward a little village called Maella. Smith's ambulance ran headlong into a roadblock of machine-guns and tanks, and the occupants, Smith, a doctor and the driver, ran off toward nearby hills. The driver was brought down instantly, but the other two escaped, finally to stumble into Maella that night20 In Maella, Smith discovered other exhausted Canadians whom he immediately took with him east to Batea where they found some two hundred XVth International Brigade soldiers collected. The Mac-Pap commander learned that about one hundred of his own men were drawn up in Caspe so, leaving another officer in charge of the Batea camp, Smith hitch-hiked to Caspe.21 The Lincolns had marched into Caspe on the 16th, the first time since leaving Belchite that the unit had reached its destination ahead of the fascists: "a spirit saving fact. . ." In fact, the XVth International Brigade which was gathered now at Caspe contained scarce-

184

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

ly 500 soldiers. The acting brigade commander, Dave Doran, decided to hold there and so his men made a line of trenches that crossed the cemetery hill on the edge of town. Smith arrived to find Nilo Makela, Saul Wellman, and Henry Mack, commander of No. Two Company, preparing to take part in a vicious struggle for possession of this high ground. Enemy tanks skirted the hill and began firing into Caspe while a large formation of infantry, somehow overlooked by the brigaders, crept up to within thirty metres of the trenches and burst upon the defenders. Malcolm Dunbar, with the brigade staff, organized a grenade and rifle fire which drove this force back, but in the melee, Makela, a legend in the brigade, fell mortally wounded by a mortar burst.22 Some time during this first day of the defence of Caspe, Red Walsh, the commissar of No. Two Company, dispatched patrols out to the flanks of the line. These were led by Geoffrey Allstop, the Canadian adjutant of the company, and Scotty Ross. Walsh later sent a runner out to bring the parties in: Ross returned safely but Allstop's patrol and the runner disappeared.23 The crest of the cemetery hill finally fell to the swarming fascist infantry; within a few hours a counterattack was being organized although the Lincolns were off on another mission, only a handful of the English were available and three companies of the XlVth International Brigade assigned to the charge refused to move because their captain was "absent" on an errand. "So, with the aid of fire from our own tanks, which was very effective though it wounded several of our own men, we took the hill."24 Scarcely a hundred men, most of them Mac-Paps, could be mustered for the assault, perhaps half of whom were either unarmed or carried weapons that malfunctioned. The force could only scrape up two light machine-guns; there were no grenades available. The fight, says Smith, "naturally took a long time"—in fact about three hours—but the Mac-Paps were successful and captured three heavy Fiat machine-guns, fifty to sixty rifles, thirty prisoners and ten mules. Yet, because the hill was under intense fire from the town's railroad station and the church steeple, and because there was no flank support, Smith ordered his men away and back into Caspe. Through March 18, the XVth International Brigade continued

The Retreats

185

to resist awesome assaults by the fascists. There was much street fighting, especially near the railroad tracks; several wounded brigaders were crushed by enemy tanks. On this day, the Xllth and XlVth International Brigades, relatively fresh, came forward and relieved the pressure, momentarily. Smith and the Mac-Paps set out from Caspe with a few soldiers from the British Battalion, all bound for the Xllth International Brigade position. Underway, the men were caught in fields by machine-gun fire which killed several and confused the rest. At this point, Smith lost control of the few dozen left to him though he and a handful continued to move out until they were rescued by trucks which carried them on to Batea and, for a few days, to safety.25 As the always tenuous line before Caspe began to crumble, small detachments of brigaders on the far flanks took severe pounding. Maurice Constant and his reconnaissance platoon became the left flank: fifteen men perched on a ridge, strafed and bombed continuously for two days. Constant was finally hit by fragments from a grenade dropped from a plane. His vision almost gone, he was led to the rear by a Spaniard in his unit. As the young officer stumbled away, he was swept by a sense of high elation as the great burden of responsibility he had carried for nine months faded away. A kilometre on, Constant and his guide encountered Colonel Copic astride a white horse quietly watching the withdrawal of the haggard survivors of his brigade. The scout had just enough eyesight left to discern Copic dismounting and walking towards him. When the commander drew closer and saw Constant's condition, he began to weep. The Canadian "went cold all over" because he sensed Copic wept at the sight of a dying or, at best, a fearfully wounded man. "I thought," says Constant, "that my eyeballs must be hanging out." Copic hustled him into an ambulance. On the ride, Constant was drenched in the blood of a soldier strapped in the berth above who quietly bled to death during the long trip.26 On March 20, at Batea, two hundred and fifty Mac-Paps of the "old battalion" were mustered by their commander, with two machine-guns, a light automatic rifle and 135 rifles. Over half the battalion was missing. The men were lost along the many roads to Belchite; they were lost at any one of a hundred ambushes and

186

The Mackenzic-Papineau Battalion

roadblocks; they were lost on the outskirts of Lecera and on the cliffs overlooking Azuara; they were lost in the hills between Hijar and Caspe. Hundreds and then thousands of brigaders plunged about the great Ebro basin which lay under a perpetual cloud of smoke. Men hid in caves for days on end, emerging only to be captured and shot or captured and dragged away to an internment camp. Many crept through the woods and along the barrancas only to be cut down by fascist patrols. Scores of Canadians were killed during these two weeks; before the Retreats were concluded in early April, scores more were to be lost. Many of the men assembled in Batea could scarcely stand on their feet and forthwith were evacuated to hospitals further east. In spite of the confusion of orders, marches, countermarches, in spite of the enveloping columns of fascist tanks and infantry, in spite of the heat, in spite of the exhaustion, in spite of the casualties, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion had come through for the time being at least. Major Smith was singularly proud of the MacPaps' performance at Caspe after a week of great trial. But the strain of command, coupled with physical debilitation, brought this officer to the point of collapse and some time during the interval at Batea, Smith was sent to a hospital. For the remainder of March, the Canadians camped four kilometres west of Batea, leaving that area on one occasion to go to Corbera where a fresh supply of weapons was distributed. One hundred and sixty-five new volunteers, the last to quit Tarazona, arrived and were assigned to the battalions of the XVth International Brigade. To these reinforcements were added the numerous veterans who left hospitals and training schools to return to the front. Carl Geiser, an American, was among this latter group; Geiser now joined the Mac-Paps as battalion commissar after Saul Wellman was sent to the rear with a chest inflammation. Some confusion exists as to the identity of Smith's replacement. Ricardo Diaz is mentioned; it is possible that the indefatigable Henry Mack, a Finnish-American, assumed command at this time. A future leader of the battalion emerges now, a Finnish national named Gunnar Ebb, who replaced Makela as commander of the machinegun company and who would replace Smith during the Ebro campaign the following summer. Both Mack and Ebb quickly gained

The Retreats

187

the respect and trust of the Mac-Paps. Mack had joined the battalion on the eve of the Retreats, after service with the Edgar Andre Battalion in the Guadalajara campaign in 1937 when he was wounded. Assignment to officer's training school followed recuperation, and now he had returned to the war. It was said of Gunnar Ebb that he would not allow his photograph to be taken.27 A mason by trade in Finland, Ebb had come to Spain from four years as a political prisoner in his homeland. Before joining the Mac-Paps in Teruel, he had been a member of a guerilla team working behind fascist lines near Brunete. Scarcely had the replacements found their way to their units when word came of the appearance of several fascist files converging on Gandesa. With this news, the second phase of the Retreats was opened. Few coherent accounts survive of the days that followed. The battalions retained some semblance of order at first, but after Gandesa fell, this order dissolved and the survivors got away to the east as best they could. On March 31, the XVth International Brigade assembled just outside of Gandesa and marched west a few kilometres to a junction where the Gandesa-Calaceite highway was intersected by the road from Batea. The Lincolns turned north towards Batea while the Canadian and British units pressed on to the west. Along the way, the soldiers encountered hundreds of fleeing civilians. Their plight is described by Walter Hellund of Vancouver: . . . the villages they had lived in were smouldering ahead of us, blasted by incendiary bombs. It is scenes like this that get the hardened soldier and speaking for myself, having got used to seeing bloody bodies of fighting men with their guts hanging out, comrades going down never to rise again, this meeting women and children fleeing from the terror of the murdering invader was a sight that overshadows others. I stopped to take a bloody, battered, dead little body from a woman and to this day I do not believe that the poor woman knew at the time that her baby was dead. It seemed as though she was walking in her sleep... ,28

Through the night of the 31st, the battalions advanced, the British in the vanguard. Suddenly, the Englishmen ran head-on into a fascist force moving towards Gandesa. In the wild fighting

188

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

that ensued, the British scattered, leaving their commissar, Wally Tapsell, dead, and one of their commanders, Frank Ryan, onetime leader of the I.R.A., a prisoner. Malcolm Dunbar sustained one of the innumerable wounds he received in Spain. The Canadians, meanwhile, remained unscathed by the combat. In fact, they waited some kilometres behind the British, sitting or sprawling in the dark along the road, smoking carefully hidden cigarettes, talking quietly, sleeping. A few probably had to gather their wits after the perilous trip along the bombed road. One truck slipped into a crater and turned over. The man on the bottom was H. J. Higgins: Somebody in trying to save himself had thrown out his arms and of all places his hands had to grip, it was my throat. With the weight of the bodies on him, he was unable to move and just about the time that I figured I had seen all the flashes, stars and moons a body sees before his lights go out, the ones on him were able to disentangle themselves and he was able to stop strangling me. Anyway it was a relief to find myself still alive after my eyes had popped back into their sockets, or do they pop back?29 After an hour, the men deployed among the slight hills to the left and right of the highway. From these positions, the Mac-Paps observed fascist vehicles moving up, so confident that they ran with their headlights on! Just before dawn, Carl Geiser appeared with orders from the brigade commander, Copfc, to take a patrol of Mac-Paps about three kilometres along the road to occupy a pair of high hills which overlooked the battlefield. Despite warnings from the Canadians that the terrain ahead was infested with fascists, Geiser moved out at the head of the No. One section of No. One Company, now commanded by John Yohanchuk who accompanied Geiser. The action that followed is described by Lawrence Cane, an American volunteer serving in No. One Company. In grey light, about 5:30 A.M., we set off in single file with Yohanchuk and Geiser in the lead, accompanied by a rifle squad with a Dicterov machine-gun. They were followed by a second rifle squad. Bringing up the rear was my squad with a Tukerov machine-gun.

The Retreats

189

The terrain was very hilly, with each hill followed by a barranca, followed by another hill and another barranca. We had travelled for about twenty minutes and were moving up a hill, when word came back down the line to halt. I called the section commander and asked if he wanted my gun on top of the hill, but he waved me down. After about five minutes, we heard a burst of firing and some of the men came running down shouting that Geiser and others had been captured. They were followed by Yohanchuk who was limping from a bloody bullet wound in his left ankle. I immediately ordered my gun to the top of the hill to cover the withdrawal. As we reached the crest and placed the gun in position, we could see many troops standing fifty-sixty meters in front of us, and Geiser and his group being led away. We opened fire, inflicting casualties and forcing enemy troops to take cover. A fire fight lasting about thirty minutes ensued, until a runner came up from First Company ordering my squad to fall back to our main position.30 Cane dug his squad in among some boulders on the downward slope of the hill occupied by Yohanchuk's company. Several mortar and artillery shells hit directly on the great rocks above the gun but failed to dislodge the men. All though the morning of April Fool's Day, Cane's gun raked the ridge one hundred metres across. Wave after wave of fascists came up over the ridge, were silhouetted for a moment against the sky, and were cut down by the fusillade from "the best defensive position I was ever in."31 By 2:00 in the afternoon, fascist artillery had zeroed in on Cane's gun. With ammunition nearly exhausted, the American sent two young Spaniards to the rear for help. They returned instantly with news that the company had withdrawn. Despite the heavy shelling all around him, Cane ran back to confirm the reports of his runners, then returned to the machine-gun, pulled his men to their feet and pushed them to the rear. Three gunners were hit then and disappeared in the flight. By the time Cane's squad had found its perfect position among the boulders, the entire Mac-Pap front was heavily engaged. Amedee Grenier's crew, whose adventure at Azuara was described earlier, was having its problems again. Grenier, Higgins and the Henderson brothers had survived the earlier struggles and were

190

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

now reinforced by three new men, among them Walter Hellund. Their section leader was an American named Brown. At dawn on April 1, Grenier's men found themselves nearly surrounded. "We fought going back slowly, taking a stand in small groups wherever we could find cover, a little cover." One member of the section, L. Wilson, was cut off and captured. The gun was finally set down in an olive grove to cover the further retreat of the few effective riflemen left. When Higgins subsequently moved away with the weapon, accompanied by the Henderson brothers, Stanley Henderson was shot through the head and killed instantly. His brother ran to his side, and with Higgins' help, rolled the body away, grabbed the ammunition box and rushed on to rejoin the squad. In another few seconds, the men discovered they were again cut off, but by sneaking through high brush for 500 metres and then running a gauntlet of fire, they made their escape.32 During these early skirmishes, the squad witnessed the work of a section of twenty-eight volunteers from the Mac-Paps who had hidden themselves in shellholes and attacked enemy tanks with grenades as they rumbled past. Three of the section survived, including Canadian Walter Gowricki who was in his first action in the Spanish war.33 Walter Hellund came upon one of these survivors, shot through the chest, dragging himself along the road. He was begging and pleading, "Put me down and let me die. Go on." I had put the bandage three times round and a pad over the hole, but he couldn't breath so I had to take it off. . . . He regained consciousness in the truck and shook my arm. He said his name was Cooper. . . ,34 Hellund escorted the man to safety, returned to assist other wounded, and shortly found himself wandering about the barrancas absolutely alone. After several desperate hours, the Canadian stumbled upon Grenier perched alone on top of a ridge, still clutching the machine-gun. The two friends then walked back to the crossroads. Nicholas Myers of Alberta, an acting section leader in No. One Company, led one of the last groups to clear the area before Calaceite. Surrounded by some two hundred fascists and six tanks,

The Retreats

191

Myers had held a hilltop with one defective machine-gun and a handful of rifles until, like Cane, he discovered that his company had withdrawn.35 By nightfall on April 1, some eighty Mac-Paps had gathered at the Batea-Gandesa junction where they received a meal of stew and wine from a kitchen truck which had miraculously appeared. Among these men was a contingent from No. One Company which Larry Cane had brought out. En route to the rendezvous, Cane had come across brigade headquarters. Copic became enraged at the appearance of the soldiers who had withdrawn on Cane's initiative; apparently the brigade commander had no knowledge of the wreckage of the Mac-Pap front. As he argued with Cane, two Italian whippit tanks swerved around a corner and opened fire on the two men from fifty metres away. Copic "jumped fifteen feet in the air and disappeared." The Mac-Paps, taking their cue from Copic, ran into the surrounding barrancas and later assembled near the crossroads. "It looked like the world had come to an end."36 Around midnight, the eighty men marched north along the Batea road for a kilometre and camped for the rest of the night in a deserted farm yard. At dawn, the column returned to the junction, put their heavy weapons on a truck and began to edge towards Gandesa. Two hundred yards outside the town, machinegun fire swept the front of the file, halting the truck and driving the men onto footpaths which took them to the nearest houses on the outskirts. Malcolm Dunbar, who had brought the men this far, proposed that they go around the town; the streets were obviously enfiladed anyway. But the Canadians were impatient and decided to take a chance and avoid a lengthy detour. Walter Hellund walked "very slowly" across the first street. Nothing happened, so the others followed. One man finally fell with a bullet in his leg, but he was dragged to safety.37 In this way the Mac-Paps crept through the streets and out of town, though once beyond Gandesa they were even more uncertain about the route to take. Hellund recalls that Dunbar wanted to march north cross-country to the Mora de Ebro road which would lead them to the river town where the remnants of the Republican army were gathering. Sol Rose, the acting battalion commissar, thought the road must surely be cut by now and that

192

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Corbera would likewise be in enemy hands, thus making passage north very risky, if not fatal. So the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion did what it had been doing so well these last weeks: after giving the wounded man over to a tank crew, the Mac-Paps dug in on a ridge running east and west about one kilometre south of Gandesa and adjacent to the Gandesa-Tortosa road. By mid-day, the small force was settled in and was receiving occasional reinforcement from elements of other units which continued to pass through the area. The Canadians had with them one anti-tank gun and one heavy Maxim machinegun. Another group supplied a French 75 cannon. A patrol ventured into Gandesa at 2:00 P.M. and found it empty, but two hours later a half-dozen fascist tanks emerged from the streets and rumbled towards the ridge. The first tank was hit immediately, and though the men on the ridge had a good field of fire, they could not prevent the remaining five vehicles from maintaining a systematic shelling of their position. A few minutes later, still another platoon of tanks started for the ridge, paced now by an artillery barrage that fell mainly in the rear. Somehow the tanks were stopped with machine-guns—one or two were even put out of commission. When the seventh tank stopped, the inmates immediately got out and took cover behind their tank. Tom Ewen, a youngster from Vancouver, got a tank bomb from somewhere and had been trying to light it with the idea of throwing it at the tanks. The distance was too far but I don't suppose he thought of that at the time. This type of bomb is a cylinder with a fuse that must be split a little at the top before igniting. Ewen did not know this and had been trying to light it with his lighter. Suddenly he jumped up and waving the bomb above his head, shouted: "Who the bloody hell knows how to light this thing?"38

This second attack was launched too late in the day. As the defenders began to fear burning out their gun barrels, the tanks withdrew in the failing light. The Mac-Paps had been prepared to meet the final assault with rifles, but now, with the pressure relieved, the men moved out from their ridge and began the last trek east to the Ebro River. Cane's men were sent out as flanker guards and in no time be-

The Retreats

193

came separated in the dark. After stumbling about for awhile, they walked into the camp of an Italian patrol and before they could react, they were disarmed. Two of the Italians started to their battalion headquarters with the prisoners, but these men also lost their way. At Cane's whispered command, the Mac-Paps jumped the guards, beat them to the ground and dodged off. That same night, Cane and three of his men walked right through the darkened streets of Corbera between fascist gun emplacements and patrols and out into the hills where they hid for a week. Finally, the squad edged its way down to the banks of the Ebro where, after waiting two days to mark the routes of sentries, they swam to the far shore, towing one non-swimmer and their weapons on a raft.39 The one remaining bridge over the river, at Mora de Ebro, was blown up on April 2 by brigaders. After that date, the retreating soldiers had no choice but to swim the river, as Cane was to do. One Finnish-Canadian swam over dragging the barrel of his Maxim gun behind him. Among the escaping Lincolns was Jack Hoshooley, a Canadian member of the machine-gun company. We were very frightened and expected to be discovered any minute. Finally, on the seventh day, we saw the Ebro River and made for it. We got safely to the river bank about noon and we were sighted by a group of soldiers on the other side who shouted to us to hurry as we were being followed by a cavalry unit. The river was very swift and about a hundred yards wide with a treacherous undercurrent. A few Spanish companies said that they heard screams of a number of men who, they were sure, were drowning, but when the soldiers on the other side said to hurry up and swim, we jumped in and swam for our lives. Five of us made it and one drowned, B. Petijohn, another Canadian.40 Meanwhile, small parties of brigaders continued to circle about the Catalan Hills. One group escaped an enemy patrol when one of its members, a Spaniard, stepped out into the open and engaged the fascists in conversation while the others stole away. This man was inevitably captured by the irate patrol.41 Lost at this time while edging toward Corbera were Dave Doran, brigade commissar, and Robert Merriman, brigade chief of staff.

194

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

The two men had been captured when their party walked right into an assembly of German and Spanish troops. In the melee, Doran and Merriman were seen running inadvertently toward the rebels. Killed during this skirmish was Joseph Princze of Lethbridge, Alberta, who was apparently a body guard assigned to Merriman. If Merriman and Doran were captured at this time, they were soon executed. One Canadian who was taken prisoner during this period, Nels Madsen, recalls seeing a group of brigaders escorted into the convent in which he was being held captive. One of these men closely resembled Merriman. Madsen adds that these prisoners were shot.42 Red Walsh and Tom Mallon, officers in No. Two Company, led a small party out of the fighting near the Batea junction. Mallon, an American, was hit by a sniper. At his insistence, Walsh took the other men away and left the severely wounded officer behind. Hours later, lost in the barrancas, Walsh crept up on a wounded man who lay groaning in delirium in the brush. To his horror, the Canadian discovered that he had been travelling in a circle and that the prostrate figure was Mallon! Unnerved by their discovery, Walsh and his men carried Mallon to a nearby farmhouse and deposited the dying man with a sympathetic Spaniard. Then they made their way on to the bridge at Mora de Ebro.43 Mora de Ebro must have reminded some of the hundreds of soldiers who milled in her streets of the good old days at Albacete with its lanes and shops crammed with volunteers jabbering in a dozen different languages. But there was one striking change: the men at Mora moved in a dream of exhaustion, and their cries were despairing and angry. Most had not eaten a decent meal in days and so they went about the town and the countryside begging, scrounging for food. House doors were open; houses had been looted. Soldiers were seen emerging from these houses with live rabbits, pigeons, chickens, geese and bottles of wine and cognac. Soldiers were sitting on the pavement, too exhausted to go on. It was strange to see men in the streets of a civilized town urinating on the pavement. A soldier came down the street, carrying an enormous bowl of freshly mixed salad, dishing out spoonfuls to the men standing, sitting, walking.44

The Retreats

195

Finally, as the moment came when the bridge must be blown, these hundreds of soldiers walked down to the river. Behind them the town stood empty. A small band of twenty Mac-Paps led by Nick Myers skirmished on the outskirts with fascist patrols while engineers placed demolition charges around the bridge. Then the Canadians withdrew to the far side and the bridge was blown. The Retreats were over. On April 15, 1938, the Nationalist Army reached the Mediterranean at Vinaroz.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"One day, a visiting English journalist passed down the ranks of the prisoners. He paused before one of his countrymen, hemmed and hawed and then said, "Rawther ghastly, what?" The brigader replied, 'Rawther!' "—Carl Geiser. THE LAST CANADIANS out of Spain in 1939 were thirty repatriated prisoners of war who had survived a year or more of captivity. Most of these men had been taken during the Retreats when the ebb and flow of the front lines caused so much mischief. They were fortunate to have survived the war, for only occasionally did the Nationalists keep alive brigaders who fell into their hands. Too often the prisoner was simply shot on the spot of his surrender. But a few hundred of the internationals were spared, probably because by the time the Retreats were taking place, Franco's government discovered the use it might make of such men for propaganda and for exchanges. The first Canadian to be taken prisoner was Burt "Yank" Levy, Windsor, Ontario, whose machine-gun section in the British Battalion at Jarama was overwhelmed by soldiers who crept up under the cover of dusk and broke into the gun position crying "Comrades" and raising the popular front salute. Before the startled defenders could react, they were surrounded by infantry armed with light machine-guns and grenades. Levy and a friend fought their way free from the metee and ran for an olive grove. When a Nationalist soldier spotted them and drew his weapon on the pair, Levy turned and walked back, shouting to the other man to continue. Then the Canadian was pushed into a group of brigaders who were escorted away: 27 out of the section of 40 had been taken.1 One hundred metres away from their old position, the prisoners were halted and executions begun. One man named Dickenson was drilled through the brain. Then the fire from the British lines became so dangerous that the group was pushed on for another

Canadian Prisoners of War

197

300 metres to an open plain where the Nationalists sprawled on the ground, their guns aimed at the prisoners so that they had to stand erect before fire from both sides. One man was struck down by a bullet in the throat. "He moans. The fascists laugh. His blood is gushing out and he is becoming very weak and pale. One puts a cross to his lips. He pushes it away and asks for water. We are moved farther on and he is left lying there." Now the men were rushed by Moors who danced about them, screaming wild threats of mutilation. Each prisoner was searched three or four times, wallets, coats, helmets, everything worth stealing was stolen. Then the brigaders were bound with wire and driven by the Moorish cavalrymen along goat paths to a Nationalist field office, where they were quickly interrogated by Spanish, German and Italian officers. Two priests came by and glowered at the exhausted men. In another hour, trucks arrived to carry them to San Martin where, at midnight, they were given one jug of water. Not until the following evening were they given any food, stale loaves of bread. In the meantime, the only relief came from a pipe which one man had saved and which was filled with tobacco shaken from pockets. One pipe sufficed for two dozen men. Four days after capture, the two wounded men in the group were finally visited by a doctor. By this time, the prisoners were in Telavera de la Reina where they were arraigned before a group of ten reporters, one of whom slipped Levy six pesetas. An English correspondent later sent the men some tobacco. Frequently, Levy's group was joined by the odd prisoner from another brigade. Two Frenchmen were deposited in their midst briefly but then were taken out and shot. A Spaniard charged with guerilla activity was taken out again and again and beaten to a pulp. After three weeks of such ordeals, he was executed. Finally, on March 1, Levy's group were given shaves, their heads were cropped, their tunics dusted off. Then the bewildered men were marched before a photographer who took movies of the prisoners eating dinner. Afterwards the men discovered that the Nationalist newspapers every week published pictures of this one group with headlines that indicated the capture of hundreds of brigaders.

198

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

By now the men were lousy and half starved. Two hundred men lived in one room, 60' x 20'. Most were in rags and barefoot, their shoes having been stolen by guards. Levy was in such agony that he had to walk pigeon-toed, but he was spared somewhat by a gift of alpargatas from a peasant woman. After three months of humiliation and deprivation, Levy was repatriated. He left carrying horrible scenes in his mind: forced attendance at executions after which the prisoners stripped the clothes off the dead men and then buried the pathetic bodies; women accompanying their doomed husbands to the execution in order to claim the corpses; endless "death parades." Once, while working on a sewer detail, Levy was accosted by a man dressed in a sergeant's uniform who announced he was a member of the Irish O'Duffy unit of the Nationalist army. While Levy marvelled, the soldier complained of the unsympathetic treatment he and his associates were receiving, and of their frustrated effort to engage communists. 'The few Spaniards we captured are all Catholics, and so are we. We want to go home." Anthony Mangotic hid in tall grass when his three-man patrol was surrounded as it made its way back to the Dimitrov Battalion at Brunete.2 The other two men forged on, thinking they were in friendly hands. Mangotic was flushed out the next day when the grass was set afire by incendiary bombs. At a staff headquarters, the Canadian was presented with two pictures of Franco and Largo Caballero and asked to identify each. When he could not remember Franco's name, Mangotic was beaten unconscious. The command for the beating was "cafe con leche, caf& con leche." The next day, Mangotic and a few other prisoners were marched through a small village, whose inhabitants swarmed over the men, beating and screaming. The men were held in the local church until they could be transferred to Talavera de la Reina, where they were imprisoned in a converted silk factory. There were, at this time, 1800 prisoners in this camp, Spaniards and Internationals, most of whom had been sentenced to death or to thirty years' internment. Every evening at eleven o'clock, an officer came around for the daily quota of thirty condemned men. "Some almost went mad waiting." The condemned were then taken to a nearby river where

Canadian Prisoners of War

199

they were lined along the banks so that their bodies would fall into the current. The captain of the detail "walked from man to man, raised the pistol rhythmically, monotonously. . . ." But the captain occasionally became bored and miscalculated his aim so that a few lucky souls fell into the river still alive and were able to swim to the far shore which was held by Republicans. After a few such escaped, "they took them to the cemetery and tied them to stakes like in Goya paintings and used a firing squad." As the months went by, the horrors mounted. When one 18year-old boy was sentenced to death, his father, who had been spared, cut his own throat with a razor. "They grabbed him, tied his hands behind his back and put him, too, in the truck." Eventually, Mangotic was delivered to Burgos where he encountered the famous gauntlet. The men would be rushed through a narrow door beyond which stood two guards with clubs who beat at the prisoners' knees. Many men died of the beatings, and since there were no coffins, the prisoners made one out of scrap lumber. "The coffin was transported to the graveyard, the body was taken out and put into the grave, and the coffin taken back— ready for the next." There was not much chance for dignity at Burgos, but there was some. John Charles Firmin joined the Mac-Paps on March 28, 1938, and was taken prisoner on April I.3 Firmin's detail ran into an Italian force whose first fire brought Firmin to the ground with a leg wound. As he crawled away, he was hit again in the leg, twice on the torso and once in the face. Finally, a bullet smashed his left arm and brought his flight to a halt. Firmin begged his Italian captors to kill him but these soldiers took pity on him and gave him wine and water, and then evacuated him in an ambulance. At Alcaniz, under the care of Nationalist medics "who, by the way, did not treat me quite so well as the Italians," Firmin began the long way to recovery and eventual repatriation. In a field hospital in Saragossa, the young Canadian met a Ukrainian brigader whose wounding had surpassed even Firmin's. This man had been brought down by shrapnel which tore off one hand, mangled the other, riddled his legs and destroyed one eye. When his captors tried to get him to walk to the rear, he, of course, collapsed and was left to die. Another party came upon

200

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

him, found him conscious and then, after a fifteen-minute debate, elected one of their own to finish him off with a bayonet. Then they passed on. A few hours later, another patrol picked the Ukrainian up and brought him to a hospital. Firmin landed in a prison hospital outside Bilboa where he languished for the next few months. Life here was relatively easy, but only relatively. Firmin recuperated with seven other men in a cell 14' x 7'. Their water came directly from the Bilboa canal. Once, while in formation in the yard, the Canadian waved the clenched fist and was promptly beaten unconscious. He lay in bed for five days. Another time, the hapless brigader broke his arm while scuffling with some friends and was transferred to a hospital inside Bilboa. Here, he learned of a particularly ghastly atrocity. A Republican soldier had been brought in with one hand so torn up by a bullet that two fingers had to be amputated. When he came out of the anaesthesia, the injured man discovered that both hands and one leg were bandaged. To his horror, he realized that his uninjured leg had been taken of! at the hip and that all the fingers of his good hand had been removed. "The poor fellow naturally died of the shock of it." On December 29, 1938, Firmin was transferred to Burgos. When the Mac-Paps withdrew from Azuara in the first days of the Retreats, one machine-gun section had been left behind, cut off from the main body and out of reach of signals. Saul Wellman recalls that from a point of 12 km. away, he could see the shrapnel bursting on the lost men who were dug in on the face of a cliff. Not until after the war did the Canadians learn that one man survived that ordeal—Perry Hilton, formerly battalion cook and for a brief few hours, machine-gunner. Within a few days, Hilton was lodged in the prisoner-of-war camp at San Pedro de Cardenas, 16 km. outside of Burgos, and within a month he was joined by several hundred brigaders who were caught before they could escape over the Ebro.4 Among these were Carl Geiser, Mac-Pap commissar; Jules Paivio from the battalion machine-gun company; Nick Elendiuck who had been picked up outside Azuara returning from a patrol; and John Charles Firmin. In the end, nearly all the internationals taken during the war found their way to the camp outside Burgos. San

Canadian Prisoners of War

201

Pedro de Cardenas had been the capital of £1 Cid, but now it was the scene of degradation. Some eight hundred internationls were kept there during the last year of the war. If it never quite matched Auschwitz for horror, the camp (Burgos as it is called today) nonetheless has its own special place in the history of concentration camps. Nick Elendiuck had one unique experience as a prisoner. He was brought immediately to Bilbao where a thirteen-man court martial sentenced him to death.5 For the next month he waited in that city for the execution. Meanwhile, a British correspondent who had met Elendiuck's group publicized their captivity widely. In this way, probably, the Nationalists were compromised. A month afterwards, the death sentence was commuted to a prison term and Elendiuck was sent on to the Burgos camp. Carl Geiser not only avoided a court martial but he narrowly missed harassment and execution which was the common lot of the brigade officers and commissars who were captured.6 Geiser's patrol had been surprised by Italians from the "23rd of March" Division and before he could destroy his insignia of rank, Geiser was picked up. The American was interviewed by a young officer with whom he exchanged friendly views of the conduct and outcome of the war. Then, not unexpectedly, Geiser was returned to his men who were lined up against a wall for execution. Just as the firing squad wheeled into position, a large sedan drove up accompanied by a motorcycle escort and out of it emerged an Italian officer who quickly took note of the tragedy and called off the execution. Jules Paivio, who was one of the intended victims, has remarked that the prisoners had already begun to sing the International in their last desperate seconds.7 Life at San Pedro de Cardenas was not much to write home about even if letters could have been despatched uncensored.8 It is easy to say in retrospect that the men could expect to survive, but at the time they were in prison, they were never allowed to forget the possibility of execution. How could they, when men were often removed from the barracks and shot? But there was no wholesale slaughter, at least, and no real logic to the executions that did occur. Certainly, officers and known communists were always in great jeopardy. Geiser somehow avoided detec-

202

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

tion as a commissar once he was at Burgos and when his safety was threatened by a pair of informers the latter were themselves told that they would be assassinated if Geiser's identity was revealed. But if there was not wholesale slaughter, there was wholesale beating. The men were regularly put through gauntlets as they left and returned to their barracks. The favorite instrument of affliction was a dried and weighted bull's penis. Two particularly efficient guards were "Blue Boy," so named because he wore a suit of blue coveralls, and "Tankey" who had, not unexpectedly, been a member of a Nationalist tank unit before he was wounded. When Blue Boy's skill with a whip reached alarming proportions, the irate prisoners retaliated. A spike was pulled from the wall, honed on the concrete floor and then, when the prisoners crowded around the guard as he walked through the courtyard, it was shoved into his chest. It is said that scarcely a man in the compound missed the chance to stomp Blue Boy's corpse. Thereafter, the overt brutality was reduced. The activities and antics of allied prisoners in the Second World War have long been publicized. The small "cultures" that thrived in camps like Stalag Luft 111, the elaborate attempts to eliminate the miserable tedium of confinement, the carefully prepared escapes, all these are part of the literature of that conflict. But the international prisoners at Burgos anticipated these efforts, and their success in sustaining morale is one of the brightest marks of the Spanish Civil War. By far the greatest number of prisoners were taken during the Retreats in March and April of 1938. Consequently, the problems inherent in P.O.W. life only became apparent as hundreds of men were assembled at Burgos. Because of the very nature of the Retreats, many of the internationals in the camp were given to bitter grousing. They were angry with the Republican command for its failure, however understandable, to halt the Nationalist offensive. And their attitude was not improved by the beatings nor by the daily lectures delivered by monks who extolled the Nationalist cause and chastised the democracies. But almost immediately the more forceful personalities among the prisoners stepped forward and began to do what simply had to be done: they began to

Canadian Prisoners of War

203

organize the camp. Certain of the internationals were elected as "chiefs" of the several national groups represented. Because he could speak German, Carl Geiser was placed in charge of the German Nationals. The "chief of chiefs" was a Belgian named Alex Sassoon who was a master of languages. The principal enterprise of the inmates was the San Pedro Higher Institute of Learning, and its faculty included an Indian who lectured on fakirs and gave lessons in palmistry, and an English zoologist; the syllabus prescribed courses in eleven languages, mathematics, bridge, chess. Classes met for three hours each morning, with each group being assigned a portion of the whitewashed walls of the rooms. The signal for dismissal of class was given by a bang on a pan. Out of such meetings stepped the virtuoso: an American who conducted thirty chess games simultaneously. And out of such organization came a newspaper, the Jalley News. Inevitably, there was an escape committee although it had little opportunity to practise its skills. One group of six Germans cut its way through the bars of a window and disappeared into the night. Two of these men were caught and shot, the remainder vanished. When the Nationalists discovered the exodus, they took as hostages those few men who were sleeping in the immediate vicinity of the infamous window. These prisoners were beaten unconscious and would have been executed had not the camp commander intervened. The only Canadian prisoner known to have died inside the Burgos camp was Isaac Matson who expired from cancer. One man attended his funeral: Nels Madsen, who saw his old friend buried in a coffin made of fish boxes. By the end of 1938, the prisoners had begun to move uneasily about the compound, for the International Brigades had been withdrawn from the Republican Army and were already on their way home, or at least out of Spain. What of the prisoners? What would happen to them? Christmas approached so some of the men characteristically gathered together in a choir and delighted their friends and the guards with carols, and hymns. Others, just as characteristically produced their own version of The Barber of Seville. When the curtain went up, four men were seen seated in

204

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

four "barber's chairs," each with his neck encased in a sort of yoke which was connected to the next man. Behind them stood the barbers. At a command, the customers began to swivel their heads in unison, back and forth, up and down. The satire on fascism was not lost on the audience. But the prisoners were heartened only briefly by the music and comedy. Until they received certain word that they would be repatriated, there was little reason for prolonged elation. The King Spanish Civil War File in the Public Archives contains a brief entitled Canada and the Spanish Conflict which was drafted in 1938 by a Canadian External Affairs officer named R. McDonald. In it appears the following statement: Upon receipt of definite evidence that a Canadian has been captured in Spain, inquiries may be made with a view to facilitating any action that may be possible with the purpose of alleviating his position. In the case of Canadians, strong pressure may be brought to bear with a view to preventing harsh treatment. In the case of Canadians who have been engaged in combatant activities and who are of full age, no action should be taken apart from inquiry. In the case of minors, efforts may be made to protect them even when they have been engaged in combatant work. The heading under which this recommendation occurred in the brief was "Attitudes Towards Canadians Who Have Got Into Difficulties."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"As we climbed there was not a man who did not think: It's going to be tough getting food, water and munitions up there; it's going to be tough for the wounded."—The Volunteer for Liberty THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES had endured "the pressure no man can withstand," and there were many survivors who believed that the career of this unique force was ended. Men stumbled about the terraces and barrancas along the eastern side of the Ebro River, calling for their battalions, calling for their friends. Some slumped pitifully to the ground, so shocked that they did not know that they were wounded or near starvation. Hundreds more milled about, well aware that the fascists might boil over the river at any moment, but too worn to care. A few shells dropped into Mora la Nueva, the twin of Mora de Ebro, and the Republican artillery on the hills above returned the fire. The men were slowly rounded up into squads and platoons and set into positions along the shore in expectation of a river assault; here they stayed for nearly a week until it became apparent that they were indeed safe. For a month they had been running, and now they could stop. Quietly, officers began to move among the despondent men, drawing out their own people, organizing platoons, then companies, then whole battalions. On April 12, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion drew up before its new commander, Milton Wolfe: forty Americans and thirty-five Spaniards. "More than four hundred were gone, and those who remained were precious beyond any possession."1 Those who remained wept openly as they found friends alive and learned of others dead. The Canadians were no better off. Smith was in hospital, Wellman was in hospital, Geiser was a prisoner, Makela was dead. But a skeleton staff of officers remained, and these began to pull the battalion together. Henry Mack took command until Smith returned. Old reliables like Schonberg, Ebb, Sol Rose, Nick Myers, Lionel Edwards and Irving Weissman were also on hand. The

Battle of the Ebro River

207

Toronto Daily Clarion published a report from a Nationalist news agency to the effect that five hundred Canadians had been taken prisoner in the Retreats. This information was no more reliable than the cable despatched from Spain by Jack Taylor, the new resident Canadian commissar: "Only casualty Mac-Paps and entire brigade since April 1 when Canadian dropped ammunition box on foot."2 Mack had gathered some twenty Mac-Paps around him at Mora la Nueva, and for a day or so this was the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The first order was food. The men "requisitioned" a deserted house and set to work scrounging potatoes, bully beef, bread and onions for a stew. Red Walsh went foraging, was himself arrested for looting and only escaped after pleading his case before an amused British commissar.3 The house in which the "battalion" was billeted was discovered in perfect order, flowers on the table, wine and nuts in the cupboard. So the men crowded around the table and for the only time in Spain, they ate off a linen tablecloth. Just then, half a dozen shells dropped about the town, but one man announced "that there was no shelling bad enough to move him from a table like this."4 So they finished. After a week or so, the units of the XVth International Brigade moved to Darmos, a small village about five hundred metres away from the river. Meanwhile, stragglers still drifted in. George Watt, one time Mac-Pap rifleman at Fuentes and now Lincoln Battalion commissar, staggered up on the east shore of the Ebro, naked, haggard, alone. The first men he encountered were Herbert Mathews of the New York Times and the ever-present Ernest Hemingway who stopped their car and gave Watt a lift into camp as if he had missed the bus back from the class picnic.5 Mathews and Hemingway moved among the disconsolate brigaders, handing out cigarettes and congratulating the volunteers on their narrow escape. The Times man was noticeably bitter; Hemingway, as always, became caught up in the excitement and impulsively queried the soldiers about their experiences around Gandesa. But the men did not mind for the burly American meant well and was glad to see them. Hemingway assured them that all was not lost. Such defeats as this only gave the Spanish people new resolve.

208

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

He had heard that Roosevelt had promised two hundred planes to France if France would then deliver them to Spain! Believe it or not, the war had taken a turn for the better!6 The men could not be reassured so easily. The Lincolns held their first mail call in weeks at this time. The courier "read hundreds of names, but only about fifteen men claimed letters. It took him half an hour to read all the names on the letters and after the first few times, nobody would say 'Dead' or 'Missing'; we just kept silent."7 Among the missing, for the moment, was the entire complement of the 35th Anglo-American Battery of the 4th Artillery Group.8 Among the crews were Ronald Liversedge and Emile Gougen, both of Vancouver, Hugh McGregor of Victoria, and David Mangel of Toronto. The battery bypassed the Ebro River and had rushed on ahead of the advancing fascist armies to the Mediterranean coast. There, the volunteers discovered that they were cut off from their friends to the north and that their only way to "safety" lay south and inland toward Cuenca. By mid-May, the battery's three 156 mm. guns (vintage 1875 and already relics of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905) had all exploded "due to pits in the gun barrels in which you could hide your thumb." The unit was then ordered to Valencia where it was reorganized as an antitank battery and issued brand-new Bofers cannons. The crews' reception of this assignment was ambivalent, to say the least: "admiration for a perfect product . . . mixed with a painfully acquired knowledge of the function and front line position of an anti-tank battery." Reinforced with two heavy machine-guns for anti-aircraft defence, the seventy volunteers were integrated into the newly-designated 129th International Brigade composed of the Dimitrov, the Masaryk and the Dajakovich Battalions. For the remainder of the summer, the 129th swerved about the plains of east central Spain, avoiding the pincers that crept south from Castellon and east from Cuenca. Again and again, the Brigade broke out of one trap only to fall into another. Their nerves, says Liversedge, "became very tight." The ordeal was interrupted once only and that time by the strangest sight the men encountered in the war. As the battery was rushing down a road towards a new position, it came upon an ambulance parked at the side.

Battle of the Ebro River

209

Nearby paced two figures, a young Scot smoking a Woodbine and a stately middle-aged woman in full Scottish dress: bonnet, velvet jacket, lace jabot, kilt and sporran, knee stockings and buckled shoes. This marvelous woman, explained her young friend, was the Duchess of Athol, and the two of them were in Spain to deliver an ambulance donated by the Spanish Aid Committee of Scotland! Liversedge and the others survived their months of combat on the Levante front and eventually escaped from Valencia to Barcelona by boat. The reorganization of the XVth International Brigade was now taking place near the Ebro. A Spaniard named Valledor replaced the weary Copic as commander; John Gates became brigade commissar. In the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, Edward C. Smith returned as commander, Frank Rogers, a Finnish-American late of the Lincolns, became the new commissar. Company commanders were Lionel Edwards, No. One; Henry Mack, No. Two; Pedro Roca, a transfer from the Thaelmanns, No. Three; George Carbonel, a Puerto Rican, No. Four; Gunnar Ebb, Machine-Gun. The battalion's table of organization had been expanded to incorporate a fourth rifle company, one which apparently received odds and ends of misfits, malcontents and odd-balls. Roca and Carbonel were to die in the Ebro campaign, Edwards would be severely wounded. Ebb would become battalion commander after Smith's wounding. The battalion adjutant was Sol Rose, another veteran.9 The empty ranks of the battalions were quickly filled by young Spaniards, most of them still adolescents. The internationals were reminded that their original mission in Spain had been as "instructors and examples" for the Republic, and now that mission was to be reasserted. By mid-summer, four out of five soldiers in the International Brigades would be Spaniards, and for these young recruits, the veterans must become "their comrades, their brothers, their teachers and their friends." The young and the old came together on a field outside Darmos for a May Day celebration: games, songs, rifle competitions. Some of the men sneaked down to the river and floated small rafts adorned with slogans toward the fascist side. The recruits listened to the old-

210

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

timers' stories of the war, and they tried also to master the international working class feeling which had brought these foreigners to Spain. Many of the Americans were skeptical of this consolidation. The language barrier was always considerable, of course, as was the pride of nationalism. The foreigners, especially the Americans, recalls Alvah Bessie, maintained "a persistent snobbism, and the Spaniards, because they could not always appreciate the issues of the struggle, distrusted their strange comrades."10 Their youth and their distrust probably induced the trances into which they invariably slumped whenever their commissars addressed them. Quite possibly, as Bessie says, the veterans did not expect much from these young men. On this same May 1, Juan Negrin who was within a few days of celebrating his first year as Prime Minister, issued a list of thirteen points which specified the war aims of his government. Negrin had reorganized his cabinet a month earlier, expelling Indalecio Prieto, his war minister, who had been under bitter attack from communists since his assumption of the office and who had to bear the responsibility for the defeat at Teruel. Negrin, enormously popular with his people, now assumed Prieto's post. The thirteen points, evidently inspired by President Wilson's postWorld War I proposal, announced the independence and integrity of Spain, the liberation of Spain from foreign occupation and influence, the creation of a people's republic, a plebiscite to be held at the end of the war, guarantees of the national liberties of the Spanish people, full social, civic and religious freedoms, protection of private property as well as protection from economic exploitation, agrarian reform, social legislation for workers, "the cultural, physical and moral improvement of the nation," the creation of a non-political defence army, renunciation of war and fidelity to the League of Nations, "amnesty for all Spaniards who proved they desired to cooperate in the work for reconstruction."11 It was an ambitious and honourable program for Spain, and it seemed to all to confirm Negrin's concern and gratitude for these civilians and soldiers who had worked so hard in the past and who now faced their trials with renewed courage. Through this entire period, until the second week of May, the

Battle of the Ebro River

211

Mac-Paps camped at Darmos. Regularly, platoons were dispatched to the banks of the Ebro where they were posted as lookouts. Some fire was exchanged with patrols across the stream but this was desultory and did not disturb the peasants who continued to work their fields on both sides. Suddenly, the entire XVth International Brigade returned to war. The Republicans had opened an offensive to the north in the vicinity of Lerida and the brigade was dispatched to Tarrega, east of the new front, as a reserve. The men were on the march for five days during which time rain poured on them without ceasing. At night, the brigaders were refused permission to billet in villages or in farm buildings in case they should be attacked from the air. "But to old-timers like the Mac-Paps, this was sheer idiocy, since the torrential rain precluded any flying at all."12 On the third day out, Andre Marty, the old war horse, visited the battalion, which drew up around him and angrily demanded shelter. Marty, perhaps even then in the early stages of a mental strain that was to become notorious, shouted back that if the MacPaps wanted to sleep in houses, they would have to take Lerida. That same evening, Larry Cane, now transferred to the battalion machine-gun company as executive officer, ordered his gunners to break into barns on the outskirts of one of the nearby villages. "Ebb took me to his iron heart from that moment on. The next night, everyone in the battalion slept under shelter."13 Once in position near Lerida, the volunteers sweated out the battle though the news which they received was essentially good: the Republicans had finally begun an offensive which seemed likely to succeed. Many planes, nuestros!, flew over, and the comfortable sounds of Republican artillery rolled back. The XVth International Brigade understood that it might have to mop up, and the men were happy, for had they been used as assault troops, their perennial role, their mission would doubtless have failed. The young Spaniards simply could not have kept up. For some reason never made clear, the offensive was abruptly halted and the XVth International Brigade returned to its new camp at Marsa, some fifteen kilometres east of the river. The walk in the rain had been for nothing. The battalions went into bivouac now, strung out along a dusty

212

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

road for three kilometres. Briefly, the volunteers were buoyed up by the rumour that the Non-intervention Committee was negotiating for the removal of all foreigners from the Republican Army. Even if the men had a low regard for the Committee, the law of averages was now really working against them and they feared going into battle again. So they hung on rumours, rationalized the need to get them out of Spain. And slowly, even the capacity for hope wore away as the days passed and no one came to take them away and the routine of drill and instruction was once again set into motion. On June 14, a "shouting-down contest" was held between "the loudest-mouthed comrades from each battalion." Good old Butch Goldstein was the Mac-Pap standard bearer and Bob Cooney, Battalion Commissar, was the British representative. Now Butch was a sort of dark horse. The British looked to their laurels and worried, it seems. So Butch was given the best in the house—two chickens, they say. That got Butch down —his body and his voice. For when the contest came off, Butch could only cackle and Bob just had to talk normally to win. Now Butch is in the doghouse. Did Butch sell out? the MacPaps ask. The British gave him two chickens but the Mac-Paps gave him the bird.14 On July 19, a second international incident occurred. The officers and commissars of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion met their counterparts in the British Battalion in a soccer game. Lt. Henry Mack starred on the defensive for the Canadian team. The final score is not available but there is a photograph extant of the Mac-Pap team with the inscription "Champions of the XVth Brigade" scrawled on the back.15 New weapons and new clothing were now issued. The machinegun company received three mortars, toy-like pieces which fired fragmentation shells. Five-man crews were assembled, most of them Finns. The battalions began to move about the countryside in search of small streams and dried river beds across which they threw mock assaults. As July waned, such drill intensified and the men knew that one day soon they would go back over the Ebro. Rifleman Cecil Fobert of Saskatoon and points west arrived in

Battle of the Ebro River

213

Spain in the early summer and joined the Mac-Paps at Marsa. His first assignment was as a guard in a detention camp for brigaders who had got drunk or hit a sergeant or fought in mess line. Then, one night, Fobert was relieved of that chore and sent back to his company which was packing up for a four-day march back and forth through the area. Finally, on the fourth night, the Canadians came down to the Ebro, stacked rifles and slept for a few hours. Fobert remembers that he slept particularly well "till someone kicked my foot. 'Ya! What do you want?!' Then I remembered that we had to cross the Ebro."16 On July 25, 1938, the Republican Army startled the world, Nationalist Spain and the fascist sentries on the far shore by opening a full-scale counter-offensive across the Ebro. Lionel Edwards in No. One Company "didn't know the battle order but it must have been to cross over and go as far as you bloody well could."17 The offensive, over forty thousand metres broad from Flix in the north to Tortosa in the south, was actually designed to relieve Nationalist pressure on Valencia and divert troops in that sector to the north. No one really expected the attack to proceed beyond Batea. Before dawn on the 25th, Fobert and the other Mac-Paps made their way across the Ebro in small boats steered by brigaders and Spanish fisherman. German scouts from the Xlth International Brigade crossed first to kill the fascist sentries. They were followed by their brigade. The Canadians were the first battalion of the XVth International Brigade to assemble on the far shore. Mules were kicked into the water and coerced across by the muleteers who rode in boats nearby. The first units over dragged heavy ropes with them by which makeshift bridges could then be built. Ultimately, the stronger bridges constructed across boat-pontoons bore the weight of trucks. At first light, the Mac-Paps were drawn up on the west bank where immediately they came under fire from mortars and from one huge tri-motored bomber. The men flopped on their backs and fired simultaneously at the low-flying aircraft which soon disappeared, its engines smoking. The first objective of the Canadians was the river towns of Flix and Asco; the battalion had come ashore just midway between the two targets. Nos. One and Two

214

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Companies, reinforced by heavy machine-guns and the headquarters section, moved on Asco while Nos. Three and Four Companies with the rest of the machine-guns turned north to Flix. Both towns were quickly seized after light resistance. A company of fascist cavalry and a whole battalion of infantry simply quit at Flix. The garrison at Asco gave up after killing its officer. But the Mac-Paps had taken their first casualties. Lionel Edwards' command post was hit by a shell which severely wounded the company commander and killed a runner, Uuno Maunumaki of Port Arthur. Back on the river, Red Walsh, pilot of one of the small boats, took a bad belly wound just as he stepped ashore to get the proverbial cup of hot coffee.18 A detail of half-a-dozen Mac-Paps remained on patrol in Flix while the rest wheeled back out of town and headed south to join the other companies which were proceeding overland to Corbera. A squad from the machine-gun company including Larry Cane took off on fascist horses for that town in a mad race to seize the supply depot which the fascists had built there. As the battalion itself swept south and west, it moved through the rear of the Lincolns and the 24th Battalion which were on their way to Fatarella. By late afternoon, the Canadians were all reunited and proceeding rapidly despite increasing aerial attack. All about them they found debris left by the fleeing fascists. Peasants along the way confirmed the rout.19 Shortly after sunset, the Canadians were alerted by the sounds of heavy equipment moving across their front. Dreading fascist tanks, the battalion scurried off the road but returned smiling broadly when they found the disturbance was caused by members of the XHIth International Brigade driving captured artillery pieces and tractors. The march resumed, and at 4:00 A.M. on the 26th the Mac-Paps came up on the main Corbera-Mora road about one kilometre from Corbera. The British Battalion had actually arrived late the previous day but had been diverted east to overrun a ridge which threatened the highway. Aided by patrols from the XHIth International Brigade, the Mac-Paps moved into the town at dawn, past the road-block which had been eliminated by Cane's mounted force. Prepared for a bitter street fight, the

Battle of the Ebro River

215

men were relieved to find the town deserted except for civilians and the grinning horsemen. As the battalion pushed through Corbera to the western approach and the safety of a barranca, the men were issued shoes, blankets and innumerable tins of sardines and octopus which Cane had taken from the supply depot. When the soldiers had passed, the American invited the civilians to help themselves to stores which he placed in the street.20 By mid-afternoon on the second day of the offensive, the fascist bombers had discovered Corbera and were bombing it to pulp. But the Mac-Paps had already departed. In fact, they were lined up on the west side of town on a two-brigade-wide assault line, the British on the left, the Mac-Paps in the middle and the Lincolns on their right with the entire XIHth International Brigade farther to the right. "The maneuver" recalls Larry Cane, "was something like a scene from a war-movie."21 The line began to advance down the valley toward Gandesa, a movement of great beauty and order broken only by the mules in the Mac-Pap machine-gun company which tried to run off. The men marched through olive groves and rows of grape orchards until they reached a point scarcely two kilometres outside Corbera where they came under fire from fascist outposts. Not since Fuentes de Ebro had the International Brigades put together such a charge. They would never do it again. The attackers came under intense fire from the hills before Gandesa, and within two hundred metres of that town they drew to a halt with the Canadian battalion having made the deepest penetration. Maury Colow, an American section leader in Henry Mack's company, crept up beside a stone marker on which was engraved the word GANDESA and listened to the sounds of vehicles roaring into the town from the far side. An attack broke on the Mac-Paps' vanguard and the patrol withdrew.22 That evening, the British began the first of a series of murderous assaults up the slopes of Hill 481, the notorious "Pimple." Though these attacks were futile, they did keep the fascists so busy that they could not harass the further deployment and entrenchment of the Xllth and Xlth International Brigades which now dug in

216

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

across several miserable hills on the northern and eastern sides of the town. The Canadians' No. One Company, now led by Bill Metvenko, took high casualties this first day because it was located closest to the Pimple. No. Two Company had the dubious honor of holding that portion of the line nearest Gandesa. For the next four days the brigades went over the top again and again, the British bound for the summit of the Pimple, the other battalions for Gandesa. And again and again these assaults were repulsed by brutal aerial and artillery bombardment. The bodies of the dead quickly littered the hillsides and barrancas, and in the searing heat the stench was gruesome. There was precious little cover anywhere for the brigaders. The hills around Gandesa were barren piles of rock and men were struck down as often by slivers of stone as by bullets and shrapnel. "Digging in" meant scraping the six inches of surface soil away and then throwing up rock parapets. So there was little genuine protection from the killing fire. All day, hour after hour, they kept it up. They covered our parapets and every inch of the back side of the hill. They wanted, by the sheer weight of their steel, to blow us off that hill. Hour in and hour out, they kept it up, and the body was utterly exhausted and indifferent to conscious fear, but straining to the snapping point. There was sweat and there was internal pain; the word "waiting" came to mean something more than it had meant before, for you were definitely waiting for them to find you and to finish you. It was impersonal. . . ,23 On one occasion three Republican tanks pressed through No. Two Company's position in an attempt to shell the outlying build* ings, but these were hit before they could get into position. Only two crewmen got away. The tanks were destroyed by a new artillery piece which the survivors of Spain later learned was the spectacularly effective German 88, a multi-purpose, high velocity, rapid-firing weapon. The first 88's apparently came into Gandesa on the third day of the offensive and their blasting power was felt immediately. Larry Cane was directing cover barrages on the Pimple. So intent was he on focusing his fire accurately that he and his crew, Arvi Myllikangas of Toronto and a Finnish national named Man-

Battle of the Ebro River

217

ninen, stood up in their position. Cane heard the shriek of an incoming shell and dove for the ground. The explosion stunned him but otherwise left him unscathed. Myllikangas and Manninen were literally blown to bits; their squashed limbs rained down upon the prostrate American.24 The use of the 88 and of the German Messerschmidt in combat made it evident that the Ebro offensive was, after all, a success. The volume of fascist bombardment grew greater and greater as reinforcements began to pour in from southern Spain. But to riflemen like Frank Thirkettle of Toronto, the success of the offensive did not make the predicament that much more tolerable. Thirkettle became a casualty before Gandesa during one of the several charges which the Mac-Paps delivered. His arm broken by a bullet, the Canadian attempted to walk to cover and was struck down again by another bullet in the leg. Helpless on the field, Thirkettle now became the object of fascist target practice. His canteen was shot out of his hand and his other leg was promptly drilled through. Not until darkness could a stretcher team reach the still-conscious man. Nearby, Cecil Fobert went down with a wound in the lower abdomen.25 Robert Gordon of Timmins, Herbert Hill of Saskatoon, Arthur Johnson of Toronto, Gordon Keenan of Vancouver, John Policheck of Vancouver, Jack Steele of Toronto and John Wandzilak of Winnipeg died during these days. Steele was on his second tour in Spain. After ten days of such pounding, the XVth International Brigade was relieved. The fascists on the Pimple had repulsed the British attacks, the outskirts of Gandesa still had not been forced. The brigade went into reserve along the Corbera-Mora de Ebro road some three kilometres west of the river. For eight days the men camped in an olive grove and waited for the inevitable return to the front. During this time, a rumour circulated that an uprising in the Republican army was expected, and so brigade officers and commissars were briefly assigned bodyguards to thwart assassination. But nothing came of the rumour and the bodyguard was soon relieved. On August 15, the XVth International Brigade departed for the Sierra de Pandols, "The Mountains of the Moon." If the hffls

218

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

around Gandesa had been appalling, the Pandols were virtual hell, the most difficult position occupied by the Mac-Paps during the entire war. Most of the area was bare rocks. Some hard jack-pine and mountain scrub covering the crests had been burned off by bombs and shells. The whole piece was blackened, evil-looking and stunk chokingly of death since the dead could not be buried. The bodies were of both Republican and Fascist dead, and we had to drag and carry them back to the firing position where they lay in stinking, wormy and fly-ridden piles all the time we were there. It was impossible to dig in, and gun positions were prepared by painstakingly filling sandbags with rocks and chips. There was no water. The only route into our positions was a precarious mountain trail up the face of a cliff that dropped into a frightening ravine . . . All we did in the Pandols was endure and hold.26 The brigade was thrown across the hills just south of their original position near the Pimple. The Canadians were on Hill 609, the Lincolns were on their right on Hill 666, the 24th Battalion was beyond the Lincolns and the British were in immediate reserve. In front of the Mac-Paps was a huge saucer-shaped valley and on the ridges across were the fascists. The valley floor was carpeted with dead and the fumes were wafted up to the heights above. The brigaders wore camphor bags around their necks to counter the stench. On the first day in the line, the Mac-Paps stormed across the valley to the distant ridges but were driven back by grenades literally dropped into their faces. For the next ten days, the brigade suffered what was probably the heaviest mortar and artillery concentration of the entire war, opening with a seven and a half-hour barrage. At its conclusion, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion was reduced to half-strength. Ivor "Tiny" Anderson, one of the most popular men in the unit, a survivor of the Ciudad de Barcelona, was dead by his own hand. His legs ripped off by a mortar shell, he had shot himself rather than face the long and certain death among the rocks. Arthur Linton of Windsor, Ontario, describes Anderson's last moments: We were running up a terraced hill. I kept dropping behind so Tiny would pick me up by the scruff of the neck and yell,

Battle of the Ebro River

219

"Come on you little bugger and don't drop the machine gun" and he'd haul me up. Well, we got to the top and this mortar hit. I stood there stunned. And Tiny was about seven or eight feet away, laying there. And both his legs were off. I don't know how long I stood there, shaking my head, just looking at him. And finally I said, "Jesus Christ, not him!" When I finally went over to him, I saw that he still had hold of his rifle and Tiny said to me "Say goodbye to Pete for me." Pete was his chum. And I said "What the hell you talking about. Goddamit, we'll get you patched up." I was still having trouble pulling my self together what with the mortar concussion. And Tiny said "When we go back from here, boy, there's no pension, no nothing. . . . " And then I started to go up to him, and he put the rifle muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.27

By Linton's account, Anderson killed himself with his own rifle, but another eyewitness asserts that after hearing Anderson's pleas, he walked over and gave the stricken man his rifle.28 Anderson was buried on the spot under some rocks. Evacuation of the wounded could only take place at night and the wounded often expired before they could be taken out. John Wandzilak of Winnipeg was shot dead by a sniper on the second day. George Campbell of British Columbia died of concussion, as did many of his friends. Lost also were Oklahoman Jim Hill, killed while probing for contact with another Republican brigade; Pedro Roca of Almeria, Spain, one-time member of the Thaelmann Centuria and a Mac-Pap since the Tarazona days; George Carbonel, a medical student from Madrid, whose brother, Pablo, had died at Teruel. On August 26, the battered XVth International Brigade staggered down from the Pandols and into extended reserve several kilometres away. On the way back, the men filed past the dead town of Corbera, a No Man's Land now. Not a house remained erect, and block after block was steeped in filth and blood. As the brigaders came down, they passed the Spanish 43rd Division moving up as their replacement and they were cheered and so they cheered in return. During the earlier period in reserve, the brigades had learned of the decision of the Republican government to provide furlough in Paris to veterans with fourteen months service and at least six

220

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

months of combat. Now the government had apparently come through, and the first detachment of thirty men was preparing to depart for the border. Among these were veterans Joe Gibbons and Karl Cannon, American members of the Mac-Paps, and Bill Hallowell, a Canadian who had served in the Lincolns since the Jarama days.29 In Paris, the temptation to desert could arise, especially if this gesture by the government was seen as the first stage in the total withdrawal of the internationals. A meeting of commissars was called "and the law laid down." On no account were the men to be permitted to dream away their time on the prospects of withdrawal or an "extended" furlough. The Ebro offensive was a success, the International Brigades were still needed. Conversely, rumours of the impending departure of the internationals would deplete the already precarious morale of men who might still have to go back to war. Commitment in terms of ideals and in terms of offensive action was the order of the day, the "law." The furlough excitement shortly subsided; it was apparent that only a few men would be permitted to leave, and so the remainder fatalistically stopped worrying.30 During the night of September 4, the XVth International Brigade returned to the lines, to a new position in the Sierra de Caballs east of Corbera. The Mac-Paps and the 24th Battalion moved into trenches manned by Spaniards, but as the two units came up, they found the Republicans under heavy enfilading fire from a battalion of Requetes. At this moment the fascists broke out and swept forward across a steep valley. In moments, the MacPaps and the 24th set up a heavy concentration of machine-gun fire and utterly destroyed the attacking force. In another hour the relief had been completed and the MacPaps sat on top of Hills 565 and 561 with the Lincolns and British on their right and the Corbera-Gandesa highway just below. This time, a company of Spanish engineers came up and through the next week prepared bunkers and gun replacements unlike any the Canadians had occupied in months. And the battalion had a new commander, Gunnar Ebb, who had replaced Makela at Caspe and who now replaced Smith when the latter was wounded on the way to Hill 565.

Battle of the Ebro River

221

Atop one of these hills was the Mac-Pap transmission section led by Alex Chambers and staffed by young Spaniards. Relying as usual on heliograph mirrors for relay of messages, the section was demolished one day when fascist observers detected sunlight glinting off the mirror and called in a barrage which fell on the section. Chambers ever after believed that the mirror was left uncovered by one of his young Spaniards who was discovered to be a fascist agent.31 On the tenth of September, the Canadians successfully forced a salient which thereafter threatened the right flank of the fascist line and prevented any movement forward. The elation at the success of this maneuver was sharply reduced the next day when the unit, on its way to the rear, made so much noise that the enemy was able to catch the men in the open with a mortar barrage. The reserve position was along the hills of the Sierra de Lavall de La Torre scarcely out of sight of 565. But if the Mac-Paps were again in reserve, they were not at rest. For the following week, the men trained replacements, young Spaniards and fascist prisoners who had preferred assignment to the front rather than life in a P.O.W. camp. At night, the Canadians marched to the low ground near the Caballs where they restored fortifications. "We trained and dug. There was no rest and little sleep."32 On the 22nd, as the brigade was moving to its old positions of early September in the Caballs, the news was released of Negrm's decision to evacuate all internationals. Although the men had been expecting some sort of decision for several days, the announcement still took them by surprise. Negrin, addressing the League of Nations the previous day, had proposed the withdrawal "in order to eliminate all pretexts and possible doubts about the genuinely national character of the cause for which the Republican Army is fighting."33 The excitement over withdrawal was dulled by the new crisis affecting the Sudetenland. It seemed to the desperate internationals along the Ebro that Czechoslovakia was being abandoned to the Nazis just as the Spanish Republic had been abandoned to the insurgents. The news of the impending evacuation arrived at the front on the morning of September 22, 1938; the men would leave on

222

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

September 23; all they had to do was hold on for one more day. It turned out to be a brutal day. The beautiful fortifications prepared by the engineers in the Caballs had been destroyed by artillery, so new and very rough emplacements had to be prepared in one night. At 9:00 A.M. the fascists began an assault along the whole brigade front, prefaced by a two-hour barrage. By mid-afternoon, the Xlth International Brigade on the left had been forced out, the British and the Lincolns had abandoned their hills. Only the Mac-Paps, their orders to hold still unchanged, remained in position.34 One hundred and fifty metres below, the fascists seized a small knoll and raised their flag in the faces of the near-helpless volunteers. In between the knoll and the battalion line lay Ben Goldstein and his crew of Canadian and Spanish machine-gunners in the most exposed position. The fascists now pressed directly on the Mac-Paps, their lead squads already up on the trenches, hurling grenades, struggling hand to hand with the defenders. Henry Mack, almost the only officer left on his feet, shouted to his men to destroy personal documents and to withdraw. Then Mack, Maury Colow, a Canadian scout and one of the Spanish commissars broke out of their hole and raced to the rear. The scout fell away, his stomach ripped open. The commissar collapsed with a fragment in one leg. Mack and Colow picked him up and sped on. A second line of a few riflemen had been thrown up on a nearby ridge and towards this comparative safety the men hurried. Suddenly, a shell dropped on them, stunning the others and cutting Colow badly about the head and shoulders. Thinking he was dying, the American plunged screaming over the crest of the ridge and dropped into the arms of the Mac-Paps who quickly persuaded him that his head was not severed. The men who survived this last action witnessed a sight that provoked them to great anger. As the fascists spilled into the MacPap trenches the ex-prisoners of war who had spent the last hour wrapped in blankets to simulate corpses jumped up waving white handkerchiefs so that they would not be cut down by the assaulting troops. Men were dropping all around now; the Mac-Pap position was fast crumbling. In his hole, Larry Cane took a moment to pass

Battle of the Ebro River

223

around the last tin of cigarettes he owned, then he and his men, firing pistols frantically, broke away to safety. Below the crest, Ben Goldstein waited to evacuate his precarious stronghold. A runner somehow crawled down and gave him orders to withdraw. Goldstein worried briefly over the command and then climbed back up the hill until he found an officer who agreed to take the responsibility for the retreat. The machine-gunner scampered back, dismantled the weapon, handed the parts and the ammunition cans to his crew, picked up the base of the gun himself and then, bellowing in fear and excitement so that the men above heard him, he got away. The second line held through the rest of the day, the men there being so bold as to contemplate a counterattack that evening. Three different squadrons of bombers laid salvos back and forth across the ground, the last of which mortally wounded Archie Kessner, an American Mac-Pap who had come all the way through the war. Kessner rolled over, his hand pressed to the wound. "I was beginning to think," he said, "they'd never get me." According to Cane, Kessner was the last American killed in the Spanish Civil war.35 At 1:00 A.M. on the morning of September 23, the thirty-five members of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion who were still on their feet went down out of the hills. The war for them was over. They had lasted one more day.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"We knew that the end was coming, but those last days in this pleasant seaside town, Casa de la Selva, made it a little easier. It was the Spain that we wanted to remember, pleasant, friendly, sunny. Perhaps I am sentimentalizing memories after all these years. It was a bitter end to the dreams we had cherished. We were leaving Spain shattered and in chains. We had come to Spain full of high hopes and were leaving a people and country destroyed and hopeless." — S. H. Abramson As RELIEVED as they were to be out of the hills and out of the war, the brigaders came away so stricken by the enormous sacrifices in the last days, so weary after twenty months of combat, that many began to weep. A week later, on September 29, representatives of France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy signed the Munich Pact which signified peace in our time. The way home was now to be prepared. In Marsa, the volunteers in the XVth International Brigade were mustered for the last time, marched out of the ranks and replaced, at last, by allSpanish contingents. This ceremony took place while Republican and Nationalist airplanes waged dogfights overhead. On October 15, a second farewell was held when the battalions of the 35th Division marched in review past their commanders. And on October 29, with much love, the people of Barcelona cheered the internationals as the men walked along the main boulevard in their last parade. Echoing in their ears were the words of Dolores Ibarruri, "La Pasionaria": Come back to us. With us those of you who have no country will find one, those of you who have to live deprived of friendship will find friends, and all of you will find the love and gratitude of the whole Spanish people who, now and in the future, will cry out with all their hearts: Long live the heroes of the International Brigades!1

The Way Home

225

But the men had a long, frustrating way to go before they got home. The repatriation depot assigned to the English-speaking internationals was at Ripoll, directly north of Barcelona and within sight of the Pyrenees. From hospitals in Barcelona and Benicasim, from camps in and around Falset and Marsa, the volunteers made their way to Ripoll where the nervewracking process of identification and registration went on. Canada and the United States, though not signatories to the Non-intervention Agreement, readily consented to the invitation from the Committee to send representatives into Spain to negotiate repatriation. While the Canadian survivors waited anxiously in Ripoll, their government began to organize the evacuation. The fact that American and British volunteers came out at least a month before the Canadians may testify to the caution, not to say confusion, that reigned in Ottawa. On March 1, 1938, officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Department of Immigration and the Department of External Affairs met to determine the legal rights the volunteers would have with respect to re-entry into Canada. The R.C.M.P. stated that the men should be denied return to Canada "upon the ground that they had either committed a breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act or were engaged contrary to the policy of the government in the Spanish War." Immigration, on the other hand, declared that "in most, if not all, instances the nature of the absence from Canada would be inconsistent with an intention of settlement abroad." According to the provisions of the Immigration Act, the men could be readmitted to Canada. This view was to prevail.2 The right of the volunteers to come home already established, the most immediate problem faced by the Canadian government that autumn of 1938 was the financing of repatriation. Never sure just how many men were involved ("But we can expect that the number is large, something between one hundred and four hundred."), Ottawa was in a quandary about the legality of financial assistance. There were, however, precedents. In July of that year, one W. H. Angell, a Canadian, apparently escaped from Spain to Gibraltar. Upon notification that the Governor of Gibraltar had incurred some expenses in receiving Mr. Angell, the Canadian government agreed to reimbursement but added that "they did not

226

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

wish to assume responsibility for repatriation to Canada." In early October, the British consul at Marseilles spent some fifty pounds providing transportation and food allowances to thirteen Canadians bound for England. What action, asked Ambassador Massey, should be taken? On October 19, the ambassador again cabled Ottawa for instructions "as to the authorization to issue emergency certificates for return to Canada and with regard to the cost of such repatriation." Apparently the situation of these refugees was becoming tense: the French government had given them fifteen days in which to indicate their nationality. After that time, the unfortunate men would be sent to an internment camp for six months.3 Ottawa, while appreciating the plight of the volunteers, was anxious not to disturb her relations with France and Great Britain by assuming that these countries would carry the burden of repatriation of other than their own nationals. Furthermore, the repatriation of the internationals derived from "a general international movement" that was bent upon keeping the peace. "In such circumstances, it would be difficult for this country to stand alone in refusing help in the settlement of the Spanish mess." Finally, the government would refrain from any activity that might discourage or deter "Canadian friends of the volunteers who have sent the volunteers to Spain and should pay their return if there is any way of inducing them to do so." There was, fortunately, no need to induce these friends.4 On January 1, 1939, Allan Dowd, already a veteran of two ventures into wartime Spain, sailed from North America bound for Europe to negotiate the repatriation of the survivors of the Canadian force. Dowd sailed with the blessings of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, the Communist Party of Canada and the Canadian government.5 Preparation for that voyage took place in the following manner. On November 29, 1938, O. D. Skelton, Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, noted that he had learned from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company that the number of Canadians seeking repatriation exceeded two hundred but that "the Mackenzie-Papineau and other organizations largely responsible

The Way Home

227

for enlisting and sending these men over" had said that they had the money necessary to bring them home. This is the first reference in the King file to the C.P.R.; although that company's own records of this transaction were destroyed in England during the blitz, obviously Canadian friends of the volunteers had already assured themselves of the cooperation of the C.P.R.6 Despite Skelton's information of November 29, when Allan Dowd presented himself to Skelton sometime in December to apply for a passport, not only did Skelton tell him to put the request in writing but he reminded the would-be envoy that "there were matters to be cleared up, particularly as to the undertakings given the C.P.R. as to provision of funds. . . ." Apparently Skelton was not yet convinced that the source of funds was clearly established. He seems to have become indignant at the supposed procrastination of "people like the Mackenzie-Papineau organization" who, he assumed, must have "assured themselves of the elementary facts as to the Spanish Government's willingness to pay transportation before making a definite offer to the C.P.R." But in this same memorandum, dated December 23, Skelton reported that "the Canadian Pacific authorities had been quite satisfied that money for the passage would be forthcoming."7 The Canadian government had known for nearly a month that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was content with the assurances given them by the friends of the volunteers. Why, then, Skelton's hesitation? Because he wanted Dowd's mission to be a successful one and the chances of success were considerably jeopardized if the exact source of the funds could not be confirmed. Skelton had just received a visit from Mr. M. J. Coldwell M.P. and Mr. David Lewis regarding the repatriation. These gentlemen knew of Dowd's application and also something of the confusion surrounding the negotiations among the C.P.R., the "Mackenzie-Papineau people" and the Canadian government. They urged on Skelton the interpretation that "from what they knew of the organization in question, incompetence and unbusinesslike methods were likely more responsible for any misunderstanding that had occurred, than any attempt to mislead the C.P.R. or the Canadian government." Furthermore, they assumed that the "organization in question," understanding as it did that the Spanish

228

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

government was subsidizing the repatriation of American survivors, expected that government to make a similar agreement with the Canadians. Skelton replied that he thought the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade had put up the money. In any case, Coldwell and Lewis urged, "in the interests of avoiding any controversy," that some means of returning the volunteers be devised. "I replied," wrote Skelton, "that the people who would doubtless wish to avoid any controversy were those who had raised the funds for sending the men over and who were now trying to evade their undertaking to bring them back." If Coldwell and Lewis took this personally, they had a right to be chagrined since, as members of the C.C.F., they had never sought to assist the creation of a combat force for Spain.8 How and when Mr. Skelton received final confirmation that the Spanish Republic would, indeed, pay for the volunteers' passage is not known. But sometime between December 23 and January 1, he consented to Dowd's passport application. On January 31, 1939, Skelton submitted another Spanish memorandum to be used in the House of Commons in response to questions placed on the Order Paper. After reviewing the long course of deliberations with respect to repatriation, Skelton closed by noting that the funds had been supplied by the Spanish government: "A conclusion has thus been brought to a difficult situation."9 Upon his arrival in Paris in early January, Dowd secured a draft for $20,000 from the Spanish embassy in that city and turned it over to a C.P.R. representative. Pausing briefly to meet with Canadian journalist Matthew Halton, Dowd addressed appeals for additional funds to former Canadian prime minister R. B. Bennett and commercial tycoon Garfield Weston, both of whom were in Europe at that time. Dowd recalls that Weston donated a thousand dollars; Bennett gave nothing. Then the Canadian "envoy" went into Spain, accompanied now by two men who will forever be remembered by the Mac-Paps. One was Colonel Andrew O'Kelly, assistant commissioner of Canadian Immigration services in London, England. The other was a C.P.R. agent named Coakley.10 The Canadian volunteers had moved from Ripoll, a gloomy town in the mountains, to Casa de la Selva on the Costa Brava. The weeks in Ripoll had been miserable. The British and the

The Way Home

229

Americans had already departed the country and this fact, coupled with the strain of waiting and the emotional let-down after months of combat, cast the Canadians into a black depression. No one seemed interested in organizing the men in any way; Smith sat in his room dejected and shocked by the recent events. No other officers appeared to assume command, so a handful of exsergeants, among them Henry Meyer of Vancouver and S. H. Abramson of Montreal, decided to restore order and some dignity to the despondent men. Simply running the camp at Ripoll was a challenge, scrounging for food, caring for the ill and the wounded, of whom there were many. No one, at this time, was interested in classes on political or cultural topics.11 Before the last-minute move to the coast, rumours began to circulate about Ripoll that the Canadians would never get home, that their exodus was being deliberately held up by the International Brigade headquarters. The men were divided over the validity of this rumour, with feelings running high. Finally the Spanish commandant in the area advised the Canadians to send a committee to Barcelona. S. H. Abramson tells of that visit: We were ushered into the office of Andre* Marty. His welcome was more than frigid. He was angry, shouted and threatened us and said that committees were not recognized in the army. He sent out for our service records and spent a long time studying them. We were most uncomfortable to put it mildly. Finally, he calmed down and told us that he would receive us as individuals and not as a committee. He spent some time explaining the situation, that we were being held up by the Canadian government, which was putting obstacles in the way of our speedy return. We were convinced. We reported to the men in Ripoll; they were convinced too that the fault lay in Ottawa and began writing their families to bring pressure on the government.12 The Canadians were shortly visited by Marty who stood before them on a platform, his face flushed with disdain. In the midst of an oration in which he accused the Canadians of cowardice for not remaining in the lines, he saw a man in the audience light a cigarette. Marty screamed "Spy! He's signalling the fascists!" and sent his aides to arrest the man. But the Canadians laughed so hard at the fiasco that the embarrassed aides were called back.13

230

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Allan Dowd had a final interview with Marty before he left Spain and he, too, stood quietly while the old man shrieked that the Republicans should not be paying the fares home for traitors.14 Dowd, Colonel O'Kelly and Coakley found the Canadians in Casa de la Selva, and the latter two men began to move among the survivors checking their passports, interviewing those who had lost all documents which might have testified to their citizenship or to the fact of their having been domiciled in Canada. O'Kelly tried to test the familiarity of these men with Canada by asking them to name a prominent Canadian. Many, of course, had to reply "Tim Buck!" O'Kelly did not impress the brigaders. Pompous, condescending, he seemed less interested in their predicament and more concerned with the possibility of air raids. Coakley, on the other hand, was efficient, sympathetic, friendly. Colonel O'Kelly must have reminded the Canadians of a young English charge d'affaires who visited them in Ripoll and expressed his distaste for them by saying that if the men did not behave, they would not be allowed into England. One Canadian, who happened to be stretched out on the floor, a bit tipsy from Spanish wine, replied, "Does ye think we give a fuck, lad!" The men broke up in laughter.15 On one occasion during the interviews, a Canadian of East European extraction was refused re-entry. When the news was circulated, a committee led by Wilfrid Robson visited O'Kelly and insisted that the man's application be reviewed. Despite such petitions, two or three men are known to have been denied permission and eventually to have escaped to Mexico. One of these was Alfred Vinsky whose residence in Canada had been considered too brief to warrant re-entry.16 Barcelona, meanwhile, was undergoing terrible bombardment. The fascist armies were converging on that city with particular haste and enthusiasm. Henry Meyer describes the moving reception of this news by the Canadians. They had already settled down for the night in a little town around its bombed-out theatre. Immediately the small "morale squad*' of sergeants got into a huddle with Smith, and inside an hour they succeeded in having almost every member of the

The Way Home

231

contingent present in- the pit, in front of the drafty ruins of wjiat had been the stage not long ago. This last meeting of the Canadian combatants on Spanish soil was an eerie affair. In front of the theatre seats stood Smith on a small dais, only discernible by the light of a couple of candles. Behind him, side by side, the sergeants, Ray Henderson and Grenier and McCallum who, since the Ebro, had been appointed commissar; and at Smith's side, Henry Meyer at a table with a sheet of paper. To a few rows of barely visible faces in the pit and the numerous shadows behind, Smith reported in terse staccato on the plight of Barcelona and called for volunteers to go there for a last stand. He stopped as suddenly as he had started, and for a minute or maybe more, there was not a sound. Then, a seat creaked, feet shuffled on the floor, and out of the dark came the first volunteer and signed in front of Meyer. The spell was broken, and a low humming of voices accompanied for the next hour the 125 men who stepped forward, slowly and deliberately, and signed on and sat down again among their comrades. The crowd did not stir when Smith adjourned the meeting, but the conversation became louder and more animated. However, there was no recrimination between the new volunteers and the rest of the men. They seemed to understand and sympathize with each other perfectly. Even to the degree of the following little episode: —Say, pal, let me have your shoes. You can always get new ones on the other side of the mountains, and mine are falling off my feet. —Why, of course. And the swap was made on the spot. It is not known if the shoes were returned to their rightful feet next morning when a runner arrived from the nearest headquarters with an- order for all the volunteers to proceed on their way to France. Whether or not, the spirit of understanding and personal involvement still clung to the departing Mac-Paps.17 In late January, some three hundred Canadians were cleared to begin the voyage home. Many men still remained in hospitals, too injured or too ill to be moved. Still others were trapped in the south, cut off from the main body of internationals since the Retreats.

232

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

After receiving an ugly belly wound at the Ebro, Red Walsh convalesced in hospital until he discovered that the first contingent of Canadians had departed. Furious at being left behind, Walsh, along with old friends, Slats McClaren, Pat Melville, Tom Robins and one McNulty, joined the long columns of Spanish refugees pouring into France. Walsh and the others rested in the French town of Cerbere for several days, sleeping in the local jail; then Walsh turned in at one of the nearby internment camps. Once behind the wire, he discovered Henry Mack, his old company commander and, to his utter surprise, Tony Martin who, with Walsh and six others, had led the On-to-Ottawa Trek four years before. The men waited in the camp for two weeks, subsisting on bread doled out by French soldiers and swallowed down with rancid margerine. Then they were rescued by a British charge d'affaires.18 In the south, men like Ronald Liversedge and Ross Russell (who had been recuperating from wounds) waited anxiously for the news that they might or might not be evacuated. Finally, on January 20, two small coastal steamers put out from Valencia with thirty-five hundred internationals. After a perilous voyage along the coast, during which Liversedge recalled forcibly his escape from the Ciudad de Barcelona, the ships arrived in Barcelona, and Liversedge and his fellow Canadians were able to press on to Casa de la Selva. There they saw the long, sad columns of hundreds of thousands of refugees. They came on foot, on bicycles, on donkey carts, on mules, every kind of vehicle, the whole of the Barcelona garbage trucks. . . . There were old men and women, there were boys and girls and babies. There were the girls from the red light district walking with dignity on high heels and carrying babies for mothers who were too tired, and over the whole ninety miles they were repeatedly bombed and machine-gunned by German and Italian planes and they left their dead on the roadside.19 After hiking with the civilians for one night, a party of Canadians was shunted across country to Figueras, that magnificent fortress city which had been their first landmark in Spain. Here, while fascist planes circled easily overhead, bombing the city into ruins, the Canadians crouched in trenches near a convent, shucked

The Way Home

233

off their battle uniforms and donned suits, shoes and overcoats for the trip home. The next day they mounted a boxcar which carried them to Port Bou on the coast. The train, crammed with woman and children, passed under the great mountain range via a tunnel and emerged in Cerbere. The bright lights of the town confused the men at first because they had become so used to wartime blackouts; then, as their vision cleared, they saw hordes of refugees crouched along the track for a half-mile in every direction. Senegalese soldiers stood guard over them. In time these poor people would be taken to camps along the Riviera where "beyond the wire, on the open beach, they lived and died and gave birth to children."20 Before quitting a dying Barcelona, Allan Dowd sent a last desperate cable to Prime Minister Mackenzie King. In Barcelona where for past eight days witnessed foul brutality totalitarian warfare against Spanish Republic. Within next few days, democratic nations must choose between freedom and barbarism. The Spanish Republic conquered, universal democracy will suffer reverse and democratic nations have to prepare for a war in which already have lost first battles. In name of those principles for which so many of your fellow Canadians gave lives in first war, I urge you to lift embargo against Republican Spain.21 The trip across France was without incident except that the brigaders were put on sealed trains whose exits were policed by French soldiers. But once in England and in Liverpool, the Canadians erupted in a brief but audacious strike. Their train had arrived on a siding near the boat which was to carry them across the Atlantic. For some reason, the men refused to budge from the pier. One account has it that they wanted a few hours leave so they could walk about the city; another suggests that the men were concerned for their friends still stranded in Spain; still another suggests that the strike was simply a protest, however tardy, against the Munich Pact. But the whole affair only lasted for an hour and then the Canadians boarded the Duchess of Bedford and settled down to the trip to Halifax. Thirty-three in the first group stayed in England, too ill to travel.22 For one last time, the volunteers organized themselves into

234

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

companies, but only as a convenience while aboard ship. One of the "prairie companies" was immediately dubbed "The Social Credit Group." The geographical distribution among the men was to provoke, on landing, a quarrel that was both amusing and frustrating. On February 3, 1939, 272 Canadian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War debarked at Halifax, the first men ashore being William Turkowsky and Gorelle Kerkkone who carried the Mac-Pap banner. Behind them came Edward Potvin of Edmonton in a wheelchair. Fifty-five men in this group were in immediate need of medical attention, thirty-three in need of surgery. There was one stretcher case. Greg Clark, the popular Toronto Daily Star reporter, boarded the train on which the men were placed and rode with them to Toronto.23 Early in the journey, Clark made a quick head-count and arrived at these figures: fifty-three men were from Vancouver, forty-nine from Toronto, twenty-nine from Winnipeg, twenty-seven from Fort William and Port Arthur, nineteen from Edmonton, sixteen from Timmins, fifteen from Calgary, fifteen from Montreal, ten from Sudbury, nine from Windsor, nine from Saskatoon, five from Hamilton, three from Ottawa, two from Regina. Clark moved quietly among the veterans, listening to their stories of battle and to their reminiscences of lost friends, observing the poignant farewells to those who left the train early. Gerald Shea got off early to head up into Cape Breton. William Fodey of Toronto, with bullets in his shoulder and hips, saw Shea off. Shea had crawled into a valley under intense machinegun fire and carried Fodey to safety. In old wars, they gave medals for that. Shea got a handclasp. And when the train pulled away, Fodey stood on the vestibule and said, "It's like the end of a book." Harvey Hall summarized for Clark the problem of inadequate weapons with his description of "stick bombs": "Sometimes these were not very well made, and when you pulled the fuse and laid the bomb back to fling it, the sizzling head fell off behind you on the ground." Clark was introduced to the youngest and the oldest Canadians in the group: Vincenso Ruggieri, 18, of Guelph, Ontario and

The Way Home

235

George Edgar, 55, of British Columbia. And he learned of Walter Legge who detoured to Glasgow to visit his parents and died of typhoid the first day of his arrival. Another companion on the journey was Jack Taylor, the last Canadian commissar to work in Spain. Taylor stirred up some angry feelings when he announced that a big reception was scheduled in Toronto but that only the Ontario boys could attend. "Our Boys from British Columbia" were particularly indignant at this discrimination. Nonetheless, Taylor had guaranteed an abundance of food for the cross-country trip though only six blankets could be found for the 272 men whom Greg Clark termed "Canada's Beau Gestes." Ten thousand people gathered in Toronto's Union Station to greet the volunteers who marched proudly through the crowd behind their banner. For three hours the throng lingered about the men, watching the reunions, listening grimly as the veterans explained to desperate families that this man or that boy was missing. The mother of Arthur Johnson went among the men holding up a picture of her son and crying, "This is my son, do you know him? Is he alive?" But Arthur Johnson was dead at Gandesa. Another family crowded around Jack Hoshooley and berated him with questions about their son who had been lost on a patrol led by Hoshooley. Finally, order was restored so that Reverend Salem Bland could greet the men: "Canada didn't understand at first what you were doing, but understands now, and as time goes on, you will have more friends, more honour, because you have done one of the most gallant things done in history." That night at Massey Hall, before an enormous picture of Nilo Makela, Allan Dowd performed one last duty on behalf of these men. He called for the donation of $50,000 so that the veterans of Spain wouldn't have to go on relief. Two thousand dollars were collected that evening. In the days that followed, three more groups of volunteers entered Canada. On February 11, fifty-one men led by Edmond Bergeron landed in Halifax. They were followed on February 18 by ninety-eight more led by Maurice Constant and Utamo Makela. In early May, a party of thirty repatriated prisoners of war walked shakily onto Canadian soil. These last, along with

236

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

hundreds of Europeans, had been taken from Burgos to San Sebastian, where, as they marched through the streets, young women ran alongside the ranks offering to marry any and all of the internationals, then on to Irun and the international bridge at Hendaye. Midway across the bridge, some of the prisoners felt tempted to turn and jeer at their former captors, but prudence prevailed and so they shuffled on to freedom. The Canadian government understood at this time that the Spanish Aid Committee had borrowed $4000 to buy boat tickets for these men, and that with the departure of this group, some 75-100 Canadians probably still remained in France or in Spain. This last information was disclosed on May 3, 1939, in a memorandum written by External Affairs First Secretary N. A. Robertson who further urged that since it was unlikely that voluntary subscription could be raised in Canada "for casualties in a war that has been lost," and since these men were stranded in Europe without funds, sick and wounded, and since the French government "will probably have to lump these Canadians with the other refugees in the camps in southwestern France where conditions are reported to be bad," the following propositions might be considered: a) for the Government to carry its "parallel policy" towards Spain to its logical conclusion and match the action of the members of the Non-intervention Committee by bearing the expenses of repatriation of those Canadians who are still in France; or b) failing this, to make some arrangements with the French Government for the deportation to Canada of those who are, strictly speaking, "deportable" by agreeing to reimburse the French Government subsequently for all or part of the costs of their transportation.24 No evidence of any action by the Canadian government on either of the suggestions has been uncovered. The Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion had long before created a rehabilitation service for the returning men, with headquarters in Montreal. Sponsors included Hazen Sise, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Upton Sinclair, H. G. Wells and Eugene Forsey. A typical letter distributed by the Friends asked for two dollars from each recipient of one of the one thousand

The Way Home

237

copies mailed. The letter contained descriptions of two case histories: Case No. 38 Age 24. Wounded in leg. Was picked up and carried to Madrid for partial amputation. Still further amputation performed on return to Canada. Additional treatment and artificial limb required. Case No. 97 Age 29. Spent 16 months in Spain as machine-gunner. Bullet through mouth breaking jaw in several places. Needs delicate and complicated operation and grafting of bone.25 The Friends also circulated letters among the veterans asking for descriptions of job skills and the extent of disabilities. A number of the men were cared for in private homes until they recovered. Many required urgent attention. Red Walsh boarded the Duchess of Bedford with an open stomach wound and secured the attention of the ship's doctor who "slapped a pad on my belly and said, That will keep your guts in until Halifax'."26 A report submitted to the National Committee of the Friends on April 6, 1939, revealed the following information about rehabilitation:27 Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number

of men receiving weekly grants of physicians giving free services of physical examinations given of men in hospital of operations performed of men in T.B. Sanitariums of men needing artificial limbs of men needing artificial eyes

70 122 884 58 30 5 9 8

The report also described the results of a nation-wide tour conducted by veteran William Kardash and Mrs. Beckie Buhay, a long-time force in the Canadian communist establishment The tour lasted from January 21 to April 2, covered 7200 miles, 27 cities and towns. Forty public meetings were held. Gross collections came to $4510.83, of which 546.80 was deducted for expenses. Kardash and Mrs. Buhay were received by mayors, trade unions,

238

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

cooperatives and schools. Doctors pledged their assistance, communities conducted tag days. There were "good editorials" in the Victoria Times and the Calgary Albertan. Between January and March, the national office of the Friends collected $21,921.71 in donations and income from such sources as the sale of badges and pamphlets, trade unions and the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (U.S.A.) which gave $5000.00. Cash expenditure for veterans affairs during this period came to $20,317.65 and included: Cash grants Medical care Outfitting veterans Railway fare Meals and room rents

7209.80 1339.89 1415.85 6968.19 917.46

Maurice Constant was appointed secretary of an editorial commission which would compile information and personal experiences for a volume on the Canadian expedition to Spain. The call went out in April for old letters, maps, records, photographs and answers to a brief questionnaire about the man's career in the war. The Friends contemplated a series of national meetings, a veterans organization (which lasted until 1949), and travelling exhibits of Spanish mementoes. A medal of the International Brigades was likewise considered. Before any of these projects could be initiated, a second world war began, and the volunteers and "one of the most gallant things done in history" were quickly obscured in the shift of public attention and commitment to the next conflict. As of April 6, 1939, the following statistics prevailed: Total number of men who left Canada for Spain Number returned to Canada At present in France or Great Britain Killed Left Spain but returned to various countries in Europe Missing and reported captured Missing and presumed dead

1239 646 83 171 32 93 214

EPILOGUE

On January 26, 1939, Barcelona fell. On February 28, 1939, France and Great Britain recognized Franco's Burgos government. On March 5, 1939, Juan Negrin flew from Valencia to Dakar and thence to France. On March 30, 1939, Valencia fell. On March 31, 1939, Madrid fell. So THE MAC-PAPS came home to Canada and the country promptly forgot about them, not so much out of indifference as out of impatience, since there is nothing quite so useless as a prophet who has exhausted his prophecies. World War II came, and many of the volunteers to Spain volunteered once more. Some were rejected on their original application because they had fought in Spain and were thus suspected of being politically unreliable, an irony which is almost unbearable. Others did enlist and served with distinction. The highest ranking known member of the Canadian armed forces in World War II who had served in Spain was Captain Jean Watts Lawson. The Mac-Paps do not seem to have been at any considerable political disadvantage after their return, although there are some who do not now wish to be identified. Most of the men have taken up ordinary lives, and they seem to like it that way. Nonetheless, Spain still figures very much in their memories. It was, as one put it "the Mount Everest of our lives." Recently I received a letter from one of the volunteers, Alex Forbes of Toronto. Forbes lost an eye at the Ebro. He asked if I could confirm his belief that in 1939, when the men were being withdrawn from Spain, the Canadian government had obligated itself to the rehabilitation and medical care of the survivors. He understood that there were documents in Ottawa that would prove this commitment. I had to inform him that there were no such documents and that no such pledge had ever been made. The Canadian volunteers have, over the years, been treated as

240

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

"scoundrels," as Forbes puts it, when they have been noticed at all. Maybe it's better to be called a scoundrel than to be absolutely forgotten. The fact that these men sought to delay or even halt the encroachment of totalitarian political dynasties is lost in the confusion and paradoxes of political allegiances, of definitions for that matter, which have emerged since that time. My friend Forbes does not ask for help for himself. He wants to help some of the others, he says. But he also says that "I want to know because I want to know." What Forbes really wants to know, after all these years, is whether this kind of sacrifice matters. On January 24, 1939, not long before the volunteers began returning to Canada, O. D. Skelton passsed the following memorandum along to the Prime Minister. Whatever mistakes were made by the anti-fascists in Spain by their first angry reprisals, they have shown a surprising growth in moderation, unity and effectiveness. I have followed the record of the Spanish government of recent months with surprise and increasing admiration. When their record is compared with that of most of the recent governments of France and England, with their endless muddling and lack of foresight, the coldblooded concentration on their own immediate interests, there is a lot to be said for the conclusion that if the people of Canada really wanted to get into somebody's European war, they might choose Negrm's instead of Neville's.1 "Negrin's instead of Neville's." If the Canadian volunteers need an epitaph, that remark might serve. More appropriate, perhaps, are the words of Greg Clark who met the men in Halifax. I don't recollect ever seeing soldiers who inspired in me so strange a mingling of reverence and humiliation and embarrassment at meeting their gaze.2

APPENDIX

CANADIANS KILLED OR MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD1

Adamic, Joseph. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats Adamic, Michael. Missing Alexiuk, Dmetro. Missing Alksnis, Boleslav. Calgary. Killed at Belchite Allstop, Geoffrey. Missing in the Retreats Anderson, Ivor. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Armitage, Albin "Joe". Vancouver. Killed at Brunete Asalt, T. Missing Asccheski, George. Missing Aviezer, Elias. Montreal. Killed at Jarama Babich, Tony. New Westminster, B.C. Killed in the Retreats Bacic, Karlo. Montreal. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Balderson, James. Vancouver. Killed Barilot, —. Toronto. Killed Barsky, Ben. Missing Bartollota, Charles. Hamilton. Killed at the Ebro Baryluk, Michael. Fort William. Killed

Batson, Percy. Hamilton. Killed at Teruel Batymer, Fred. Missing Beaulieu, Al. Missing Beckett, Thomas. Missing at Jarama Beke, Daniel. Lethbridge, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Bellie, J. Missing Beranic, Ivan. Vancouver. Killed at Brunete Biegal, Walter. Port Arthur. Killed Billows, Nicholas. Kirkland Lake, Ont. Killed Binter, Michael. Winnipeg. Killed at the Ebro Bloom, John Oscar. Edmonton. Killed at Brunete Bohmer, Walter. Toronto. Killed Boivin, Edward. Vancouver. Missing Boland, Duncan. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Borics, Joseph. Montreal. Killed Brown, Allan. Calgary. Killed in the Retreats

Though all existing sources of information were used, the list remains incomplete.

242

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Brozovich, Frank. Missing in the Retreats Brown, Robert. Missing Brunet, Paul Henri. Montreal. Missing Brusovitch, S. Toronto. Killed Bubanecz, Janos. Lethbridge, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Bubonen, J. Missing Buccor, Stan. Port Arthur. Killed Buckwell, Clifford. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Burton, Yorky. Vancouver. Missing at Teruel Burtrim, William. Winnipeg. Missing in the Retreats Butler, Ben. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Cameron, John. Missing Campbell, George. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Campbell, Joseph. Montreal. Killed at Jarama Carlson, Arvid. Port Arthur. Killed at Teruel Carlson, Carl. Killed at Teruel Chalimanuk, Steven. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Charczuk, Steofan. Vancouver. Killed at Teruel Chaudoin, Norman. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats Chizyk, Nicholas. Toronto. Missing in the Retreats Chodur, Michael. Port Colborne, Ont. Killed on the

Ciudad de Barcelona Christy, Richard. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Clement, T. Missing Cochrane, James. Windsor. Killed at Teruel Cockings, William. Toronto. Killed at Teruel Cowstan, John. Vancouver. Killed Cserny, J. Winnipeg. Killed Csoke, Andro. Welland, Ont. Missing in the Retreats Cunningham, Andrew. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Czizmer, Alexander. East Coulle, Alta. Killed at the Ebro Dasovic, Steven. Vancouver. Killed at Jarama Deck, John. New Westminster, B.C. Killed at Brunete Demidziuk, John. Sudbury. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Dentry, Ernest. Winnipeg. Killed in the Retreats Dirkich, Ignatz. Val D'Or, Que. Missing at the Ebro Demianschuk, Nikolai. Killed Douloff, John. Toronto. Killed Dyer, Robert. Winnipeg. Missing in the Retreats Dyrow, Michael. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Elomaki, Matti. Port Arthur. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Emery, Alfred. Missing in the Retreats

Appendix Elams, Tauno. Missing Epstein, Edward. Missing Epstein, Hyam. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats Ferencz, John. Taber, Alta. Killed at the Ebro Filkohizi, Emeric. Drumheller, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Fleming, Sheridan. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Flynn, Richard. Vancouver. Killed Fowle, John. Toronto. Missing in the Retreats Francis, Karl. Winnipeg. Killed on the Ciudad de Barcelona Friend, Charles. Hamilton. Missing Garcia, Andrea. Montreal. Killed at Jarama Garrow, Clifford. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Geng, Joseph. Montreal. Missing in the Retreats Gilian, Andras. Timmins, Ont. Killed in the Retreats Gillis, Rod. Winnipeg. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Gold, Irving. Missing Gologowski, W. Killed Gleadhill, Thomas. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Goodison, M. Missing Gordon, Robert J. Timmins, Ont. Killed at the Ebro

243

Gregorovitch, Frank. Winnipeg. Killed in the Retreats Haber, Rudy. Missing Hadaszi, Karoly. Lethbridge, Alta. Killed at the Ebro Harbocian, Nicholas. Windsor. Killed at Brunete Heikke, Eino. Port Arthur. Killed Heinche, Lawrence. Windsor. Killed in the Retreats Henderson, William. Calgary. Killed in the Retreats Hill, Herbert. Killed at the Ebro Hitchcock, D. Missing Hnatkiw, Ivan. Montreal. Killed at the Ebro Hodge, Robert. Vancouver. Missing Hodgson, Edward. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Hondorf, Michael. Montreal. Killed on the Ciudad de Barcelona Horrell, R. A. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Howard, Allan. Toronto. Missing in the Retreats Hrstic, Peter. Port Arthur. Killed Hubb, John. Missing Huhtala, Kalle. Montreal. Missing in the Retreats Hurrell, R. Missing Hurstick, Peter. Toronto. Killed

244

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Hyppe, Sauli. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Hyrniak, Michael. Toronto. Killed at Teruel Irving, Edward. Regina. Missing in the Retreats Iszczuk, Steven. Hamilton. Missing in the Retreats Jablonski, Walter. Port Arthur. Killed Jacobs, D. Missing Johnston, Peter. Vancouver. Killed at Jarama Jokinen, Henry. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Kaipainen, Onni. Port Arthur. Missing in the Retreats Kalapud, W. Missing Kane, James. Toronto. Killed at Brunete Kaplan, J. Killed at Brunete Kaufman, L. Missing Kardash, Theodore. Toronto. Killed in the Retreats Keenan, Gordon. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Keenan, William. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Kennedy, Frank. Winnipeg. Missing at the Ebro Keto, Eino. Toronto. Missing Kiss, Andrew. Lethbridge, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Kivimaki, Emil. Port Arthur. Missing Kobe, Michael. Toronto. Killed at Cordoba

Kochma, Joseph. Port Arthur. Killed Kore, John. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Korniychuk, Stefan. Montreal. Killed Koroscil, Andrew. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Kos, Michael. Weekes, Sask. Killed at Teruel Koskela, Emil. Toronto. Killed Koslowsky, Stefan. Toronto. Killed at Huesca Koster, William. Port Arthur. Missing in the Retreats Krizsan, Antal. Welland, Ont. Killed at Brunete Kubinec, Michael. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Kudebski, Michal. Killed Kupchik, Isidore. Toronto. Killed at Segovia Kuryk, Harry. Edmonton. Killed at Belchite Kyyny, George. Port Arthur. Killed at Teruel Laaksonen, Valo. Port Arthur. Killed Lackey, Fred. Toronto. Killed at Jarama Lahtovirta, Hugo. Timmins, Ont. Killed in the Retreats Laskowsky, George. Waterloo, Ont. Killed at Jarama Lazure, Omer. Montreal. Killed at the Ebro Le Blanc, Wilfrid. Windsor. Missing

Appendix Legge, W. S. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Lehtinen, —. Missing Lemal, Arthur. Drumheller, Alta. Killed at Teruel Leppanen, Wiljo. Port Arthur. Killed in the Retreats Levens, Harold. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats Leye, W. Missing Lind, Tauno. Toronto. Killed at Brunete Livingston, Donald. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Loch, Jacob. Guelph, Ont. Killed at Belchite Logovsky, Vasil. Kenora, Ont. Killed at Brunete Lucasiewicz, John. Killed at the Ebro Loiselle, John. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Luoto, Frank. Killed in the Retreats McLaughlin, Matthew. Hamilton. Killed in the Retreats Madsen, Isaac. Vancouver. Killed at Burgos Makela, Nilo. Timmins, Ont. Killed in the Retreats Maki, Juno. Killed Malickas, Joseph. Port Arthur. Missing in the Retreats Malicki, Eugene. Missing in the Retreats Mallen, Thomas. Missing in the Retreats

245

Marchuk, Walter. Regina. Missing in the Retreats Marinoff, Nicholas. Montreal. Killed at Jarama Martiniuk, A. Winnipeg. Killed Martlinssen, Suerre. Missing Massey, —. Missing Matlak, J. Killed in the Retreats Meurs, Arie. Lethbridge, Alta. Killed at the Ebro Michie, Thomas. Toronto. Missing at Jarama Miljkovic, Joseph. Port Arthur. Killed at Brunete Modic, Matthew. Timmins, Ont. Killed Moore, C. W. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Moore, W. Missing Morin, Frangois. Montreal. Killed on the Ciudad de Barcelona Morris, Arthur. Blairmore, Alta. Killed at Jarama Mowbray, Fred. Winnipeg. Killed at Teruel Munnumaki, Walter. Port Arthur. Missing in the Retreats Munnumaki, Uuno. Port Arthur. Killed at the Ebro Munro, Alexander. Vancouver. Killed Murawski, Andrew. Winnipeg. Missing in the Retreats Myllikangas, Arvi. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro

246

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

McCallum, James. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats McCarthy, Cormac. Missing in the Retreats McClure, Alexander. Montreal. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro McDonald, Charles. Toronto. Killed at Teruel McDonald, J. Missing McDonald, William. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats McKay, John. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats McKenzie, John. Killed at the Ebro McLean, James. Hamilton. Missing at the Ebro McMann, Francis. Vancouver. Killed Narttila, Hellka. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Neilson, Peter. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Nelson, Thomas. Vancouver. Killed on the Ciudad de Barcelona Neufeld, Abram. Killed at Brunete Nieminen, Anti. Port Arthur. Killed Nihtilla, K. Missing in the Retreats Nivirinsky, Nicholas. Edmonton. Killed at Brunete Norum, John. Winnipeg. Killed at Belchite

Nutt, Alexander. Hamilton. Killed at Teruel O'Connor, James. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats O'Neil, Stewart "Paddy". Vancouver. Killed at Brunete O'Shea, John. Toronto. Killed in the Retreats Paake, L. Missing Padowski, Nicholas. Winnipeg. Missing in the Retreats Panchoff, P. Missing Papo, Franc. Windsor. Missing in the Retreats Parker, Charles. Vancouver. Killed at Quinto Paroczai, Alexander. Windsor. Killed at the Ebro Paton, George. Coleman, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Patrick, E. W. Vancouver. Killed at Belchite Patterson, Edward. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Pattrick, Daniel. Killed at Belchite Paveluk, Thomas. Guelph, Ont. Killed in the Retreats Penrod, J. Missing in the Retreats Peressini, Antonio. Blairmore, Alta. Killed at the Ebro Peterson, A. M. Vancouver. Killed at Teruel Peterson, J. Missing Polichek, John. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Polling, Eugene. Missing

Appendix Prdzwaglesski, J. Missing Pretz, Adam. Toronto. Killed at Brunete Princze, Joseph. Lethbridge, Alta. Missing in the Retreats Pritchard, David. Saskatoon. Missing in the Retreats Przedwojewski, J. Montreal. Missing Puska, —. Missing Puttanen, A. Port Arthur. Missing Pyholuoto, Franz. Port Arthur. Missing Rackey, John. Kirkland Lake, Ont. Killed at Brunete Racz, James. Delhi, Ont. Killed on the Ciudad de Barcelona Rakvacs, Joseph. Missing in the Retreats Reaves, Otto. Missing Regan, John. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Ricetts, Lee. Missing Roberts, Harry F. Winnipeg. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Robertson, J. K. Edmonton. Missing Robertson, S. G. Vancouver. Missing Roschly, Charles. Vancouver. Missing Rose, Richard. Hamilton. Missing in the Retreats Ross, James. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Ross, Joseph. Missing

247

Roy, Lauradin. Rimouski, Que. Killed at Fuentes de Ebro Rutkowski, Joseph. Edmonton. Killed Ryynanen, Toivo. Port Arthur. Killed at the Ebro Ruitta, Al. Missing in the Retreats Russell, Michael. Montreal. Killed at Jarama Samuel, —. Missing Sakland, E. Missing Sandiford, F. Missing Sekerek, Elias. Winnipeg. Missing at Huesca Shlapak, William. Toronto. Killed at Teruel Shishoff, S. Killed Shumack, Samuel. Winnipeg. Killed in the Retreats Sidun, Michael. Port Arthur. Killed in the Retreats Siltala, Vilco. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Sipponen, Ilmari. Port Arthur. Missing in the Retreats Siskonen, —. Missing Sivestre, M. Missing Smythe, Daniel. Toronto. Missing in the Retreats Stenko, Michael. Montreal. Missing in the Retreats Stern, F. E. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Suhaida, Frank. Montreal. Killed

248

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Suomela, Otto. Vancouver. Missing Sweeney, Bernard. Vancouver. Killed Swiderski, Gregory. Sudbury. Killed at Teruel Sych, Andrew. Val D'Or, Que. Killed at the Ebro Szlapek, Michael. Toronto. Killed Szumik, S. Winnipeg. Killed Szysz, Gabriel. Montreal. Killed at Guadalajara Taylor, Laurence. Vancouver. Missing in the Retreats Taylor, Lawrence. New Brunswick. Missing in the Retreats Taylor, Norman. Regina. Missing in the Retreats Teiger, J. Missing Thomas, C. A. Regina. Missing in the Retreats Thompson, R. Missing Tornikoski, Eino. Toronto. Missing Tourunen, Sulo. Port Arthur. Killed Tuovinen, Heikki. Missing Tupper, Patrick. Sudbury. Killed at the Ebro Van der Brugge, Adrian. St. Catharines, Ont. Killed at Jarama Vlasick, Nicholas. Timmins, Ont. Killed at Belchite Walters, P. J. Calgary. Missing Walthers, Charles. Vancouver. Killed at Belchite

Wandzilak, John. Winnipeg. Killed at the Ebro Waselenchuk, M. Port Arthur. Killed at Jarama Washington, George. Vancouver. Killed at Belchite Wellesley, Arthur. Edmonton. Killed at the Ebro Welsby, Frank. Winnipeg. Killed at the Ebro Wharmby, James. Vancouver. Killed at the Ebro Whiteside, Fred. Toronto. Missing in the Retreats Whitfield, Frank. Missing Williams, Walter. Missing Willoughby, William. Killed Wilson, John. Vancouver. Killed in the Retreats Wilk, Frank. Port Arthur. Killed at Huesca Wladstan, Gawda. Port Arthur. Killed at Estramadura Wolf, James. Vancouver. Killed at Belchite Wosniuk, Danilo. Montreal. Killed at Quinto Woulfe, James. Vancouver. Killed at Belchite Yakimchuk, N. Port Arthur. Killed Yrvo, Kyyny. Killed at Belchite Yurinchuk, W. Toronto. Killed at the Ebro Yurischuk, Prekop. Missing Zagog, Sylvester. Missing Zastawnik, Theodore. Toronto. Killed

Appendix Zepkar, Peter. Port Arthur. Killed at Jarama Ziemski, John. Winnipeg. Missing

249

Zygarewicz, Kormil. Toronto. Killed

AN ACT RESPECTING FOREIGN ENLISTMENT

His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:— 1.

This Act may be cited as The Foreign Enlistment Act, 1937.

2. In this Act, and in any regulation or order made hereunder, unless the context otherwise requires:— (a) "Within Canada" includes Canadian waters as defined for the purposes of the Customs Act', (b) "Armed forces" includes military, naval and air forces or services, combatant or non-combatant, but shall not include surgical, medical, nursing and other services engaged solely in humanitarian work and which are under the control or supervision of the Canadian Red Cross or other recognized Canadian humanitarian society; (c) "Conveyance" includes ships, vessels, aircraft, trains, and motor and other vehicles; (d) "Illegally enlisted person" means a person who has accepted or agreed to accept any commission or engagement, or who is about to quit Canada with intent to accept any commission or engagement, or who has been induced to go on board a conveyance under a misapprehension or false representation of the service in which such person is to be engaged with the intention or in order that such person may accept or agree to accept any commission or engagement contrary to the provisions of this Act;

250

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

(e) "Equips" in relation to a ship, includes the furnishing of anything which is used for the purpose of fitting or adapting the ship for the sea, or for naval service, and all words relating to equipment shall be construed accordingly; (f) "Foreign State" includes any foreign prince, colony, province or part of any province or people, or any person or persons exercising or assuming to exercise the powers of government in or over any foreign country, colony, province, or part of any province or people. 3. If any person, being a Canadian National, within or without Canada, voluntarily accepts or agrees to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly foreign state, or, whether a Canadian National or not, within Canada, induces any other person to accept or agree to accept any commission or engagement in any such armed forces, such persons shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. 4. If any person, being a Canadian National, quits or goes on board any conveyance with a view of quitting Canada with intent to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly foreign state, or, whether a Canadian National or not, within Canada, induces any other person to quit or go on board any conveyance with a view of quitting Canada, with a like intent, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. 5. If any person induces any other person to quit Canada, or to go on board any conveyance within Canada under a misrepresentation or false representation of the service in which such person is to be engaged, with the intent or in order that such person may accept or agree to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state at war with a friendly state, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. 6. (1) If the person having the control or direction of, or being the owner of any conveyance, knowingly either takes on board or engages to take on board or has on board such conveyance, within Canada, any illegally enlisted person, the person having such con-

Appendix

251

trol or direction of, or being the owner of any such conveyance, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. (2) Such conveyance shall be detained until the trial or conviction of such person or owner and until all fines or penalties imposed on such person or owner have been paid or security approved by the Court having jurisdiction in the matter has been given for the payment thereof. 7. If any person, within Canada, does any of the following acts, that is to say, (a) builds or agrees to build or causes to be built, any ship with intent or knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in or by the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state; or (b) issues or delivers any commission for any ship with intent or knowledge or having reasonable cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in or by the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state; or (c) equips any ship with intent or knowledge or having reasonable cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in or by the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state; or (d) despatches or causes or allows to be despatched, any ship, with intent or knowledge or having reasonable cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in or by the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state; such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. Provided that a person building, causing to be built, or equipping a ship in any of the cases aforesaid, in pursuance of a contract made before the commencement of such war as aforesaid, shall not be deemed to have committed an offence under this Act, if, forthwith, upon a proclamation of neutrality or any other proclamation notifying or bringing into operation the provisions of this Act, he gives notice to the Secretary of State for External Affairs that he is so building, causing to be built, or equipping, such ship, and furnishes such particulars of the contract and of any matters relating to or done, or to be done under the contract, as may be required by the Secretary of State for External Affairs,

252

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

and, if he give such security and takes and permits to be taken such other measures, if any, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs may prescribe for insuring that such ship shall not be despatched, delivered or removed, or otherwise dealt with, without the permission in writing of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, until the termination of such war as aforesaid. 8. When any ship is built by order of or on behalf of any foreign state, when at war with a friendly state, or is delivered to or to the order of such foreign state, or to any person who to the knowledge of the person building is an agent of such foreign state, or is paid for by such foreign state or such agent, and is employed in or by the armed forces of such foreign state, such ship shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed to have been built with a view to being so employed, and the burden shall lie on the builder of such ship of proving that he did not know that the ship was intended to be so employed in or by the armed forces of such foreign state. 9. If any person within Canada, by any addition to or substitution in the armament or equipment, increases or augments, or procures to be increased or augmented, or is knowingly concerned in increasing or augmenting the warlike force of any ship, which at the time of its being within Canada was a ship in or of the armed forces of any foreign state at war with any friendly state, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act. 10. If any person, within Canada, prepares or fits out any military, naval or air expedition, to proceed against the dominions of any friendly state, such person shall be guilty of an offence against this Act. 11. If any person, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in such state, such person shall be guilty of an offence under this Act: Provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not apply to the action of foreign consular or diplomatic officers or agents in enlisting persons who are nationals of the countries which they represent, and who are

Appendix

253

not Canadian Nationals, in conformity with the regulations of the Governor in Council. 12. If any ship, goods, or merchandise, captured as prize of war within Canada in violation of Canadian neutrality, or captured by any ship which may have been built, equipped, commissioned or despatched, or the force of which may have been augmented, contrary to the provisions of this Act, are brought within Canada by the captor, or by any agent of the captor, or by any person having come into possession thereof with a knowledge that the same was prize of war so captured as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the original owner of such prize or his agent, or for any person authorized in that behalf by the government of the Foreign State to which such owner belongs, or in which the ship captured as aforesaid may have been duly registered, to make application to the Exchequer Court of Canada for seizure and detention of such prize, and the Court shall, on due proof of the facts, order such prize to be restored. 13. Every order referred to in the preceding section shall be executed and carried into effect in the same manner, and subject to the same right of appeal, as in case of any order made in the exercise of the ordinary jurisdiction of such court; and in the meantime, and until a final order has been made, on such application the court shall have power to make all such provisional and other orders as to the care or custody of such captured ship, goods, or merchandise, and (if the same be of perishable nature, or incurring risk of deterioration) for the sale thereof, and with respect to the deposit or investment of the proceeds of any such sale, as may be made by such court in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction. 14. Any person, who is guilty of an offence against this Act shall be deemed to be guilty of an indictable offence, and shall be punishable by fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour, or by both fine and imprisonment; but such offence may, instead of being prosecuted as an indictable offence, be prosecuted summarily in manner provided by Part XV of the

254

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

Criminal Code, and if so prosecuted, such offence shall be punishable by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding twelve months, with or without hard labour, or by both fine and imprisonment. 15. (1) Any ship in respect of which an offence under section seven of this Act has been committed and the equipment thereof, shall be forfeited to His Majesty. (2) Any conveyance and the equipment thereof and all arms, ammunition and implements of war used in or forming part of an expedition in respect of which an offence has been committed under the provisions of section ten of this Act, shall be forfeited to His Majesty. 16. For the purpose of giving jurisdiction in criminal proceedings under this Act, every offence shall be deemed to have been committed, every cause or complaint to have arisen either in the place in which the same was committed or arose, or in any place in which the offender or person complained against may be. 17. Subject to the provisions of this Act, criminal proceedings arising hereunder shall be subject to and governed by the Criminal Code. 18. All proceedings for forfeiture of conveyances, goods or merchandise, under the provisions of this Act, may be taken in the Exchequer Court of Canada, or in any court of competent jurisdiction. 19. (1) The Governor in Council may, from time to time, by order or regulation, provide for any or all of the following matters:— (a) the application of the provisions of this Act, with necessary modifications, to any case in which there is a state of armed conflict, civil or otherwise, either within a foreign country or between foreign countries; (b) the seizure, detention and disposition of conveyances, goods and merchandise; (c) the requirement of the consent of an authority or authori-

Appendix

255

ties to prosecutions, seizures, detentions and forfeiture proceedings; (d) the designation of officers or authorities who may execute any of the provisions of this Act; (e) the issue, restriction, cancellation and impounding of passports, whether within Canada or elsewhere, to the extent to which such action is deemed by him to be necessary or expedient for carrying out the general purposes of this Act. (2) Such orders and regulations shall be published in the Canada Gazette, and shall take effect from the date of such publication or from the date specified for such purpose in such order or regulation, and shall have the same force and effect as if enacted herein. 20. The Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, chapter ninety of the Statutes of 1870 (33 & 34 Victoria) the short title of which is The Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, is hereby repealed in so far as it is part of the law of Canada.

NOTES

The papers included in the Edward C. Smith collection are of two essential kinds: biographical essays of two to five pages in length prepared in Spain by William Brennan and based upon interviews with the subject; autobiographical letters composed for the historical commission set up by the Mac-Paps in 1939. The latter range in length from three to thirty pages. All of these papers are described in the notes as "memoirs."

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

According to Jack Taylor, liaison officer between Canadian support organizations and the volunteers during the last months of the war, the exact number of men who left Canada for Spain came to 1239. It is probable that at least another dozen made their own way abroad and did not use the facilities available in Canada. 2 Useful accounts of the origins and political history of the Spanish Civil War include Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London, 1961); Gabriel Jackson, The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (Princeton, N.J., 1965); Brian Crozier, Franco (London, 1968). 3 Crozier, op. cit., pp. 174-5. 4 Thomas, op. cit., p. 59. 5 Crozier, op. cit., p. 511. 6 Vincent Brome, The International Brigades (London, 1965), p. 13. 7 The New York Times, September 2, 1936. *Ibid.9 October 2, 1936. This account is based upon interviews with Tim Buck (CBC, Toronto, June, 1965) and with Allan Dowd (interview with the author, Toronto, March, 1967).

Notes

257

10

Tim Buck, interview with the author, London, Ontario, March, 1967. "Graham Spry, interview with the author, Kingsmere, Quebec, May, 1968; Allan Dowd, interview with the author. NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

Jackson, op. cit., p. 251; Thomas, op. cit., p. 218-9. 2

Thomas, p. 229-31. P. A. M. Van der Esch, Prelude to War (The Hague, 1951), p. 34. 4 Thomas, p. 634. 5 Joel Colton, Leon Blum (New York, 1966), pp. 245-52. 6 Thomas, p. 219; Colton, pp. 241-2, argues that the British did not try to intimidate Blum. 7 Colton, p. 247. *Ibid., p. 250. °Van der Esch, pp. 57-79. w House of Commons Debates, 1936,1, p. 65. "Thomas, p. 635. ™lbid., p. 226. ™Ibid., p. 228. 14 John A. Armstrong, The Politics of Totalitarianism (New York, 1961), p. 39. 3

15

Thomas, pp. 634-5.

16

Tom Wintringham, English Captain (London, 1939), p. 28. "Ibid., pp. 26-7. 18

Thomas, p. 296. ^Toronto Daily Clarion, February 10, 1937. On January 19, 1937, O. D. Skelton, Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, indicated in a memorandum to Prime Minister King that a search of

258

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

the naturalization records revealed no evidence of Kleber having been granted Canadian citizenship. Another search, undertaken at the author's request in 1968 by J. W. Dobson of the Department of Manpower and Immigration similarly failed to uncover pertinent documents. The Skelton note is in "Spanish Civil War File" (hereafter, King SCW File), W. L. Mackenzie King Papers, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa. 20 Wintringham, p. 54. 21 Edwin Rolfe, The Lincoln Battalion (New York, 1939), p. 25. "Stephen Spender, World Within World (New York, 1951), p. 201. 23 Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle (New York, 1939), p. 58. 24 William Rust, Britons in Spain (London, 1939), p. 25. 25 \Vintringham, p. 117. 26 John Reid, interview with the author, Montreal, June, 1966. 27 Robert Bell memoir in Toronto Public Library. 28 Robert A. Rosenstone, "The Men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion", The Journal of American History, LIV (September, 1967), 327-38. 29 Arthur Landis, The Abraham Lincoln Brigade (New York, 1967), p. 27. 30 Jules Paivio memoir in Edward C. Smith Papers (hereafter, ECS). 31 Landis, pp. 33-4. 32 Hazen Sise, interview with the author, Montreal, June, 1966. 33

The Volunteer for Liberty, October 11, 1937. The official organ of the XVth International Brigade in Spain, the Volunteer appeared weekly between May 24, 1937 and November 7, 1938.

34

Wintringham, p. 36.

Notes

259

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

^ilhelm Pieck, "Report of the Activities of the Executive Committee of the Communist International", Report of the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (London, 1936), p. 32. 2 /6/W., p. 73. 3 James Eayrs, "A Low Dishonest Decade: Aspects of Canadian External Policy, 1931-1939", The Growth of Canadian Policies in External Affairs, ed. Hugh L. Keenleyside et al. (Durham, N.C., 1960), pp. 68-9. 4 John Dollard, Fear in Battle (New Haven, 1943), p. 56. 5 Thomas W. Tanner, Microcosms of Misfortune (unpub. M.A. thesis, London, Ont., 1965). 6

Cited in Annual Report of the Department of Labour, Province of British Columbia (Victoria, B.C., 1935), p. 67. TRegina Riot Commission, 1935,1, 35-6. 8 Ronald Liversedge, "A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War" (unpub. ms.), p. 3. °Bessie, pp. 181-2. 10

The statistics offered here derive from the Friends file which is now in the possession of Alex Forbes of Toronto. H

Rosenstone, p. 328.

12

Lawrence Cane, interview with the CBC, New York City, November, 1965. 13

Tim Buck, "Soldiers of Democracy", The Marxist Quarterly (Summer, 1966), p. 21.

14 Paul Yuzyk, "The Ukrainian-Communist Delusion", The Ukrainians in Manitoba (Toronto, 1953), pp. 96-112. 15

Le Devo/r, July 14, 1938.

10

Rosenstone, p. 335, cites estimates ranging from 25 per cent to 80 per cent, with Earl Browder offering 60 per cent.

260

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

'Consensus. Peter Hunter, interview with the author, Toronto, December, 1967. *RCMP Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 3 (January, 1954), 219-22. 4 Perry Hilton, interview with the author, Vancouver, May, 1967. Hilton speculates that a Frank Whitfield who died beside him in Spain was either an active R.C.M.P. officer or else a former officer. The R.C.M.P. made inquiries to Hilton on his return from the war concerning Whitfield's fate. 5 O. D. Skelton, memorandum to the Prime Minister, January 19, 1937, King SCW File. 6 Liversedge, p. 5. 7 O. D. Skelton, memorandum, "Questions Re Spanish War Volunteers", undated but probably composed in late 1938, King SCW File. 8 Liversedge, p. 5. »Ibid., pp. 6-7. 10 Peter Hunter, interview with the CBC, Toronto, April, 1966. H Liversedge, p. 9. 12 /fc/W.,pp. 10-12. 2

13 14

/6/W.,p. 13.

/foW.,pp. 13-4. Robert Bell memoir, Toronto Public Library.

15 16

Maurice Constant, interview with the author, Waterloo, Ontario, March, 1967. 17 Liversedge, pp. 18-9. **Ibid. 10 H. J. Higgins, cited in Edward C. Smith, "The MacPaps", unpublished fragment in ECS. 20 The tragedy is described in Liversedge's memoir, pp. 20-4, and

Notes

261

was confirmed for the author by Milton Cohen, Chicago, Illinois. 21

Liversedge, p. 23.

2

* Ibid.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

*Hazen Sise, interview with the author. 2

Henning Sorensen, interview with the author, Vancouver, May, 1967. 3 Hazen Sise, interview with the author. 4 Ibid. *Ibid. «lbid. 7 Henning Sorensen, interview with the author. 8 Hazen Sise, interview with the author. »lbid. 10

Ibid.

11

1bid.

™lbid. ™Ibid. "Correspondence of Hazen Sise. 15

Henning Sorensen, interview with the author.

16

Allan Dowd, interview with the author.

17

Hazen Sise, interview with the author.

18

Jean Watts Lawson, interview with the author, Victoria, May, 1967.

19

Hazen Sise, interview with the author.

20

Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon, The Scalpel, the Sword (Boston, 1952), p. 312.

262

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion

21 S. H. Abramson, interview with the author, New York City, March, 1966. 22

Marvin Penn, interview with the CBC, Winnipeg, August, 1965.

23

Robert Bell memoir.

24

Professor Cecil Eby, University of Michigan, uncovered the Fogarty anecdote and kindly made it available to the author.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

Robert Colodny, The Struggle for Madrid (New York, 1958), passim. 2

Ibid., p. 79.

3

Wintringham, Colodny, Landis and Rolfe have all presented detailed accounts of the Jarama campaign from which the narrative given here is distilled. 4 Wintringham, pp. 144ff. 5 John Reid, interview with the author. 6 7

Burt Levy memoir in ECS. Wintringham, p. 234.

8 9

John Reid, interview with the author.

Larry Ryan memoir in ECS.

10

Consensus.

11

Walter Dent, interview with the author, Toronto, December, 1967; Larry Ryan memoir.

12

Landis, p. 64.

13

/W