Fighting For Another Country
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In February 2022, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss voiced her support for those individuals who wanted to travel to Ukraine to help, what she interpreted as, "a fight for democracy". These comments have come under fire from fellow politicians, journalists and former members of the Armed Forces - but why? In this episode James is joined by Giles Tremlett, to discuss the similarities, and lessons that can be learnt from the foreign volunteers in the Spanish Civil war. Tales of George Orwell's experiences, fights against fascism, and stories from those en route to Ukraine already : when people go to war for another country, do they really know what they're signing up for?
Giles' book is called 'The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War'
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | At this very moment people across the world are contemplating volunteering to go and fight in Ukraine. |
| 0:06.4 | In the 1930s many people were asking similar questions and faced the same dilemma during the Spanish Civil War. |
| 0:14.0 | British novelist George Orwell was one of these people. |
| 0:18.0 | He wrote about the realities of his decision to go to Spain in homage to Catalonia. |
| 0:24.1 | It is not easy to convey the nightmare atmosphere of that time, |
| 0:27.7 | the peculiar uneasiness produced by rumors that were always |
| 0:31.0 | changing, by censored newspapers and the constant presence of armed men. |
| 0:36.3 | It is not easy to convey it because at the moment the thing essential to such an atmosphere does |
| 0:41.3 | not exist in England. |
| 0:43.0 | One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war propaganda, |
| 0:47.0 | all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. |
| 0:53.0 | I'm your host James Rogers, and with all this in mind, here on the warfare |
| 0:57.1 | podcast we wanted to delve deep into the history of foreign fighters. |
| 1:01.5 | To take us through this history, we have Charles Tremlet on the |
| 1:04.2 | podcast. Charles is the author of an excellent new book, The International Brigades, |
| 1:08.8 | fascism, freedom, and the Spanish Civil War. He's also a guardian correspondent and a fellow of the |
| 1:15.5 | London School of Economics who is currently researching the growing number of |
| 1:19.9 | foreign fighters in Ukraine. Hi Joss, thanks for taking the time to come on the Warfare Podcast. |
| 1:38.6 | Well, it's a pleasure to be here. |
| 1:40.8 | Warfare is very much of the day. It is indeed an important time. |
| 1:45.9 | Especially as many of us would have heard the UK Foreign Secretary's comments stating that she |
| 1:51.3 | absolutely supported UK citizens going to Ukraine to join the so-called |
... |
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