| “Marching soldiers in farewell ceremony for the International Brigades.” The British Battalion, 15th International Brigade, 1st Company, the “Major Atlee Company,” named for Labor Party Leader Clement Atlee (January 3, 1883 – October 8, 1967), who visited the British Battalion in December 1937; marches past in the review of the International Brigades as they leave Spain. War photographer Robert Capa (October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) spent most of the 1st 9 months of 1938 in China. When he finally returned to Spain, in October, the news was bad. In an attempt to win Hitler’s friendship, Stalin had ordered the International Brigades to disband, thereby more or less guaranteeing victory to Hitler’s ally Dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco (December 4, 1892 – November 20, 1975). Capa’s return to Paris in autumn 1938 was not as happy as he had hoped it would be, for soon after his arrival there was disheartening news: on the last day of September, in an effort to appease Hitler and to avert war, England and France had signed the Munich Pact, giving the Sudetenland to Germany. Seeing that he could not count on his western European allies, Soviet dictator and Premier Joseph Stalin (December 18, 1878 – March 5, 1953) began at once to make overtures of friendship to Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945). Among his 1st gestures in that direction were his withdrawal of Russian advisers from Spain and his agreement that the International Brigades should be disbanded. Neither gesture had great military significance, for the Russians left behind a large number of well-trained Spaniards, and the foreign volunteers had dwindled — largely because of extremely heavy casualties — to a mere 6,000 men. Symbolically and psychologically, however, the departures of the Russians and of the volunteers were debilitating to the Spanish Republic, which now felt itself pitted alone against the vast resources of international fascism. On October 16, 1938, in the hills near Falset, a few miles east of the Ebro River, Capa photographed the men of the British Battalion / 15th International brigade as they marched in their final review. On October 25, Capa, in the company of Polish photographer and close friend David “Chim” Seymour November 20, 1911 – November 10, 1956), drove out to Montblanc, where government and military leaders were to bid farewell to a large delegation of volunteers of all nationalities. The Spanish premier, Juan Negrín (February 3, 1892 – November 12, 1956), was scheduled to speak to the departing International Brigades. Capa focused on the men’s strong faces, whose sadness reflected their certainty that the departure of the brigades would mean the Republic’s defeat. Capa’s pictures show hundreds of men reduced to tears but defiantly waving their fists in the air after hearing his speech. They’d survived on foul-tasting diets of dried mule and goat meat through 2 bitterly cold winters. Now their fight was almost over. 4 days later Capa and Seymour covered Barcelona’s exuberant but bittersweet farewell parade for the volunteers. Capa woke early. All that morning he fretted, worried that his Leicas were somehow faulty. Finally, word arrived that a farewell parade of the International Brigades would start at 1630 Hours – the exact time of the final march-by had been kept secret in case of a massive air raid. When Capa reached the famous “Diagonal” at the centre of Barcelona, he found tens of thousands of emotional Catalans waiting to say goodbye, their arms full of bouquets. Tears began to flow as the 1st group of volunteers arrived: an honor guard of Republican soldiers and sailors, singing at the tops of their voices. Then the 1st of the Internationals appeared – Germans of the 11th Brigade, marching 8 abreast. Women ran towards them and showered them with flowers. Petals soon formed a carpet beneath their battered boots. Then the sky filled with strips of paper, raining down from windows above. Small boys joined the ranks and were lifted high on to the weary men’s shoulders. Finally, 200 men from the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade arrived. The flowers, in places ankle-deep, slowed their proud stride. At the head of the column was their tall, handsome commander, Milton Wolff (October 7, 1915 – January 14, 2008), hoping his fellow ‘premature anti-fascists’ shaped up in comparison to the other foreigners. Capa had 1st met Wolff when he’d taken a picture of him and Hemingway before the pair went into action on the Abril front in early 1938, and Wolff still admires him for his ability to smile on misfortune, to lift the spirits of others around him. “Capa always put on a good face,” he says. “No gloomy Gus, that madman Hungarian! We all admired his photographs, his guts. You can see from his pictures in Spain how close he was most of the time to the front. He’d butter up officers to get into their good books, so he’d get close to the action.” Once all the international volunteers had gathered in the Diagonal, Dolores “La Pasionaria” Ibárruri (December 9, 1895 – November 12, 1989), the figurehead of resistance to Franco, took her place at a podium to address them. A sombre, middle-aged woman with fiercely intelligent eyes, she had famously declared that it was “better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” She spoke to the women in the vast crowd 1st. When the years pass by and the wounds of war are stanched, she instructed, “speak to your children. Tell them of the International Brigades. Tell them how these men gave up everything, their loves, their country, home and fortune, and came and told us, ‘We are here because Spain’s cause is ours.’ …Thousands of them are staying here with the Spanish earth.” She spoke to the men next. “You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy’s solidarity and universality. We shall not forget you, and when the olive tree of peace puts forth its leaves again, mingled with the laurels of the Spanish Republic’s victory, come back!” Gerda Taro (August 1, 1910 – July 26, 1937) should have been there beside Capa, working as his ideal partner, if not his wife. So many should have been there. But they were not. Thousands of volunteers, along with the innocence of an entire generation, had been lost. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0829.jpg |
| Image Size | 194.31 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1347 x 1016 |
| Photographer | Robert Capa |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 16, 1938 |
| Location | |
| City | Falset |
| State or Province | Catalonia |
| Country | Spain |
| Archive | International Center for Photography |
| Record Number | 1211.1992 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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