Talk:Lincoln Battalion

Untitled
Jersey, The fact that many volunteer fighters came from other countries is important because it provides context for the Brigade: the American volunteers of the Brigade were not alone or in any way perculiar for being there--the fight against Spanish fascism was a cause joined by many idealistic youths from across the world. Orwell is a major writer who writes about the American volunteers and the Bridage in "Homage to Catalonia." I think that's quite relevant because it is a first-hand description of the int'l volunteers, including the Americans. Hemingway witnessed the war first hand and is a major American novelist. Although Hemingway's protagonist in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is not depicted as part of the Brigade per se, he is an American volunteer whose decision to risk his life and to fight is described, very relevnt to the mondset of those in the Bridage. So it's relevant as a one liner with that clarification made in the article. I am giving you a chance to respond, if you wish. --NYCJosh 00:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Since you have not responded in some time, I will assume you agree with my thinking on these points and I will re-post. --NYCJosh 23:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The international brigades are already in the see also section and the ALB's role in it is stated in the text, so it is not as if the context of the Brigade being a faction of an international movement is being left out. Also, with regard to the following comment: "Orwell is a major writer who writes about the American volunteers and the Bridage" having read Homage to Catalonia it is true that Orwell had some contact with American soldiers from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade but it was minor contact and Orwell mainly fought alongside the Independent Labour Party and the POUM i.e., Englishmen and Spaniards. There is no real reason to list Orwell up there except the fact that he is a notable figure associated with the Spanish Civil War. It will also confuse people into thinking that Orwell was directly associated with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade whilst the truth is that Orwell wasn't even associated directly with the International Brigades at all.--Jersey Devil 01:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Images
I have taken the liberty of removing the previous image, and have added a couple of others in its place. I do not believe that the previous image had any specific connection to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade; it is just a poster for the CNT.--Pharos 10:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, just because NYU used the image as a random illustration on a website, does not mean that the CNT poster has anything specifically to do with the Lincolns. I'm removing it again.--Pharos 22:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed: Battalion not Brigade
I'm proposing moving this to Lincoln Battalion with redirects from here; and Abraham Lincoln Battalion. It is seriously confusing calling it a brigade in the article heading, This implies it occupied the same position in the military hierarchy as XV International Brigade, XI International Brigade etc which of course it didn't. Obviously, it needs a section discussing the colloquial use of Abraham Lincoln Brigade but this oughtn't be the main article name.
 * Yeah, but that would exclude the George Washington Battalion and the John Brown Anti-Aircraft Battery. The term "Abraham Lincoln Brigade" despite being a military colloquialism, has very high currency, in the works of many writers on the subject, and is used officially in the veterans' publications and at the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.--Pharos 19:35, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it involves abandoning anything ... The way forward, perhaps is to (1) expand this article into a broader piece about Americans in the Spanish Civil War (which is the sub-text here anyway) and (2) have satellite articles on the specific military units (Lincoln Bn, Washington Bn, John Brown Bty etc), linking both to here and to articles on the larger military units of what they were a part. I have lots of material that is pertinant. Roger 05:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Red-baiting?
The following paragraph has been described as smelling like red-baiting: "'The reason why the Lincoln Battalion was magnified into a whole brigade' was because 'publicists in the Communist Party back in New York' decided that the 'American commitment to … Spain would be magically quadrupled in size by altering a single word.'" Eby doesn't mince his words but that doesn't make the content inaccurate. Marion (Robert Hale Merriman's wife) says much the same thing in American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (1986). Here are a couple of |interesting letters in the New York Review of Books, by Lillian Gates (wife of John Gates and William Herrick (former brigader) touching on the same subject. Incidentally, referring to the popular inflation from battalion to brigade doesn't mean that I buy into the whole Un-American Activities thing :)) Anyhow earlier edits of mine re-posted sans the "red-baiting" paragraph. Roger 08:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Moe Fishman dies
An list of remaining survivors? NYT obit of ALB vet.

Sorry, I don't have a list for you, but if you want one more, a close friend of my family was one of the last survivors. He was Nate Thornton, and died of natural causes at home in California a few days short of his 96th birthday on Sunday, January 2nd, 2011. I personally queried him about his activities in the one day I spent with him in 2008, that was the day the writer was interviewing for this oral history:

http://www.albavolunteer.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Oral_History_Nate_with_Pictures1-1.pdf--208.127.100.74 (talk) 04:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Frank Murphy
Your insistence on your conclusion that the entry about the indictments of Abraham Lincoln brigade recruiters by Frank Murphy is unencyclopedic and ungrammatical is completely baffling. It also ignores an important encyclopedic (and documented) fact. I'll also put this on the Discussion page. 7&amp;6=thirteen (talk) 10:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC) Stan


 * Well, let's look at what you added, shall we?
 * Franklin Roosevelt's Attorney General Frank Murphy indicted sixteen alleged communists and fellow travelers for recruiting for the brigade persons from Detroit.
 * I'm not saying that the facts you added are encyclopedic, merely the format: how it was written (badly) and where it was placed. It was something of a non sequitur where you put it, and the lowercase "communists" and the red-baiting phrase "fellow travelers" throw the entire thing into doubt. Besides which the whole thing is totally unreferenced. So yes, it's unencyclopedic. +ILike2BeAnonymous (talk) 17:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Debs brigade
The article at this moment begins: "The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades." Why is there no mention of the Debs Brigade? That seems to be an oversight big enough to be considered a real inaccuracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.57.235.0 (talk) 01:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Help needed
I searched for Despidida and found something about an song by a pop princess instead of the parade held in Barcelona recognizing the ALB and other international troops who fought with the Republicans.

There was also no disambiguation page!

How can a page about the real Despidida be written and the pop song be given another page name like Despidida (fluff) instead?--AveryG (talk) 20:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln so-called Brigade
Since there never was any such formation, why is the article called that?

If idiots continue to get the name of the unit wrong, why are we siding with the idiots?

Call it by its right name. Varlaam (talk) 00:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This is exactly the same sort of misnomer as the "Congressional" Medal of Honor, where what people choose to call it by mistake is irrelevant to an encyclopedia which presents the facts.
 * Varlaam (talk) 16:04, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:COMMONNAME. The article does a good job of explaining that the name is not accurate, but after the war, coverage of the veteran's group led to wide popularization of the name. We are realists, not pedants.  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  22:13, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree with here.  Geo Swan (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Aftermath section
I see that there is a mention of J. Edgar Hoover regarding the withholding of commissions for ALB members (or more correctly, members of the various foreign brigades that sided with the Republicans/Loyalists), with a citation needed marker. Wasn't the withholding of commissions a result of the Dies Committee ? 66.182.212.7 (talk) 22:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Salaria Kea
What is Salaria Kea's status in regards to this brigade? Her page states that she was involved as nurse - "Kea decided to volunteer the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and joined the American Medical Bureau working with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in March 1937" - but I can't find her listed as a member of the XV International Brigade or this specific battalion. Does anyone have more info as to how she was involved, and where she should be listed? LookOnMyEditsYeMighty (talk) 08:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

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Notable members
The list of notable members included the following: I've cut them because they don't have articles. (On Lidz, see also this.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Harry Lidz – Heroic, eccentric uncle in Franz Lidz's 1991 memoir Unstrung Heroes and his 2003 urban historical Ghosty Men: The Strange But True Story of the Collyer Brothers.
 * Edwin Rolfe – Poet.
 * Maury Colow – Artist and Peace Activist.
 * Eddie Balchowsky – Artist, Poet, & Pianist, and inspiration for Jimmy Buffett song "He Went to Paris".
 * , please don't fear the redlink. Please don't unlink wikilinks, merely because they are redlinks.  If you come across material you think is unencyclopedic, because an individual lacks a standalone article, please don't excise it solely on that basis.


 * You didn't include any diffs, so later readers would have to do too much work to see clearly what you were excising. Please learn to use diffs.


 * Lidz and Balchowsky clearly were referenced. GNG clearly says that individuals who may not seem notable enough for a standalone article may nevertheless merit lesser coverage in a section of a related article.  So I don't think your excision had a firm policy basis.  Geo S.. wan (talk) 04:07, 22 November 2020 (UTC)


 * , Lidz and Balchowsky were indeed referenced -- to a "paid notice" and a commercial scrape of Wikipedia respectively.


 * The article on Balchowsky does now cite solid references for his participation. The article on Rolfe currently states "Rolfe served in the Spanish Civil War with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade", but with no reference.


 * Lidz and Colow may indeed be noteworthy. (And of course you're right: The notability threshold for list inclusion isn't the same as that for an independent article.) You may wish to present evidence for their notability and their membership, or evidence for Rolfe's membership. (I am, of course, most willing to believe that each was a member and that Lidz and Colow were at least slightly notable aside from their membership.)


 * As for "later readers would have to do too much work to see clearly what you were excising", you puzzle me. I state above exactly what I'm excising, and I attach a date to it (24 July 2017), so it's easy to find within the history. Special:Diff/788488399/792050840, for whatever reason you want it. -- Hoary (talk) 23:27, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * WRT using diffs, I think you should have included the actual diff(s) to the edits where you excised this material. When you left this note you had presumably just made those edit(s).  They were probably then the very last edits to the article.  So, this is when the diff(s) should have been captured, and left on the record.  You say it was "easy to find".  I don't know that, from looking at the comment you left.  You might have made multiple edits, that day.  You might have made dozens.  In future, I encourage you to do the relatively trivial work of including the recent diff, when you leave the note, rather than leave third parties to do more work, later.


 * Confirming Rolfe was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War was trivial. The first half dozen hits to the google search "Edwin Rolfe" "spanish civil war" all confirm this.  One calls him "the poet laureate of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade"


 * Google also confirmed Lidz and Colow were veterans. I suggest that, if you were concerned those entries were unreferenced the choice of adding a cn after them, if you felt you were too busy to spend 30 second with google, was a more policy compliant choice open to you.  Geo Swan (talk) 02:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

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"Battalion" vs. "Brigade" controversy
Help me out. I gather from the article (though it isn't explicit, but, rather, ambiguous) that: The "Abraham Lincoln Battalion" was formed during the war and was assigned to one of the International Brigades, and it consisted of largely American volunteers plus men of other nationalities. American volunteers also served in the "George Washington Battalion" and various other units and capacities during the war. The term "Abraham Lincoln Brigade caught on after the war for political purposes, or to puff the significance of the American volunteer contribution, or (and I think this is most likely) as a convenient tag for all the American veterans of the war, the media finding it simple and expeditious to do so compared to the more complicated truth, and maybe thinking "brigade" a more impressive term than "battalion". Simple error may also have been a contributing factor, until, over time, all American veterans of the war were referred to as members of the legendary (actually non-existent) Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Anthony Gumbrell 03:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonygumbrell (talk • contribs)

"Abraham Lincoln Brigade" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 00:56, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Mercenary...
The lead paragraph currently characterizes the volunteers as "mercenaries"... According to the Third Geneva Convention a "Lawful Combatant" (1) are commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (2) wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (3) carrying arms openly.

Soldiers who enlist in the French Foreign Legion aren't mercenaries. Gurkhas who enlist in the British Army aren't mercenaries. Somthing like 50,000 Canadian citizens enlisted in the US Armed Services, and served in Vietnam. They weren't mercenaries.

Since the International Brigades fought with the Republican Army, beside Spanish units, under the command of Spanish officers, they would have been considered lawful combatants, according to the Third Geneva Convention.

Mercenaries, on the other hand, are not lawful combatants. 

So I removed mercenary from the lead, and replaced it with "volunteer", in the two occurences in the body of the article. Geo Swan (talk) 03:03, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

How many of the volunteers who went to fight with the International Brigades were communists...
I did a lot of work on the article on Delmer Berg, when he was the last surviving American veteran of the Brigades. I know he wasn't a communist, when he traveled to Spain, because he described reaching the decision to become a communist while recovering from wounds, once he had already been serving there.

The article currently states all the volunteers were communists. That was not true, and I doubt it is verifiable, because we aim for verifiability, not truth. Geo Swan (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Similarly, this quote seems unverifiable in principle, despite having a citation: "They did not understand the far greater degree of oppression the Communists they aligned themselves with, were committing. [7]"


 * I agree, that quote is subjective at best and unverifiable and plain wrong at worst. MrFronzen (talk) 20:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Battalion vs Brigade, again
There seems to be a lot of confusion here (viz this, and this, and this) over the name of this unit. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was the name given to the XV International Brigade, which was a six battalion formation that included the American 'Lincoln battalion' (the subject of this article). Having both units named for Lincoln was a bit confusing, but the terms 'brigade' and 'battalion' are clear enough. One problem with this page is that it seems to include stuff that ought to be on the XV IB page, such as the list of units (which I've re-named 'Other American units' to clarify the matter); maybe they should be moved? Xyl 54 (talk) 20:04, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

International Brigades names and 'concealed' character
The text has a not at all encyclopedic and very politically sectarian tone contrary to the International Brigades and their struggle against fascism, and in order to maintain this ideological narrative unbecoming of a rigorous historical text it incurs numerous inaccuracies.

From the very beginning the conspiratorial tone reaches comic extremes, as in the phrase " It was organized by the Communist International with great care to conceal or minimize the communist character of the enterprise. Attractive names were deliberately chosen for the International Brigades, such as "Garibaldi" in Italy or "Abraham Lincoln" in the United States.". But as numerous works have shown this is at least a debatable interpretation (see The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War, by Giles Tremlett, or the works of Paul Preston, Angela Jackson, Pierre Vilar et al., the testimonies of members of the brigades of different militancies like Ben Hughes, John Lagdon-Davies, Arthur London, Giovanni Pesce, R. Skoultesky, or reporters like Ernest Hemingway). The Garibaldi battalion was composed of anti-fascist Italians, many of whom were not members of the Communist Party, and chosed the name in a vote among its members, and not as a conspiratorial ploy to conceal its alleged ‘evil true character’, and the open character of the brigades responded to the policy of the Popular Front adopted by the Communists which contemplated broad alliances with socialists and other anti-fascist forces, it was not a way of hiding another concealed character or purpose than fight fascism. The Brigades were recruited mainly by the communists, but put at the service of the Republic and always at the orders of the democratic republican government and officials, and following their military hierarchy and instructions.--Boletaire (talk) 07:57, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Song
40th Anniversary US "Those were the days" Sung by Mary Hopkins 192.119.43.136 (talk) 04:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)