Sources
Spanish Inferno - Disappointment
Sunday Independent, 29th May 1960.
At last Eoin O’Duffy surmounted all obstacles in the Irish Brigades path to join Franco. On Friday the 13th the advance guard left Dublin quietly by the Mail boat.
At 7 p.m. on the evening of October 14 General O’Duffy was informed by a Spanish courier that it had been decided to postpone the sailing of the Dominio for Ireland. All his plans had crumbled.
Nevertheless, with characteristic energy he started to get out cancellation notices. All volunteers received them with the exception of a Mayo group which started off for Passage East and arrived there only to find that they were alone in the quiet little Co. Waterford village. All its inhabitants were fast asleep in the hush of midnight.
That was a bad blow to the enthusiasm of the volunteers. They had to wait until General O’Duffy made another visit to Spain.
Agreement
Back from Spain, the General outlined the agreement at which he had arrived with General Franco. Those who came from Ireland would be formed into Bandera’s, or battalions, of the Tercio, or Spanish Legion. Each Bandera would consist of 800 officers and men and they would be officered by Irishmen, each commander having a Spanish-speaking adjutant. Each Bandera would constitute a complete unit. General O’Duffy stipulated one condition to which General Franco agreed. No Irish Bandera would be asked to fight against the Basque nationalists.
Vanguard
At that time it was not considered possible to find a troopship which could take a thousand men to Spain. So eventually it was settled that the volunteers would leave in small groups weekly from Dublin to Liverpool and then by ordinary service steamer to Lisbon, through which they could reach the Spanish border.
On Friday, November 13, the advance guard of the Irish Brigade left Dublin on the Lady Leinster. A week later a larger party took the same route. This party was 40 in number. At Liverpool they were joined by ten Irishmen resident in Britain. They comprised men of all ranks of life – doctors, chemists, ex-army men, farmers, mechanics and engineers.
Veterans
Eleven counties were represented. Among the group were Major Patrick Dalton, of Dublin, a native of Co. Waterford and an ex-army man who had been well known in sports circles; Captain Thomas Hyde, another ex-officer from Midleton, Co. Cork; Comdt. Sean Cunningham, of Belfast, who had joined the IRA in 1918; Captain Thomas O’Riordan, also from Midleton and an outstanding figure in the Anglo-Irish war.
There was Dr. Peter O’Higgins, of Stillorgan Rd, Dublin, a surgeon and a lover of Spain. With him was another medical man, Dr. M J Freeman, who resigned a post in London to join the Irish Brigade.
Disciplined
With them were George B Timlin, of Vernon Ave, Clontarf, a man prominent in rowing and swimming circles who was also an ex-army man and afterwards Company Sergeant Major in the Volunteer reserve, and Thomas Casserley, of Dublin, a clerk in Messrs Browne and Nolan’s.
All were men of fine physique. Although still in ‘civies’ as they stepped down the gangway at Liverpool there could be no mistaking the fact that they were a disciplined body. They carried little luggage. For most of them a small attaché case sufficed.
Sailed
At Liverpool they transferred to the Avoceta. In this vessel they sailed for Lisbon, where they were met at the quayside by three Irish Dominican Fathers – Rev. Paul O’Sullivan, OP; Rev. Joseph Dowdall, OP; and Rev. E McVeigh, OP.
The night was spent in Lisbon. On the following morning the entire party attended the mass at the altar of St. Patrick in the Dominican church. After Mass the group began the journey to the Spanish border.
Lisbon
The Portuguese were impressed by the tall Irishmen. One newspaper described them as ‘multo altos, quasi gigantes’ (‘very tall, almost giants’). The advance guard of the Brigade moved across the Spanish border, having entered at Elvas, and arrived at Badajoz.
On the following morning they made an early start for Caceres, which was to be the headquarters of the brigade, a town south of Salamanca. There they awaited the arrival of the 500 men who had suffered so much hardship in Galway Bay while seeking the troopship that was to bring them to the battlefields of Spain.
At home, interest in the Irish Brigade was growing. While the contingent which left directly was the largest to leave Ireland, other parties, smaller in number, were reaching Spain by the Dublin – Liverpool – Lisbon route.
On November 27, 1936, for instance, eighty-four men left Dubin’s North Wall. Every man of them was cheered as he walked up the gangplank. Seventeen counties were represented in this contingent, the largest coming from Tipperary. With them went the Brigade Chaplain, Rev. J Mulrean. In the first months of 1937, Caceres became an Irish town. With the characteristic of their race they made friends with the people of the town, and in next to no time their training programme had made them a fine body of troops.
On February 6 they were inspected by General Franco. A guard of honour for the Generalissimo was in charge of Lieut. Sidney Gallagher, of Sligo. The Generalissimo was impressed with these men and said so to Major Dalton. ‘I look with joy and confidence’, he said, ‘to the day when you and your Spanish comrades will win new honours for your flag, fighting for the glory of Ireland , the glory of Spain, and the glory of our Holy Faith.’ At last the Irish were ready to play their part.
Plaque
At the end of their training, General O’Duffy unveiled in the Church of Santa Domingo, a plaque with this inscription. ‘To the glory of God and the honour of Ireland, in remembrance of the 15th Bandera, Irish brigade, of the Tercio, which worshipped in this church while serving in the cause of the Faith, and of Ireland’s ancient ally and protector, Spain.’
That plaque is still there with its inscription in Irish, English and Spanish. Now it serves as a memorial to the Irishmen of the 15th Bandera who died in Spain in that terrible war.
Terror
It was a war which had begun with a reign of terror. And the reign of terror began with the accession to power of Manuel Azana’s Popular front in February 1936. From that month of February to July, when Gen. Franco rose in revolt, 251 churches were burned or destroyed by explosives, 269 persons were murdered and 1,278 wounded.
Fourteen thousand to twenty thousand priests, monks, nuns and brothers had been murdered, thousands of them after the most cruel physical and mental torture.
Martyrs
Not a priest was left alive in the four Catalan provinces, 11 bishops were murdered – some of them burned alive. In Madrid the number of persons murdered was given at 36,000. In Barcelona about the same number were murdered. Four hundred priests were murdered in Barcelona alone. These were the words of the Bishops of Spain:
Murder
‘We calculate that about 20,000 churches have been destroyed. The priests were hunted with dogs, they were pursued across the mountains, they were searched for with eagerness in every hiding place. The forms of murder took the character of horrible barbarity. Many of them have had their limbs cut off or have been dreadfully mutilated before being murdered; their eyes have been put out, their tongues cut out, they have been ripped open from top to bottom, burned or buried alive or chopped to death with axes. The greatest cruelty has been used against the ministers of God. For respect and charity we do not wish to give any more detailed account.’
The dead body of the Bishop of Jaca was disinterred by a crowd, principally of women, who divested it of its shroud, hung it from a tree, poured petrol over it, and after setting it on fire danced around it in a ring.
Mockery
Many people were publicly flogged for refusing to blaspheme, and when they refused after this treatment were beheaded with axes. ‘Viva Russia’ was the shout of the Popular Front. Even the very young were corrupted by the red leaders. In some towns boys and girls, dressed as priests and nuns, could be seen in the streets carrying buckets of dirty water in mockery of holy water.
The Bishops stated: ‘The honour of women has not been respected, not even of those consecrated to God. Hundreds of prisoners tied together, as at Bilbao, have been given over to the mob who murdered them in a most inhuman way. The hatred against Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin has reached paroxysm. In the smashed crucifixes, in the images of the Blessed Virgin bestially profaned. In the lampoons of Bilbao, in which the Mother of God is sacrilegiously blasphemed, in the vile literature of the Red trenches, in the repeated profanations of the Sacred Host, we can glimpse the hatred of hell incarnate.’
This was the country to which the young men of Ireland had come to lend their aid. They were now the 15th Bandera of the Tercio – the Legion which was the pride of the Spanish army.
Battle-cry
General O’Duffy has himself described them as the best fighters, the best trained and the best disciplined soldiers. It fought with the battle cry, ‘Long live death.’ The young Irishmen were the first foreigners ever to form a Bandera of that well-trained fighting force. They regarded it as a great privilege.
The 15th Bandera of the Spanish Legion – Irishmen all – would not have been soldiers if they had not cheered when they were told: ‘You are moving to the Front.’ For many weeks they had been training in the old Spanish town of Caceres. They were as fit as any body of men in General Franco’s army, and they knew it.
Action
In his Hotel Alvarex headquarters, General O’Duffy studied the orders. He called the officers of the Irish Brigade and in a quick conference he told them the news for which they had waited for weeks; the Brigade was to go into action at once. It was February 16, 1937.
General O’Duffy smiled as he learned how the men under his command heard their orders. Spontaneously hundreds of Irishmen began to sing the ‘Soldiers Song.’ The Bandera made ready to march from Caceres at noon the next day. Before they left on the march from which some of them were not to return they attended Mass in the Church of Santo Domingo.
As they marched from the town where they had made many friends they were cheered and from many windows hung the Irish Tricolour. The journey to the battle scarred area was long and arduous. It was war time and the roads and railways were carrying abnormal traffic.
Bombs
For twenty six hours the train in which they travelled jolted and bumped over uneven tracks little faster than walking pace. Cramped on hard wooden benches the men of the 15th Bandera wondered if the journey would ever end. Torrijos was passed. Plasencia faded into the distance. As it did so the crumps of exploding bombs could be heard. Red planes had swooped on the rail junction they had just left.
There was no doubt that war had passed over this area of Spain. On their route lay wrecked villages, by the roadside dead mules, upturned cars, shattered lorries. For the Irishmen Terrejon was the end of the line. Weary, stiff and hungry they climbed down from the train. After half an hour they began the two hours march to Valdemora. It was dark, it was cold.
They had not eaten since the previous morning. That was not the fault of the Quartermaster, whose role had been taken over by the army of Franco. It was a situation which General O’Duffy made certain would not recur.
The Irish Brigade sank to rest on the floors of their billets and within a few minutes few of them were awake. They slept while the sound of gun-fire drummed in the air – an ominous sound that seldom ceased in the ears of those who still lived in Valdemora
Unusual
The orders which General O’Duffy received were to move his men into the front line trenches which straggled in front of the town of Ciempozuelos on the Jarama front. It was unusual to move fresh troops into the front line. Most often they were placed in support lines until experience had been gained. General O’Duffy did not question the orders. He – and all under his command – took it as an honour and a compliment.
Shouldering their packs, the Irishmen moved steadily towards their positions. Artillery fire boomed sullenly ahead and sometimes a plane zoomed overhead on a bombing mission far behind the lines.
Encounter
Smoke from the explosions showed that the road was under fire. The 15th Bandera moved to the right and towards a secondary road which led in the direction of the front line. What happened next can best be told in the words of captain D O’Sullivan in a report to Major P Dalton.
It read: ‘Sir, I have the honour to report that at 8.30 a.m. on February 19, I left the village of Valdemora and proceeded in approach formation (acting on instructions) across country. When about one mile from the village of Ciempozuelos, I perceived troops advancing in front of position occupied by ‘A’ Company. After consultation, Lieut. Beauvais (Spanish liaison officer) declared the troops to be friendly. I went forward, accompanied by Lieut. Beauvais, Sgt-Major Timlin, Sgt. Calvo (Spanish interpreter) and Legionary P McMahon (runner).
Shot at
From a distance of about eight paces, all three saluted the officer in charge who was accompanied by about 40 officers and men. Lieut. Beauvais, in Spanish, identified his unit, ‘Bandera Irlandesa del Tercio.’ At the sound of the last word, the officer in charge stepped back a pace and opened fire point blank with his revolver.
Next: Four die by mistake.
May 15th: First installment
May 22nd : O’Duffy the Organiser. He came out of retirement to lead a Crusade
June 5th: The Irish Brigade was now in the thick of a grim civil war
June 12th: ‘The Jarama’ say the Irish ‘was no picnic.’
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