Seventy years after the fact comes a reminder to democratic liberals everywhere that some things – including some ideas – are on occasion worth fighting for.

The fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939 at the hands of Franco’s Nationalists following three years of bitter civil war, has long been a favourite subject for Western liberals of every stripe. There continues to be an element of misty-eyed wistfulness when it comes to the Spanish Civil War, nonetheless it is easy to see why it remains a popular topic. This was a war where easily identifiable Baddies kicked the life out of easily identifiable Goodies with little of that messy moral ambiguity to worry about.

The Republic’s fight for survival ended in heroic failure with catastrophic ramifications for the rest of the World. Many on the international left saw it coming, saw that the rise of Fascism should be stopped in Spain. Worse, for a variety of self-serving reasons ranging from cynicism and cowardice to good old-fashioned class prejudice, the Goodies were shamefully abandoned to their fate by the other Western democracies. The Baddies on the other hand had no such problems gaining international backing from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who were in training for a little world conquest of their own.

Better still for Civil War-ophiles, the 30s was a time where it was all still to play for. People believed in alternative futures in ways that have not been possible outside a student union building ever since. The full horrors of Stalin’s regime where not yet known and all sorts of different models were there to be fought for.  Before solidifying into competing groups, Spain itself saw exotic flavours of government become possible and in industrial Barcelona even saw history’s only known (at least by me) major city ever to be run by Anarchists.

In short, people everywhere cared and those in Spain that didn’t care were forced to care, and then to fight to the death for a righteous cause. The future would go to the winners but death or penury to the losers. The worst the modern leftie can suffer is mocking derision or apathy indeed the best the modern leftie can hope for is much the same – not so in the 1930s. No wonder our own age seems pale and wan in comparison. There are benefits to living in a dull, complacent age – not being killed as chief among them – but the occasional fantasy of having once chosen to be an International Brigadista can still bring a tear to many a modern liberal’s eye.

We Saw Spain Die is not the starting point for an overview of the Spanish Civil War (you could do worse than begin with Paul Preston’s other books for that) but it is a fantastic addition to the study of the subject. We Saw Spain Die is not a history of Spain in the 1930s still less a history of the war itself, rather It is an account of the experiences of foreign correspondents in Spain during “La Guerra”. As much of the attractiveness of the SCW comes from a certain image we have of its chroniclers, this works wonderfully well as a companion piece. The usual suspects of SCW reportage – Hemingway, Capa, Malraux, Gellhorn et al - are inevitably present and correct, but more interesting are the stories of the many forgotten journalists most of whom faced hazardous journeys just to get to Spain, let alone the privations and dangers of front line reporting itself.

Of particular interest is the contrast between treatment of the press by authorities on either side of the line. Whereas the Popular Front government was fighting a battle for international public opinion and therefore encouraged reporting, the Nationalists were fascists fighting a fascist war and wherever possible inhibited and controlled the press. For individual journalists trying to circumvent this control, discovery could mean expulsion and even death. On the other hand, journalists from Italy, Germany and The Daily Mail had a high old time peddling the party line within Nationalist held territories.

Particularly tragic and still able to incur indignation at 70 years remove, is the attitude of various proprietors, editors and in some cases night duty subs, in France, Britain and America who controlled reports from democratic Spain to the point of censorship. Even the calumny of the Nationalist’s bare faced denial of the flattening of Guernica in history’s first example of mass civilian bombing, was trotted out by some willing newspapers in Western democracies.

For journalists within the Republic life was hard but the job was borderline heroic and surely this is the genesis of the image of the foreign correspondent as independent hero that formed the fantasy life of generations of journalism graduates everywhere. Never before and perhaps not since was writing as central to the conduct of a war and the Spanish Civil War is surely the model against which all wars must be judged by aspirant war correspondents.

One place where We Saw Spain Die may struggle to find an audience is strangely enough in Spain itself. Although mostly a peaceful, prosperous and democratic country for the 34 years since Franco’s death, La Guerra is not a subject the country appears to like airing. There were no truth and reconciliation committees in Spain and, amazingly, bitter wrangles about whether or not to disinter mass graves crop up from time to time. Books such as We Saw Spain Die perhaps serve to remind that the current relative tranquility was anything but only a couple of generations ago.

For us living in a time and a place where protest is ersatz and mostly consists of the off-duty middle classes running around financial districts mugging for the camera, stories of real commitment to the democratic principle and of what real protest looks like stick out like a sore thumb. We Saw Spain Die is fascinating and on occasion stirring stuff and if the SCW or journalism or the fantasy of being an International Brigadista are of any interest to you, it is well worth a read. A great addition to the historiography of one of the great historical subjects.

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