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The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic: A Witness to the Spanish Civil War
In 1940, The Daily Telegraph correspondent Henry Buckley published his eyewitness account of his experiences reporting from the Spanish Civil War. The copies of the book, stored in a warehouse in London, were destroyed during the Blitz and only a handful of copies of his unique chronicle were saved. Now, 70 years after its first publication, this exceptional eyewitness account of the war is republished with a new introduction by Paul Preston. The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic is a unique account of Spanish politics throughout the entire life of the Second Republic, combining personal recollections of meetings with the great politicians of the day with eyewitness accounts of dramatic events. This important book is one of the most enduring records of the Spanish Republic and the civil war and a monumental testimony to Buckley’s work as a correspondent.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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February 29, 2016
The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic: A Witness to the Spanish Civil War; Henry Buckley; first published 1940, re-published 2013.
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
This is an important book. Although Buckley published his account of the Spanish Republic in 1940, the book had ‘disappeared’ in the chaos of the World War. All but a few copies were destroyed in a warehouse during the London blitz. Now, re-published in 2013, we can read this journalist’s account of this important period of European history. Buckley had been in Spain since 1929 and was writing for the English paper Daily Express and later the News Chronicle. The Spanish Republic came into being in 1931 when Buckley was just 27.
I was drawn into the story by Buckley’s quaint writing style, conversational and intimate like a gossip. He names many of the personalities of the time as though he knew them on a first name basis and stitches together the sequences of events with the chronology of the political world he inhabited. He unravels many of the complex layers of Spanish political life at the time in telling this story. He was mostly in Madrid where the population held out against the uprising of the Generals and the Army led ultimately by Franco. He travelled to Valencia and then Barcelona as the war closed in on the Republicans. Throughout all this emerges the picture of how journalists like Buckley covered the war, going out to look at this battle or that siege always from a safe distance and returning to telegraph or phone in his report to the London based editors.
Buckley throughout the book gives his opinion of the causes and context of the Civil War. He saw Spain as a feudal society emerging late into the modern world. A small working class existed alongside an equally small middle class. The large, very poor agrarian peasant population was dominated by the Catholic Church and landed aristocrats, backed up by the army.
The Popular Front was a shifting alliance of forces (see Wikipedia) supporting the Republican government of Spain. Interestingly, two literary classics written contemporaneously with Buckley can give us a different picture of the conflict. Earnest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is a fictional account of an American hero fighting with the International Brigade. For me it reads like a Cowboy Western, lots of action, love, and tension with a sad ending. George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is more realistic in my opinion. Orwell actually fought in the trenches and his tribute to the fight against fascism contains lengthy analysis of the political situation, particularly in Barcelona.
Two of Orwell’s chapters, five and eleven, are written as necessary background information for the reader to understand the depth and complexity of the political situation at that time. Conversely, Buckley never writes from an ‘insider’ perspective about the Communists he met or the Communist Party he observed, although it was the largest and most effective force in Spain on the Republican side. For Buckley the greatest tragedy was the failure of the Democracies, especially Britain and France, to stand up for their achievements embodied in Empire building. The looming war with Fascism and Nazi Germany was still ahead.
You can watch a six-part documentary of the Spanish Civil War on-line.
Reviewed by Graham Mulligan
This is an important book. Although Buckley published his account of the Spanish Republic in 1940, the book had ‘disappeared’ in the chaos of the World War. All but a few copies were destroyed in a warehouse during the London blitz. Now, re-published in 2013, we can read this journalist’s account of this important period of European history. Buckley had been in Spain since 1929 and was writing for the English paper Daily Express and later the News Chronicle. The Spanish Republic came into being in 1931 when Buckley was just 27.
I was drawn into the story by Buckley’s quaint writing style, conversational and intimate like a gossip. He names many of the personalities of the time as though he knew them on a first name basis and stitches together the sequences of events with the chronology of the political world he inhabited. He unravels many of the complex layers of Spanish political life at the time in telling this story. He was mostly in Madrid where the population held out against the uprising of the Generals and the Army led ultimately by Franco. He travelled to Valencia and then Barcelona as the war closed in on the Republicans. Throughout all this emerges the picture of how journalists like Buckley covered the war, going out to look at this battle or that siege always from a safe distance and returning to telegraph or phone in his report to the London based editors.
Buckley throughout the book gives his opinion of the causes and context of the Civil War. He saw Spain as a feudal society emerging late into the modern world. A small working class existed alongside an equally small middle class. The large, very poor agrarian peasant population was dominated by the Catholic Church and landed aristocrats, backed up by the army.
The Popular Front was a shifting alliance of forces (see Wikipedia) supporting the Republican government of Spain. Interestingly, two literary classics written contemporaneously with Buckley can give us a different picture of the conflict. Earnest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is a fictional account of an American hero fighting with the International Brigade. For me it reads like a Cowboy Western, lots of action, love, and tension with a sad ending. George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is more realistic in my opinion. Orwell actually fought in the trenches and his tribute to the fight against fascism contains lengthy analysis of the political situation, particularly in Barcelona.
Two of Orwell’s chapters, five and eleven, are written as necessary background information for the reader to understand the depth and complexity of the political situation at that time. Conversely, Buckley never writes from an ‘insider’ perspective about the Communists he met or the Communist Party he observed, although it was the largest and most effective force in Spain on the Republican side. For Buckley the greatest tragedy was the failure of the Democracies, especially Britain and France, to stand up for their achievements embodied in Empire building. The looming war with Fascism and Nazi Germany was still ahead.
You can watch a six-part documentary of the Spanish Civil War on-line.
February 18, 2019
Fascinating, first person account of a British journalist on the scene in Spain during the birth of the Spanish Republic in 1931 all the through to its ultimate demise in 1939.
The book is very much a product of its time (written in 1939), and reads very much like a diary. It is also a journalist's account, and not a historian's, so many facts and details about the War, in particular, are a bit blurry. The author's internal battle with his Catholic faith, and his opinion that the major European democracies could, and should, have done more to help the Republic, were interesting, and helped the narrative along, at spots.
All in all, a decent read for someone familiar with the history of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War, who's looking for an "I was there" account of what went on.
The book is very much a product of its time (written in 1939), and reads very much like a diary. It is also a journalist's account, and not a historian's, so many facts and details about the War, in particular, are a bit blurry. The author's internal battle with his Catholic faith, and his opinion that the major European democracies could, and should, have done more to help the Republic, were interesting, and helped the narrative along, at spots.
All in all, a decent read for someone familiar with the history of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War, who's looking for an "I was there" account of what went on.
March 3, 2024
Un trabajo de atipico periodismo de guerra, que permite tener una visión cercana y objetiva del final de la Republica por la Guerra Civil.
Absolutamente recomendable
Absolutamente recomendable
October 4, 2014
Apasionante. Como buen periodista, Buckley sabe ir exactamente al núcleo de cada período de la República y la Guerra Civil. En este sentido, es la mejor introducción que conozco a la materia. De igual modo, aporta puntos de vista y testimonios de valía personal que no están en todas partes.
Si tu objetivo es ir más allá, está claro que no te vas a convertir en un especialista por leer este libro, pero sí que vas a tener unos cimientos sólidos para luego poder añadir los libros más académicos y prolijos de Beevor o Payne.
Su complemento perfecto es A sangre y fuego, de Chaves Nogales, que novela episodios reales de las intrahistorias que Buckley menciona.
Si tu objetivo es ir más allá, está claro que no te vas a convertir en un especialista por leer este libro, pero sí que vas a tener unos cimientos sólidos para luego poder añadir los libros más académicos y prolijos de Beevor o Payne.
Su complemento perfecto es A sangre y fuego, de Chaves Nogales, que novela episodios reales de las intrahistorias que Buckley menciona.
January 6, 2023
This superb book almost never made it into the hands of the public. Written in summer 1939 and published in 1940, the warehouse containing the physical copies was destroyed by Nazi bombs. Thankfully a few survived.
It really is a different, and extremely interesting, view on the Spanish Civil War. Most of what is readily available for readers today are analysis books written by historians, often military historians, decades after the war and often after the death of Franco.
This book gives us a first-person, insider’s view of the subject from Henry Buckley, a British journalist doing correspondence work in Republican Spain both before and during the war. Some of the highlights of the book are his recollections of meeting many of the Republic’s movers and shakers, folks like Largo Cabellero, La Pasionaria, and Dr. Nagrin. He was also there, deep in the bowels of a medieval castle near the French border for the last official meeting of the Republic’s Parliament.
It also reads like Buckley’s personal journal in spots. Sometimes he takes little side trips to talk about his memories of a town from before the war, a particularly lovely meal he had in a particular place, or a pretty girl he met on the way somewhere. You can easily tell that it’s an old book, not written with our postmodern anxieties and eccentricities in mind. I found it to be refreshing, because it read like real life, not something written today that has to be sanitized to the point of sterilization because somebody, somewhere, might get offended.
History is R-rated, the history of war even more so. There are a few tough to read first hand accounts here. For instance, at one point he talks about relief workers scraping what was left of human beings off the streets of Barcelona with newspapers after a Nationalist air raid. It’s pretty graphic.
This isn’t a war book about which armies went where and the order or such-and-such battle. If you’re looking for that, check out Hugh Thomas, Antony Beevor, or Paul Preston. If you want an in-country, front row (and sometimes behind the scenes) view, you are DEFINITELY looking for this book.
It really is a different, and extremely interesting, view on the Spanish Civil War. Most of what is readily available for readers today are analysis books written by historians, often military historians, decades after the war and often after the death of Franco.
This book gives us a first-person, insider’s view of the subject from Henry Buckley, a British journalist doing correspondence work in Republican Spain both before and during the war. Some of the highlights of the book are his recollections of meeting many of the Republic’s movers and shakers, folks like Largo Cabellero, La Pasionaria, and Dr. Nagrin. He was also there, deep in the bowels of a medieval castle near the French border for the last official meeting of the Republic’s Parliament.
It also reads like Buckley’s personal journal in spots. Sometimes he takes little side trips to talk about his memories of a town from before the war, a particularly lovely meal he had in a particular place, or a pretty girl he met on the way somewhere. You can easily tell that it’s an old book, not written with our postmodern anxieties and eccentricities in mind. I found it to be refreshing, because it read like real life, not something written today that has to be sanitized to the point of sterilization because somebody, somewhere, might get offended.
History is R-rated, the history of war even more so. There are a few tough to read first hand accounts here. For instance, at one point he talks about relief workers scraping what was left of human beings off the streets of Barcelona with newspapers after a Nationalist air raid. It’s pretty graphic.
This isn’t a war book about which armies went where and the order or such-and-such battle. If you’re looking for that, check out Hugh Thomas, Antony Beevor, or Paul Preston. If you want an in-country, front row (and sometimes behind the scenes) view, you are DEFINITELY looking for this book.
February 24, 2019
Henry Buckley really puts you in the shoes of a foreign observer of one of the most important conflicts of the 20th Century in this book and it’s crazy to think he was writing it just as the Spanish Civil War had ended and right as World War 2 was getting started. He was definitely a man of his time and place, extremely praiseworthy of the British Empire but also able to understand a lot of its flaws. He only reported from the Republican side so if you’re looking for a Franco-ist right wing slanted report of events on the ground this isn’t the book you’re looking for. He does tend to be sympathetic to the war crimes committed on the Republican side which I suppose was inevitable because all of his friends and contacts would have been on that side, more or less. He makes very prophetic statements about the consequences of the Western democracies failing to stand up to Fascism when they first had the chances,
predicting that the tactics used on the Spanish Republicans would be used later by Germany and Italy on France and England, which is exactly what happened. He also truthfully reports that a big reason that the democracies were so useless and able to be overturned by a concerted military or political putsch was because they were failing to address the problems of the populations that put them in power. This book fails to see the larger scope of the war, better understood by Hugh Thomas after years of research on every aspect of the war on both sides as well as domestically and internationally. For instance, Buckley didn’t realize that the Spanish literally sent every bit of gold they had to Russia at the start of the war and his favorite person Negrín may have needlessly extended the war in the hopes of getting better terms from Franco which were never going to be forthcoming. I really liked the pace of the narrative, the small human scenes that give the story more depth and the fact that Buckley doesn’t try to be impartial or esoteric about the horrors of war. I highly recommend this book.
predicting that the tactics used on the Spanish Republicans would be used later by Germany and Italy on France and England, which is exactly what happened. He also truthfully reports that a big reason that the democracies were so useless and able to be overturned by a concerted military or political putsch was because they were failing to address the problems of the populations that put them in power. This book fails to see the larger scope of the war, better understood by Hugh Thomas after years of research on every aspect of the war on both sides as well as domestically and internationally. For instance, Buckley didn’t realize that the Spanish literally sent every bit of gold they had to Russia at the start of the war and his favorite person Negrín may have needlessly extended the war in the hopes of getting better terms from Franco which were never going to be forthcoming. I really liked the pace of the narrative, the small human scenes that give the story more depth and the fact that Buckley doesn’t try to be impartial or esoteric about the horrors of war. I highly recommend this book.
July 20, 2025
“ De regreso a Barcelona, recogimos en el coche a un ferroviario que había ido a Lérida para llevarse de allí cualquier locomotora que todavía quedase en la estación de Ferrocarril. Al comprobar que no había ninguno, salió de la ciudad antes de que cayera en manos de los nacionales. Lo encontré andando por la carretera y le ofrecí llevarle en el coche. Era un veterano de unos 60 años de edad. Le pregunté por sus ideas políticas. <> Aquel hombre, en su aparente ignorancia, había acertado a definir mejor que nadie lo que era la guerra española.”
August 14, 2022
Como testimonio de una época bien controvertida y aún no lo suficientemente estudiada de la historia de España, el de Buckley es un documento fundamental. Precisamente por ser quien lo escribió, ya no como periodista, sino como testigo, como partícipe de esa parte, se le comprende el parcialismo que emana de su escrito, de sus descripciones de uno y otro bando, en buena parte frustrado por ver cómo el mundo desembocaba a través de la Guerra Civil en lo que todos temían y nadie evitó: la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
August 21, 2017
This was my introduction to Spain in the 1930's. I found it difficult to sort out individuals, but could cope with the different parties involved.
H Buckley does apologise for waffling - but the picture he creates of Europe in the 1930's is worth every word.
I am very glad that a relative of the author recommended it to me.
H Buckley does apologise for waffling - but the picture he creates of Europe in the 1930's is worth every word.
I am very glad that a relative of the author recommended it to me.
December 30, 2018
Truly brilliant first person account from a British journalist who reported from the Republican side. Holds no punches about the complicity of the French and British governments. Buckley correctly points out this was the first act of appeasement. Treats the conflict chronologically- good on politics etc but with too much detail of the different battlefields.
September 24, 2017
Buckley was a British reporter whom was in the thick of things in Spain starting from 1929. He covered the Spanish Republic and many call this work "...the best of all contemporary accounts". What a tragic and misunderstood war! Highly recommended.
November 25, 2023
Uno de los mejores libros que he leído este año. La visión del periodista de guerra de Henry Buckley y como estuvo inmerso en todos los hechos importantes de la República hace que su discurso sea uno de los más importantes de su historia.
February 17, 2024
Very thorough of the account of the SCW with many detailed scenes of what was happening from inside the country. Reads like a journal/news source but not necessarily written for the layman. Some chapters and stories were mired in details and names that were hard to follow.
January 16, 2016
Me ha parecido un libro estupendo. El autor describe como testigo de primera mano (fue corresponsal en Madrid) los principales acontecimientos políticos que tuvieron lugar entre el final de la dictadura de Primo de Rivera y el final de la Guerra Civil. Me parece especialmente valiosa su aportación a la historia de la Guerra Civil, por su narración desde el punto de vista de quien la vivió desde el lado republicano, hasta ahora poco descrito en los libros (ya que la guerra la ganaron los golpistas). La viveza de su narración transmite perfectamente el horror y la desesperación de un gobierno y una población que, después de sufrir un golpe de estado fascista, en el exterior no solo no encontró apoyo sino que obtuvo la indiferencia de las «grandes democracias» francesa y británica ante la colaboración de Alemania e Italia con los golpistas. El final, dedicado a narrar la situación de los campos de refugiados del sur de Francia, deja con los pelos de punta.
Want to read
August 27, 2013Reviewed by The Independent (24 Aug 2013)
January 1, 2014
Very compelling, difficult to put down at times.
March 3, 2016
Superb stuff. Review to follow
April 11, 2016
2016 Best Read!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews