Spanish Civil War: Day-by-Day: 8th – 23rd November 1936

THE BATTLE FOR MADRID

The Nationalists were now poised to make an all-out attack on Madrid in the hope of capturing the Spanish capital and thus ending the war. The forces at their disposal were led by General Emilio Mola and the majority of them were units of the Army of Africa. Mola ordered Colonel Jose Varela to attack the north-west flank of Madrid's defences, and by 16th November Varela's troops had forced a bridgehead over the River Manzanares.

During the following week almost three-quarters of the University City fell to the Nationalists, but the poorly armed militia units that comprised the Popular Army, led by General Jose Miaja and aided by Russian tanks and aircraft, stemmed the Nationalist advance.

Republican defenders manning the trenches in Madrid.

Further assistance to the Republican cause came from the first International Brigade units to reach the front-line. It is worth noting that the XIth Brigade, which was mostly composed of German, Polish and French volunteers, arrived after the front-line had stabilised.

By 23rd November both sides were exhausted by the fighting and began digging in. Varela had failed to achieve the desired break-through. Although the Nationalists held the areas to the North and West of the city, it was obvious that all further frontal attacks upon Madrid would be costly and likely to fail.

A change is as good as a rest

After a week away from my painting table and work on my Napoleonic project, I feel much more motivated and hope to start work again on this project in the very near future.

I had originally set myself a goal to finish this project by Christmas ... and I could do that quite easily if I did nothing other than renovate, varnish, and base figures. However I have a feeling that if I tried to keep to that self-set deadline, my interest in the project would wane again quite quickly. So my new tactic is to do a little bit of work on the project as often as I feel like it ... and if that means a gap in 'production' of a week or a fortnight (or even longer), so be it. The project will get finished ... but not quite as quickly as I had originally planned.

Spanish Civil War: Day-by-Day: 6th November 1936

Because they expected Madrid to fall at any moment to the Nationalists, the Republican Government moved to Valencia. A Defence Junta, under the leadership of General Jose Miaja, was established to organise the last-ditch defence of Madrid.

General Jose Miaja.

Battalion

Over the past few years a growing number of war films originating in Eastern Europe (mainly Poland and Russia) have been released on DVD in the UK, and this is the latest one that I have bought.

BATTALION tells the story of the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death, a female-only Russian infantry unit that was raised in Petrograd in May 1917 and fought during the First World War. The driving force behind the creation of the unit was its first commander – Maria Bochkareva – and it was authorised by the then Minister of War of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky.

Maria Aronova as Maria Bochkareva.

The film's main character is Maria Bochkareva (played by Maria Aronova), a peasant women who had managed to join the Russian Army in 1914 and risen to the rank of a junior NCO by 1917, and who became the unit's commanding officer. After training ...

The battalion on parade outside the Winter Palace in Petrograd (St Petersburg)..

The battalion on a training run past the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, Petrograd (St Peterburg). (This Church was built between 1883 and 1907 on the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded in March 1881 by an anarchist's bomb.)

... the unit was attached to the 525th Kiuruk-Darinski Regiment, which was located near Smorgon.

The battalion's trenches.

It took an active part in the Kerensky Offensive, and managed to break through the German trenches ... unlike its male counterparts.

The battalion reached the German front line trenches, but were then unable to hold them in the face of a counter-attack. The angled pipes in the background are gas shell projectors or mortars that were known as Gaswurfminen.

The unit became isolated, and were eventually forced to retreat back to their starting point. The 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death was still in the front line when the October Revolution took place, but not long afterwards it was disbanded.

The story told by the film remains fairly true to actual events, although – as one would expect – it does change certain things for dramatic effect. The battle scenes are quite brutal and graphic, and are not for the squeamish. It also shows the effect 'Soldier's Committees' had on the discipline of the Russian Army (basically there was none!) and the inability of Officers to induce the rank-and-file of their units to do anything they did not want to do.

This film has been described as being a piece of modern propaganda – and it probably is – but the acting is good (if a little stylised in places), and the attention to detail is excellent. At one point during a trench raid one of the women picks up and fires a German light machine gun ... and it is a Madsen of the sort used by the Germans during the First World War!

The Callan File: The Definitive Guide

Whilst I was at the printer collecting the most recent issue of THE NUGGET, we were discussing the cost of publishing books. Over recent years I have used LULU.COM to print, publish, and market my books, but the printer tried to persuade me that they could do just as good a job and probably for less money. As an example of the sort of book that they can produce, the printer showed me a copy of a paperback that they had just printed and bound for a customer. It was THE CALLAN FILE: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE!

Now for wargamers and lovers of secret agent stories from the late 1960s and early 1970s, James Mitchell's antihero Callan was someone whose adventures we followed avidly. It was therefore an absolute necessity for me to obtain a copy of this book, and the printer was only too happy to oblige.

THE CALLAN FILE: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE has been written by Robert Fairclough and Mike Kenwood, and it has been published by Quoit Media Ltd. (ISBN 978 1 911537 01 4) It is over 500 pages long, and has a small selection of photographs at its centre. The book is split into the following chapters and sections:

• Acknowledgements
• Foreword by Peter Mitchell
• Introduction: 'I've got a job for you ...'
• 1. Section Personnel
• 2. Cold Warriors
• 3. ABC Presents ...
• 4. A Magnum for Schneider, A Red File for Callan
• 5. Series One: Nobody loves a freelance
• 6. Series Two: Hunter/Hunted
• 7. Series Three: Somebody got murdered
• 8. Series Four: Last rat standing
• 9. File on a Working Writer
• 10. 'A Bloody Good Little Film'
• 11. Never say Never Again: 'Wet Job'
• 12. MI5 not 9 to 5
• 13. Callan Lives!
• Afterword by Bharat Nalluri
• Appendices
• Footnores
• Bibliography
• Index

I watched as many episodes of CALLAN as I could when they were broadcast, and own DVDs of the film and numerous episodes. Despite this, even a quick look through this guide revealed that my knowledge of the character and the stories is far sketchier than I thought.

This book is an absolute 'must buy' for Callan aficionados, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Spanish Civil War: Day-by-Day: 4th November 1936

The Nationalists captured Getafe.

Russian fighter aircraft appeared for the first time in the skies over Madrid.

Nugget 294

I collected the latest edition of THE NUGGET (N294) from the printer on Wednesday morning, and I hope to post it out to members of Wargame Developments by later this afternoon.

I have already uploaded the PDF versions of THE NUGGET and THE NUGGET COLOUR SUPPLEMENT to the Wargame Developments website, and they are available for members of Wargame Developments to read online or to download and print.

IMPORTANT: Please note that this is the third issue of THE NUGGET to be published for the 2016-2017 subscription year, and that members who have not already re-subscribed can still do so if they want to. This can be done by visiting the relevant page on the Wargame Developments website.

FIFA and the Remembrance Day Poppy

I'm not a great lover of football. (By football, I mean is soccer, and not American or Australian Rules Football). It is a 'sport' that has become so commercialised that it has become just another business, with overpaid executives and players. It was not always thus ... but the arrival of satellite and cable TV changed all that.

At the top of world football is FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Over recent years it has been rocked by a number of scandals related to bribery at the highest level within the sport, with the result that a large number of its top officials have been indicted of – and in some case either been found guilty or pleaded guilty to – corruption.

Despite this, this 'august' body (and I mean that ironically!) has ruled that on 11th November the England and Scotland football teams MAY NOT wear Remembrance Day Poppies on their shirts or on armbands because FIFA regards wearing them as contravening its rules

This is the today's headline from the relevant BBC Sport webpage.

According to the BBC:

Fifa has turned down a request from England and Scotland for players to wear armbands featuring poppies when they face each other at Wembley on Armistice Day, says the Scottish Football Association.

The two nations meet in a 2018 World Cup qualifier on 11 November, the day when the United Kingdom traditionally remembers its war dead.

SFA chief Stewart Regan says Fifa, which bans political, religious or commercial messages on shirts, is "sticking to the letter of the law".

I find FIFA's ruling on this matter to be very offensive. It offends me that an international body that is known to have been corruptly run at the very top for many years, feels that it can ban the wearing of something that is dedicated to the memory of millions of war dead because it rules it to be a 'political, religious or commercial message'.

I shall wear my poppy with pride and not a little humility ... and I hope that both the English and Scottish Football Associations will encourage its international teams to do so, regardless of FIFA's ruling. If they do, I might just learn to like football a little bit more.

Spanish Civil War: Day-by-Day: 2nd November 1936

The Nationalists captured Brunete.

A poor quality newspaper photograph of Nationalist troops advancing on Brunete in November 1936.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside ...

It was foggy when we woke up yesterday morning, but by 11.00am it had almost cleared and the sun was shining. Sue and I decided to take advantage of the good weather, and drove to Herne Bay in Kent for lunch and a walk along the seafront.

We arrived in Herne Bay just after 1.15pm, parked in the main car park, and walked down to the seafront.

We ate fish and chips for lunch in Makcaris ...

... and then went for a walk along the promenade.

The recently renovated clock tower dominates the sea front.

It is 'guarded' by two canons that were recovered from the sea by divers.

It also bears two commemorative plaques, one in memory of the local men who volunteered to served during the Second Boer War ...

... and to the memory of Edward Henry Griggs, who was killed by the clock's weight whilst he was repairing the clock in 1905.

A bit farther along the promenade we reached the Grand Bandstand, which houses another branch of Makcaris and an Indian Restaurant.

Just past the Grand Bandstand ...

... and close to the railings along the seaward side of the promenade is a recently erected statue of the famous British aviatrix, Amy Johnson.

Amy Johnson died when the aircraft she was flying crashed into the Thames Estuary just north of Herne Bay.

We then retraced our route back along the Promenade, and once we reached the human sundial ...

... we then turned inland so that we could walk along Mortimore Street, Herne Bay's vehicle-free shopping street. After a little retail therapy we returned to our car and drove home.

We had a wonderful day out, enjoying what may well be the last warm and sunny day of the year.