The MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion: The Canadian Contingent in the Spanish Civil War

318 Pages·1987·13.33 MB·English

by  Victor Howard

The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
Canadians! Do you love freedom? I know you do.
Do you hate oppression? Who dare deny it?
—William Lyon Mackenzie
In good and bad fortune, we are for the people. If they be ill-
treated, we shall not keep aloof, we shall not remain quiet, we
shall defend them at every risk. We contend for principles, and
if these are violated, we will maintain them against any authority
whatsoever, so long as our hearts beat—so long as our lips can
pronounce the truth, give vent to protest, or scatter reproach!
—Louis Joseph Papineau
THE
MACKENZIE-PAPINEAU
BATTALION
The Canadian Contingent
in the Spanish Civil War
VICTOR HOWARD
with MAC REYNOLDS
CARLETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
OTTAWA-CANADA
1986
©Carleton University Press Inc., 1986
ISBN 0-88629-049-X
Printed in the United States
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Howard, Victor
The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
(The Carleton library; no. 137)
Includes index.
Bibliography: p.
First published: Toronto: Copp, Clark, 1969.
ISBN 0-88629-049-X
I. Spain. Ejército. Brigada Internacional,
XV. 2. Spain — History - Civil War, 1936-1939
Participation, Canadian. I. Reynolds, Mac
II. Title. III. Series.
DP269.47.C3H68 1986 946.081 C86-090149-1
Distributed by:
Oxford University Press
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DON MILLS, Ontario, Canada, M3C 1J9
[phone]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Lawrence Cane, for his assistance with the maps on pages 140, 164,
and 174.
Geza Karpathi, for the photo, "Canadians from the Lincoln and
Washington Battalions".
Hazen Sise, for the photos, "Refugees between Almeria and
Malaga", and "Bethune, assisted by Sorenson, performing a
transfusion".
* * * * *
Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support
extended to its publishing programme by the Canada Council and
the Ontario Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the
College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University.
(This dedication appeared in the original edition)
This book is dedicated
with affection and esteem to
Ronald Liversedge, Cowichan Lake, B.C.
and
Saul Wellman, Detroit, Michigan
THE CARLETON LIBRARY SERIES
A series of original works, reprints, and new collections of source material relating to
Canada, issued under the supervision of the Editorial Board, Carleton Library Series,
Carleton University Press Inc., Ottawa K1S 5B6, Canada.
GENERAL EDITOR
Michael Gnarowski
EDITORIAL BOARD
Leslie Copley (Physics)
Bruce Cox (Anthropology)
Peter Emberley (Political Science)
Keith Johnson (History)
David Knight (Geography)
Michael MacNeil(Law)
Thomas Rymes (Economics)
John deVries (Sociology)
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
In 1976, the National Film Board released a handsome documentary
about the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion called "Los Canadienses."
The closing scene shows James "Red" Walsh, a legendary leader of
the On to Ottawa Trek and then a political commissar in the Battalion,
sweeping the sidewalk of a small neighbourhood park in Vancouver.
Behind Red, some kids play tennis. Red works very carefully at his
job, technically he is a good sweeper. And then his voice is heard over
the picture; he is talking about elections and democracy and the right
and the obligation of a citizen to vote. His is a rich, powerful, urgent
voice, one that had served Red well in the old days.
For some time before his recent death, Red Walsh held a job with
the city, taking care of that park in return for a small stipend and a small
apartment. It was there in his flat that the Film Board interviewed him,
Red perched on the side of his bed, a huge TV set on a table behind
him, a bed-sitting room one might call it. The ironies are palpable. A
remarkable leader of the working class in the 1930's, the survivor of a
terrible wound suffered in the Ebro Campaign in 1938, now the
caretaker of an anonymous park where the children play and the grass
grows and the sidewalk needs sweeping.
I met Red Walsh in Vancouver in 1967, having been told that if he
accepted my interest in writing a book about the Mackenzie-Papineau
Battalion and in beginning research for a second volume on the On to
Ottawa Trek (many who went on the Trek later served in Spain), that
Red would be an indispensable resource and advocate. He agreed to
help, we became good friends, and through Red I met the likes of Doc
Savage, Perry Hilton, Johnny Johnson, Irven Schwartz, Lou Tellier, all
of whom shared vivid adventures of Spain or of the Trek. For a week,
Red stayed at my side, arranging interviews, setting up a meeting of
the MacPap Veterans Association, taking me around the streets and
alleys adjacent to the Cenotaph which once throbbed with the beat of
marching strikers. And then we shook hands and I left, never to see
him again until he appeared in the film, sitting on the edge of his bed,
talking about Spain.
It is their voices that I have with me, tape recordings of interviews
made on that trip west or else conducted by my colleague Mac
viii The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
Reynolds of the C.B.C. The interviews usually began with the ques-
tion, "Where were you in July 1936?", when the Civil War began.
And they often concluded with the sadly spoken memories of a lost
cause, once in a while with the sound of an old man weeping. Their
voices became an inventory of Canadian accents, Norwegian, Danish,
British, French, Ukrainian, Finnish, German, but all Canadian. And
all determined and sometimes struggling to tell the story of their time
in Spain.
The Canadians who served with the International Brigades were
already, fifty years ago, rather older than, say, their American counter-
parts, a bit tougher, more used to sleeping under the stars, as Lou
Tellier put it. Those who are alive today are getting on in years, to say
the least. For three decades or more following their return from Spain,
these men languished in obscurity, their commitment, their sacrifice
scarcely known even to their contemporaries, much less to the genera-
tions of Canadians who have grown up since then.
But several events transpired to draw the MacPaps from their
obscurity. One was the fabled "1960V an era of domestic and
international crisis which prompted many young Canadians to turn to
the past for examples of heroic endeavour, for examples of idealism.
Another event was the Vietnam War. And if Canadians were not really
involved in that escapade (excepting the several hundred who joined
the U.S. Armed Forces or the delegates to the International Control
Commission), still there was a lot of sympathy for the Vietcong and the
North Vietnamese and not always a lot for the United States. And this
sympathy provoked an interest in the history of a group of men who
had once before gone to the aid of a nation about to be overwhelmed by
hostile forces.
This book, itself, first published in 1969, played some role in
drawing attention to the volunteers, as did the film "Los Cana-
dienses." And then Franco died in 1975, and with the increasing
democratization of Spain, some of the men went back there, as tourists
but most particularly, as witnesses.
These men should now know that their place in history is assured.
This is especially important as the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish
Civil War takes place. I have no idea whether the survivors or their
children or their grand-children intend some sort of commemoration
of that conflict and of the part Canadians played in it. It may be difficult
for them to commemorate a war which they lost, but perhaps that won't
Introduction ix
be a problem for they and their comrades fought well, valiantly, until
only a handful, scarcely a platoon of the Battalion, was left in the field.
Moreover, they may feel like celebrating the fact that a Socialist
government is in office in Spain currently and that this government
stands a very good chance of being elected to a second term just about
the time the fiftieth anniversary begins. They may feel like celebrating
the fact that the Communist Party of Spain is legalized and that
Dolores Ibarurri, "Las Pasionaria," has some time ago returned from
nearly forty years in Russia and that, presumably, there is no longer a
need for a Republican government in exile in Mexico.
For all this, the Spain that one finds today may not quite be the
Spain that the MacPaps fought to save. It is once again a monarchy,
though a constitutional monarchy, with a young King Juan Carlos who
has been a key architect of the democratization that has taken place.
The labour unions, noisy as ever, do not quite have the power that one
might wish they had but this is due, in part, to the shift away from an
industrial economy to one increasingly based upon services and
technology. (Only this year has Spain been able to join the Common
Market.) The unemployment rate is one of the fiercest in Europe.
Regional nationalism has not been sorted out to everyone's satisfac-
tion.
Free, open elections are held, however, which is what Red Walsh
had in mind.
In August 1937, Republican troops supported by British, American
and Canadian infantry, attacked a Nationalist stronghold in the Aragon
called Belchite. At best, Belchite was a village of about 1 kilometres
square. But the resistance was ferocious and the battle lasted for six
days and nights, a nightmare concentrated in such a small place. The
Republicans won, for the time being, while taking heavy losses. When
the Civil War ended, Belchite was left to its shattered self. Another
town with the same name was erected a few meters away.
So the visitor comes on this unique battleground as it rises slowly
over the hill, the first sight being the steeples of two churches that
somehow stand. Observation and machine gun posts. "We were
always afraid of the churches/' There is not a building left in old
Belchite that can be inhabited by human beings. Stepping through the
ruined lanes, peering through shellholes into rooms, edging along the
banks of a steep gulley down which scampered brigaders seeking a
vantage point from which to grenade Nationalist positions. It is a