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

Product Information

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. All by joining the National side and fighting against the socialist, communist and anarchist “Reds”. Here’s Hemingway (and others) somewhere in Spain, in Spain. Colorization by Cassowary Colorizations, CC BY 2.0. Kemp's book makes up for this almost immediately by describing the Carlists and the Requetes forces, the history of the Carlist Wars, and other details. More importantly, he humanizes the Nationalists by showing them as human beings with motivations other than hatred and evil.

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

This was November 1936. Kemp offers a thumbnail sketch of the first four months of the Civil War, which had passed by the time he arrived. At this point, Francisco Franco had not yet assumed supreme command, nor had he amalgamated the different political factions of the Nationalists under his personal control. As a result, the Nationalist military was organized in a fragmented and ad hoc manner. (The Republican military was too, but the Nationalists were much better as the war progressed at welding together the disparate components of their forces, helped by not being subject to the Moscow-directed purging that bled the Republicans.) The core of the Nationalist fighting forces was the Army of Africa, consisting of most of Spain’s land forces that actually had experience fighting. One part of this was the Spanish Foreign Legion (which meant Spaniards fighting abroad, in Africa; it was not a collective of foreigners, like the French Foreign Legion). The other was native Moroccans, the Regulares. Two political parties also raised separate forces. The first was the Carlists, one branch of the Spanish monarchists (favoring a king other than Alfonso XIII, who had resigned in 1931 to avoid the civil war being fomented by the Left). The Carlists were dominant in the north of Spain, in Navarre and the Basque provinces, and were old-fashioned, happy to die for King and country. The second was the Falange, the small Spanish fascist political party, who had little in common politically with the Carlists (and in fact in later years squabbled violently with the Carlists). Franco, of course, was not a fascist or a member of the Falange; most Nationalist military officers were not political. 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. 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.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 a private audience with Generalissimo Francisco Franco. 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 Peter Kemp is an Englishman who served as a junior officer in the Spanish Civil War -- on the Nationalist side. 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. 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.

Mine Were of Trouble (Peter Kemp) • The Worthy House Mine Were of Trouble (Peter Kemp) • The Worthy House

Among the people met in Spain are Kim Philby, General Franco and Randolph Churchill. These encounters are also interesting. Kemp became a journalist after the war and writes well. reading Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) But there’s another thing, just as important: If you’ve read the news reports published at the beginning of this war, before the imposition of censorship, you’ll know that there were appalling scenes of mob violence throughout Government territory, wherever the Reds took control. Priests and nuns were shot simply because they were priests or nuns, ordinary people murdered just because they had a little money or property. It is to fight against that sort of thing that I am going to Spain.” Kemp, p 7.He is, in other words, a private university kid taking a gap year – one that just happens to include some very bloody trench warfare. 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. 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. 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).

Housman Quotes (Author of A Shropshire Lad) - Goodreads A.E. Housman Quotes (Author of A Shropshire Lad) - Goodreads

Charles, I just finished this book and can say that your review here is an excellent summary as to the events narrated and also the flavor of the narration, while the flavor of your writing is, as always, a thing to savor. It’s a short book, lean, but meaty, and well spiced. Every sentence is interesting and leads to the next interesting sentence. (Unlike that Kissinger book you reviewed.) The character of Kemp, the writer, is a study in certain British qualities; understated, competent, adventurous, courageous, and high-minded. The sort of character Franco describes when Kemp meets him: Kemp offers all his experiences with no sugarcoating. In the Legion, there was extremely rigid discipline, with corporal punishment for minor infractions and the death penalty for any insubordination. The good result of this was that looting and rape, commonly committed by Republican forces, was nonexistent. The bad result was that in Kemp’s bandera, though it was against Nationalist policy, many prisoners, and all of certain categories, were shot out of hand. Those categories included members of the International Brigades, blamed for prolonging the war by preventing the early liberation of Madrid. Of course, Kemp would have been shot too if captured; he knew that at the time, and he quotes a British captain in the International Brigades whom he talked to after the war who leaves no doubt. Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War (Peter Kemp War Trilogy) excel This is a very readable and important book. It is practically the only account we have of the Spanish Civil War told by an Englishman who was fighting on the Nationalist/Fascist rather than the Loyalist/Republican side. It serves as a mirror-image of George Orwell's A HOMAGE TO CATALONIA, and gives a fascinating and curiously even-handed account of the war. There is bias, of course, but the author tries hard to be fair and critical, and succeeds, I think, more than Orwell did in seeing a certain amount of virtue as well as a certain amount of villainy in both sides.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.