THE INTERNATIONAL BRIGADES / FASCISM, FREEDOM AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

The Spanish Civil War was the first armed battle in the fight against fascism, and a rallying cry for a generation. Over 35,000 volu nteers from sixty-one countries around the world came to defend democracy against the troops of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Ill-eq uipped and disorderly, yet fuelled by a shared sense of purpose and potential glory, disparate groups of idealistic young men and wo men banded together to form a volunteer army of a size and kind unseen since the Crusades, known as the International Brigades.