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This is the 86th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Ebro. 

Conceived and meticulously planned by General Vicente Rojo, it began with the crossing of the Ebro River into fascist territory on 24/25 July 1938 and ended with the remnants of the Republican army retreating back across the Ebro in November 1938. 

As on each anniversary, we remember the brave men who fought there, especially the thousands who gave their lives.  

There are also broader considerations, as set out below by Paul Preston in ‘The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge’:

The Republic had lost its army [in November 1938]. The last despairing effort had seen the Nationalists gain a decisive victory. The Republic would never recover and the Francoists would soon sweep into Catalonia. 

And yet Vicente Rojo had secured several of his objectives, preventing the offensive against Valencia and tempting the principal Francoist forces to engage in a battle in a terrain which prevented their material and numerical superiority from having their expected impact. Great losses had been inflicted on the enemy albeit at a huge cost, and the war had been prolonged in accordance with [Prime Minister] Negrín’s hope of seeing the democracies wake up to the Axis’s aggressive ambitions. 

It was Munich [in September 1938] that fully turned the Ebro into a resounding defeat.

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini at Munich, September 1938.

With thanks to Nancy Phillips for the quotation.

A major survey of where International Brigaders died in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War has established the names of 522 volunteers, including 86 from Britain and six from Ireland.

The findings were published in May by Memòria Democràtica, the Catalan government’s historical memory agency, as part of its Alvah Bessie Programme, named after a prominent US volunteer.

Details can be viewed online, with separate reports on the British and Irish volunteers who died or went missing in action. 

A comprehensive list of all 607 15th Brigade fatalities and MIAs during the 1938 Battle of the Ebro, including battlefield maps, is also available. The list includes British, Canadian, Irish, Spanish and US volunteers, as well as some from other countries.

Several volunteers were reported as having died in specific hospitals. These include, from Britain and Ireland, Daniel Boyle, Robert Glen, John McLennaghan, John Lobban, Henry McGrath and Sidney Lewis. In several cases Memòria Democràtica has uncovered fresh information about them.

Family relatives of those who died in Catalonia are meanwhile being invited to come forward and register in Memòria Democràtica’s Census of Missing People. They will have the option of providing a DNA sample for its genetic identification programme. 

IBMT Chair Jim Jump praised the excellent research being undertaken by the Alvah Bessie Programme. 

‘The Catalan government’s support for this project contrasts starkly with the attitude of the regional government of neighbouring Aragón,’ he said.

In April the IBMT joined in protests over plans by the right-wing PP-Vox coalition government to rescind the democratic memory law enacted by the previous socialist-led government. Around 150 British Battalion lives were lost in Aragón during the war.

All the findings of the Alvah Bessie Programme are published in Catalan and English on its website.

The picture above shows the plaque on Hill 666, near Gandesa, naming the British Battalion dead in the Battle of the Ebro.

This is an edited version of the talk delivered by Peter Crome at the annual commemoration of the British volunteers who fought in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War held on the South Bank on 1 July 2023.

I have been asked to say a few words about the medical services at the Battle of the Ebro, the last major battle in which the British Battalion of the International Brigades participated. Although my children believe I am very old I was not so old to have been at the Ebro. Luckily many of those who were there have written accounts of the medical services and there are also several excellent accounts written by distinguished historians. A disclaimer – all errors in what I have to say are theirs and not mine!

The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was a pivotal moment not only in Spain but throughout the world. This statue commemorates all those who went to Spain from Britain to support the Spanish Republic, amongst whom were a substantial number who went to provide medical, nursing and other humanitarian services. 

Local fundraising for food and medical supplies took place throughout the UK.

Organisations such as the Spanish Medical Aid Committee were established soon after the outbreak of the war and their first team left for Spain in August 1936 and established a hospital. From Scotland, the first Scottish Ambulance Unit went out in September 1936.  Medical teams came from all over the world including large contingents from the US. In the spring of 1937 most the different national teams had been incorporated into the International Brigades, with doctors and nurses from different countries working together and in partnership with Spanish doctors and nurses.

Those who went to provide medical aid as non-combatants, just like those who went to fight, came from all sectors of UK society and included, not just nurses and doctors but also ambulance staff, drivers, and mechanics and administrators. I must mention Nan Green, the administrator who worked with my father and who ran the International Brigade Association for many years.  

Not all of those in medical services were ‘lefties’. They held different political and religious views and many went for humanitarian reason. An example was the Quaker Nathan Clark, of the Clark shoe factory who is credited with designing the desert boot. Many wrote memoirs of their experiences and oral and documentary testimony has resulted in numerous books and articles. I had the privilege of meeting many of the volunteers and a number became long-lasting family friends. These included Janette Opman from France, František Kriegel from Czechoslovakia and Carl Coutelle from the GDR. The British volunteer Alex Tudor Hart was the family GP for a while. 

I would like to mention the names of two doctors who have special relevance to where we are on the South Bank and almost opposite the Houses of Parliament. Larry Collier, then a medical student, who later became Lord Monkswell but gave up his peerage without taking his seat in the House of Lords. One of the most surreal experiences I had was when I went with him and his family to the ancient ceremony of disclaiming a peerage in the rather grand office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Sadly we lost a voice in the House of Lords. There was also Chris Thornycroft, who provided engineering services to the medical units and who was a descendent of the Thornycrofts who sculpted the statues of Boudica and of Oliver Cromwell just over the river.

Peter Crome speaking at London's Jubilee Gardens on 1 July. Photo: Andrew Wiard.

Many of those from the UK serving in the medical services were students or, if qualified, were very junior and even fewer had undertaken military service. I don’t know if any spoke Spanish! My father Len Crome had only been qualified for three years when he arrived in Spain and later became head of medical services of the XVth Army Corps that fought at the northern end of the Ebro Battle. He attributed his promotion not to his skills as a doctor but to the fact that he spoke several languages and could communicate with the generals. 

The doctors and other health workers had to learn quickly, and indeed they did so. 

By the time of the Battle of Ebro in 1938 the medical services were better prepared and the medical advances were some of which now seem obvious. 

Wound care: The traditional way of dealing with wounds was to stitch them up. This had the great effect of promoting gas gangrene, amputations and death. The Spanish method, associated with the name Trueta (who later moved to the UK and became a Professor in Oxford) was to lay the wound open, wash it, remove all dead tissue and contaminating material – if necessary on more than one occasion, apply antiseptic, leave open and immobilise. The techniques that had to be learned again in the Second World War, to leave the wounds to heal from the bottom up. 

Len Crome.

Blood transfusions: Blood banks were established before engagements. Blood was collected from the civilian population, who received food vouchers in exchange for their donation. Norman Bethune from Canada was associated with the development of blood banks and from the UK there was Reggie Saxton, a stalwart supporter of progressive causes until his death in 2004.

Stretchers: These were standardised. They were designed so that they were raised from the ground so wounds would not get contaminated and could slot into lorries and trains for transportation. They were light and could fold so that they could be carried by one person and had a raised head so that, when not used for a patient, staff could sleep on them.

Lorries: These were converted into auto-chirs containing operating tables, autoclaves, fridges for storing blood and their own generators for providing light. Often there would be two operations going on at the same time, with a single anaesthetist going between the two patients.

The key to the management of battle injuries was the physical organisation of the evacuation of the injured. 

First-aid posts were established 300-700m behind the front line. Morphine and vaccinations were given. Dressings and tourniquets were applied. Then the injured were taken by ambulance or mule to a classification point. There, a doctor would practice triage and people were sent to first-line or second-line hospitals depending on the severity of the wound. It was at these hospitals that major surgery was undertaken. Further back were base hospitals. 

The hospitals were located in any suitable place that had not been bombed. These included quarries, caves and tunnels. The front at the Battle of the Ebro was not static. It went forwards and backwards and the hospitals had to move. Sometimes the front line services were behind the second line services!  The hospitals also had to cope with ‘ordinary’ diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid, which were common at that time in Spain

The most iconic and best-described medical facility was the Santa Lucía cave hospital established in the village of La Bisbal de Falset. I had the privilege of visiting the cave and unveiling a commemorative plaque.  There are several published descriptions of its operation. You will be able to see videos of it on Youtube. If you visit you will see boards which tell the story of the hospital. It had between 80 and 100  low camp beds for the patients, who included British, Spanish and other International Brigaders as well as prisoners of war. 

Reggie Saxton giving a blood transfusion.

Wounded soldiers were triaged, with the less serious being sent further away. Len had been reprimanded by General Walter for suggesting this approach previously. Patience Darton writes about struggles trying to retrieve blankets from the dead so that she could use them for living. There was a blood transfusion laboratory housed in a lorry, with the transfusions supervised by Reggie Saxton.

Lessons were learned in Spain and lessons on how best to manage battle injuries were lost and had to be relearned in the Second World War. Many, if not all of the doctors who went to Spain, later served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and had to reintroduce the techniques that they adopted in Spain. 

To conclude, here’s something that Len told me. Of course he was proud to have served in Spain and proud to have been part of the international effort to fight fascism. However, he said the people who deserved the most praised were the ordinary people of Spain, particularly the women and children, who suffered so much during and after the war.

Professor Peter Crome is the son of Len Crome and a Patron of the IBMT.

IBMT member Nancy Phillips writes…

Eighty five years ago the Ebro offensive was initiated by Republican forces, who crossed the Ebro river on 24/25 July with the aim of stopping the advance of Franco’s Nationalist troops towards Valencia. It became the longest and largest battle of the Spanish Civil War, with massive air warfare that was unprecedented. As noted by historian Helen Graham, Republican communications were bombed to oblivion and their troops were blasted off the bare and rocky hillsides by the sheer force of the incendiary materials launched.  

In the end, in November 1938, the last men of the Republican forces had to retreat back across the Ebro at Flix. According to Helen Graham: ‘…retreat was a function not of military defeat (the Republic had successfully blocked Franco’s attack on Valencia) but of an absolutely devastating political defeat’ at Munich, which had removed any hope of aid from the Western democracies. Barcelona fell in early 1939 and Madrid in March 1939.

Reminders of the Battle of the Ebro can be found all over Catalonia today: trenches, bunkers, anti-aircraft shelters, improvised command centres and field hospitals, museums and perhaps the most moving of all, the former village of Corbera de l’Ebre left untouched since destroyed in battle. We are also left with a plethora of letters, poems and memoirs of Brigaders whose works remind us of ‘the nightmare come to life’ of combat in the Pandols. And, of course, there are the number of memorials to those who fought there.

Corbera d'Ebre.

From all of this, it’s clear that the Ebro battle has resonated in the minds of those who fought there and those of us who remember them. But beyond the landscape scars, monuments and historic sites, this battle has acquired additional meaning. It has become a symbol of the international resistance against fascism; for the pessimists, a milestone of resistance against fascist totalitarianism.

Below is a poem for this occasion, ‘For My Dead Brother’ by Alvah Bessie*, written from prison in 1951 to his fellow Lincoln volunteer Aaron Lopoff, killed on Hill 666 during the Ebro battle.  I am not sure what Aaron meant; perhaps you know.

For My Dead Brother

Alvah Bessie

The moon was full that night in Aragon…

we sat in the black velvet shadow

of the hazel (called avellano there); 

the men lay sleeping, sprawled on the packed earth

in their blankets (like the dead)…

With dawn we’d move in double files

down to the Ebro, crossed in boats,

and many lying there relaxed

would lie relaxed across the river

(but without their blankets).

He said, ‘You started something, baby –’

(I was thirty-four; he ten years less;

he was my captain; I his adjutant)

‘– you started something, baby,’ Aaron said,

‘when you came to Spain.’

Across the yellow river

there was a night loud with machine guns

and the harmless popcorn crackle 

of hand grenades bursting pink and green,

and he was gone and somehow Sam found me in the dark,

bringing Aaron’s pistol, wet with blood.

He said:

   ‘The last thing Aaron said

   was, “Did we take the hill?”

   I told him, “Sure.”’

Aaron, we did not take the hill.

We lost in Spain, Aaron,

I know, finally, what you meant that night

under the thick black shadow of the avellano,

sitting here in prison twelve years later.

We did not take the hill, mi comandante,

but o! the plains that we have taken

and the mountains, rivers, cities,

deserts, flowing valleys, seas!

You may sleep… sleep, my brother, sleep.

Sources

Helen Graham ‘The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction’

Cary Nelson ‘Revolutionary Memory’ 

Edmon Castell & Lluis Falco ‘Across the River’ 

* Alvah Bessie was a novelist, journalist and scriptwriter who, as one of the Hollywood Ten, was jailed in 1950 during the McCarthy witch-hunts in the US.

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