12 Octobre The International Brigades move up to 3 km from Fuentes de Ebro

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October 12
Robert Merriman’s diary covering the October 12, 1937, preparations for Fuentes de Ebro

Merriman starts in again entering information in his diary on October 19.  The first lines describe the long meeting held with Bob Minor and Hans Amlie where they discussed Joe Dallet’s leadership as Commissar of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.   Merriman says that Bill Lawrence and others who were visiting the Brigade have left for their trip to Moscow.   Merriman is reviewing history here so he makes the sad comment that the admissions of Dallet were like a “last confession”.   On October 13th, Joe Dallet would be killed in action.   Minor spoke with Dallet who appeared to take the criticism well.  Minor also spoke with Vladimir Copic but the details of that discussion are not given.

Col S. Fuqua
(l-r) Hans Amlie, Bob Merriman, Bob Thompson (Commander of the Mac-Paps), David Doran (Brigade Commissar), Malcolm Dunbar (Commander of the British Battalion, and U.S. Army Colonel Stephen Fuqua, speaking to the troops at Quinto. Probably on October 12, 1937. ALBA Photo 11-0811, Tamiment Library, NYU
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Colonel Stephen Fuqua, David Doran and Hans Amlie in the trenches at Fuentes de Ebro, ALBA Photo 11-0843, Tamiment Library, NYU

A representative of the US Army is at Quinto to visit.  This is Colonel Stephen Fuqua and he was seen in many photos reviewing positions and being shepherded around by Hans Amlie.  Fuqua was a military attaché in the US Embassy and Claude Bowers, the US Ambassador, was getting situation reports from him.¹   Merriman believes that Amlie has loose lips and is likely to tell Fuqua too much.    Amlie was openly criticizing the Communist leadership of the International Brigades and did not agree with the increased military protocols adopted by the Lincolns since Belchite (saluting, etc.).   Bob Minor refused to remove Amlie since he had been injured in Belchite but Vladimir Copic was disposed to having him arrested (which did not happen).   Bob Minor was going to speak to Amlie about his dissatisfaction but the unsanitary conditions of the camps led Minor to agree that the men had legitimate gripes and that perhaps instead they should try to clean up the camps.  As we saw in Senes, even Merriman got the “fever” (possibly typhoid) and the condition of the troops may have been discussed between Doran, Fuqua, Minor and Amlie.

Mark Straus and Bob Merriman
Dr Mark Straus and Robert Merriman at the Estado Mayor of the Brigade at Fuentes de Ebro, probably on October 12, 1937. Merriman still shows the effects of his fever of the previous week. ALBA Photo 11-0766, Tamiment Library, NYU

Merriman calls in Dr. Mark Straus for a discussion of this health problem and Merriman blames Straus for “poor work”.  This discussion with Straus spread to include Malcolm Dunbar, Battalion Commander of the British Battalion and Rollin Dart, who was with the Lincolns.

Moshe (Moise) Sapir
Moise Sapir and David Doran at the Estado Mayor, Fuentes de Ebro, October 1937. ALBA Photo 11-0764, Tamiment Library, NYU

Merriman meets with Moise Sapir again and discusses how to deal with the Second Chief of Staff Major Crespo.   Sapir wants to set boundaries (spheres) of who will be responsible for what.   Sapir is likely to be Merriman’s go between with the Base at Albacete to better define these staff roles.

Merriman doesn’t sound like he is willing to share any responsibility with Crespo but before this is resolved, they get orders to move up at 10 pm.   They are to be in the trenches at between Kilometer 28 and 29 on the Fuentes-Quinto road by morning.   The location of Kilometer 28 and 29 is seen on a contemporary map of Fuentes from 1937 below.  Also included is an image from Google Earth showing these positions today which parallel the industrial zone of of Fuentes southwest of the town.  This area is on a broad flat plain which drops off rapidly on the north and east as Fuentes de Ebro is below the level of the plain and in the broad fertile Ebro valley.

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Fuentes de Ebro
Location of the positions to be occupied by the International Brigades on the early morning of October 13, 1937. The top image is from the Instituto de Cartographic y Geologic de Cataluna. The bottom is from Google Earth.  The red line on the road is the approximate locations of Kilometer 28 and 29.

Merriman reveals that one Battalion (the Mac-Paps) would be left of the highway on the high flat ground and two on the right (the Lincoln’s between the highway and the railroad tracks) and the British to their right along the railroad tracks and in the agricultural area.   The British would bog down in the soggy ground of these fields.

In the planning for the next day, the extensive use of the new BT5 tanks from Russia were discussed with Colonel Pavel Kondratyev (aka Pablo Otez) who would command the tank battalion.  25 new tanks and 15 older smaller ones would be used.   The Spanish 24th Battalion was to ride into battle on the back of these tanks and drop off into action after the tanks had smashed the wires and breached the trenches of the front line Fascist defenders of the town.  If the plan went ahead, the tanks would continue through to take the road to the north of Fuentes and keep moving towards Zaragoza.  The plan was ambitious if not downright foolhardy.

Merriman says that the tanks rolled by and they were marvelous things.   In 24 hours, his opinion of them might have changed some in real life, but on October 19, 1937, as he wrote this in retrospect, he was still impressed with them.

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¹ Claude Bowers, My Mission to Spain, ibid., p xxx.

 

11 Octobre The International Brigades prepare for Fuentes de Ebro

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October 11
Robert Merriman’s Second Diary for October 11, 1937

Merriman will only make a short entry for the 11th of October before he takes nearly a week off from writing in his diary.  October 13 was the first day of the battle for Fuentes de Ebro, a small town about half way between Quinto, which the Brigades took at the end of August and the Holy Grail of Zaragoza which was another 44 kilometers further northwest.   Since mid-August, the Republican Armies had made an intense push on Zaragoza but never got closer than about 3 km.   The Mediana and Fuentes de Ebro front lines of the Fascists were holding up any significant push on Zaragoza from the south.  The International Brigades were recalled back to the Fuentes front on October 10 from their bivouac in Senes, northeast of Zaragoza, and 160 km by road  back to Quinto to try to finally break this impasse.  Over the next week, we will post Merriman’s descriptions of the fighting at Fuentes that were entered in the diary on October 19.  We will attempt to place the descriptions on the correct days but they are not noted in the diary and are approximate reconstructions from historical accounts of the fighting.

On October 10th evening, Merriman reveals that Bill Lawrence, Steve Nelson and maybe Robbie Robinson will go to Moscow as an official American delegation, perhaps even to join the Politburo in Moscow.    On the morning of the 11th, a Party meeting was held in Quinto.  Bill Lawrence met with Copic and Bob Minor spoke with Dave Doran.  Later Bill Lawrence met with Merriman and finally Copic and Merriman met.   This ambassadorial negotiation clearly was designed to gain a workable compromise between Merriman and Copic.   Merriman says later in the day that much of the air was cleared between Copic and him.    Bill Lawrence scared Copic by saying that he was going to Moscow and Copic obviously read this as a threat to him if he did not work out his differences with the Americans.

The air, however, was thick with airplanes.   Merriman doesn’t say if these planes are Republican or Fascist airplanes but it is apparent that preparations for the upcoming battle are being made.

Milton Wolff told Art Landis in his oral interview¹ that he was at this Party meeting on the 11th.   He said that the plan of attack was laid out for everyone and he found the upcoming use of tanks and men going in with the tanks to be odd.

Wolff said “Now, this is the meeting you’re talking about.  We went to this meeting and at this meeting they told us, that these guys were going to go in with these bloody tanks, these troops, and they were going to go in and they were going to go all the way to Zaragoza and all we had to do is to follow them and clean up.  They weren’t going to stop.”

Landis responds: “If they had only known that right across the way, {General} Sáenz de Buruaga had moved the entire 150th Division, the entire Guadarama Division, right on the path.”  He chuckles.  “They were the finest fucking troops that Franco had.   And they met those tanks and they did it classically.  They let the tanks go through and then they had them.”¹

Later we will see that this is a singular characteristic of the battle of Fuentes that will remain in the minds of the Brigadistas many years later.  In Wolff’s words “Ah, this was a screwed up operation from the word ‘go'”.¹

Merriman’s description of the meeting is antiseptic and he only mentions a potential opening of a front in Castillon by landing troops from the Mediterranean.  This offensive never occurred.  He listens to a report from Robert Minor and finds the meeting informative.

Nathan Weisenfeld
Nathan Weisenfeld (Neil Wesson, left), Robert Merriman and Alfredo Balsa, ALBA PHOTO 11-1328, Tamiment Library, NYU

Merriman says that Nathan Weisenfeld will clean up the barracks in Quinto so that the men can build fires in the hearths in the homes where they were billeted.   Nathan Weisenfeld was also known as Neil Wesson and there are quite  a few photographs of him in the Tamiment ALBA Photo Archive.   Wesson will become Chief of Runners for the Brigade in the Spring of 1938.

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¹ Wolff to Landis, ibid.

 

10 Octobre Bob Minor and Bill Lawrence tour Quinto

October 10
Robert Merriman’s diary for October 10, 1937
Copic, Minor and Unknown
Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Copic, Robert Minor and a woman visitor at Quinto during the Fuentes del Ebro Operations, October 1937 ALBA PHOTO 11-0848, Tamiment Library, NYU
Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson in Quinto in front of training Lincoln Brigaders, October 1937, ALBA Photo 11-0852, Tamiment Library, NYU

The XVth Brigade arrives back in Quinto.  Accompanying them is Bill Lawrence from Albacete and Bob Minor from Valencia.   Many, many photographs are available from this visit and Bob Minor is widely photographed in the area.  In addition, new arrivals show up at Quinto from Albacete to join the Lincoln-Washington Battalion and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Lemare and Herbert Kline are there to make a movie of the Brigades.   Iconic pictures and movies of the men marching and training are seen outside the cemetery at Quinto just to the north of the Church.

As a personal prerogative here, I include a single frame from the movie that Cartier-Bresson is shooting and the man who is circled in the photo is the writer’s father, Harold Hoff, who has just come to Quinto from Tarazona de la Mancha.   He has been in Spain for three weeks and will go on the front lines in 3 days.

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Harold Hoff in formation in Quinto during the filming of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s film, ALBA copyright, Tamiment Library, NYU

Merriman says that the staff meeting they held with Bill Lawrence and Bob Minor was tense.   The staff were trying to remove Copic from command and have him replaced.   Copic showed a picture, presumably one of the many of himself, to Minor and Lawrence.  The air was frozen.  Minor asked if Copic had one of Merriman (knowing full well that Copic did not allow photographs of Merriman to be taken at Belchite).  Copic did not answer as he knew that he had blocked photos to be taken of Merriman.

After the meeting the Americans talked.  Bill Lawrence, Robbie Robinson and Dave Doran met with Merriman.   Jim Bourne had been ordered by Minor to talk to Merriman.   Some question that Bourne had asked of Lawrence was inappropriate and he was apprised of that later.   Merriman’s opinion of Bourne as a political neophyte is reinforced.

7 Octobre Preparing to move back to Quinto

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7 October
Three pages from Merriman’s second diary from approximately the 7th of October, 1937

Merriman loses count of his days and enters “6th” for the second time.  We will assume it is the seventh or eighth but must have been before the 9th as he says that they will be moving out on a following day.  The XVth Brigade moved to Quinto on the 10th of October.

Merriman begins setting up positions and meets with his Battalion commanders to lay out the lines.   Assuming that he has gone back to Senes on the 7th as he said on a prior page, it is likely that these positions are in the hills to the west of Senes and towards Zuera.   Ironically, this on the Sierra du Alcubierre where George Orwell was first posted in the Fall on 1936 and were lines held by the POUM and Anarchist Divisions.   Merriman does mention seeing FAI symbols written on the walls of his HQ in Senes.   If one looks carefully at the photograph of the trial held in Senes on previous days, one can see slogans painted on the walls of that room and painted over later, presumably by the Republicans.

Merriman says that the HQ was bombed during the meeting and Copic cut it short because he was afraid of the planes.   Merriman and Dart get horses and ride out to look at “Santa Elena”.  We are not sure of this location but are trying to pin it down.  It is high ground and as the sun goes down, Merriman and Dart get lost and have to lead their horses out on foot as they make their way down the hills in the dark.

When they get back they find that orders have come for the Brigade to move out to Quinto, in preparation for the offensive which will come in a few days at Fuentes del Ebro.   All the planning of positions in the Huesca Front come to naught.  Merriman says “Rest of Brigade to remain” so only part of the Brigade is to move although the Americans, British and Canadians all were on the front lines of Fuentes del Ebro.

Dallet
Joseph Dallet, Quinto, September 1937. ALBA Photo 11_0639, Tamiment Library, NYU

They don’t move (and this could be as late as October 9) because the trucks don’t come.  Overnight, Merriman has a discussion with Bob Thompson, Dave Doran and Joe Dallet about Joe Dallet and the dislike of the men for his leadership.  Dallet will become a controversial figure about this time because of the continued questions on his leadership style.   Born to a middle class family (his father owned a lumber mill in New England) and raised in a non-proletarian setting, Dallet developed a working class manner in his union organizing in Chicago.   Many, including Merriman, found his style forced.  Steve Nelson recalled that when Dallet was in jail in Perpignan in Spain waiting to get over the Pyranees, he charmed his captors by playing classical piano (Chopin) extremely well.

Copic must have left the meeting when the planes came over but Merriman also must have continued the meeting.  Copic was pissed off.   He gave trivial reasons for being mad.  Bourne is solicitous to Copic which again irritates Merriman.

Trucks show up on the following morning (9th or 10th;  Landis places it as the 10th¹).  Copic is not woken and starts the day irritated.  His adjutant, Hans, takes the brunt of that irritation, apparently.

Bombing of Granen
Article in La Vanguardia, Barcelona, on October 12 describing the bombing of Grañen.

The town of Grañen was bombed with a railroad car destroyed, several dead and injured.  The October 11th issue of LaVanguardia in Barcelona makes the damage more deliberate:   the hospital was destroyed.  The planes were empty when they flew back over the XVth Brigade.   Merriman admires their accuracy.

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¹ Landis, Abraham Lincoln Brigade, ibid. pg 314.

 

6 Octobre “Should not take so much crap from him”

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October 6
Robert Merriman’s 2nd diary pages for October 6, 1937, after he is recovering in hospital in Torralba

Bob Merriman is nothing if not resilient.  He recovers from his bout of fever in a single day and is up and about on October 6.   He wants to meet with his comrades but they all come at once:  Joe Dallet, Bob Thompson, Wally Sabatini, Lou Secundy and Rollin Dart.   Merriman really wanted to have a one-on-one with Dallet but it did not happen.   He did speak to Dr. Irving Busch about politics and the middle class in the US.   He read for much of the day and departed on the 7th to Senes.

Merriman says that Voresh had a session with him.   It is very likely that this is Sandor Voros who was collecting stories for the Book of the XVth Brigade.  Voros said that Dave Doran did great in the trial of the deserters and Doran was pleased with the complement.   Merriman tells Voros to contact Marion in Albacete to get stories from his first diary.  Some letters from the first diary were transcribed for the Book of the XVth Brigade.   Merriman say that he heard the discussion about the “plantilla” in Senes.  This is likely a discussion over the staff lists.

On the way to Senes, Merriman goes to Grañen and wants to have it out with Copic over their working relationship.   In a bit of a temporal mashup, Merriman says that his attitude is better since he spoke with General Walter.   This comes a few pages later in the diary again.   Merriman apparently met with two of his comrades about what to tell Copic… lay down the law or leave, neither being a pleasant task.   A meeting is held at dinner in Grañen and there is the possibility that they will stay in these positions for some time.  They discussed morale issues at dinner and having shooting competitions.

After dinner, Copic and Merriman have their one-on-one.  Copic grouses about the situation in Albacete and a word here is unreadable.   Copic tells Merriman that Indalecio Prieto, Minister of War, is against the International Brigades.  There are rumors of the government leaving Valencia and moving to Barcelona or, worse, to the French border so that escape would be possible.    Copic relays his fears that the war is being lost.   General Walter has lost a battalion to the 45th Division which is being split off and moved to the southern fronts.  Copic notes that the International Brigades are all over Spain and would benefit from being combined into a single Army Corp under General Walter.   Copic says that General Gal may come up to help the XVth Brigade.  In reality, Gal had already been removed from the Army Corp.

Regarding speaking to Walter, Copic didn’t and said he couldn’t do it.  He made excuses which clearly Merriman did not want to hear.  Merriman says he spoke little and verged on being surly.   But as he left, Merriman got his chance to speak to Walter and remind him about his promise at Belchite.  To Merriman’s pleasure, Walter said he would fix it right away.   He must have spoken to Copic and Copic responded like it should have happened already.   Copic tells Merriman to change the lists of promotions.    Merriman is tired but says that he will speak to what looks like “Dennerchuk” in the morning and will find out when the promotions are made.

(Note that the second “6th” is in error and is likely to be on the 7th or later.   Many dates in October are only approximations since the diary was undated).