“Arms for Spain!” Demonstration

Protests in support of the Spanish Republic in Britain reached a crescendo in the early months of 1939 as Franco’s forces came ever closer to victory in the Civil War. The fall of Catalonia in January 1939, alongside Britain’s search for rapprochement with fascist Italy, were the catalyst for a series of potent demonstrations across Britain. During the autumn the slogan had been “Arms and Food for Spain” as hunger gripped Republican territory, but now it was understood that only the immediate abandonment of Non-Intervention and the provision of arms could save the Republic from defeat: hence the abbreviated demand of “Arms for Spain”. 

The London street protests captured the headlines. On 31 January thousands of protestors marched to Parliament Square, where they were dispersed with such brutality by the police that the matter was eventually debated in parliament. A few days earlier a group of engineers from the De Havilland and Handley Page aircraft factories had begun a series of demonstrations, in many cases leaving work an hour early to join in. This group of workers were emboldened by the knowledge that they were in the forefront of the government’s rearmament programme. In the words of one shop steward: “We know some of [the aircraft] are going abroad, but we know they are not going to the Spanish Government. We feel they must go there and we are going to have a voice in this”. 

Some of the protests were more innovative. Two women recently returned from serving as medical volunteers in Spain poured red paint on the steps of 10 Downing Street, and two protestors carrying an “Arms for Spain” banner ran onto the pitch during Nottingham Forest’s match with Southampton in front of 3000 fans (see exhibit). A similar banner was unveiled at Aston Villa’s match with Arsenal, where there was a crowd of 55,000. When the home team lost 3-1 the News Chronicle journalist quipped that “arms for the Villa attack would have been more appropriate”.  

The “Arms for Spain” demonstrations showed that support for the Republic in Britain was both committed and enduring. However, by late February (when Britain formally recognised Franco’s regime as the legitimate government of Spain) it was clear that political concessions would not be forthcoming. Activists’ energies then turned to the unfolding humanitarian crisis that marked the final phase of the Civil War. It was now a question of collecting food to send to starving refugees and putting pressure on the British government to evacuate Republicans who faced imprisonment and death under the victorious Nationalists.