Original subtitles

In Spain, a coalition of the People's

Front won the elections in February

1936.

Since then, tensions have been

escalating between two Spain,

one rural nationalist and Catholic,

the other urban, republican

and secular.

Violence is multiplying.

The army, which fears a revolutionary

process, does not hide its intention

to overthrow the legal

government.

On July 18, 1936, a crowd of people

marched out into the streets

of Madrid.

The capital’s residents have

just learned that the day

before, in Spanish Morocco,

officers of the Foreign Legion

rose up against the government

of the Republic.

A real popular insurrection

responds to the force strikes

of the rebel troops.

Despite the hesitation

of the legitimate government, overtaken

by events, weapons are distributed.

60,000 rifles are delivered to

the unions, the Socialist GT and the

anarchist CNT, which calls for a

general strike.

The military coup has been prepared

for several weeks at the initiative

of a cartel of officers under

the authority of General Franco,

who announced to the world his

intention to overthrow the government,

coming from the polls.

The mutins have the powerful

army of Africa, the spark

of the Spanish army.

About 40,000 men, trained and endoctrinated,

ready to sacrifice at the

cry of “Viva la Mort.”

The passage of insurgent troops to

Morocco, through the Strait of Gibraltar,

is blocked by sailors, who

remained loyal to the Republic.

They disarm officers and take

control of the ships.

In the following days, in all

of Spain, felon regiments

revolted in turn.

Leftist activists and trade unionists

are confronting them with a

weapon of fortune.

In Madrid, insurgent Franco troops

have retreated to the Montaña

barracks, which are attacked with

unconscious bravery by improvised

fighters.

The barracks fall defenders are

massacred Madrid remains in the

Republican camp in Barcelona anarchist

bastion the militias loyal to

the government oppose the rebel

troops cut off in the buildings

of the center and the barracks

the epic and deadly battles

make hundreds of deaths the

pronunciamiento fails but

is not traced in the egg.

On the evening of July 20, a third

of Spain was under the rule

of the Francoists.

The War of Spain begins.

On July 20, just three days

after the coup, André Malraux

arrived in Spain.

A country where people take death seriously.

This is a theatre to the scale of

the anti-fascist writer who has been

beating them since Hitler came to power.

With his fist up and his brotherly

salute in his mouth, Malraux travels

through Madrid in the insurrection.

On July 27, he met with the

President of the Republic,

Manuel Assanya.

The writer notes that the

weakness of Republican

defense is the absence of aviation.

Malraux returns to Paris, convinced

that the fate of the Spanish

Republic will be played in the air.

The military seizure hastened the

revolution that the rebel generals

wanted to prevent.

The state disintegrates in a few days.

The power belongs to those who exercise it.

The popular uprising gave rise

to local gobiernitos, committees

of different styles and sizes.

There are hundreds of autonomous

republics, small or large, that

make the absence of order reign.

In Catalonia, the CNT, an anarchist

union that soon has 1.5 million

members, creates revolutionary

committees.

In Barcelona, a central militia committee

controls the city.

All workers’ organisations are

represented.

The leader of the Popular Front,

Largo Caballero, is the spokesman

for the left wing of the

Spanish socialism.

He is called the second Lenin.

But the authority of the Republican

government does not extend

far beyond Madrid, and yet.

The capital offers the appearance

of a revolutionary city

where men in arms patrol.

The government is unable

to ensure public security.

In every corner of the street,

police check the documents.

In an absolute disorder, propitious

to all excesses, a period of

red terror begins.

Anti-religious violence is multiplying

in the territory that remained

faithful to the Republic.

Hundreds of monastery churches

were burned.

The execution of clergy

members continued for many

months.

In total, 7,000 priests were slaughtered.

Thro the country, red terror

has caused the death of several

tens of thousands of people,

bourgeois, civil guards,

monarchists, religious, landlords.

Revolutionary passion leads

to countless abuses that

leaders cannot contain.

Federica Montseni, anarchist

leader, observed: “The

Revolution is destructive,

blind, wild and grandiose.

From the depths of the honest man

arise fierce violence, destructive

impulses, a thirst for blood

that seemed unthinkable.

The goal is revolution, and

war comes after.

Farmers occupy large fields,

but also small and

medium-sized farms.

In the countryside, thousands of

properties are collectivized.

A spontaneous movement of occupation

of factories spreads like a dust-

trail.

18,000 industrial and commercial

companies are taken over

by factory committees.

In Madrid, unions have taken over

the escapes of barbers, barbers,

ebanists and even beauty

institutes.

Barcelona offers the extraordinary

spectacle of a city where the great

theatre of the Revolution plays.

Anarchists collectivize everything,

including grocery stores, fruit

and vegetable markets and slaughterhouses.

Local committees organize basic

services, supply,

and recruit hotels to make

them hospitals or cantonnements

for the militias.

In Barcelona, the RIT was used

as a public dining room where poor

families accessed for the first time.

Banks are robbed and looted,

dozens of newspapers, sheets

of lazy propaganda.

The Spanish Revolution of the summer

of 36 is of unparalleled scale in Europe.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the special

envoy of the Intransigent, is

a writer.

“I sometimes encountered barricades

of armed militias.

Often enough to make

them smile.

I didn’t find the border at the beginning.

The border, in civil war,

is invisible and passes through

the heart of man.

The cities are changing.

Enthusiasm, joy transfigure

faces and attitudes.

In the coffee shops, the waiters

refuse to serve the snacks.

Everyone is ticking, calling himself

comrade, shaking his fist and saying

“hello.”

There reigns a contagious drunkenness, a thirst for

sacrifice, an uncompromising belief in freedom

in the first days of August arrives in Barcelona

German Jewish guerta poiril and Hungarian Jewish

and anti-fascist and and and and and and and and

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and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and

and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

On these days of August, all the

men of Barcelona are set

out to fight on the Aragonese front.

Columns of picturesque

attachments will fight against

it with contagious enthusiasm.

Robert Capa and Gerda Taro are

the leaders.

They are in the front lines on the

Aragonese front.

The militias take positions,

settle, dig trunks.

The war will last.

Two Spanish women are facing

each other in a merciless

confrontation.

From the beginning, Franco received

massive, decisive assistance

from Hitler and Mussolini.

The German Junkers were transporting

the Spanish army of crafts

from Morocco to

southern Spain in late

July.

In this first airbridge in

history, 20,000 men were transported

in a week.

Mussolini sent out well-equipped

and vigorous troops.

Over the entire war, 70,000

Italians fought in Spain.

Foreign intervention imbalances

the ratio of force in favor

of the mutants.

In the southern part of Spain, the nationalists

are going to start the reconquest.

Five columns make a quick

march across Andalusia

and along the Portuguese

border.

The army of Africa, made up

of legionaries and dead, provokes

terror on its passage by committing

executions and massacres

in an affirmed will

of political purification.

A Francoist general gave instructions

to eliminate the left-wing

elements, communists, anarchists,

members of trade unions,

Freemasonry.

In Córdoba, thousands of men are

parked in the arenas before being

executed.

In Badajoz, on the Portuguese

border, nationalist soldiers

massacre 4,000 men, women,

and children.

Prisoners are systematically

executed.

Organized and planned white

terror is blamed

by the Catholic hierarchy.

The Franco repression will make

at least 200,000 lives.

It remains that terrible misfortune,

writes François Moriac, that for millions

of Spaniards Christianity

and fascism are now confused

and that they will no longer be

able to hate one without hating

the other.

Robert Capa and Garda Taro,

cameras in bandolero, left

the Aragonese front for the

Cordoba front.

They arrive on September 5, near the

town where the inhabitants are fleeing.

Capa wins the battlefield, near

the village of Cerro Muriano,

facing a hill held by the Francoists.

Republican militias are preparing

for the assault.

Capa, in the trunk, blows his

Leica over his head and presses

the trigger, without looking.

The photo of a Republican

fighter crushed by death appears

in sight, then goes around the

world.

Decades later, the circumstances

of this instantaneous will

be disputed.

In four weeks, the

insurgent troops advanced

500 km.

Madrid is only 70 km away.

But Franco orders his men to

rescue Toled, where the cadets

of the military academy

and their families have been

cut into the Alcazard.

The Republicans have been in charge

of them for several weeks.

There is no plan for battle

or attack.

The gunfire, from the barricades,

is more of a folklore

than of a fight.

Nothing shakes the determination

of the assembled who become a symbol

for the Franco camp.

The government’s downturn

has worsened

the situation.

The Soco Square of Auvers becomes

the meeting place for international

press and photographers.

Take a break before the goals.

Finally, Asturien miners

are brought to dig galleries

to place 5 tons of

dynamite.

The giant explosion does not result

in redemption.

Soldiers sent by Franco released

the cadets and massacred hundreds

of Republican prisoners.

Franco can come to parade on the

ruins and benefit from this victorious

resistance.

The siege of Toled pathetically

illustrates the military improvisation

of the Republican camp.

A military of professionals

confronts amateurs who have only

their brave ones in jumping.

A word of order reigns as a master

in the liberals’ ranks.

We are going to disregard the indiscipline.

Grised by revolutionary

enthusiasm, Republican fighters

repudiate military

discipline.

Military Yes, Military No

They refuse traditional management.

Most of the time, they received

no military training.

They know how to fight, they don’

t know how to fight.

Column leaders are militants

who lack the knowledge of armed

struggle.

Each party or movement creates its

own militia.

There is no coordination between them.

The party pride is stronger than

the common defense.

There is no command unit.

The POUM, the anti-Stalinist revolutionary

party, has its own militia,

made up of 80 percent

German anti-fascists.

The next one is Chancellor Willy

Brandt.

The English writer George Orwell,

in the head of the ranks, also

engaged in the Poum

militias.

In Catalonia, the Liberalists join

the column under the command

of Buenventura Durruti, a charismatic

leader whose adventurous life between

exile and prison gives him

an aura already legendary.

The popular militias are grouped

by several tens of thousands of fighters.

But they are quickly trained,

poorly equipped, and have only a

disparate and insufficient armament.

Most of all, the Republican

camp lacks heavy weapons, tanks, aircraft.

The Spanish government turns to France

where Léon Blum is chairman of

the council of a government

of the People's Front.

Blum is in favor of the delivery

of weapons, but he faces multiple

opposition, both internal and

external.

The British Conservatives refuse

to support the Republican camp.

In early August, a non-intervention

pact was agreed in London

between the major European

powers.

The agreement is to observe the strictest

neutrality and to prohibit the sending

of weapons to Spain.

This contract is a price.

A legitimate government, which

comes from free elections, is placed

on the same level as the Poutchists.

This agreement comes as massive

aid has already been provided

by the Axis powers to Franco.

Hitler sent the Condor Legion, the

elite of the Nazi aviation.

He also supplied Franco with modern

tanks that enabled him to experiment

with the movement warfare.

Officially, France’s Popular Front

does not support Spain’s Popular

Frontier.

In fact, since July, aircraft

are shipped by truck thanks

to Jean Moulin, the cabinet

director of the Air Minister,

Pierre Cotte.

André Malraux served

as an intermediary to the Spanish

government to buy 55 aircraft

that crossed the border before

the neutrality pact came into

effect.

For Malraux, man is defined by

his actions.

So it works, and efficiency is prime.

In the absence of pilots, he recruited,

with the help of Jean Moulin, mercenaries,

and formed the Spanish squadron

with about thirty aircraft,

mostly the potheses 54, which

were of valuable support in

the first battles.

Malraux aircraft, based at

Barharras, Madrid airport, constituted

the only air force to oppose

the Franco’s northern uprising

of the African army.

His first exit, on August 18, allowed

a rebel column to be dispersed

in Medine.

This bombardment, which will provide

Malraux with epic pages of his

novel L'Espoir, helps slow

the Franco advance towards Madrid.

The RSA is now signing

the Non-Intervention Pact.

Stalin at first held to cautious

neutrality.

Its priority remains the approximation

at all costs with Western democracies,

which too much support for

the Spanish Republic would compromise.

But the evidence of the aid provided

by Germany and Italy to Franco,

the possibility of a collapse

of the Spanish Republic, the

risks, finally, of the advent

of a fascist state, pushed

Stalin to get out of his attentism.

He cannot stand aside from the spontaneous

movement of solidarity with

Spain.

The help committees to the Republic flourish

a little everywhere.

In September 1936, the USSR decided

to help the Spanish Republic.

The first Soviet ships delivering

aircraft, tanks, machine

guns were welcomed by enthusiastic

crowds.

Over the entire civil war,

the Soviet Union supplied

650 aircraft, 347 tanks and

20,000 machine guns.

In exchange, the Spanish government

will live in Moscow at the Bank

of Spain.

460 tons of gold, distributed

in 7,800 boxes, went to the USSR.

All Stalin’s material aid is paid

rubies on gold.

Moscow is not only sending weapons.

Stalin sent as ambassador Marcel

Rosenberg, who will play an influential

role with the Spanish

government.

The incident involved a thousand Russian

military advisors, including the

Russian General Yann Berzin, head

of the Red Army’s military

intelligence.

He is the real boss of the

Republican army.

The political police, the

NKVD, is represented in Spain

by Orlov.

The Soviet intelligence services

will soon act in Spain, as at

home.

Next to Orlov, Mikhail Koltsov,

the special envoy of Pravda, who

is Stalin’s eye in Spain.

On 18 September, the

Communist International

decided to create international

brigades.

The volunteers, armed with

their only enthusiasm, give

up everything to fight fascism.

The first groups of international

brigadists who came to fight

in Spain alongside the Republicans

arrived in early October.

They are headed to Albacete, where

nothing is ready to welcome them.

... by

The Urgent Order.

Without being trained, the 1st

Brigadier were sent to the

Madrid front, which is cracking.

... by

In late October, Franco's

troops occupied Madrid.

The Spanish capital is within the reach

of the nationalist cannons.

24 artillery batteries are

piling the city.

... by

On the Republican side,

all valid men, women and even

children, are mobilized

to dig trunks west of the capital

and build thick barricades

in the suburbs.

The people are waiting for the strong

attack.

General Miara, a traditional military

who remained loyal to the government,

leads the defensive trouble that

brings together all the organizations,

including the CNT’s anarchists.

The weight of the communists is overwhelming.

It is Soviet military advisers,

such as generals Goryev or

Berzin, who surround Miara.

The Communist Party had its own regiment,

the Fifth, and then its organized

and trained death, led

by General Lister, formed

in Moscow.

The 5th Regiment, with its 10,

000 men, ensures security control

and carries out numerous

arrests.

The very minority Communist

Party saw its aura strengthened

by the arrival of Soviet T-26

tanks disembarked from the Cars.

Dolores Ibaruri, the leader of the Spanish

PC nicknamed the Passionaria, is galvanizing

the population on the radio.

In all of Madrid, banners

were spread that reprisal

the motto of passion,

No stops.

On the walls, huge propaganda

posters call for fighting.

The whole world, however, believes

that Madrid will fall into the hands

of Franco’s army, whose advance

seems irresistible.

The international press is reporting

the imminent fall of the capital.

In the wake of the danger, the children

were evacuated to Valencia in early November.

The correspondent of Pravda,

Mikhail Koltsov, wrote: “Everyone

who can flee the city does.

All the rich, all the high

officials are escaping.

The Caballero government, in turn,

left Madrid for Valencia.

In the last week of October,

the city is subjected to

intense air bombing.

There are hundreds of victims.

On November 7, 20,000 Franco

soldiers launched an assault on

the capital, by the west.

They collide with the soldiers of the

5th Regiment, firmly cut off.

We fight in Kassad and Campo, the

wood of Boulogne Madrid, a

few heads from the center.

To relieve the ground fighters,

the Spanish squadron of Malraux

performs outings and confronts

Franco's aircraft.

The first Soviet hunters

appear in the sky of Madrid.

On November 8, the first brigade of

international volunteers arrived

in Madrid.

The entry of these 1900 men has

a considerable impact on the

inhabitants who no longer feel alone.

The brigadists travel the Grand

Via in the middle of the vivas, then

they climb to the front.

The 11th International Brigade

was formed by French, German

and Polish fighters.

The brigadists are armed with

old Remington rifles from

the 14th war and have neither

machine gun nor gas mask.

Fights are murderous.

Seeing the ground offensive to

stumble, Franco ordered the

air force to multiply the raids on Madrid.

For the first time, a large

city is subjected to

systematic bombing.

The fire bombs killed hundreds

of people.

Franco said, “I destroyed Madrid

rather than leave it to the

Marxists.

Thousands of buildings and buildings

were affected, including hospitals.

The famous Prado Museum is being

bombed.

Fortunately, the paintings were

evacuated to Valencia.

On November 17, the 12th International

Brigade, formed in 24 hours,

arrived in Madrid.

It replaces the 11th

in the university.

The political commander of the

12th was the German communist

writer Gustav Reigler who fled

Nazism.

He is telling.

We occupied the university district.

Behind the barricades, made with

the rays of the libraries, by the suspiros

of the basements, sometimes

also the roofs of the university

city, we were shooting at

night.

The front line crosses through

buildings, physics laboratories,

classrooms, amphitheaters.

We shoot at the end, from the paler

to the paler.

Photographer Robert Capin landed

in Madrid in the midst of battle.

He follows the French volunteers

fighting in the university city.

The magazine is publishing its report in Paris.

The Spanish Civil War is the first

conflict photographed day after

day.

A cause without image is not

just a cause forgotten.

It is also a lost cause, Capa

wrote on November 18 to his partner,

Gerda Taro.

On November 15, a column of 3,000

anarchist militiamen, commanded

by Dorruti, arrived in reinforcement

to defend Madrid.

They attack Kassa des Campos,

but they are set aside.

On November 21, Dorouty was killed

in dark circumstances.

At his funeral in Barcelona,

500,000 people died in damage.

As a legend of his life, Dorouty

becomes an icon.

Faced with the fierce resistance

of Madrid, Franco renounces to take

the capital by a frontal offensive.

The Republican camp has won its

first victory.

The international brigades, in the

front line, with their courage and

sacrifice, contributed, at the

cost of terrible loss, to

save Madrid.

The city is transformed

into a fortress.

It is now clear that the

fight will continue.

The military coup turned into

civil war.

Volunteers continue to flock

to Albacete, a small town halfway

between Madrid and Valencia,

which has been chosen to be

the seat of international brigades.

The fighters, who are 35,000

during the war, are returning

from about 50 countries.

They are initially divided by nationality.

The most important of them

are the French, then the Germans.

There are also in this Babel

court Italians, Czechs, Englishmen

and even 3,000 Americans

who form the Linnikholm

brigade.

The highly disciplined German volunteers

are grouped in the Tellman Battalion

in the name of the German

Communist leader detained

in Buchenwald.

A barracks on the Liberty Cahier

is used as an incorporation center.

The brigadists are given their

uniforms, surpluses dating from

the First World War.

The recruits are aligned on a field

of manoeuvre.

The head of the international

brigades, André Marty, one of the

most powerful apparatchiks

of the Communist International,

the harangues.

No one disputes the authority of this

brutal, a bit frustrated man, eager

to the heroic legend of the

Black Sea mutin.

Military instruction

is summary, most soldiers

never held a gun.

... by

In order to compensate for the

failures of military training

and veteran armament,

political commissioners instill

the idea that the fate of humanity

depends on them.

When the instruction is completed, the

brigadists parade through the streets

of Alba 7 before departing for the

front.

The Spanish squadron left Madrid

for Alba 7 in November 1936.

Malraux’s pilots are not

dependent on international brigades.

But the writer, who wants

to replace mercenaries with volunteers,

recruits mechanics

from among the brigadists.

In uniform or leather sweaters

on the back, he engages men who

have served in aviation.

The Spanish squadron is named after

André Malraux.

At the end of the year, it will be

based near Valencia, in Portedelle

de Malaga.

The city of Malaga, stranded

along the Mediterranean, is

attacked by nationalists reinforced

by eight Italian battalions.

They have a huge superiority

of resources.

The city is taken on February 8.

Franco’s troops launched a

brutal repression.

Thousands of leftist militants

were killed.

Thousands of people

are fleeing Malaga by coastal

road to Valencia.

They are bombed by Italian

hunters who descend in machine

guns of women and children.

Mussolini's ships fired the fuyards

with the naval cannon, turning

the exodus into a tragedy.

From Valencia, André Malraux’

s planes take off to

protect the pity of refugees.

During the fighting, two aircraft

were shot down.

In the absence of equipment, Malraux

is forced to end the adventure

of his squadron.

He went to the United States to raise

money.

The exodus on the route of Valencia continues.

Gerda Taro photographs the refugees

fleeing from Malaga.

The weekly Mirror reports

this story.

Thanks to the instant photos of

reporters, the world witnesses

the first logs of the civil war.

Franco could not take Madrid but

did not give up taking the capital

he was trying to surround to

isolate it from its supply bases.

On February 6, he launched

a 18 km long front with a tense

attack across the Arama River

to cut off the route from Valencia

to Madrid.

The Francois have 40,000

men and a hundred armored men.

The 14th International Brigade

took a position to defend the

Pindoké Bridge over the Rarama.

Robert Capin, who doesn’t miss a

battle, photographs the Republican

posts in the front line.

At the dawn of February 11,

Moroccan soldiers surprised the defenders

and attacked the positions

of the 14th Brigade.

Placed on a height, the fighters

of the 12th water the attackers

with a rolling fire.

Gustave Regler, political commissioner,

tells the massacre of the

14th fighters.

Putting to the last band of machine

guns, the battalion remained

on the spot, this body-to-

body battler had dead who arose,

the knife between the teeth.

The French, realizing that the

Madrid-Valence road was about to

be cut off, clung to the field

with the same stubbornness they

began to disobey when they

were at rest.

The 11th and 15th International

Brigades are called in their

turn to reinforce.

The 15th Brigade, comprised of

26 different nationalities, consists

of 6 battalions including the American

Lincoln Battalion.

Ten times, men go open to

the face of machine guns that

spit death.

The Battle of Rarama is a slaughter.

In this Spanish green, the

British battalion loses half

of its members.

All units are sent to the Caspian.

The brigadists are being cut off on

the spot for a few arpents of land.

Two thousand were put out of the fight.

The front is stabilizing.

Both camps suffered significant

losses of around 10,000

men each.

The Republican troops managed

to keep control of the Madrid-

Valence road.

The American fighters of the Lincoln

Brigade, filmed by Henry Cartier-

Bresson, face a song that

perpetuates their legends, the

Rarama Valley, on the occasion

of this battle.

After the battle, the front

stabilizes, digging boils.

The monotonous, cutting-edge

life settles, delighted by the visits

of celebrities, such as actor

Errol Finn.

For the artists who see it as

the confrontation of good and evil,

the Spanish war exerts an irresistible

power of fascination.

Writers, poets, filmmakers, short

in Spain, stunned by the propaganda

services of the Communist

International.

In Madrid, they descend to the Florida

Hotel on the Gran Via,

regularly bombarded by the

Franco artillery.

Ernest Hemingway, the special envoy

of American magazines, arrived in Madrid

in March 1937.

He is in room 108 on the side.

I present you the photo of Robert

Capa, accustomed to the gods,

photographing in full work.

International press reporters

are housed at the hotel.

Hemingway reads with Herbert Matthews,

the New York Times's special

envoy.

When he is not on the front,

Mikhail Koltsov, a correspondent

for Pravda, is also

in Florida.

Friends of Malraux, Aragon,

Gide, Koltsov takes care of

Hemingway to show him what the

communists desire that the

writer sees.

Strange character, with

a dazzling intelligence, polyglot,

Koltsov reduces reports to

the NKVD where he denounces heretics.

He inspired Hemingway to fascinate

Karpov's character in For

Whom the Glass Rings.

John Dos Pazos, eagerly praised

by the glory of Manhattan Transfer,

also arrives in Florida.

“What did you bring as

a buffalo?

He asks Hemingway, who is

accumulating supplies in his room.

When the bombs fall a little too

close, Florida celebrities find

themselves out on the street, in

pyjamas.

Despite the failure on the rarama,

Franco decides to launch a

second attack, still with the aim

of isolating the Spanish capital.

Mussolini wants a victory.

He sets out to take Guadalajara,

a small town about 50

kilometers northeast

of Madrid.

On March 8, 35,000 Italian soldiers

attacked with a armored division

and crashed across the Republican

lines.

At first they move forward

quickly.

... by

The fighting is fierce and

the brigadists are fighting

in the front line.

The 12th International Brigade, in

particular, plays a decisive role.

The Italian Garibaldi

battalion faces the Italian

fascists.

The entire Florida band came

to see the fight.

Koltsov writes his reports

for Pravda.

Hemingway is following the men

of the 12th International

Brigade to the first lodges.

The writer does not want

to shoot.

Gustave Regler, who becomes his friend,

the political commissioner of the

12th, serves as a guide on the

front line.

Seeing a doctor going to pick

up a wounded between the

lines, Hemingway confides

to Rule The death-front detachments

only meet with the best toreros.

Hemingway is accompanied by

filmmaker Joris Ivans with whom he

is filming a film, Land of Spain.

The Republicans break the

Italian offensive and counter-attack.

Mussolini’s soldiers flee into

disorder and leave on the

spot tons of equipment and

thousands of prisoners.

The victory of Guadalajara, to

which international

briades have largely contributed,

restores hope to the Republican camp.

Five months of fierce battles

around Madrid did not allow Franco

to take over the capital.

He changes his goal and decides

to focus his efforts on the

Northern Coast, a republican

enclave in nationalist territory.

On March 31, 1937, Franco's troops

attacked the city.

In this mountainous region, the

Condor Legion, sent by Hitler, is

a decisive asset.

Nazi strategists have piled cities

and villages to experiment

with the effects of air

terror on the population.

In Dorango, a church is

bombed during the office.

In the entire city there are 250 bodies.

The Basques resisted for

several weeks airstrikes,

naval blockades and ground

offensives.

On April 25, 43 Condor Legion

aircraft bombed a small town

of 7,000 inhabitants, Guernica.

On this day of the market, there are crowds

around the stalls and cattle.

For two hours, the city was covered

with a carpet of bombs.

Cows are wrapped in a sound

of apocalypse.

German hunters chase

those seeking refuge,

men, women, children,

animals.

There are 1654 dead and 800 wounded.

There is only one remaining skeleton

of Guernica that she signed.

Shaken by the bombing of Guernica,

Picasso, in a few weeks,

painted an immense painting.

At the 1937 Paris World

Exhibition, the Guernica

painting was presented

in the Spanish

flag.

For the Republican camp, the

situation in the North is critical.

In order to ease this front,

the General Staff decided to

launch an operation in the Sierra

de Guadarrama north of Madrid, with

the aim of taking Segovia.

Gerda Taro is equipped with her Leica

and Robert Capa, who has a small

camera has said, also follows

the Republican troops.

Capa filmed the tanks, a man

on the phone, officers

on a map.

These images will serve Hemingway,

present on the battlefield,

who will use this offensive as

the framework for his novel “For Whom

Does the Glass Rings?

“”

A thousand men from the XIV International

Brigade have lost their lives in

an unnecessary attack.

The soldiers feel sacrificed

for nothing.

Some refuse to go back to the fight.

A captain designates five men and

shoots them one after another

with a bullet in the head in

the Soviet way.

This distraction attack on Segovia

did not prevent the Franco troops,

backed by the Nazi aviation,

from continuing their offensive

towards Bilbao.

The city is besieged.

The surrounding reliefs are bombarded

by the Franco cannons.

Robert Capa manages to penetrate

Bilbao, where the siren, which

announces airstrikes, rings

up to 15 and 20 times in a

single morning.

Capa spent 10 days among the

siege population.

The people, frightened, flee the

Franco advance.

Hundreds of women and children

were evacuated by sea.

Franco's troops entered Bilbao

on June 19, 1937.

They are welcomed

with a lot of popularity.

Within a few weeks, despite a

desperate resistance, the Northern

Republican enclave fell into

Franco's cradle.

The Spanish Republic was dependent

on material support from the

Soviet Union.

Due to Russian aid, the

Communist Party’s influence

on the Republican camp continues

to grow, disproportionate

to its actual establishment.

The Communists practice a

systematic policy of submerging

civil and military power

positions.

In the army, almost all senior

officers, such as General

Lister, are party members.

Tensions and confrontations multiply

between the libertarians,

who favor social revolution,

and the communist wing, who

first and foremost want to

restore a state and make war.

Stalin does not want a revolution

in Spain at any price, for it

is not led by the communists

but by the anarchists.

For the Soviet advisers, the priority

was the re-rule of the militias

and their integration into

a centralized army they controlled.

It is in Barcelona, in a region

where the collectivization of land

and has been pushed further than

elsewhere, that the tension

is the strongest.

The city of the Revolution escapes

the central government of Valencia.

The CNT militias are encircling the city.

In addition to the Liberalists, a small

anti-Stalinist Marxist party, the POUM,

is influential there.

The POUM, led by Andrés Nin, is

the only party that denounces

Stalinist purges.

For the Communists, it is the

enemy to be shot.

The Soviet advisers, wanting

to end this liberate and autonomous

pocket of Catalonia, refrain

from centralization

and communist orthodoxy.

The Pravda warns, the elimination of

Trotsky and the anarchists has begun

and will continue with the same

energy as in the USSR.

On the streets of Barcelona, tensions

are rising.

George Orwell, returning from the

front for a permit, met Dospasos

on April 28, 1937 on his departure

for France.

Orwell tells the American writer,

sympathizing with anarchists,

the atmosphere of hatred in

the Catalan capital.

The two commented.

Stalin supplied the Republicans

with weapons, but added terror

as a bonus.

This is the ideal recipe

for the fascists to win.

During this same stay in Barcelona,

Dospasos has an interview with Andrés

Nin, the leader of the POUM,

romantic revolutionary, virulent

anti-Stalinist, caught between

two fires, the Communists and

the Fascists.

On May 3, assault guards

attempted to take over the control

of the Barcelona telephone

station, which was held since

July 1936 by the CNT

anarchist militias.

This attack puts fire to the powder.

Within a few hours, the city was covered

with barricades.

On one side, we find the POUM activists,

the CNT anarchists, friends

of Durruti.

On the other hand, the communists

and government forces, which

send reinforcements in men.

A group of tanks entered the city.

Orwell is shooting the

POUM.

Clashes continue for several

days in Barcelona, causing

the deaths of hundreds of people.

A ceasefire was declared.

Communist newspapers are

unleashing against the Trotskyists,

presented as Franco’s allies.

Orloff’s services imagine a

trotskist plot in connection

with Hitler and Mussolini.

The Barcelona clash ended

with the total victory of the

Communists.

The recovery of the situation is accompanied

by a political crisis.

Largo Caballero, who refuses

to repress the POUM, is dismissed.

He is replaced by Juan Negrin, head

of a government without the CNT anarchists,

where the weight of the Communist

Party is determining.

The POUM leaders are arrested

and tortured by Soviet

NKVD agents.

In Spain, there is

a witch hunt.

Andresnin is abducted, horribly tortured

and murdered by the men

of Orloff.

A bloodshed is brewing in the heart of

the Republican camp.

In August 1937 the CIM, a military

investigative service, was created,

a political police of 6,000

men under communist control.

The ICM arrests and executes in

secret prisons called Checas.

The Republican camp is becoming more

and more like a Soviet camp.

Orwell, who had to hide to escape

Stalinist repression,

returned to fight on the Aragonese

front in the Poum column.

Newspapers from Barcelona are

intercepted so that the fighters

do not learn that at the same

time, their comrades, accused

of treason, are arrested

and executed.

George Orwell, whose head, due

to his tall height, goes beyond the

trunk, receives a bullet in the

throat and must leave the forehead.

The war in Spain is over for him.

Few artists or writers engaged

alongside the Spanish Republicans

are moving from civil

war to civil war.

On July 4, 1937, in the Grand

Hall of the City Hall in Valencia,

an international congress

for culture was held by

the Communist International’

s propaganda services.

200 writers from 26 countries

came to support the Republican cause.

Malraux is one of the main speakers.

In the name of the fight against Franco,

Malraux does not say a word about the

reality of the repression led by the communists.

He chooses effectiveness rather than

truth.

The world of letters is

present.

Gustav Reigler, Rossé Bergamine, Tristan

Zahra, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda,

Louis Aragon, Paul Nizan, Anna Segerz,

Mikhail Koltsov, participate

in the congress.

The German writer Ludwig

Schrein, political commissioner

in the international brigades,

declares that the role of writers

who fight for freedom

is not to write stories,

but to make history.

Photographer Gerda Taro

temporarily left the battlefield

to immortalize the

pen man.

While the intellectuals are in

Congress, the Republican

Staff launched on July 6 the most

important offensive since

the beginning of the war.

The target chosen by the

Soviet advisers is Brunettet,

a village 20 km west

of Madrid.

70,000 people participated in the operation.

Five international brigades are

being assigned a key role in this

battle that is to ease the

rates around the capital.

At first, the Republican forces,

backed by the tanks,

managed to advance.

The 11th division of General

Lister entered Brunettet.

Ataro War opens the battle for

the newspaper tonight.

These photos give the world

the assurance that Brunettet is

in the hands of government troops.

But Franco makes the bombers

and hunters of the Condor Legion,

who pour out a flood of fire

on the republican divisions,

to discover on this sun-

burned plateau.

The Franco infantry supported

by 60 artillery batteries attack

on the whole front the brigadists

who have terrible losses must pick

up brunette is recovered

retirement turns to the debandade

at the end of afternoon

on Sunday 25 July war

of ataro is crushed tragic

ridiculing by a Republican

who escaped the control

of its driver.

She died the next day in

terrible suffering.

When I think of all the extraordinary

people who died during this

war, I feel like it’s

not fair that I’m still alive,

aviving the screams just

before his death.

Robert Capa will never be comforted

by Gerda’s loss.

The Great Offensive of the

Republic on Brunettet ended with

a major reversal, the

destruction of the best troops.

23,000 Republican fighters

died there.

Foreign volunteers, always

sent to the front posts, have

the bitter feeling, once again,

of being treated like cannon

meat.

Several cases of riots are

among the Americans and British

13th Brigade, who have

just spent 150 consecutive

days on the front.

Execution is ordered for example.

The 13th Brigade was disarmed and disbanded.

To feed the strong heads, the leadership

of the International

Brigades opened a camp, called

Camp Luke Hatch, 40 km from

Albacet.

In three months, during the summer

of 1937, 4,000 men were interned

there, disappointed British, bitter

and disillusioned Americans

and French who simply wanted

to go home.

In the fall of 1937, the moral

of international brigadists is

close to zero.

By the end of 1937, the military

strength ratio turned to Franco's

advantage.

The total occupation of northern

Spain has turned the balance in favor

of the nationalist camp that recovers

the weapons factories of the Basque

Country, the heavy industry of Bilbao,

the coal and iron of Asturias, thanks

to the German and Italian

aid, the air supremacy of the

nationalist aviation that

has 400 aircraft, makes the

concentrations of troops

even more random.

Yet the Republican Staff did not

change its strategy of large

frontal offensives, so expensive

in men, but propitious for

propaganda.

A new large-scale attack is being prepared,

in order to isolate from the nationalist

zone the outpost formed

by the city of Terouel.

40,000 people walk around the city.

On 19 December, the Republicans arrived

in the vicinity of Terrouel,

defended by 10,000 Franco soldiers.

Hemingway goes to the front.

He is witnessing the battle he

tells in the newspaper tonight.

Robert Capin is also on foot

on December 21.

He photographs the battles in the

eye and tonight.

Capin joins a detachment of dynamiters

who undertake a direct attack

and open a path to

the grenade.

Russian T-26 tanks enter the

city centre.

On 8 January the Franco garrison

surrendered and the city was taken.

To celebrate the victory,

singer Paul Robson, from the

United States, performs spiritual

blacks all night before fighters

from international brigades.

This victory has an immense international

resonance, in Barcelona,

a monster parade welcomes the takeover

of Teruel.

But Franco does not want to leave the

city to the enemy camp, he orders

to bring back counter-attacks by

a Siberian cold.

75,000 nationalist soldiers

march to attack Republican positions.

The city has become a symbol.

The Battle of Teruel with its

street clashes remains one of

the most terrible of a terrible war.

Franco's troops eventually regained

the city at the cost of 30,000 men's

losses, one-quarter of which

due to the cold.

The people are fleeing in a pathetic exodus.

The Republican General Staff had

wanted to seize a city without strategic

interest and which could

not be defended.

Once again, the best troops

were sacrificed in vain to finally

return to their starting

positions.

The deplorable condition of the survivors,

physical exhaustion and demoralization

are the signs of future

disasters.

Franco does not allow the Republican

camp time to breathe.

Just after the Battle of Teruel, he

launched an offensive that will be

the beginning of the end for the

Republic.

On March 9, 150,000 nationalist

soldiers, supported by 200

tanks, 600 planes, 700

guns, attacked a Republican

army on 100 km of front.

Faced with the digital and military

superiority of the Franco troops,

retirement turns into a disaster

and then a disaster.

The front is broken.

The nationalist offensive progresses

dramatically and reaches

the Mediterranean.

The remaining part of the republican

territory is cut into two.

In 1938, Barcelona was

bombed by the Franco

air force.

From March 16 to 18, 17 waves

of aircraft, German and Italian,

collide on a city without

DCA.

The damage is considerable.

1,300 people were killed, provoking

the indignation of democracies.

In the Republican camp, the fatigue

is established.

In the martyred town, Malraux began

in July the shooting of a film,

Sierra de Teruel, inspired

by the adventure with his squad.

In the summer of 1938, the

head of government, Juan Negrin, backed

by the Communists, believed that the

Republican camp should attract

the attention of the international

opinion by a great heroic

action.

They decide on a large offensive

to dismiss the nationalist

troops from the corridor they occupy

between the two republican zones.

The goal is to attack the Ebro.

A military is gathered for

this battle of the last chance.

80,000 men are secretly

driven to the river.

On the dawn of July 25, 1938,

Republican troops began crossing

the Ebro.

The 14th International Brigade,

caught under a feeding fire, lost

1,200 men in 24 hours.

Other places, the Ebro

crossing is easier.

Republican troops advance

several kilometers

on the other bank.

After a week, the first route,

the offensive is broken, the front

stabilizes.

Both camps settle and

dig trunks.

In early November, Ernest Hemingway

and Robert Capa, always

accompanied by Herbert Matthews of

the New York Times, crossed

the Ebro to join the front.

During the journey, the boat

is carried by the current.

Hemingway takes the branches and

manages to bring the boat back to

the shore.

Capas follows the battles on

the Segret radius, an affluent

of the Ebro, and makes the most

realistic combat photos of the war.

After 100 days of terrible

fighting, the Republicans, piloted

by more than 300 aircraft, cross

the Ebro.

The survivors are reaching their

starting position.

70,000 Republicans were put out

of combat, 60,000 on the nationalist side.

This is the last episode of the

heroic gesture of the Spanish

Republic to agony.

Badly designed, badly executed,

extended beyond reasonable, the

offensive on the Ebro is a disaster.

They leave the last Republican

bastions unarmed and defenseless.

The international brigades lost

in this battle their last material

and moral strength in vain.

At the same time as the fate of the

Spanish war is played on the bloody

shores of the Ebro, the fate of peace

in Europe is played in Munich.

The surrender of France and Britain

to the demands of Hitler,

who wanted to annex the

Sudetes, ringed the glare of

the Spanish Republic.

Stalin learns from this, who has nothing

to expect from democracies that

abandon Czechoslovakia to the

depravity.

He then emphasizes his replacement

strategy, the approach to Hitler,

which he has long thought of.

The direct consequence of the Munich

dictates is that in Spain, the RSS

has moved from a prudent commitment

to an active disengagement.

The non-intervention committee in

London calls for the removal of

foreign volunteers from each camp.

Juan Negrin announced the unconditional

withdrawal of the international

brigades.

At that time, less than 10,000

volunteers remained in combat.

The glorious survivors of the

lost battles of Brunettet, Teruel,

Levra, are gathered on October

25 for a ceremony where the head

of government Juan Negrin and

André Marty celebrate their

courage.

Robert Capa has been capturing his moment

of emotion on the film.

His goal immortalizes the face of

an Italian brigadist.

On October 28, 1938,

the parade of farewell

was held.

Two years, almost day by day, after

their triumphant arrival, the international

brides parade on Diagonal

Avenue, in the heart of

Barcelona.

Robert Capa, still well placed, photographs

the arrival of President

Assanya and Negrin.

The passionate throw to men who

parade you can go proudly

you are the history you are

the legend the brigadists

who had been from all the

major battles in the east of

Spain 10,000 dead 8000 missing,

thousands of wounded.

Hemingway is witnessing the trial of

the defeated of history.

They tear before the spectacle

of men he describes, dirty, young

and tired, most of them without

a homeland to welcome them.

Malraux, present in the crowd, says

it was the whole revolution that

was going away.

About 5,000 brigade fighters,

greeted by the Spaniards,

return to their countries.

They are welcomed in

France.

On January 26, 1939, Franco’s troops

entered Barcelona, where the

inhabitants seem to have changed

their camp.

The remains of the Republican army

crossed the French border

and entered the Arons.

500,000 Spanish refugees are fleeing

to France in a grievous process of refugees.

Children and women are hungry,

hungry, and frightened, lying

down in the cold of winter.

The Spanish War is over.

Franco wins his victory during

a gigantic parade in Madrid

that has resisted his assaults

for so long.

The French Ambassador, Marshal

Pétain, attended the parade.

The French government locked

the Spanish Republicans in

camps, in Algerie, Verne,

Saint-Cyprien, Gurs, in terrible

material conditions.

Among them, more than 5,000 anti-

fascist militants, German,

Italian, Austrian, Hungarian,

Polish, who had fled their country

to fight fascism in the ranks

of the brigades.

On August 23, 1939,

the German-Soviet

Pact was signed.

The tragic opportunity for these

admirable men to question the meaning

of the sacrifice of their comrades

left on the land of Spain.

On the day Franco enters Madrid,

Ernest and Minouet begin

to write the first pages of “

For whom does the glass ring?”

with a feverish pen.

“”

In January 1939, John Dos

Passos wrote his novel, The

Adventure of a Young Man.

His hero, a volunteer of international

briads, accused of treason,

is sent to death by his communist

bourgeois.

In his 1937 novel, L'Espoir, Malraux

confronts lyrical illusion

with terrible reality.

Orwell was a critic of

the Spanish Communist Party

in his 1938 book Hommage

to Catalonia.

Robert Capa continues his career

as a photographer.

He will be at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

Capa jumped on a mine in Adochine

in May 1954 and joined Gerda

Taro, the photographer’s pantheon.

Mikhail Koltsov, who was recalled in Moscow

in 1937, disappeared in the purges.

Almost all Soviets who served

in Spain were executed upon their

return.