SCUM OF THE EARTH
In 1940 Arthur Koestler,
who had just escaped from the advancing German army in France
I recommend the book to anyone interested in twentieth century history,
particularly anyone interested in what became of those who had fought so
heroically for Republican Spain. Trotsky famously coined the phrase ‘dustbin of
history,’ Koestler describes what it is like to live there. It is a painful
read for anyone, like me, who has felt something of the nobility of the Spanish
revolutionaries of 1936.
 |
| Rothermere and Friend |
Mr Day has written about
the British citizens who backed the other side in the Spanish struggle, who
were overwhelmingly drawn from the British establishment. It is I think not
unfair to describe them as being representative of the thinking of the elite
who ruled Britain Westminster Windsor
To wade into the history
of this milieu one requires a nose peg, many were simply rapidly anti
Semitic half wits, others much more sinister and dangerous with links to Special
Branch, MI5 and MI6, and it is this latter group that Day is primarily
concerned.
It is clear that the
British establishment[2]
had clear intelligence of the coup, that not only did it not warn the
legitimate government of Spain, nor even simply turn a blind eye, but actively colluded
with the coup plotters; perfidious Albion indeed.
What is perhaps worse[3]
is that these activities actively damaged British interests. From 1936 it was
obvious to anyone but a half wit that some sort of conflict with a resurgent
Nazi Germany was, to put it mildly, a distinct possibility, certainly something
for which planning was required. In any such conflict it was obvious that benign
Spanish neutrality was a minimal requirement. Instead of which the British
establishment backed a regime openly sympathetic to the fascist dictatorships
and which would require considerable Dane geld[4]
to keep it from becoming a belligerent on the axis side. At one stage a benevolent eye was even turned
on the possibility of Italian forces permanently occupying the Balearic's The
consequences of such a situation for Britain Mediterranean and North Africa
would surely have been dire indeed. There surely comes a point at which the
lines between ideological blindness, stupidity and outright treason begin to
blur.
Mr Day’s attitude towards
his protagonists, given the breezy boys own adventure of his style, seems a
little unclear. Whilst exposing their venality he seems somewhat taken with
their superficial glamour and derring-do. The calibre of those involved can best
be summed up in the character of Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard, the MI6
agent responsible for flying Franco from Las Palmas Morocco Spain
‘In
the First World War he was with Intelligence…….how we laughed at his cleverness
when he told us how his department had launched the account of German corpse
factories and how the Hun was using myriads of trench war casualties for making
soap and margarine.’[5]
George Orwell rightly
wrote that this kind of propaganda ultimately does more to damage the fabric of
civilised society than guns or bullets. Indeed the exposure of such propaganda
after the war led to later descriptions of the real atrocities committed by the
Nazi’s being disbelieved. Some side splitter that.
The Spanish Revolution of
1936 which itself was a consequence of the Fascist coup was beset by enemies on
all sides, the greatest being obviously the Fascist powers and Stalinist Russia.
In the wings were a coterie of bit part players from Britain
[1] Another element that
united this disparate group, but not including Churchill, was a virulent anti
Semitism.
[2] Though it is clear that
not everyone was in the loop, nor is it clear how far some activities were the
result of rogue elements within the intelligence community. Nothing knew there.
[3] Obviously leaving morality
to one side and examining events from a narrow British Perspective.
[4] Day catalogues the payment
of such bribes see
[5] Quoted in Franco’s Friends Pages 20/21
.
