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ABSTRACT
The image of the foreign fighter (or foreign war volunteer), whether true or imagined, is clearly a potent one. This article aims to challenge some of the popular images associated with foreign volunteering. First, it examines the gap between the often romantic and idealistic descriptions of foreign volunteering and the far less romantic realities they faced. It then explores the exaggerated importance that has often been ascribed to cohorts of foreign volunteers by their contemporaries, using both historical and recent examples. Finally, the article illustrates how the image that surrounds foreign volunteers is sufficiently powerful to influence the way conflicts abroad are remembered.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. McCain and Salter, Worth the Fighting For.
2. Blaustein, “My Fellow Prisoners: On John McCain.”
3. “John McCain: By the Book.”
4. For some recent examples, see: Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden; Kruizinga, “The First Resisters”; Acciai, “I primi volontari italiani”; Acciai, “Traditions of Armed Volunteering”; Raeburn, “The ‘Premature Antifascists?’”
5. O’Connor and Gutmann, “Under a Foreign Flag”; Heyriès, “The Garibaldian Volunteers in France.”
6. See, for instance: Marco and Anderson, “Legitimacy by Proxy.”
7. Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden, 4.
8. Kirschenbaum, International Communism and the Spanish Civil War, 83.
9. Bessie, Alvah Bessie’s Spanish Civil War Notebooks, 2.
10. MacDougall, ed., Voices from the Spanish Civil War, 125.
11. The original text is in Spanish. See: Sidbrint: memòria històrica brigades internacionals.
12. The volunteers are identified in: Bacon, “Human Rights Column: From Spain to Delano.”
13. Tsou and Tsou, “The Asian Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War: A Report,” 349–50; ‘Artemo (Jack) Luna’, Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives [ALBA].
14. United States, Tamiment Library, New York University, ALBA 70: David McKelvy White Papers, box 1, folder 10, Luna (Barcelona) to Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (New York), 23 June 1938. The archival record does not reveal when Luna was repatriated or what became of him after his participation in the war in Spain.
15. See, for instance: Buchanan, “Ideology, Idealism, and Adventure,” 123–40.
16. MacDougall, ed., Voices from the Spanish Civil War, 151–2.
17. For further analysis of the moral dilemmas in the novel, see: Cohen, “Robert Jordan’s (and Ernest Hemingway’s) ‘True Book’,” 42–64.
18. Stabler, “‘Awake to Terror’,” 69; Marchand, Byron: A Biography, 878–7.
19. Cited in: Thompson, “The Interest of English Poets in Italian Freedom,” 175.
20. Dawson, Soldier Heroes, 1.
21. Li, “Jihad in a World of Sovereigns,” 384–5.
22. “Analysis of the Testimony of Witness VS-1013,” 25 July 2007, ICTY. See also: “Jadranko Prlić’s Final Brief,” 29 March 2011, ICTY; “Slobodan Praljak’s Redacted Final Trial Brief”, 31 March 2011, ICTY.
23. Chris Stephen, “Mujahideen Madness Imperils Dream of Multi-Ethnic Bosnia,” The Observer, 27 June 1993.
24. Scott Peterson, “Bosnian Mujahideen’s Anti-British Grudge Adds to the Nightmare,” Daily Telegraph, 6 November 1995.
25. Secretary General of the United Nations to the President of the Security Council, 27 May 1994, ICTY. The report was cautious not to overstate the foreigners’ importance.
26. General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 30 November 1995.
27. See, for instance: Patrick Jackson, “Ukraine War Pulls in Foreign Fighters,” BBC News, 1 September 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28951324; Shaun Walker, “‘We Are Preventing a Third World War’: The Foreigners Fighting with Ukrainian Rebels,” 24 September 2015, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/ukraine-conflict-donbass-russia-rebels-foreigners-fighting; Maja Zivanovic, “Donbass Brothers: How Serbian Fighters Were Deployed in Ukraine,” BalkanInsight, 13 December 2018, https://balkaninsight.com/2018/12/13/donbass-brothers-how-serbian-fighters-were-deployed-in-ukraine-12-12-2018/.
28. See, for instance: Courtney Weaver, “Chechens Join Pro-Russians in Battle for East Ukraine,” Financial Times, 27 May 2014, https://www.ft.com/content/dcf5e16e-e5bc-11e3-aeef-00144feabdc0; Adam Taylor, “The Foreigners Who Flocked to Join the Fight – in Ukraine,” Washington Post, 22 August 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/22/the-foreigners-who-flocked-to-join-the-fight-in-ukraine/?utm_term=.1704868b6ece.
29. David M. Herszenhorn, “Russia is Quick to Bend Truth About Ukraine,” New York Times, 15 April 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/world/europe/russia-is-quick-to-bend-truth-about-ukraine.html
30. “Ukraine/Foreign Armed Actors: UN Expert Group Urges Accountability for Human Rights Violations,” United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner, 22 March 2016.
31. “Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2202 (2015), Security Council Calls on Parties to Implement Accords Aimed at Peaceful Settlement in Eastern Ukraine,” 17 February 2015.
32. The survey does not represent a cross-section of society in the UK, though people of varying age groups and from different parts of the country participated. Not all of the respondents are British nationals as the survey included a small number of foreigners who reside in the UK. Responses that were repeated by less than a handful of participants are not included in .
33. Arielli, From Byron to bin Laden, 153.
34. This figure does not include three responses where answers fitted into more than one foreign-volunteer related box (e.g. ‘Orwell’ and ‘Hemingway’).
35. Dawson, Soldier Heroes, 1.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nir Arielli
Nir Arielli is Associate Professor of International History at the University of Leeds. He specializes in the modern history of Europe and the Middle East. His most recent book, From Byron to bin Laden: A History of Foreign War Volunteers, was published by Harvard University Press in 2018.