ILP Contingent - War Experiences

War Experiences

Arriving at the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, where they were initially stationed, on 10 January, a discussion circle was formed. Whilst the discussion group centred on political issues the group was not solely concerned with such topics. A social secretary was also appointed to 'arrange concerts and entertainments' and a sports secretary was elected with a hasty football match organised between the ILPers and a team of Spanish militia-men.

The training received at the Barracks was notoriously short and at the end of January the ILP contingent, as the British section of the POUM militia, began their journey, stopping off at Lerida, where they were visited by the ILP's representative in Spain, John McNair, before leaving for the area surrounding Huesca on the Aragon Front on 2 February. At the front, the contingent took over three advanced posts, about 100 yards distant from the others, joined by communication trenches. The outposts, on the slope of the hills looking west, were about two hundred yards from the nearest Fascist lines on the opposite slopes looking east.

Bob Edwards, reporting in the New Leader, the ILP's weekly paper, was keen to stress the most 'exciting' aspects of the unit's work. He wrote about scouting within hearing distance along the fascist lines with Blair, of holding their position and dealing with the desertion of fascists. The main descriptions of fighting against the fascists which appears both in Homage to Catalonia and in the New Leader, concerned a night attack in which some of the contingent took part resulting in injuries to Reg Hiddlestone, Paddy Thomas and Douglas Thompson. Injuries were also sustained at other times, Blair himself was famously shot through the throat by a sniper. However, the reality of the contingent's activity was famously more mundane. It largely consisted of building roads from their dug-out to the nearest Spanish position and creating a dug-out for community purposes where they could meet to talk and receive instructions. In terms of fighting the fascists the contingent saw relatively little action.

As Orwell later put it:

Meanwhile nothing happened, nothing ever happened. The English had got into the habit of saying that this wasn't a war it was a bloody pantomime.