Walter Togwell’s Military Identity Card

Walter (Wally) Togwell was twenty-four years old when he arrived in Spain to join the International Brigades. He had no military experience (his military identity card gives his profession as a waiter) but he was already steeped in political activism, having joined the St Pancras (London) Young Communist League in 1933. He was particularly proud of his leading role in the branch’s Youth Band which was at the front of every march. During the mid-1930s he played his part in resisting Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and was thrown down the stairs of the Royal Albert Hall by stewards. After the “battle” of Cable Street in October 1936 a friend asked him why, if he was such a passionate anti-fascist, he was not fighting in Spain. Convinced, Wally joined the International Brigades as soon as possible, joining a party of volunteers that was eventually guided across the Pyrenees into Spain.  

In many ways Wally was highly representative of the British volunteers in Spain. The great majority were of working-class background, many being members of trade unions or, like Wally, the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement. They came from across Britain, but above all from London and the industrial areas of South Wales, northern England and central Scotland. Many were members of the Communist Party, but the essential criterion – as stated on Wally’s Carnet – was that they should be an anti-fascist. Wally came from a large family and was single. However, a significant minority of the volunteers were married men, sometimes with families, and this required a massive fund-raising effort to provide support for their dependants in their absence.  

Wally enjoyed mixed fortunes in Spain. He experienced prolonged trench warfare in the Jarama Valley having arrived after the most violent fighting there had subsided. However, in July 1937 he participated in the Republican offensive at Brunete where he was fortunate not to be wounded, and was one of only forty members of the British battalion still fit for service at its conclusion. He then served with the battalion through the chaotic retreats in Aragón (March 1938) and during the final offensive across the river Ebro (July-September). His experiences were frequently traumatic – he saw a number of friends killed by his side – barely mitigated by periods of leave in besieged Madrid and recuperation in Tarazona. 

After the battalion’s withdrawal from the Ebro Wally took part in the International Brigades’ final march in Barcelona, where women and children strewed flowers across the road, and he heard La Pasionaria’s moving farewell address. After his repatriation to Britain he served in the Royal Artillery in India during the Second World War. He also joined the International Brigade Association, which was only open to those who had “served democracy in Spain”. In 1996 he returned to Spain at the invitation of the Spanish Government and was delighted to see the warmth of the response that he and other surviving volunteers received from young people. He passed away in 2000.