Trench Warfare Did Not End with World War I: The Orwell Trenches of the Spanish Civil War

Showing Solidarity with the Boys in Spain's Trenches

By Tony Langley

British writer George Orwell (pseudonym of Eric Blair 1903–1950) is justly renowned for his books 1984 and Animal Farm. Prior to publishing those works, he described his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War in Homage to Catalonia (1938).

After arriving in Spain in December 1936, he joined the anarchist POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista—Workers Party for Marxist Unification) militia more by happenstance than for any specific ideological reason and after a short and laughable training in Barcelona was stationed on the Aragon/Huesca front, in the semi-arid and remote Monegros (Black Hills) region. This was one of the few regions where static warfare prevailed for a long period of time during the Spanish Civil War, and, as a result, more or less permanent trench systems and fortified positions were built. Owing to their remoteness and the semi-arid climate prevailing in the Monegros, many of these are still visible and in relatively good condition today and worth visiting.

"Over the Top" Look

Spain is an archeologist's playground, even without restoration of Civil War sites. With the Orwell trenches, the same high standards were applied regarding authenticity in use of materials: natural stone, weather-worn tree trunks and branches, dried shrub and thorn, scavenged old doorways. The sandbags used in the restored trenches are even made of actual burlap and sand, not the usual concrete with burlap relief as used in most sites in France and Belgium. This little touch may be somewhat optimistic regarding the longevity of these sandbags, even in a virtually rain-free climate, but it does confer that extra touch of authenticity.

Informational Kiosk Discussing Orwell's Service

Due to the rigorously hilly terrain, the front in the Monegros sector was not formed into a continuous line of trenches, but rather into a series of distinct strong-points and fortified positions that were mutually supportive. Trenches would run for several hundred meters around the forward slopes of hills before petering out into inaccessible terrain. Use was made of barbed-wire and Spanish riders, to protect the trenches from infiltration and enemy raids, but barriers made of thorn/shrubwood and branches were often just as effective and abundantly available.

There are similarities with Western Front trench systems of course, trenches being essentially but ditches in the earth. The abundance of natural stone in Spain, however, gives the Orwell trenches a look that is often similar to those on the Italian Front in the lower Alps. Sniper or machine-gun positions are made of natural stone walls, usually curved and often sheltered with wooden beams again covered with natural stone, earth or sandbags. Sleeping, cooking or weather shelters were constructed of natural stone, much like a rural goatherd-shelter, while blankets or scavenged doors were used to keep out the wind and cold, which Orwell described as being penetrating and debilitating in this part of Spain in winter.

In Spain's Fields the Poppies Also Blow

A general consciousness of the Spanish Civil War is slow in coming to the new post-Franco Spain. However, during these last years it is evolving, and the restoration of the aptly and poetically named Orwell Trenches in Alcubierre is a sign that things are changing. A further section of these trenches is earmarked for restoration in the coming years, and some 15 km behind the former Republican lines, concrete bunkers constructed by Republican agrarian collectives have also been restored.

Other Civil War sites worth visiting in the region are the totally destroyed and preserved towns of Belchite and Roden. These are haunted places, the ruins looking as if fighting had ended but a year or so ago. No attempts have been made at clearing rubble or lining off dangerous areas. Visitors can walk among the ruins of houses and buildings and imagine they are making their way among any of the destroyed villages and towns on the Western Front. The scent of rosemary and wild mountain thyme, crushed underfoot while walking the parched earth, hints to the difference in location and conflict. But here in Spain, too, poppies grow abundantly amongst the ruins and old trenches, indicating at least some type of communality between these two 20th-century wars, separated so little in time, but so much in ideology.