Spanish Civil War
Langdon-Davies welcomed the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic, describing it as a "good-tempered revolution" that marked "a real break with the past" and which would deliver freedom to Catalonia. In May 1936 he went to Spain to report on the May Day celebrations in Madrid for the News Chronicle, who sent him out again in August that same year to cover the Civil War. On this second trip he travelled by motorbike with his sixteen-year-old son Robin, whom he left with the "Revolutionary Committee" in Puigcerdà for safe keeping. The following year he wrote Behind the Spanish Barricades, a noted book of war journalism. Behind the Spanish Barricades was a critical and popular success, and "even received favourable mention in the House of Lords". Behind the Spanish Barricades was re-published in 2007 by Reportage Press. Part of the profits from the book went to Plan International, the child sponsorship charity which Langdon-Davis founded. Langdon-Davies disapproved of the activities of the Catalan party POUM, which he felt were undermining the Republican war effort, and this was reflected in his coverage. In a debate against Fenner Brockway, Langdon-Davies supported the motion "that the suppression of the POUM was vital to the anti-fascist cause in Spain". Langdon-Davies' coverage of the Barcelona May action was strongly criticised by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia.
Read more about this topic: John Langdon-Davies
Famous quotes containing the words spanish civil war, civil war, spanish, civil and/or war:
“Stiller ... took part in the Spanish Civil War ... It is not clear what impelled him to this military gesture. Probably many factors were combined—a rather romantic Communism, such as was common among bourgeois intellectuals at that time.”
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“It’s like a jumble of huts in a jungle somewhere. I don’t understand how you can live there. It’s really, completely dead. Walk along the street, there’s nothing moving. I’ve lived in small Spanish fishing villages which were literally sunny all day long everyday of the week, but they weren’t as boring as Los Angeles.”
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“Now for civil service reform. Legislation must be prepared and executive rules and maxims. We must limit and narrow the area of patronage. We must diminish the evils of office-seeking. We must stop interference of federal officers with elections. We must be relieved of congressional dictation as to appointments.”
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“But no, he only said,
“Well, there’s the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man.””
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