Lessons of the War in Spain (review)

The publication of the 1940 English translation of Gen. Maurice Duval’s original study, completed some fourteen months into the Spanish Civil War, should be of interest to historians on several levels. Duval was a noteworthy military figure who, before observing the war in Spain, had headed the French army’s Air Service during the last part of World War I and led the development of French air forces thereafter. This English translation of his book, by American army reserve officer and fervent Franco supporter John Eaoghan Kelly, has remained hitherto unpublished and very difficult to find; one typed copy is at the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle, while the other is in the hands of the editor himself. This new edition, moreover, benefits greatly from the critical commentary of editor Michael E. Chapman, who carefully compares Kelly’s English translation not only with the original French text, but also with the German and Spanish editions of 1938.

Duval devotes the first part of his book to the political and social genesis of the war, and it is here that his own conservative bias against the Republic’s supporters is most clear. But he also reveals a much more nuanced understanding of some of the social and political conflicts that plagued pre-war Spain than many foreign military observers, who often portrayed the war’s origins in black-and-white terms. Duval writes, for example, of the “traditional intransigence of the Spanish Church and the tyranny that it exercised over the state on different occasions […]”—a description hardly typical of Franco’s supporters (p. 7 n30). In fact, the translator Kelly, who was also Franco’s principal lobbyist in the U.S., went much farther in his attempts to portray the war in Manichean terms of good versus evil, as Chapman’s excellent comparative analysis of and commentary on the book’s various translations makes clear.

The war’s political background is never far below the surface in Duval’s book. He writes that “politics provides war’s raison d’être, its character, and its ends,” and he emphasizes the influence of political considerations not only on the composition and leadership of the opposing forces, but also on their strategies and tactics (p. 5). His principal operational analyses focus on the Nationalists’ initial march on Madrid, the battle of Brunete, and the successful Nationalist attacks on Bilbao and Santander in the north. Especially interesting are the lessons for the future he draws with respect to maneuver, artillery, and airpower—including strategic bombing, close air support, and the use of planes as a substitute for traditional artillery. He also comments on tank warfare, the infantry-heavy composition of both sides’ forces, and the similarities he perceives to World War I conditions even before 1918, not hesitating to point out where the Spanish case does not provide what he considers to be relevant lessons. His dismissal of the Republican forces’ unorthodox organization and leadership is not surprising, especially at this early point in the war.

Yet this edition of the book consists of far more than the original text and its translation. Chapman’s commentary in itself has much to offer, as does his introduction to Duval’s work and the history of its translations. In the introduction it is not always as clear as it should be whether Chapman is paraphrasing or stating his own opinions, and readers with scant knowledge of the war will need to look beyond the introduction for sufficient explanation of its origins and course. His description of the Loyalists, for example, as “typically modernist and atheistic, with many socialists, anarchists, and some Communists,” begs further explanation (p. vii). But the introduction also includes many interesting and important observations about the text, such as his identification of Henry Lloyd’s Political and Military Rhapsody (1798) as a major influence on...