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

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This isn’t a political book: in fact, Kemp talks politics quite a bit less than Orwell does. I’ve read the whole thing twice and what I get is that he’s a traditionalist who’s against communism and who doesn’t appreciate the burning of chuches and killing of priests. As for Kemp’s memoir, this article is a great summary of it. However, I was sure that, because he provides such a contrast to today’s Catholic hierarchs, you would have taken the opportunity to mention Father Vicente! A minor character to be sure, but his presence in the Battle of Jarama was striking (from p. 64): Kemp doesn’t seem to be considering that he might be killed when he joins up. In fact, he thinks (like many people did at the time) that the Spanish Civil War was going The actual war itself was, like many civil wars, incredibly dirty. Summary executions of many classes of combatants were standard (of all non-Spaniards by the Nationalists, and of most prisoners by the Republicans), and there was harsh discipline (execution for any insubordination) on the Nationalist side, and outright crime (rape, murder of civilians) on the Republican side.

Mine Were of Trouble - Peter Kemp and the Spanish Civil War Mine Were of Trouble - Peter Kemp and the Spanish Civil War

This perspective alone is worth the price of the book. The books I've read have all been written from the perspective of the Leftist Republicans where the bestiality and depravity of the Naitonalists has been an assumed fact. Aside from the partisan bias, these books shortchange the Nationalist side. In "The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction," for example, the author doesn't bother to explain what the "Carlists" were and where they came from.

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Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) full book One of the striking aspects of the book is just how much better the International Brigades (i.e. international communism) was at media and international recruiting than the Nationalists. The Nationalists had some limited support from Germany and Italy (mainly to test weapons), but fairly limited organic support by international individuals, and almost none from Anglo-American sphere (and this little written in English). This included stupidly not supporting press visits (they were all viewed as spies by the Nationalists), ensuring they were covered badly (either ignored or made to appear evil). One interesting bit of social history is how small the world seemed in 1938. Amazingly, Kemp would run into people he knew from college or who knew his friends. One of the most tantalizing bits is found in this passage:

REVIEW: Mine Were of Trouble – Peter Kemp (1957; Mystery

The book tells the true story of the experiences of Peter Kemp (the author), a 21-year-old English law student who was so moved by the stories coming to Britain of the horrors experienced by Catholic priests at the hands of the Republicans, that he decided to join the Carlists (a monarchist faction within the Nationalist army during the Spanish civil war). The book does not read like a diary, and instead is more of a lengthy account of his entire time before and during his service in the Spanish Nationalist military. stars. This is worth reading if simply for the perspective it gives but the author for no fault of his own produces a painfully biased perspective. Y'know because he's fighting for Fascists. Reading between the lines makes things particular obvious the rose colored glasses Kemp is using while writing this account decades after it happens. Defining men he served alongside during the war as "good hearted" or "good natured" despite them gunning down men who had surrendered to them. Sure Kemp protested some of this but eventually accepts it (to my own disgust). Furthermore Kemp perhaps unknowingly demonizes the Republican side of the war while framing every encounter with people on the Nationalist side as being good and them being grateful for him fighting for their side. It should be noted and expected to be understood that both sides committed atrocities during the civil war. I couldn't help but notice that the majority of people he encountered we're either A) petty aristocrats in some form who very obviously would feel threatened by a communist government or B) peasants and volunteers who were likely serving for the Nationalists because wherever they were from supported that side first. Kemp has a substantial amount about atrocities. Kemp believes that the Republic were worse and has numerous examples of where his troops went into villages where people had been executed. The treatment of POWs is also horrid. The foreign volunteers on either side if captured were generally executed.Thousands of foreigners, too, join the struggle. Most fight with the Soviet-sponsored International Brigades or other militias aligned with the loyalist “Republicans”. Only a few side with the rebel “Nationalists”. One of these rare volunteers for the Nationalists was Peter Kemp, a young British law student. Kemp, despite having little training or command of the Spanish language, was moved by the Nationalist struggle against international Communism. Using forged documents, he sneaked into Spain and joined a traditionalist militia, the Requetés, with which he saw intense fighting. Later, he volunteered to join the legendary and ruthless Spanish Foreign Legion, where he distinguished himself with heroism. Because of this bravery, he was one of the few foreign volunteers granted an private audience with Generalissimo Francisco Franco. This is a most unusual book. It recounts the experiences of Peter Kemp, a young British man who like many went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight for civilization. While there are probably many similar books - George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" was one such book - Kemp's book is different in that he decides to fight on the side of the Nationalists, i.e., the "fascists." And while Orwell’s stint in Spain is over in a few months, Kemp ends up fighting for the National cause for most of the war, first in the Requetés and then in the Spanish Legion –one of Spain’s toughest fighting forces. Kemp was around 22 and had recently graduated from university. He had been involved with the Conservative Union at university. Kemp's explanation for joining the Nationalists was (a) he thought he could use the seasoning of military action and (b) there was no way that he would fight for the left. The book does not reveal any interest in fascism or fascist politics on the part of Kemp. Similarly, Kemp is clearly opposed to Communism, but we don't hear vituperative condemnations of Communism from him.

Mine Were of Trouble by Peter Kemp - AbeBooks

The overwhelming majority of people who have read anything about the Spanish Civil War written by one who participated have read Hemingway or Orwell. Almost nobody reads anything written by anyone who served on the Nationalist side. This excellent memoir is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the conflict who wants to get a view from what was after all the winning side. In the case of the Spanish Civil War the old saying about history being written by the victors is of course stood on its head: almost everything we have, at least in English, is written by the losers. He is, in other words, a private university kid taking a gap year – one that just happens to include some very bloody trench warfare. Kemp is primarily an adventurer and writing well about interesting situations, rather than one of truly great fiction writers of history (such as Hemingway), but the writing is quite good, honest, and the book is easy to follow. Unlike a lot of war writers, he writes about direct experiences without becoming overly gory, yet doesn't avoid dealing with greater philosophical issues than just direct experience. Pretty much the perfect war memoir. 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). I’d like to express the (perhaps) unpopular opinion that Mine Were of Trouble is a better book than Homage to Catalonia. Mainly, because Kemp saw a lot more action than Orwell.In describing his motivations for joining the national side, he says that the political motive was of importance only in helping him choose which side to fight on. But then he adds: Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) ebook 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.

Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish

The Russians did for the Republicans roughly what the Germans did for the Nationalists—they supplied technicians and war material of all kinds. In return they exacted a far greater measure of control over Republican policy and strategy than the Germans were able to obtain from Franco; the price of Russian co-operation was Russian direction of the war and the complete domination by the Communist Party of all Republican political and military organizations.// As I said, his story mirrors Orwell's, at least superficially, in many ways. Both were Englishmen who came to Spain and fought in the war; both were wounded in battle; both wrote accounts of their experiences which also include a historiography of the conflict. Orwell was of course the superior writer and had a much more sophisticated political education, but he saw much less combat (through no fault of his own) and his hatred of Fascism blinded him to the factional complexity of the Nationalist side, even though he was able to see the contradictions of his own with ruthless clarity. Neither endeavoured to write a book of propaganda, but Kemp felt compelled to dispute many of the atrocity claims laid at the feet of the Nationalists, and he is honest enough about things like the execution of Loyalist prisoners to make me believe he was at least trying to tell the truth as he experienced it. Now, the Spanish Civil War was one of incredible factional intricacy. The Loyalist (Left) side consisted of communists, anarchists, Trotskyists, Republicans, and God knows what else, all of whom disliked, feared and even hated each other. It was supported with equipment and advisers by Stalin, and its army by the International Brigades of foreign volunteers from all over the world. The Nationalist (Right) side was not less factionalized, though in the habit of right-wing movements it did not cannibalize itself the way the leftists always seem to: it consisted of monarchists, Fascists, nationalist/conservatives, traditionalists, and on a military plane, also had a lot of foreigners in its ranks, by virtue of the Army of Africa, which Franco brought with him from Spanish Morocco when the war began: also by the Spanish Foreign Legion. It was supported in turn by Hitler, who sent the Condor Legion, and Mussolini, who sent 20,000 soldiers. So...the reader can be forgiven if he is periodically confused that reality does not conform to something as simple as "North vs. South" or "Reds vs. Whites." However, Kemp does a credible job of keeping the central issues fairly clear.

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Peter Kemp is an Englishman who served as a junior officer in the Spanish Civil War -- on the Nationalist side. This is arguably one of the most interesting, thrilling, and charming books I have ever read, and most certainly is a contender for my favourite of the year. The author, Peter Kemp, has a superb skill for structure, detail, and storytelling that makes it extremely difficult to put this book down. It gives you just enough detail to help you understand the situations he was in without being too heavy-handed and boring. At some moments, 'Mine Were of Trouble' reads almost like an adventure book; not because the events are so unbelievable, but because of the great lengths the author went to describe the acts of heroism and horror he saw in real life. One thing worth contemplating is how the Spanish Civil War was also something of an English Civil War. Kemp fought against British members of the International Brigades. In England after the war, he often appeared at meetings with Republicans foreign volunteers, whom he would have been trying to kill in Spain. Within a year or two, of course, Kemp and those same men were fighting fascists for England. reading Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) 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.”

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