Miracle of November: Madrid's Epic Stand, 1936

I realized not long ago that, while I knew some amount about pre-WWII Europe, I knew little about Spain. When I saw that Dan Kurzman had written a book on the war in Spain during the thirties I looked it up.

It was quite different reading this account because, well, I didn't know what the outcome was! Usually when reading history you know at least in a basic sense what happened at “the end”. I, however, couldn't remember whether Franco had attained power or exactly what happened when the Spanish civil war faded into WWII.

Reading Miracle of November was somewhat confusing at times because of the number of names and groups you need to keep straight as you follow the narrative. I got it worked out pretty well by the time I was halfway through. It's just that there were so many different groups fighting within the two main opponents in the war. For example: on the side defending Madrid (against Franco and “the rebels”), were anarchists, communists, the Loyalists and the militia consisting of citizens of the city.

As usual the author follows several figures throughout the narrative. They include generals on both sides, leaders and members of political groups involved, a priest and a few foreigners from Britain and America. It gives you a good idea of the scene from many different vantages points.

So...I found out that Franco did eventually win and became the “head of state”, probably in a large part due to the fact that Hitler was backing him while Stalin had ceased to back the government as he had at the start of the war.