Last Friday I walked the Jarama battlefield, south of Madrid. It was here in February 1937 that the British Battalion of the XV International Brigade went into the line to stop Franco’s attempt to encircle Madrid. They’d had just five weeks’ training, less than a week with actual rifles. By the end of the first day, 100 were dead, 150 wounded and there were 150 left standing.
After we’d trudged through the killing fields, paying our respects at small, vandalised memorial cairns, we had lunch in the nearby village of Morata. Though controlled by Spain’s centre-left Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), a balcony over the town’s square is allowed to exhibit two large fascist flags and three posters from the Franco era, including the local branch of the Falange party, formally dissolved in 1977.
Content from our partners
