Britons in the Spanish Civil War
The British Battalion of the International Brigades, formed to defend the Spanish Republic against the forces of General Franco, first went into battle at Jarama in February 1937. It was the beginning of a bruising, often dispiriting campaign.
In the chilly dawn of February 11th, 1937, around 500 men from Britain, armed with rifles and machine guns, began clambering up a ridge overlooking the River Jarama, a few miles south-east of Madrid. For seven months Spain had been embroiled in a brutal civil war, sparked by an uprising of right-wing generals against the country’s elected government. The British were there as part of the International Brigades, a force of foreign volunteers who had come to fight for the Spanish Republic. Although some Britons had been involved in earlier battles, this would be the first action by a fully-fledged British Battalion and most of its members had never been under fire before.
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