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The exodus provoked by the Civil War (1936–1939) is, due to its magnitude, the principal field of study on Spanish exile. Nevertheless, during the Spanish Republic in peacetime (1931–1936), different exiles took place which have not raised as much interest within the historiography. This is the case of those that had to flee Spain after being involved in the October Revolution of 1934. They were anonymous activists, the middle ranks, and also well-known leaders of the working-class movement, many of whom would play an important role during the time of the Popular Front, the Civil War and exile. In order to carry out this study, the archives of the five French départements bordering Spain, the Archives Nationales and the Archives de la Préfecture de Police in Paris were consulted. That facilitated identifying two hundred and seventy-five refugees, as well as understanding important aspects of their route towards exile, how they crossed the border, what their the journey was and the vicissitudes they experienced in French territory and what the conduct of the French authorities was. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About 2,800 volunteers of the American contingent of the International Brigades, generally known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, served in Spain from 1937 to 1939. After the fall of Barcelona at the end of January 1939 many ended up in French refugee camps. This article draws on first-hand eye-witness accounts to paint a picture not only of the withdrawal from Spain after the fall of Barcelona in January 1939 but also of conditions within the camps in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1934 French politics became polarized in a bitter struggle for the soul of France between Jeanne d'Arc and Marianne. In the course of the war in Spain, the positions taken by the Left and Right did not change; they simply hardened. Socialist doctrine was grounded in pacifism, but now it had to confront fascism. The Right, in its many varieties, was pro-appeasement and pro-Mussolini, and did its best to close its eyes to Italo-German rapprochement; Hitlerism was viewed as a terrible danger, but it was still the lesser ideological evil. Toulouse provided a fine observation point on Spain, and its varied press included the centre-left La Dépêche, of international renown. Among its writers, Heinrich Mann and Émile Vandervelde expressed an excessive pro-Republican optimism (as did Léon Blum in Le Midi Socialiste). L'Express du Midi called for volunteers for Franco, and Franco fumed at the poor response. Guglielmo Ferrero meanwhile warned that Europe was now plunged into the greatest intellectual and moral confusion in all its history. With Franco's victory, what all sides came to realize was that France now faced hostile forces on three frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]