Songs Of The International Brigades

“Giacomo Caladrone, of the 12th Garibaldis, writes of a strange phenomenon that occurred among the waiting troops. Darkness had fallen along the ravines and defiles leading to the Ebro. The heat of the day had been dispelled by a cool breeze and the water-smell of the nearby river. With this coming of darkness and starlight, singing began. It spread spontaneously among all the companies of the battalions. The hundreds of voices were softly muted, hardly audible beyond the nearest olive tree. It was as if a wave of whispered sound, a musical soughing of wind in tall trees had swept the ranks of the Italian anti-Fascists. Some say this also happened with the Poles, and with the Spaniards, and with the Thaelmanns and Lincolns.

It was *not* something new. There had been singing before on the eve of battle. But something qualitative had seemingly taken place. It was as if each man was caught up in the total meaning of the songs, and felt an urgency, a need to sing them *now*, in this time of final battle. They seemed acutely aware too that the long road from Madrid had reached its end; that beyond the swift-flowing river there waited not just another campaign, but, rather, a fight that would mark either a new beginning or the end for the Spanish Republic. And because of this the weariness, the despair, and the demoralization born of the great retreats was thrust aside. The singing affirmed a new dedication—though none was needed or asked. It affirmed a continuing belief in the total meaning of the songs, which told of freedom, equality, heroism, and sacrifice, and of a world of humanist principles in contrast to the other world epitomized by the forces that lay beyond the river.

In the proximity of the singers the soft humming would be for the Spaniards and the Socialist-Communist youth the “Hymno del Riego” and “La Joven Guardia.” For the anti-Fascist Italians it would be “La Bandiera Rossa” and perhaps “Il PiaveMormorava.” For the Catalan Anarchists, the poingnant “Hijos del Pueblo,” and for the Germans, Poles, English and Americans a medley of national tunes and revolutionary songs of many languages.

Time passed, and the singing stopped, and the lines of men began to move silently to the river's edge.”

Arthur H. Landis, 'The Abraham Lincoln Brigade,' 518-19.