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.
Peter Kemp was by his own words a restless, directionless English youth who had just come down from Caimbridge when the war in Spain broke out, and immediately endeavoured to join the Nationalists as a volunteer. He began by serving in the colorful Requeté militia, but eventually joined the Spanish Foreign Legion: as a result he saw considerable combat and was engaged in savage fighting on many occasions, suffering a number of wounds along the way. Kemp was neither a Fascist nor a Cathlolic and did not even speak Spanish when he arrived: his motivations were a combination of (admittedly simplistic) anti-communism and a desire for adventure. His writing shows little interest in politics beyond the historical, and neither blood thirst nor any actual personal dislike for his chosen enemies. MINE WERE OF TROUBLE is not romantic: Kemp is quite open about the fear he experienced in battle, the discomfort of fleas and lice, the exhaustion of long marches in intense heat, the nights men froze to death in the mountains from cold, and the horror of festering corpses and prisoners turning ashen as they realize they are about to be shot. As with any tale of a Foreign Legion, be it Spanish or French, he is also frank in discussing the casual brutality of its discipline and the draconian punishments meted out for even modest infractions (summary execution was the penalty for insubordination or cowardice; for most everything else, flogging or beatings). Indeed, his English modesty seems to compell him to confess every blunder and sin and downplay his own heroism: in one memorable instance he talks about how he forgot to release the safety catch on his pistol during hand-to-hand fighting and would have died had not his loyal men shot down his bayonet-wielding attacker. At the same time, his devotion is self-evident: on several occasions he smuggled himself out of Spain to visit England, but the idea of deserting and simply remaining at home never even seems to have occurred to him. He wanted to see the war through, and he did.
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.
The book is written in a simple, easygoing style. Kemp's only real flair for prose comes when he is describing the Spanish countryside or other things bound to tickle an Englishman's fancy. I read the book in three days and thoroughly enjoyed it, though some of the memories, such as the execution of a fellow Englishman who came over as a deserter from the International Brigades expecting mercy and got two rifle bullets in the back of his skull instead, are hard to stomach; to his credit, Kemp admits he could barely stand to write about them. If he did not always exercise the best judgment, he certainly lacks the sort of cruelty and indifference to suffering I have often found running through works of this type. Because of this, I am eager to read his other two works, NO COLOURS OR CREST and ALMS FOR OBLIVION. In the mean time, I have a better picture of the war sometimes referred to as "the dress-rehearsal of WW2."
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Mine were of Trouble is an unusual book, covering an unusual topic, by an unusually erudite Englishman of the early 20th-century upper middle class. The protagonist, a Tory-minded student at Cambridge by the name of Peter Kemp, is strongly anti-communist in temperament. Although we don’t hear much about his father, this would not be unusual at the time given someone who grew up in the 1920s/30s and would have known of Bolshevik and other revolutionary threats to the established British order. In any case, this sensibility leads him to Spain in 1936 where, in contrast to so many of his countrymen, he volunteers for the Nationalist cause. To realize this is unusual one only has to peruse the bibliographic literature in English, a record thoroughly dominated by the Republican side. The latter may have lost the war to Franco, but they certainly won the “battle of the ink,” shaping the results over the decades by dominating discourse ever since.The book itself covers Kemp’s two years of experience in the Spanish Civil War, beginning his adventure with a certain naiveté (as does everyone who goes to war, myself included), and ending as a reasonably adept soldier, a man who spent time under fire, was wounded twice (the second time very seriously) and who kept his head during the chaos of battle. Although I’ve been shot at (and rocketed and shelled), I’ve never been in close combat and it is Kemp’s descriptions of those times that makes the reader ponder the question of how you would behave in that situation. That his writing triggers those internal questions is evidence the book is well-written and allows even us, separated from that time and place by almost 90 years, to engage with its deeper points.One of these is the question of atrocities and prisoners. Kemp does note a few atrocities in passing, including the particularly gruesome approach taken by Republicans to Catholic priests, but his personal feelings are more engaged by the treatment of foreign volunteers (for obvious reasons!). In the latter half of the war, Kemp obtained a commission in the Spanish Legion. As it was the most professional force on the Nationalist side, Kemp then participated in heavy fighting against Republican strong points. In the aftermath, he often came across captured members of the International Brigades, comprised of Irish, Canadian, American and British volunteers. These men were very often shot on the spot. After complaining about one such event, Kemp was told by his Spanish commander that the foreigners were prolonging the suffering of the Spanish people and deserved no mercy. The discerning reader will soon realize that Kemp’s struggle to deal with the extremism engendered by civil war is recognizable in our own difficulties in understanding our own civil wars (i.e. Syria).To be fair the book is not all gloom, indeed it is full of lively humor and joie de vivre, including many amusing asides of miserable billets, farcical escapades and drunken soldiers in addition to the many ironies and “catch-22s” that anyone sees and experiences in a war zone. Of particular interest, which Kemp describes in some detail, is how well he moved through the milieu of the European upper middle class of the 1930s. I was struck by how often Kemp relied on a friend, a family member or a university acquaintance to navigate many confusing, sometimes treacherous, circumstances. This was true when he arrived in country – after pretending to be a tourist (!) – and manages an interview that obtains him his first commission when he can barely speak Spanish. He’s then able to leverage that into additional assignments, culminating by the time he departs Spain for the last time in the summer of 1939 in an interview with Franco himself. It made me think of some of the difficulties experienced by those volunteers in recent years who’ve gone to fight for the Kurds against ISIS.An easy to read book, with a good story and filled with anecdote, wit and the occasional serious note. Well worth it.
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 12, 2023
Had I read his book when Peter Kemp was still alive- I would have gone through great means only to shake his hand.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2023Top reviews from other countries
David Cowell
A substantially blinkered account
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 3, 2020Nicholas McMaster
Fascinating account of the war from a Briton who fought in the crusade to save Spain
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 5, 2020
Locyrn of Lindisfarne
An Important account of the Spanish Civil War
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 14, 2020Bees and bike man
A British volunteer in Franco's Army
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 9, 2021
