Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War

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Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) excel

Quote by A.E. Housman: “I to my perils Of cheat and charmer

He is, in other words, a private university kid taking a gap year – one that just happens to include some very bloody trench warfare. In other words, they say that the Civil War actually started before 1936, and it was the left who started it.Like I said earlier, Kemp was on a gap year, before settling down to a boring job in London. Here’s a quote about his experience in one of the many battles… Kemp describes those he fought with in detail, varying from praise to condemnation of various figure’s skills and personalities. Kemp fought longer than Orwell and also went on to fight in WWII for the British in SOE. By the time he wrote the book he was an accomplished soldier so his account should have some weight. Kemps account of how the Nationalist troops were equipped, the quality of their troops and the Italian and German forces who fought there and their strategies and tactics are also interesting. Toward the end of the war Kemp writes about how Franco’s forces used Blitzkrieg tactics effectively to win the war. I used to think that was a pretty ridiculous take, but situations like the 1934 Revolution, in which the PSOE organized a revolutionary general strike in an attempt to take down the government, seem to lend it some credibility. While the “revolution” was raging in Asturias, the Catalans declared independence, sort of. They seem to do that from time to time. In this case it only lasted for a few hours, but the central government had time to declare an “estado de guerra” before it was all over. Civil War bunker in Córdoba province. Photo by Edmundo Sáez, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mine Were of Trouble : A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (1957) by Peter Kemp is an account of the Spanish Civil War from the Nationalist side. It’s a very interesting accompaniment to George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.

Mine Were of Trouble by Peter Kemp | Goodreads Mine Were of Trouble by Peter Kemp | Goodreads

From Kemp and Orwell’s book it can be seen why the Nationalists won. Orwell writes extensively about the infighting between the POUM (Workers Party of Marxist Unification) and other factions, some controlled by the USSR. Kemp has a little of this, but part of the reorganisations, at least according to him were more about improving the fighting forces. Kemp entered Spain under the guise of a journalist. Once there he joined the Carlist Requetes as a soldier and was subsequently commissioned. Then, after discerning that he would get more experience as a Spanish Legionary, he transferred to the Spanish Legion. He describes the military actions he was involved in, and these descriptions make for some tense and fascinating reading. In many places, people who owned land, factories or even shops were shot for belonging to the hated bourgeois class. Socialists might stage a show trial to “prove” their victims’ fascist sympathies. Anarchists, on the other hand, preferred shooting people on the spot to imprisoning them or putting them on trial: what kind of libertarian group is going to set up a prison? By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU. Lots of interesting anecdotes and people he meets… Mannerhiem’s newphew, Kim Philby (when Kemp writes the book in the 50s it is still unknown he was a communist spy), White Russians and a whole assortment of anti communists, conversely he thought that the toughest enemies were the International Brigades specifically Germans, who had no where else to go should the Republic Fall.I was conscious of Father Vicente beside me; his spiritual duties finished, he was bent on seeing that we did not allow the fleeing enemy to escape unpunished. He kept on pointing out targets to me, urging me shrilly to shoot them down, and effectively putting me off my aim. It seemed to me that he could barely restrain himself from snatching my rifle and loosing off…Whenever some wretched militiaman bolted from cover to run madly for safety, I would hear the good Father’s voice raised in a frenzy of excitement: ‘Don’t let him get away – Ah! don’t let him get away! Shoot, man, shoot! A bit to the left! Ah! that’s got him,’ as the miserable fellow fell and lay twitching.” Thank you for the response. I think Father Vicente toes that line you mention quite Jesuitically. I’m sure his apparent callousness is explicable by him hearing about (or even witnessing) atrocities committed by Republicans against clergymen all over Spain. Continued killing and repression is exactly what happened in Spain, post-1939. The World War II years and thereafter were no picnic, especially if you were known to be from a family that was on the left during the Civil War. Mass grave in Estépar, Burgos. Photo by Mario Modesto Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the war (spoiler alert: Nationalists won), the author ended up working for the British SOE in Europe, incidentally acting against the Nationalist's former allies. Probably a warmer reception by the British Government than many would receive, and a sign of the enemy of one's enemy often still being entirely horrible. While one of Franco’s press attachés said that Spain would have to “cleanse the country of the proletariat”, socialist members of the Republican government wanted to get rid of the bourgeoisie.

Mine were of trouble by Peter Kemp | Open Library Mine were of trouble by Peter Kemp | Open Library

Soft cover. Condition: New. Peter Kemp War Trilogy - VOL. #1 Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War; VOL. #2 Alms for Oblivion: Sunset on the Pacific War: VOL. #3 No Colours or Crest: The Secret Struggle for Europe. Franco goes on to warn of the communist threat, especially to British education, spreading “subversive influences among our youth”. Franco had that exactly right. It is depressing to see the depths to which these “subversive influences” have degraded Britishers. And not only them, of course, but everywhere leftist subversion is allowed free reign, even Franco’s Spain, which defeated the left, but the left, like cancer or toe nail fungus or sin, returned, and now Spain is as left infected as any European, formerly Christian, society. The war never ends. Years ago I heard a someone on a podcast –I forget which –say that the most significant event in the American Civil War is what happened after it was done: everyone stopped killing each other. Spanish people of the older generations (older than me, at least) have told me that Spain is still divided between victors and vanquished: that which side your family was on makes a big difference in your life to this day. I don’t know if younger people feel the same way. MaybeAfter the Spanish Civil War, he had some World War II adventures as a member of the British Special Operations Executive. His missions took him to Albania, Poland, and occupied France. He was imprisoned by the Soviets, and went to Asia, where he spent some time running guns for the French in Laos. He was, in other words, an adventurer. Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) ebook If they became prison guards, they’d be no better than the state apparatus they hated… so, they ended up as executioners instead. In other words, those were tough times for a lot of people. reading Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) This doesn't go deeply into the causes of the war (which are complex), and is primarily told about activities which a single junior officer directly saw (with some other parts, for instance the Guernica incident, where propaganda widely believed was incorrect).