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To Tilt at Windmills
Fred Thomas, To Tilt at Windmills: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War, xiii + 181pp, Michigan State University Press, 1996, £26.20 (hb)
Fred Thomas served in the British Anti-tank battery of the XV International Brigade from his arrival in Spain in May 1937 until the repatriation of the Brigades in the autumn of 1938. Twice wounded in action and forced to spend long periods in hospital, he fought in three pitched battles at Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro. His brave and perceptive memoir, based on a diary kept throughout this period, forms an unusual and arresting addition to the literature of the Civil War. As he wryly reflects, many other volunteers have produced far more detailed accounts without access to any form of personal written record from the time. The text cuts between recollections of the author's return to Spain in 1981 with other veterans, lengthy diary extracts and reflections on his experiences in the Civil War.
The diary itself offers a soldier's view of the Civil War (above all the lack of 'grub, mail and fags') and provides only spasmodic insight into the wider conflict. While there are graphic accounts of the battles and of the Spanish landscape, much of it is concerned with the practicalities of heaving artillery around battlefields to avoid detection. As Paul Preston points out in his preface, these descriptions are so detailed that they can be followed with a map: not, however, with the rather unhelpful maps that accompany the book. The diary offers surprisingly little insight into human relations inside the unit, or the author's own emotions. The deliberately literary style in which the diary was composed also detracts from its immediacy: even in the midst of battle Thomas had time to write complete sentences. The diary extracts have not always been well edited, and there is occasional confusion between the original entry and authorial hindsight. One, for instance, reads:
'25th April — an entry of which I am very fond — told I must get my backside in the sun to heal the wounds'.
From a historian's point of view it is to be hoped that the entire manuscript of the diary will be deposited for the benefit of researchers.
These reservations aside, however, it must be said that the book provides a marvellous insight into the thoughts and feelings of an ordinary volunteer in a war that he and his comrades, at times, only dimly understood. Fred Thomas is very candid about the 'abysmal ignorance' of Spanish affairs shared by most volunteers — the internecine conflict on the streets of the Catalan capital in May 1937 is reduced in the diary to 'Anarchist trouble in Barcelona delaying our departure'. He is similarly frank about the shortcomings of the Political Commissar system, and the general standard of military leadership in the Brigades. While personal bravery was never in doubt amongst the commanders, he notes, 'military expertise was too often sadly lacking'. Promotions were 'arbitrary, even whimsical' and often politically motivated. The book deals particularly poignantly with the mental torment inflicted on the international volunteers in the final days of their active service in the battle of Ebro. They knew that the International Brigades were to be withdrawn and that personal safety beckoned, but the shifting balance of fortunes in the battle forced them to remain in line. Fortunately Fred Thomas, and his diary, survived to write an understated but powerful book that points the way to a more candid and self-critical account of the experience of the International Brigaders.
