‘Public memory of the conflict’ is an interesting phrase in this context, as it implies a certain universality. When it comes to the Spanish Civil War, this is always a problematic assumption – which ‘public’ is always going to determine what events stand out in historical memory.

That’s not to say that there isn’t significant ongoing interest in the Battle of Jarama in certain quarters, but rather that this interest is heavily informed by perspective. For certain publics particularly interested in the Spanish Civil War, there’s several reasons why Jarama stands out, but this isn’t universal.

So, who might be interested in Jarama? First of all, it’s an important Republican victory that helped save Madrid, so supporters of the Republic might be expected to remember it. This is perhaps particularly the case as Jarama was never reversed, unlike Teruel, for instance, where Republican efforts to inflate the significance of victory became a source of embarrassment when the town was retaken by the Nationalists, or the Battle of the Ebro, where early successes couldn’t be maintained and were eventually reversed.

Arguably, though, Jarama is accorded more significance outside of Spain than inside it, even among Spaniards sympathetic to the Republic. This is likely because of the scale of participation of international volunteers in the battle. While the International Brigades had fought in various battles from October 1936, they played perhaps their militarily most important roles in these battles near Madrid in early 1937, preventing the capital from being surrounded. Not only were the International Brigades at the centre of fighting, they were still predominantly international – by spring 1937, they contained as many Spaniards as foreigners (not least due to heavy casualties in these battles), and the ratio kept dropping. So, for those interested in Spain in other countries, Jarama is one of the battles where foreigners made the biggest difference.

There’s even more reason that those of us who live in English-speaking countries might remember Jarama in particular. Jarama was the first battle fought by the XV International Brigade (often mistakenly called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade), the main unit for English-speaking volunteers. Jarama was the first battle that saw significant numbers of English-speaking participants, and so has a special place in the historical memory of these countries (chiefly Britain, the US and Canada) – their baptism of fire, if you will.

This memory was fostered over time by news reporting, propaganda and commemoration of the large number of casualties, with the Communist Party in each country doing its best to promote the heroes of the battle. A key part of this was artistic – Jarama inspired some pretty decent poetry from the likes of W.H. Auden, while a Glaswegian volunteer, Alex McDade, penned a song called ‘There’s a Valley in Spain Called Jarama’ which achieved some lasting fame in the hands of Woody Guthrie. McDade’s original version was satirical – complaining of the length of time spent at the front without relief, but was rewritten with commemorative overtones:

For ‘tis there that we wasted our manhood

And most of our old age as well’

Therefore became

For ‘tis there that we gave of our manhood

And most of our comrades fell.

This conflux of factors has made Jarama more prominent in North America or Britain than elsewhere, although it’s an important battle in the eyes of most Republicans.

Sources

Baxell, Richard,Unlikely Warriors: The British in the Spanish Civil War (London, 2012).

Jackson, Michael, Fallen Sparrows: the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (Philadelphia, 1994).

Skoutelsky, Remi, Novedad en el frente: Las Brigadas Internacionales en la guerra civil (Madrid, 2006).