The International Brigades (Spanish: Brigadas Internacionales) were military units made up of volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to fight for the Second Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.The number of combatant volunteers has been estimated at between 32,000–35,000, though with no more than about 20,000 active at any one time. A further 10,000 people probably participated in non-combatant roles and about 3,000–5,000 foreigners were members of CNT or POUM.[1] They came from a claimed "53 nations" to fight against the Spanish Falangist forces led by General Francisco Franco who was assisted by German and Italian forces.

** Shortlisted for the Military History Matters Book of the Year Award ** 'Magnificent. Narrative history at its vivid and compelling best' Fergal Keane The 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.

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 almost 2,500 men and women left Britain to fight for the Spanish Republic. This book examines the role, experiences and contribution of the volunteers who fought in the British Battalion of the 15 International Brigadesasking: * Who were these volunteers? * Where did they come from? * Why did they go to Spain? * How much did they actually help the Spanish Republic? In contrast to recent revisionist interpretations, this work stresses the crucial importance of the war experience itself, rather than political ideology, in the understanding of the volunteers' role and experiences within the Spanish war. This book will be of essential interest to historians and those interested in the Spanish Civil War.

During the Spanish Civil War many groups on the European right were galvanised by the Nationalist cause. This book recounts the experiences of a number of foreign volunteers, all of whom saw their engagement in Spain as a means of promoting their own political causes at home.

Foreign volunteers fought on behalf of General Franco and the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War for a right-wing cause whose aim was to smash democracy. These assorted adventurers, fascists, and Catholic crusaders were on the winning side, but their role has remained strangely hidden until now. Men from Portugal and Morocco signed on for money and adventure. General Eoin O'Duffy organised 700 Irishmen in a modern Crusade; 500 Catholic Frenchmen fought in the "Jeanne D'Arc" unit; and thirty British volunteers, including aristocrats and working-class fascists, also took up arms. Romanian Iron Guard extremists died at Majadahonda and an Indian volunteer fought in the fascist militia. There were Russians, Americans, Finns, Belgians, Greeks, Cubans, and many more. Goose-stepping alongside the volunteers were fascist conscripts from Germany and Italy, in training for the next world war. Foreigners, whether unknown individuals like British pilot Cecil Bebb or infamous figures like the German dictator Adolf Hitler, were essential to Franco's victory. Without Bebb--who flew General Francisco Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco in 1936, a journey which was to precipitate the onset of the Spanish Civil War--the war would never have started; without Hitler, Franco would never have won.

In the English-speaking world, the Spanish Civil War is perhaps best remembered through the exploits of thousands of foreign volunteers from across the globe who joined the International Brigades – a force of communists, socialists and others who took their opposition to fascism to extraordinary lengths. Their passionate political commitment to Spain’s cause and determination in battle placed them among the crack troops of the Republic’s People’s Army. Yet while much has been written about the political, social and cultural significance of the brigades and their experience in Spain, less has been said about their performance as front-line troops. It is this military history that Alexander Clifford focuses on in vivid detail in this highly illustrated new study. His account tells the story of the brigades as combat units, tracing the course of each major battle in which they fought and showing the drastic changes they underwent as the war progressed – from an untrained militia in 1936, to the tried and tested shock troops of 1937, to a shadow of their former selves by 1938 after repeated maulings and the introduction of Spanish conscripts to fill their ranks.

One of the enduring myths of the Franco state was that the Nationalist forces that won the Civil War consisted of patriotic Spaniards, while the Republic was defended by a rag tag army of foreign Reds. During the Spanish civil war, however, many groups on the European right were galvanised by the Nationalist cause. European fascists, conservative Catholics and those uneasy with liberal democracy in general rallied to the figure of Franco, who appeared to be holding the line against secularism, modernism and Bolshevism. This book recounts the experiences of a number of foreign volunteers, including the brigades of White Russians, Romanians, Irish and the French volunteers in the Jeanne d'Arc battalion, all of whom saw their engagement in Spain as a means of promoting their own political causes at home.

Looks at the role of the United States in the Spanish Civil War

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, this is the story of the Canadians who went to fight in that epic conflict.

When a Nationalist military uprising was launched in Spain in July 1936, the Spanish Republic’s desperate pleas for assistance from the leaders of Britain and France fell on deaf ears. Appalled at the prospect of another European democracy succumbing to fascism, volunteers from across the Continent and beyond flocked to Spain’s aid, many to join the International Brigades. More than 2,500 of these men and women came from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, and contrary to popular myth theirs was not an army of adventurers, poets and public school idealists. Overwhelmingly they hailed from modest working class backgrounds, leaving behind their livelihoods and their families to fight in a brutal civil war on foreign soil. Some 500 of them never returned home. In this inspiring and moving oral history, Richard Baxell weaves together a diverse array of testimony to tell the remarkable story of the Britons who took up arms against General Franco. Drawing on his own extensive interviews with survivors, research in archives across Britain, Spain and Russia, as well as first-hand accounts by writers both famous and unknown, Unlikely Warriors presents a startling new interpretation of the Spanish Civil War and follows a band of ordinary men and women who made an extraordinary choice.