I don’t usually contribute to the showcase, because there’s usually enough questions about the Spanish Civil War to keep me occupied and I’m a bit lazy. But it’s been a slow couple of weeks on that front, and I was recently asked by a commemorative organisation to write an article for their newsletter about some research I just published. I figured – why not share my draft here as well, given that it’s written much the same way I would write a post for AskHistorians?

***

On the evening of 7 December 1938, a train from Dover pulled into Victoria Station in London. It carried hundreds of British soldiers, newly returned from battle overseas, and a large crowd had gathered to give them a hero’s welcome. Such scenes were perhaps not unusual, except for the fact that these soldiers had not fought for Britain – they had fought for the Spanish Republic, against General Franco’s military rebellion and his international allies, Hitler and Mussolini. Yet what came next for the veterans of Spain is much less clear. Their relationship with the British state was already strained, having fought for a foreign government in a conflict from which the British government did its best to wash its hands. Their participation in the Spanish Civil War was against the spirit (if not the letter) of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870. Above all, their close association with the Communist Party of Great Britain and their clear willingness to fight and die for their beliefs marked their loyalties out as suspect in the eyes of the British political establishment. This question was thrown into sharp relief by the outbreak of war against Germany less than a year later: to what extent would the British state trust the Spanish veterans to participate in the war effort?

Unlike their service in Spain, we know far less about what happened to the volunteers during the Second World War. Broadly speaking, there are two settled-upon narratives of what happened. The first is one of continuity – those who had recognised the dangers of fascism the earliest gearing up for a new phase in the struggle, swapping the battlefields of Spain for those in France, North Africa and elsewhere. There are numerous individuals whose wartime service conforms to this picture. They are not the focus of this article, however, which is concerned with the darker narrative: one of exclusion, victimisation and waste. Despite the volunteers’ experience in modern warfare, despite their demonstrable commitment to opposing fascism, they were shunned by the British state and prevented from participating in the war effort. These, in the parlance of the American volunteers, were the ‘Premature Anti-fascists’, a label of ironic pride in the face of official absurdity.

Historians of British involvement in the Spanish Civil War have long been aware that the ex-volunteers faced highly variable treatment at the hands of the state during the Second World War, but have struggled to rationalise or explain exactly what was going on. Clearly, the boundaries to participation were not concrete, otherwise many ex-volunteers’ distinguished wartime service would have been impossible. Equally, there are many known cases where individuals faced obvious or implied discrimination, so there clearly were some official efforts to manage or restrict their involvement in the war effort. This problem is compounded by the absence of wartime records or testimony from the bulk of ex-volunteers – making building a representative picture very challenging.

As part of my recently-completed PhD project, I sought to understand and explain why the ex-volunteers faced such variable treatment at the hands of the state. I was fortunate to discover at the British National Archives that a clerical error meant that there was a stash of intelligence documents relating to the ex-volunteers that had been miscatalogued, and these provided the first large scale evidence about MI5’s role in surveilling and investigating the ex-International Brigaders. The picture that emerged was mixed – on one hand, there was plenty of confirmation that many veterans were subject to surveillance, refused entry to the armed forces, were discharged unfairly or otherwise had their participation in the war effort monitored or restricted. Yet equally, it became clear that this treatment was rarely the result of their service in Spain. In the records of MI5 investigations I found, it was impossible to tie outcomes to the International Brigades or the Spanish Civil War.

(continued below)

So after this thread and answer from u/iphikrates I've been looking back over some of the rank and file distances assumed by various treatises for either marching or while in combat and how that relates to the length of the pike and how many ranks they assumed could fight at any given time.

The most common one for drawing up formations seems to have been to assume that each pikeman takes up a 3x7 foot rectangle. Presumably this was influenced by vegetius' work who also recommends the infantry drawn up with about 3 feet per file and a 6 foot gap between each rank (with an additional foot tacked on to account for the width of the soldier). A "square of ground" was typically calculated as one that has 3 ranks for every 7 files, although a simpler 1:2 ratio was also very popular.

It seems to be generally assumed, though not outright stated most of the time, that once they made contact with the enemy the space taken up by each rank would shrink to around 3 feet as well, or slightly longer than three feet. According to vegetius, one of the key goals formation drilling was to teach recruits how to maintain reasonable distances from each other in combat: neither spreading out so much that enemy soldiers could penetrate into the opening nor becoming so crowded together that they can't fight effectively, and it seems that early modern treatises tend to agree with this. Some authors like Robert Barret put extra emphasis on how it was essential for each pikeman to have a dagger in addition to his other weapons just in case the press gets so tight that he can't even use his sword.

As for the number of ranks which are supposed to be able to fight the enemy with their pikes, the number usually mentioned seems to be about 4 or 5, but I think there may have been some variation on whether the author meant that as "the pike of the last length is barely long enough to reach past the man in the first rank" or "the pike of the last rank needs to reach a reasonable distance past the first rank to be considered 'useful'".

Thomas Styward, 1582, when discussing the usefulness of smaller pike squares over large ones, claims that each pikeman takes up 1.125 yards of a pikes length and that with pikes 5.75 yards long at most the first "4 or 5" ranks can reach the enemy:

because the Pike beeing but 5. yards three quarters long, euerie man occupying a yarde and halfe a quarter of Pike, can occupie but foure or fiue rankes at the most, so that the rest are superfluous, and lost,

William Garrard, 1591, drew heavily from Styward, though he adds a couple of his own thoughts on the length of pikes and seems to be slightly more pessimistic, claiming that the pikes must be a minimum of 15 feet long in order to allow the 4th rank to defend the first:

What the Sergeant Maior is to obserue touching the length of Pikes.

A Pike ought neuer to want in length any thing of fiftéene foot, for this respect, when the footemen are streightned and setled in order of battell, they may for the aduantage and profite of the said armie, in respect that the assaults of the enemie is to giue to the said battell, couching & bending their pikes against them, worke so that the greatest number of rankes that is possi∣ble for the defence of the battell, may endamage and offend the said enemies, and therefore their pikes being shorter then fif∣téene foote, it prooues that no more of the ranks can fight, but the first, second and third, standing all in order in their places, and yet can the third ranke fight but discommodiously, & not aduance forward his pike to succor and defend the first ranke, forsomuch as the distance of the ground, from one ranke to another, in any battell, how straight and close soeuer it be, would be neuerthe∣lesse so much, that men may manage and handle their weapons and sturre themselues, without being a hinderance or trouble one to another. Therefore it is to be considered, that the distance of the ground, which is betwixt one ranke and an other, dooth take away a good portion of length, in such sort that by reason we may sée, that a pike ought to be in length fiftéene foot, and no lesse, for being so long, footemen standing in order of battell in their places, the third and fourth ranke may commodiouslye abasing themselues, come in aright to succour with their pikes, the first and formost rankes, & this is as much as I can imagine to be necessarie, touching the length of pikes, by reason of the succour, the third and fourth ranke may giue to them before.

Garrard seems to stick with the distance of 3 feet per file and 7 feet per rank when forming and maneuvering troops in battle, though he mentions that they can march "more commodiously" with their pikes on their shoulders if the distance is increased to 10 feet per rank.

He also differentiates between the 7 foot distance and the distance between the ranks when joined with the enemy. He doesn't give a specific number for the latter but says that the soldiers leave each rank enough space that they don't impede each other's weapons, but are still close enough that the man behind can keep the man in front of him from falling to the ground if he gets knocked over backwards:

And now returning to my discourse of one ranke from an∣other, when the Souldiours are ioined & closed in battell with their pikes, & when they stand in terme to fight, to me it séemes, that then in that accident, the battell is to close and ioyne as straight together as is possible, in such sort as they may manage and bestir themselues with their weapons, without being an impediment one to another, to the intent that the rankes being straite in fighting, or that the souldiors be inuaded by their ene∣mies, or that they recoile by force of an onset, they néed not to fal to the ground, but rather that they may by those ranks that bee behinde their backes receiue helpe, that vndersetting them with their brests, they may hold them straight vp vpon their féete. And this is not onely my opinion, but of diuers other mos•… excellent wits.

The other rule of the distance of seauen foote from ranke to •…anke, which we haue spoken of, is meant of marching and the managing and exercising of a battell, to the intent the soldiors may receiue exercise & discipline in the said battell, in the which alwaies the foresaid order of measure & distance is to be obserued, to the intent that the Sergeant & the other heads which do gouerne them, may the more comodiously manage and enter in and out through the space of the said ranks.

Maurice of Nassau's drills, which started to widely become standard in the early 17th century, settled on two main distances, 6 feet and 3 feet, mixed and matched for both pikemen and musketeers. 6 feet per file could be measured with each soldier stretching their arms out until their hands touched, while 3 feet could be measured by each soldier touching his neighbor's elbows (which, if the forearms were both held straight, i notice just so happens to be the exact definition of two cubits).

FIrst both Pikes and Muskets are ordered into files of 10 deepe. The Muske∣tiers are sometime placed before, sometime in flanke, sometimes in the reare of the pikes.

To exercise the motions, there are two distances to be obserued.

The first is when euery one is distant from his fellow 6 foote square, that is in file and ranke 6.

The second is when euery Souldier is 3 foote distant one from the other aswell in file, as in Ranke.

And because the measure of such distances cannot be taken so iustly by the eye, the distance of 6 foot betwixt the files is measured, when the Souldiers stretching out their armes doe touch one an others hands: and betwixt the Rankes, when the ends of their pikes come well nigh to the heeles of them, that march before. And the measure of 3 foote betwixt the files is, when their elbowes touch one another; betwixt the rankes, when they come to touch the ends of one ano∣thers Rapiers.

For to march in the field, the distance of 3 foote from file to file is kept, and of 6 foote from Ranke to Ranke.

To order themselues in Battaile, as also to goe towards the enemy, the di∣stance of 3 foote in file, and ranke, is obserued; and likewise to conversion or wheeling.

The Musquettiers also going for to shoote by Rankes keep the same distance of 3 foot, but going to skirmish they goe a la Disbandade, which is out of order.

Week 50

 

Strong of the results of the National Congress, which in the first week of September had sanctioned their political line with a substantial majority, the Italian maximalist socialists – the “Italian Bolsheviks” as the national-interventionist press had taken to disparagingly call them – under the leadership of Nicola Bombacci begun the month of Ocober 1918 looking for an opportunity to translate their apparent control of the Party into a concrete political action, with the rather explicit purpose to find a way to hasten the end of the hostilities. That is, to eventually turn the long fantasized myths of revolution and general strike into a real occurrence.

But many were the obstacles which laid ahead; from the external ones: the close surveillance of the state authority, which had already subjected a large number of socialist leaders to incarceration (including the two intransigent-maximalist leaders themselves, Costantino Lazzari and Giacinto Menotti Serrati), confinement, forced residence and other manners of police control; the strong active and passive resistance of many of the socialist organizations themselves, including the largest national trade union – the Confederazione Generale del Lavoro - which, despite the marginalization of its reformer leader Rinaldo Rigola, appeared less than enthusiastic about the whole plan, that obviously placed a lot of weight on the unions and economical organizations; the realization that a victorious end of the conflict might have been in sight (for real this time) and that the peaceful solution of the war could in fact come from the action of the bourgeois government. To the internal ones: the persistent reluctance of many socialist leaders to entertain thoughts of actual revolution, driven in part by an understanding of the ideological and material conditions of the Italian masses; the lack of a widespread organization of the Party – pending the cooperation of the whole unions and leagues system – which had been a characteristic trait of the socialist movement even before the War and had certainly not improved as a result of the police pressure and coercive measures, as well as the call to arms of many socialist elements.

But then again, the question posed by the World War to all the “national” socialist forces had been in fact whether they had to look at the victory of their “national bourgeoisie” and their “national proletariat” as parallel or opposite things. The answer of the early days, that the Italian socialists had summarized in the ambiguous formula of “neither cooperation, nor sabotage”, had proven inadequate soon enough; but the Socialist Party had struggled throughout the conflict to find a better one and, by the end of 1918, this question – despite the apparent success of the maximalist current – had yet to find an outright answer.

The matter was not made simpler by the concurrent evolution of the autonomies of the various organisms operating within the socialist movement. Whether the Party had to be considered the first, most direct expression of the organized masses and therefore entrusted with the authority to regulate the functions of the economical and social organizations – the unions and the CGdL in particular – of the local (elected) administrations and of the Parliamentary Group; or whether those organisms had to be considered equal (or even superior) to the Party, their own thing with their own forms of legitimization. A position that the reformers supported, for obvious contingent reasons, but which had a long tradition within the movement; while on the other hand the maximalist leaders insisted on the primacy of the Party and the need of the other organizations to conform to the line fixed by the Direction.

As expression of this tendency, one can consider both the repeated explicit invitations from Bombacci during the Summer of 1918 to the socialist reformers to resign from the “super-committee” constituted on the Government's initiative to discuss the “return to peace” as well as the “forced” resignation of the socialist reformer Mayor of Bologna Francesco Zanardi in August 1918. In some way, it s true that the party line of intransigent opposition to the war was closer to the sentiments of the socialist support basis (as the maximalists were fond of remarking at any chance – and as shown for instance by the results of the referendum of August 1918 when a list of questions had been sent to the various sections from the Secretary of the Party concerning the attitude towards the war and the behavior of the Parliamentary Group; an inquest that had been devised explicitly to gain leverage against the reformers in the aftermath of one of the many adjournments sine die of the Socialist Congress imposed by the authorities) than the begrudging cooperation with the government on certain themes proposed by Turati's reformers. Nonetheless, as many observers noted, the acceptance of the maximalist line by various organizations was more of a result of contingent needs and the masses' rejection of the national themes of the war propaganda remained a surface phenomenon driven by the many adversities experienced; so that – following S. Noiret - “the maximalist victory rested on a substantial misunderstanding. The local socialist and union leaders had no desire for a complete break up with the reformer tradition in order to adopt ,without any preparation, the extreme defeatist-revolutionary positions of the Russian Bolsheviks”.

The need to appeal to the masses, the fear of alienating their support basin, pushed the socialist organizations to accept the maximalist intransigent doctrine, to share it at face value, with promises of socialization and revolution – but did not lead them to walk the path that would have conducted to an actual revolutionary organization. Paired with the passive and disorganized operations of the central leadership – forced to rely entirely on the various local organisms for organization and coordination, regardless of their apparent control of the movement – this led the Italian Socialist movement to come out of the Great War with an encumbering ideological baggage and no organization to carry its burden: statements of unambiguous revolutionary nature, of outright opposition to the state authorities met with a practice of ordinary and rather generic administration. The maximalist turn of 1918 (and confirmed after the war with the new Congress of 1919) is generally highlighted as the beginning of the crisis of the Italian Socialist Party – a crisis that soon translated into a crisis of the unitarian tradition as well, resulting in its split with the Communists in 1921 – which made it certainly more vulnerable to the fascist repressive action during the early 1920s.

Following again S. Noiret, the debate that brought to the majority and minority orders of business in the Congress of 1918 showcased an even deeper internal fracture:

Turati wanted national defense, cooperation with the Government, preparations for the post war. Bombacci agreed with Salvatori [who submitted the majority order of business] in sabotaging the war effort, reneging the bourgeois nation, demanding the international revolution. By listening to the two speakers, it was clear how Lazzari's formula [“neither cooperation nor sabotage”] had definitively failed, without the Party being able to find [a new] political line.

But even under such premises, the Congress had maintained the unitarian tendency prevalent within the party since its early years – i.e. the radical resistance to any further split within the Party, embodied by many of the former intransigent leaders, Lazzari, Serrati and Modigliani for the reformers, who considered a break up, especially in the final stages of the war, to be damaging for the socialist cause. A view that, eventually, must have been shared by Bombacci as well – perhaps with a bit of encouragement from the old direction – since he went back from his initial demands for the expulsion of Turati and the dissolution of the Parliamentary Group and accepted an order of business that only censored the behavior of the reformers and praised the conduct of the Party Direction.

It was true that Turati had come out of the Congress in a desperate isolation within the Party – but it is also true that the maximalist victory of 1918 was at the same time a “maximalist compromise”; inspired perhaps by the belief of certain leaders that the masses would soon enough spontaneously radicalize towards revolutionary position, and by the desire of large portions of the less revolution-inclined socialist organisms to gain some time and await for a return to ordinary business.