A NOT VERY FRANCO ACCOUNT
Simon Courtauld uncovers evidence that Laurie
Lee, contrary to the latter's autobiography, never fought in the Spanish Civil War
SIXTY years ago this month, the British battalion of the XVth International Brigade fought in the battle of Teruel. It was the critical battle of the Spanish Civil War; when it ended in February 1938 and, soon after, when the Nationalists broke through to the Mediterranean, Franco's victory over the Republic was assured. The approach of the anniversary seemed a good time to reread the third volume of Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy, A Moment of War, in which he recounts the few days he spent fighting in the snow out- side the walled city of Teruel in eastern Spain. But first I turned to the secretary of the International Brigade Association, Bill Alexander, who had commanded the British battalion during the battle. I had only to mention the name of Laurie Lee to be told, 'He wasn't at Teruel; he never got beyond Barcelona. That book is mostly pure fantasy.' It was something of a shock to learn this, and from the man probably best qualified to know the truth. He said nothing publicly while Lee was alive (he died last May), but for the sake of history thinks it is time to set the record straight. Clearly some con- sideration of the evidence is required.
In As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Lee describes the year he spent travelling in Spain just before the outbreak of civil war. In July 1936 he was given pas- sage home from the south coast near Malaga on board a Royal Navy destroyer, and the book ends with an epilogue, in which he returns to Spain, walking over the Pyrenees in December 1937. This is where A Moment of War begins, but that book was not published until 1991, 22 years after the previous volume. Did it take him that long to decide to tell such a whopper, or perhaps for his imagination to fertilise?
There is no dispute about Lee's return to Spain, or that he was held prisoner for two weeks (he had arrived carrying a violin and without any papers). But his later movements are definitely open to ques- tion. According to his account, Lee was taken to Figueras in northern Catalonia, and later sent to Albacete and Tarazona de la Mancha, south-west of Valencia. This was standard practice for Britons joining the International Brigade: Figueras was the reception centre for those who had crossed the Pyrenees, the military base camp was at Albacete, and the battalion training centre at Tarazona. (The trade union leader Jack Jones was one of those who arrived by the same route during that winter and spent some weeks at Albacete.) The problem with Laurie Lee's story is that he never joined the International Brigade. In Catalonia, Lee met up with Bill Rust, who was there as Daily Worker correspondent while also representing the British Communist party and who under- took to help Lee to join the British battal- ion. But, as Rust related it to Alexander, Lee failed his medical examination; he was found to have epilepsy and after a while was sent back to England without ever going to a war zone.
Closer scrutiny of A Moment of War reveals that the dates don't make any sense. By his own account Lee was impris- oned for two weeks, then was at Figueras for 10 days, having taken two days to cross the Pyrenees 'in December 1937'. Even if he reached Spain at the beginning of the month, he would not have left Figueras until after Christmas. Yet we read that he spent Christmas in Tarazona, having trav- elled to Albacete (two days' journey) and spent an indeterminate period there, including another spell in jail.
According to Alexander, there were sev- eral factual errors in the first published edition which no longer appear in the paperback. But a number still remain: Lee writes of his meeting other brigaders in Albacete, such as Jock Cunningham and Tom Wintringham. Both of them had returned to England in 1937, before Lee came back to Spain. He refers to Largo Caballero as prime minister at the time; he had been replaced by Negrin in May 1937. Bill Alexander also drew my atten- tion to other parts of the text which plainly do not ring true. Lee mentions that at Figueras exercise and drill were agreed 'by majority votes'. While this might have hap- pened in the heady revolutionary, anar- chist Catalonia of 1936, by the end of 1937 firm discipline and organisation had been imposed. And according to Alexander, Lee's description of life in Tarazona 'bears no resemblance to the experience of others at the time'.
Lee says when he got to Teruel he engaged in hand-to-hand fighting and killed a man, remembering 'his shocked, angry eyes'. But Alexander says that fight- ing at close quarters took place only in the last few days of the battle, after the British battalion, with the XVth Brigade, had with- drawn to the north. In his Who's Who entry Lee noted that he 'travelled Mediter- ranean, 1935-39'. Though he in fact returned to England in mid-1938, this may be a more accurate description of his time in and around Barcelona than in the places where he claims to have been, which are some way from the Mediterranean.
Why, then, did he fabricate his story? One may guess that, having regretted his decision not to stay on in Spain in 1936, he was so determined to go back and fight for the Republican cause that the only way he could alleviate his bitter disappointment at not being able to join the International Brigade and get to the front was to pretend that he had.
To argue that A Moment of War should be reclassified as fiction is not to deny that it is a good book. It was no surprise that the author of Cider with Rosie should get good reviews for his latest work of autobi- ography, though it may embarrass Byron Rogers to be reminded that he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that the book 'will tell you more about the civil war than Hemingway or any history book'. Review- ing the book in The Spectator, Hilary Corke opined that Lee 'marvellously lacks the veils of hindsight and subsequent reflection that for most people falsify, even though they may embellish, their visions of their own past'. Unfortunately it now seems clear that 50 years of subsequent reflection led to a great deal of falsifying and embellishment.
Had Lee been at Teruel, he might have described the Nationalist cavalry charge, one of the last in the history of warfare, which was witnessed, and fired upon, by members of the British battalion. During that appallingly cold winter of 1937-38 (recording the lowest temperatures in Spain this century), there were some inter- esting people around the Teruel sector; but Laurie Lee was not one of them. Clement Attlee and Paul Robeson visited the Brigade before the battle; and a car was blown up containing four journalists, of whom the only survivor was Kim Philby.
Alexander told me that Lee was always reluctant to discuss the civil war with vet- erans of the International Brigade. When, two years ago, I was writing my book, Spanish Hours, I wrote to Lee to ask if he would talk to me about the battle of Teru- el. He declined, saying that the memories of it were still too painful for him. Now I understand just how painful they must have been.
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