On this day, 12 August 1936, after the French government shut the border with revolutionary Spain, the first international volunteers who were heading to Spain to join the fight against right-wing general Francisco Franco began crossing the Pyrenees mountains on foot.
While Nazi Germany and fascist Italy was supplying thousands of troops, and heavy weaponry to Franco, the left-wing Popular Front government in France assisted a blockade of Spain, helping deny aid to its own Popular Front government which the right-wing were attempting to overthrow through civil war.
Tens of thousands of mostly working class people from around the world travelled to Spain to try to help defeat the fascists. Around 15,000 of them would never return home.
We have books about the conflict, as well as items commemorating the international volunteers available here to help fund our work here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/spanish-civil-war
Pictured: Republican troops crossing the Pyrenees, 1939 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1782534338598375/?type=3