300 Belgians never returned from the war of all wars against international fascism. Around forty of their compatriots fought alongside the conservative rebels. Belgium also became a key player in the illegal arms trade to Spain and took in 5,000 children from besieged Republican zones.
Franco’s victory was followed by a dictatorship that lasted for almost four decades and gave free rein to kleptocrats and corrupt officials, of whom Belgian entrepreneurs and shareholders also fell victim.
In Spanish Trenches offers an overview of Belgian involvement in a conflict about which so much more has been written in other countries: the harbinger of a new world war, with Belgian veterans of the Spanish Civil War who became resistance fighters in their own country.
