This tome has been something I've intended to read since it was published, when I could find the time. Well, the time finally came and I'm very impressed with Tremlett's work, with a few caveats. While political and military issues are dealt with, this is really a social history of the brigades, as Tremlett writes in short, crisp, chapters, and he usually has a good collection of anecdotes upon which to gild each way station of the path of the brigades, from glorious defenders of Madrid, to the sweepings of a broken force abandoning the wreck of the Spanish Republic.

If nothing else, the author wants to emphasize that this force was not really a "Comintern army," but a band of anti-fascists who were anything but "premature" in taking up arms against the looming menace; even if they somewhat fell into the nets of the Stalinist menace. One of the most interesting points of Tremlett's narrative is the varied ways the survivors kept on fighting, and were actually a future elite in many countries, such as the DDR and Tito's Yugoslavia. That enough survivors lived long enough to be honored by the modern Spanish republic is testament to their legacy.

So, as for my caveats, one would hope with as long as a book as this is, you could read it as a history of the Spanish Civil War in total, but the story of the war, and Tremlett's history of the brigades aren't congruent enough for that. Also, though Tremlett is a good military historian, a little more nuts-and-bolts history might be necessary for the casual reader to appreciate what's going on. In the first case, one might want to have first read Anthony Beevor's second edition of "The Battle for Spain." In the second case, Osprey Publishing has brought out a number of relevant booklets on this conflict over the years, and I think that, in particular, Ken Bradley's "International Brigades in Spain 1936-39" holds up quite well; even though it was published in 1994. ( )

'Magnificent. Narrative history at its vivid and compelling best' Fergal KeaneThe first major history of the International Brigades: a tale of blood, ideals and tragedy in the fight against fascism.The Spanish Civil War was the first armed battle in the fight against fascism, and a rallying cry for a generation. Over 35,000 volunteers from sixty-one countries around the world came to defend democracy against the troops of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini.Ill-equipped and disorderly, yet fuelled by a shared sense of purpose and potential glory, these disparate groups of idealistic young men and women formed a volunteer army of a size and type unseen since the Crusades, known as the International Brigades. Were they heroes or fools? Saints or bloodthirsty adventurers? And what exactly did they achieve?In this magisterial history, Giles Tremlett tells - for the first time - the story of the Spanish Civil War through the experiences of this remarkable group. Drawing on the Brigades' archives in Moscow, as well as first-hand accounts, The International Brigades captures all the human drama of a historic mission to halt fascist expansion in Europe.

Contrary to its name, the Spanish Civil War was an international conflict. At its core a struggle between the Republican government and their Nationalist challengers, it quickly assumed an outsized importance for the ideological clash involved. Though ostensibly neutral, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sent equipment and even troops to bolster Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces. By contrast the Republicans enjoyed nowhere near the same degree of support from the liberal democracies of Europe, and received only limited assistance from the Soviet Union.

What the Republicans did receive, however, was an abundance of foreign volunteers. From the very beginning of the conflict thousands of people from throughout Europe and the Americas rushed to join the fight. There they formed a series of units that came to be known as the International Brigades which, though often disorganized and amateurish, distinguished themselves in combat throughout the conflict. While these brigades have enjoyed considerable attention from authors both at the time and since, Giles Tremlett draws upon a wealth of new research in previously inaccessible Russian archives to tell the stories of the volunteers and their impact on the conflict.

The volunteers were an extraordinarily diverse bunch, representing many different countries and left-wing ideologies. What united them, as Tremlett makes clear, is their opposition to fascism. This was true for even the first foreigners caught up in the conflict, which were athletes who were gathering in Barcelona for the “People’s Olympiad,” a left-wing counter to the Olympics about to be held in Berlin. When fighting broke out in the city between army units and forces loyal to the government, dozens of these athletes joined in the fighting, helping to secure the city,

Though many of these athletes left, they were soon replaced by an influx of enthusiastic volunteers. Tremlett’s focus here is on telling the stories of these men and women who were involved in the cause. Through them the reader learns about how they got to Spain, the (often limited) training they received, and their experiences in combat. These are interesting and often well told by Tremlett, but there is little in the way of explanation or analysis of how well the recruitment processes worked or how the Spanish Republican leadership viewed the volunteers and how those views shaped their deployment. Instead, the war is explained almost entirely through the prism of the volunteers’ experience, which can be highly illuminating but is also understandably limited.

In the end, no amount of commitment to fighting fascism was sufficient to counter the advantages enjoyed by the Nationalists. With the Republic’s defeat in the early part of 1939 the surviving volunteers escaped to internment or made their way back to their home countries. As Tremlett demonstrates, however, it wasn’t long before many of them resumed the fight against fascism once more, this time against Germany and Italy. For them the outbreak of the Second World War represented a vindication of their cause, and many veteran Brigaders played active parts in the Second World War either by enlisting in the armed forces or by joining the resistance movements in occupied countries. Many of the volunteers from Eastern Europe subsequently rose to high political office, as their service in Spain proved a valuable asset in demonstrating their anti-fascist bona fides in the postwar era – just as Brigade veterans in the United States found their service a source of suspicion with the onset of the Cold War.

In this respect the story of the International Brigades is just one episode in the larger history of the ideological conflict that defined the 20th century. Tremlett’s recognition of this only adds to the strength of his book as an account of their members and the roles they played during the conflict. Thanks to his efforts he goes far towards filling the longstanding need for a full account of the Brigades and their impact not just on the Spanish Civil War but upon subsequent events throughout Europe and the rest of the world. In revealing the scope of their activities, he demonstrates the need for further examination of their organization and legacy. Any such work will owe a considerable debt to his detailed and absorbing account, which will likely serve as the standard work on the Brigades and their role in the Spanish Civil War for years to come. ( )

La Guerra Civil española fue el primer conflicto armado contra el fascismo, y un símbolo para toda una generación. Más de treinta y cinco mil voluntarios de sesenta países acudieron a defender la democracia de las tropas de Franco, Hitler y Mussolini.
Desorganizados y mal equipados, pero animados por una ilusión compartida y el ansia de gloria, grupos heterogéneos de jóvenes idealistas, hombres y mujeres, se unieron para crear una ejército voluntario de un tamaño nunca visto desde las Cruzadas: las Brigadas Internacionales. Estos apasionados combatientes por la libertad venían de toda Europa, de China, de África y del continente americano para unirse a la causa de la República y luchar durante dos años en las sangrientas batallas de Madrid, el Jarama y el Ebro.
¿Fueron héroes o ilusos? ¿Santos laicos o aventureros sanguinarios? ¿Y qué lograron exactamente?.
Esta historia se ha contado en los libros de Orwell, Malraux y Hemingway, los cuadros de Picasso y las fotos de Capa y Taro, pero en esta obra magistral el premiado historiador Giles Tremlett cuenta por primera vez los hechos de la Guerra Civil a través de las experiencias de este extraordinario grupo humano. A partir de los amplios archivos de las Brigadas en Moscú, los documentos de la Comintern e infinidad de testimonios de primera mano, Tremlett logra reflejar el drama y la pasión del heroico esfuerzo por detener al fascismo en Europa.