I wrote a while back about Peter Kemp's autobiography “Thorns
of Memory” which describes his time serving in Franco's forces, starting with
his time with the Carlists.
I have also written of contemporary “histories” that I've
obtained and read. So far they have been of the Republican persuasion. It has
to be said that they are stolid and immensely worthy books, full of scientific
historical analysis. They are heavy on the politics and the historical
background. My goodness they're heavy going.
I have finally got round to reading “March of a Nation”
written by Harold Cardozo, the Daily Mail special correspondent in Spain who
covered the war. Written in 1937 after the fall of Bilboa it is unashamedly
pro-Franco and anti-Republican. In fact he can hardly bear to use the word
“Republican” and refers to all Republican forces as Reds, even Basque
Nationalists. Given the perspective we now have the book is laugh out loud
funny in places, - I will quote some choice pieces in a lter blog for your
entertainment.
Having said that if you understand the subject and can filter
out the prejudices it's quite a useful book. It is written in a refreshingly
direct and journalistic style, and Cardozo was as close as you could be then to
being embedded with Franco's forces. He was an honorary Carlist and wore his
Red beret with pride. Having said that his descriptions of what he saw and how
actions were fought have the feeling of verisimilitude. There's lots of colour
in his stories and I may need to review my views in some areas as his comments
support some things I've read elsewhere and wasn't sure about.
The book isn't for the unwary, of course. Pretty much all of
the Republican forces are non-Spanish, and most of them are Russians. They are
both heavily armed and woefully under-equipped, of poor morale and motivation
whilst putting up a stiff fight. Franco's forces are Spain's finest, and the
few Italians involved are members of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The Germans
rate about one sentence, and the bombing of Guernica was a unimportant and the
damage was mostly caused by the “Reds” setting fire to the buildings
themselves.
As I said it's a real laugh out loud roller coaster ride. I
can't find out anything else about Mr C, although he went on to be a war
correspondent in WW2. I have no idea if he regretted anything he wrote and
ended his love affair with Fascism (although he did correctly predict that post
SCW Franco would avoid backing Hitler and Mussolini. He didn't realise,
however, that Franco had gifted most of Spain's iron and coal resources to the
Nazis).
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