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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]