The International Brigades were a multinational armed force of 35,000 soldiers who, from late
summer 1936, fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. They were mobilized from more
than fifty different countries to support the Republican militia, assembled by unions and political
parties to resist the military insurrection organized under General Franco, which very soon relied on
the financial support of Mussolini and Hitler. Although the Loyalist Generals Vicente Rojo (2010:
471) and Enrique Líster (1977: 318) claim that the relevance of the Brigades to the outcome of a
number of battles was exaggerated by propaganda, the Internationals filled, to various extents, the gap
left by insurrectionists in the professional Spanish army until the Republic could rearticulate its own
forces.
