LA NUEVE — 24 August 1944. The Spanish Republicans who liberated Paris by Evelyn Mesquida. Preface by Jorge Semprún, four articles by Albert Camus and postscript by General Michel Roquejeoffre — eBook £1.50 available direct from our eBookshelf (or from Kindle £4.32 and/or Kobo £4.50). There are a limited number of copies of the print edition available for £15.00 (inc. postage): Paypal payments to christie@btclick.com
They are the heroes from a hidden page of history, the soldiers of La Nueve, No 9 company of General Leclerc’s renowned 2nd Armoured Division (DB). According to the history books, the liberation of Paris began on 25 August 1944 when General Leclerc’s 2e Division Blindée (2e DB)entered the city via the Porte d’Orléans. In fact, Leclerc began the push earlier, on 24 August, when he ordered Captain Raymond Dronne, commander of No 9 Company, to enter Paris without delay. Dronne thrust towards the city centre via the Porte d’Italie at the head of two sections from No 9 Company, better known as La Nueve.
Book, France, World War IIComments Off on LA NUEVE — 24 August 1944. The Spanish Republicans who liberated Paris by Evelyn Mesquida. Preface by Jorge Semprún, four articles by Albert Camus and postscript by General Michel Roquejeoffre. Translated by Paul Sharkey. ISBN 978-1-873976-70-8, 264pp, 16pp photos., paperback. Publication date 8 June 2015.
Apr162015
LA NUEVE — 24 August 1944. The Spanish Republicans who liberated Paris by Evelyn Mesquida. Preface by Jorge Semprún, four articles by Albert Camus and postscript by General Michel Roquejeoffre. £15.00/ €25.00 / $23.00 (+ p+p — £4.00, UK; EU, €9.00; U.S., $12.00). Publication date: 8 June 2015. A limited number of advance copies are available for purchase now. Orders (inc. Paypal payments) to christie@btclick.com (don’t forget the postage!)
Officers, NCOs and soldiers of the 9th Company of the 3rd March Regiment of Chad, La Nueve. First row, l-r: Martín Bernal, Antonio Gualda, Bullosa, Zubierta, Domínguez ‘el Extremeño’, José Cortés, Domínguez ‘el Valencia’, Blanco, Lt. Campos ‘el Canario’, Amado Granell, Sarasqueta, Captain Dronne, Montoya, Federico Moreno, Salvador, Antonio. Others include: Lozano, Pradas, Pedro Castillo, LLorden, Juán Molina, Delgado, Elías, Escudero, Royo, Antonio Curto, Felipe Rodríguez ‘el Feo’, Antonio Sanchez, Salinas, Anarés Carayón, Juán Fuentes, Ginés Martinez ‘el Gallego’, Valero ‘el Sevilla’, Gutiérrez, Fernando Moreno, Antonio Muela, Vazquez, Hernández, Jordi Gomis, Luís Morales, Andrés Castillo, Santi, Liébana, Antonio Navarro ‘Carapalo’, Abenza, Baños, Pablo Cañero ‘el Murciano’, Llesta, Clarasó, Floreal, Jacinto Paniagua y Fábregas. A number of the men chose not to appear in the official photograph citing their past activities and possible future involvement in clandestine anti-Francoist activities. Lt. Campos, for example, and his other anarchist comrades of ‘La Nueve’ set up arms and materiel caches for the urban and rural guerrillas of the Defence Commission of the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE) in exile.
They are the heroes from a hidden page of history, the soldiers of La Nueve, No 9 company of General Leclerc’s renowned 2nd Armoured Division (DB). According to the history books, the liberation of Paris began on 25 August 1944 when General Leclerc’s 2e Division Blindée (2e DB) entered the city via the Porte d’Orléans. In fact, Leclerc began the push earlier, on 24 August, when he ordered Captain Dronne, commander of No 9 Company, to enter Paris without delay. Dronne thrust towards the city centre via the Porte d’Italie at the head of two sections from No 9 Company, better known as La Nueve.
The first vehicle from La Nueve reached the Place d l’Hôtel de Ville on 24 August 1944 shortly after 8.00 p.m., “German time”. Amado Granell – Paris’s very first liberator! – climbed down from his half-track to be greeted inside the city hall by Georges Bidault, president of the National Resistance Council, Jean Moulin’s successor. Granell, like 146 out of the La Nueve’s 160 men, was a Spanish republican!
The Battle of Paris cost the 2nd Armoured Division the lives of 71 men and 225 wounded. Material losses included 35 tanks, six self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles.
On 26 August, General De Gaulle strode down the Champs Élysées accompanied by four vehicles from La Nueve acting as his escort and protection detail. The procession was led by Amado Granell and his armoured car.
Survivors of the Spanish Revolution and the civil war against Franco, having enlisted in the Free French army, the Spaniards of La Nueve — anarchists, socialists, communists and republicans — went on to liberate Alsace and Lorraine and continued fighting relentlessly into Germany as far as the Nazi heartland in the Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps. Of the 146 men who landed in Normandy, only 16 survived to be the first to enter Hitler’s Berchtesgaden Eagle’s Nest.
Evelyn Mesquida has done justice to these heroes of freedom, honouring the pledge she made to the survivors. Journalist and writer Evelyn Mesquida, is honorary chair of the Foreign Press Association in Paris and vice-chair of the European Press Club. She is the author of La Mémoire entre silence et l’oubli. Les soldats oubliés de la libération de Paris (Presses de l’université de Laval, Québec, 2006) and of Sorties de guerre des hommes de ‘la Nueve’ (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008)
World War IIComments Off on LECLERC’S SPANIARDS by Eduardo Pons Prades (translated by Paul Sharkey)
Apr152015
Martín Bernal is front row, second from the left
Eduardo Pons Prades, an acknowledged expert on the subject of resistance by Spanish republicans in France, in that he had fought as one of them and published a number of works on his adventures, invoked the Spanish exodus towards the French border at the end of the civil war, the treatment doled out to the Spanish refugees, the outbreak of the Second World War, the part played by Spaniards during the German invasion of France, the beginnings of partisan warfare in an exclusive series of articles for Historia 16. In the fifth instalment – using, as ever, the technique of allowing the protagonists to speak for themselves – he introduces us to the organisation of guerrillas, Spanish recruitment into the regular units of the renascent French army, the Spaniards’ part in the liberation of France and the beginnings of operations by “maquisards” inside Spain. (See also Spanish Republicans in the Liberation of Paris)
Spanish Revolution/Civil War, World War IIComments Off on A Spanish Company in the Battle for France and Germany (1944-45) Raymond Dronne (Kindle and Kobo ebooks). Translated by Paul Sharkey
Captain Raymond Dronne‘s memoir of the regular army unit he commanded from the summer of 1943 to the spring of 1945, No. 9 Company of the Chad March Regiment, also known as ‘La Nueve‘, a company made up almost entirely of Spanish veterans of the civil war and social revolution of 1936-1939 — anarchists, socialists, republicans. It was Dronne’s column that was ordered by General Leclerc to liberate Paris, which it did — flying the Spanish Republican flag from their Sherman tanks and half- tracks — on 24 August 1944. Of the 146 men of ‘La Nueve’ who landed in Normandy, only 16 survived to be the first to enter Hitler’s Berchtesgaden Eagle’s Nest.
La Nueve‘ (see FILMS – new documentary – in French), consisting almost entirely of Spanish anarchists and Spanish republican soldiers, captained by Raymond Dronne, was the first company of General Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division to liberate Paris and take the Nazi surrender. This article, in English, written by anarchist journalist Eduardo Pons Prade, originally appeared in Historia 16 in July 1985. 24 August 1944: at 21.22 hours several half-tracks and a Sherman tank (the ‘Romilly’), the vanguard of the Allied armies, drove into the square outside the Hotel de Ville in Paris flying the tricolour flag of the Second Spanish Republic. Painted on the vehicles were unforgettable names from the Revolution and Civil War in Spain: ‘Madrid’, ‘Jarama’, Ebro’, ‘Teruel’, ‘Guernica’, Belchite, ‘Guadalajara’, ‘Brunete’. They belonged to No 1, 2 and 3 sections of the famous IX Company (‘La Nueve’) of the Chad Regiment, whose 36 men, 32 of them Spaniards, were commanded by Martin Bernal (Zaragoza), Federico Moreno (Madrid), Montoya (Andalucia), Elias (Catalan), Campos (Canaries), and Dominguez (Valencia) — the men who liberated Paris – and a good part of Southwestern France …Spanish Republicans in the Liberation of Paris (PDF in English)
Documentary La Nueve – the Spaniards who liberated Paris(see FILMS above)
Article, Events, HistoricalComments Off on Republicanos en la liberación de París por Eduardo Pons Prades (1985) PDF
Jul092010
‘La Nueve‘, consisting almost entirely of Spanish anarchists and Spanish republican soldiers, commanded by Raymond Dronne, was the first company of General Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division to liberate Paris and take the Nazi surrender. This article, in Spanish, was written by anarchist journalist Eduardo Pons Prades and appeared in Historia 16 in July 1985. An English language translation will be posted shortly. Click HERE for Spanish pdf
Events, Historical, NewsComments Off on Christie Books Late Spring Film & Music Fest
Apr182010
All available via the Films link above
Eight songs by Matt McGinn, Glasgow’s foremost singer/songwriter/poet of the West of Scotland radical movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Matt was politicised at an early age by Robert ‘Bobby’ Lynn, fellow Ross Street resident and stalwart of the anarchist movement in Glasgow from the 1940s through to his death in 1996.
Unfortunately, Matt’s paean of praise to Bobby, ‘Bobby Lynn’s shebeen’, was never recorded (to the best of my knowledge). Here, however, are a few of his other recordings:
‘We Ain’t Gonna Dig No More’ (miners’ protest song);
‘Gallowgate Calypso’ (Ross Street, now no more, ran onto The Gallowgate, one of the oldest thoroughfares in Glasgow. It bore many similarities to Barcelona’s barrio chino);
‘Hi Jack’ (tongue-in-cheek satire on the spate of aeroplane hijackings in the 1970s);
‘Janetta’ (a beautiful tribute to Matt’s wife Janette);
’On the road from Aldermaston’ (about the Easter anti-nuclear bomb marches from Aldermaston to London);
‘This is oor land’ (about the 1960s Holy Loch protest marches from Dunoon to Ardnadam Pier);
‘The Depth of My Ego’ (inspired by the ideas of Max Stirner as introduced to Matt by ‘Bobby’ Lynn);
and, lastly, the hauntingly beautiful ‘Magic Shadow Show’ (inspired by Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam).
For further information go to – http://www.mattmcginn.info
La Libération de Paris
Short clips from the documentary — Le Journal de la Resistance — made by the Comite de Liberation du Cinema Francais during the urban guerrilla warfare in Paris between 15 and 25 August 1944. On August 15, the multi-national Resistance, including around 3,000 Spanish anti-Francoist refugees, launched an uprising in Nazi-occupied Paris. On August 25, the Resistance received backup with the entry into Paris of the half-tracks and armoured cars of ‘La Nueve’ (the Ninth Company of Foreign Volunteers’, manned mainly by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT) of General Leclerc’s Free French 2nd Armored Division. These armoured cars, named ‘Ascaso’, ‘Durruti’, ‘Casa Viejas’, ‘Teruel’ ‘ Guadalajara’, ‘Madrid’ and ‘Teruel’, flew the Spanish Republican flag on the victory drive through Paris. The US Army arrived later…. Paris was formally liberated by Spanish anarchists who were led to believe that after Berlin and Berchtesgaden their next objective would be the liberation of Madrid. Sadly, that was not to be …
LA NUEVE — 24 August 1944. The Spanish Republicans who liberated Paris by Evelyn Mesquida. Preface by Jorge Semprún, four articles by Albert Camus and postscript by General Michel Roquejeoffre — eBook £1.50 available direct from our eBookshelf (or from Kindle £4.32 and/or Kobo £4.50). There are a limited number of copies of the print edition available for £15.00 (inc. postage): Paypal payments to christie@btclick.com
