The Fall of Madrid
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1939, the Spanish capital, Madrid, finally fell to the fascist forces of General Franco – spelling the end of a brutal Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians were killed. The city had been under siege for more than two years and had become a symbol of resistance for the defeated Spanish Republic. Simon Watts has been listening to the memories of Rene MacColl and William Forrest, two British war correspondents who reported from Madrid.
PHOTO: Franco's troops entering Madrid in 1939 (Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service with me Simon Watts. |
| 0:42.0 | Today we're going back to 1939 and the end of the Spanish |
| 0:46.7 | Civil War. The last city to fall to the forces of the |
| 0:53.1 | Fascist leader General Franco was the capital Madrid. |
| 0:54.5 | I've been listening to the memories of two British journalists |
| 0:58.1 | who reported from a city that was under siege for more than two years. |
| 1:05.0 | It was a cold, rather dull Spanish spring day. |
| 1:11.0 | We of the International Press Corps were drawn up at the side of a dusty, stony, |
| 1:16.8 | pitted roadway about 35 miles due south of Madrid. |
| 1:22.1 | On the 28th of March 1939, |
| 1:25.0 | Rennie McColl of London's Daily Express |
| 1:28.0 | was with a group of journalists accompanying General Franco's troops. |
| 1:32.0 | From somewhere down the road that sounded an extraordinary opening General Franco's troops. |
| 1:32.6 | From somewhere down the road that sounded an extraordinary wailing sound. |
| 1:36.7 | It was a repetition of a single word over and over again. |
... |
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