Pages

Saturday 16 July 2016

Spanish Civil War: Eighty years on

Tomorrow marks the eightieth anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War.

I first became interested in this conflict when I went on a package holiday with my family to Spain in the mid 1960s. General Franco was still very much in charge, and units of the Spanish Army patrolled the beach near our hotel every evening.

Hugh Thomas's book THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR (which had been published in 1961) was my starting point, and from then until the mid 1980s I did as much research as my limited time and resources allowed. I finally turned everything that I had found into a book aimed at wargamers, and the first edition of LA ULTIMA CRUZADA! (THE LAST CRUSADE) was published by Partizan Press in 1989. A heavily revised second edition was published in 1993.


To mark this anniversary I have decided to publish a daily account of the events of the Spanish Civil War, using the text of the chronology I included in my book as the basis of these extra blog entries.

8 comments:

  1. I own and enjoy "La Ultima Cruzada". Maybe one day i will finally paint the figures....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steven Page,

      I have thought about writing a third edition of the book as I have quite a lot of additional information that I could add,

      As to painting some figures ... well I also have quite a number of unpainted SCW figures that I ought to paint sometime.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  2. Ah Bob now I'm torn between picking up a copy now or waiting to see if you write an updated version....

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pete.,

      If you can get a copy of the second edition, then I'd buy it if I was you. I don't know if or when I will get around to writing a revised third edition.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. Interesting stuff Bob - I hadn't known you'd written a book on the subject.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Conrad Kinch,

      Back in the early 1990s my book was quite popular amongst wargamers who were interested in the Spanish Civil War ... so much so that other people copied great chunks of it and tried to pass my work of as their own. In one case I confronted the plagiarist at a wargames show, and he quite literally turned and ran away! (I might have had my 'killing face' on at the time, which might account for his reaction.)

      If you ever want any information about the SCW, ask and I'll see what I can do to help.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Bob- I think IRREGULAR Miniatures (Ian Kay) does excellent 20mm Spanish Civil War figures- may be worthwhile having a look at their Web Site in the UK. Regards. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kev,

      They are very nice figures, and I have some of them in my collection.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

Thank you for leaving a comment. Please note that any comments that are spam or contain phishing messages or that come from Google Accounts that are 'Unknown' will be deleted.