The the XV International Brigade (XV Brigada Internacional), more popularly known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (Spanish: Brigada Abraham Lincoln), was a mixed brigade that fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War as a part of the International Brigades.
The brigade mustered at Albacete in Spain, in January 1937, comprising mainly English-speaking volunteers – arranged into the mostly British Saklatvala Battalion and the mostly North American Lincoln Battalion. It also included two non-English-speaking battalions, the Balkan Dimitrov Battalion and the Franco-Belgian Sixth February Battalion. It fought at Jarama, Brunete, Boadilla, Belchite, Fuentes de Ebro, Teruel and the Ebro River.
Lincoln Brigade in The War That Came Early[]
The Lincoln Brigade had been one of several brigades fighting against José Sanjurjo's Nationalists for two years when a broader war broke out in Europe in 1938.
Leaders of the Brigade hoped that the Allies might take a more direct hand in the Spanish Civil War as a consequence of the wider war. Initially, the Republicans received a supply of munitions from France enabling the Republic to maintain the Ebro line, retake Vinaroz, and gain a new lease of life. However, as the broader European war continued, aid to both sides dried up, and the war became stalemated. Moreover, the Lincoln Brigade volunteers felt increasingly frustrated at finding themselves in a forgotten backwater, with the world's attention riveted to the struggle of French, British and exile Czechoslovak troops blocking the German offensive at the northern approaches of Paris. The Brigade's soldiers were also disheartened by the severe wounding of their admired commander Milton Wolff - nicknamed "El Lobo" ("The Wolf" in Spanish); Chaim Weinberg was involved in saving Wolff's life and getting him to urgent medical treatment.
In mid-1939, the Lincoln Brigade was moved from the deadlocked Ebro Front to Madrid, with the aim of pushing away the Nationalist forces which had posed a threat to the Spanish capital since 1936. In the following years, they had a leading role in the Republican's limited success in moving the front from the direct outskirts of the city to a line about 45 minutes' drive away, leaving the destroyed campus of the University City of Madrid - long a hotly disputed battleground - far behind their lines. However, they failed to achieve a strategic change in the long-stalemated trench war, resembling the battles of the First World War more than the fast-moving war in other parts of Europe.
In the fighting, many of the original American volunteers were killed, their places taken by Republican Spaniards - as the war in Spain was now considered a backwater and there were no new Americans arriving. All members of the brigade, whether American or Spanish, called themselves "Abe Lincolns" and were highly respected - grudgingly, also by their Nationalist foes - as one of the Republic's best units.
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