148702 20250124145432.0 doi 10.17104/1611-8944-2018-2-203 sideral 123420 ART-2018-123420 eng Gaspar Celaya, Diego (orcid)0000-0001-8891-9879 «Premature Resisters». Spanish Contribution to the French National Defence Campaign in 1939/1940 2018 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Thousands of Spaniards actively contributed to the defence of France in 1939/1940, whether as military contractors, legionnaires or soldiers of the Regiment de Marche de Volontaires Étrangers (RMVE). This paper focuses on three elements of their contributions. First, it investigates the importance of French internment camps for Spanish refugees’ that became key recruitment grounds for soldiers and labourers. Secondly, it will analyse the importance of the French General Staff's decision to veto the creation of Spanish autonomous units within the regular French armed forces, and how this compared to the situation of Polish and Czechoslovakian volunteers. Thirdly, the declaration of war on 3 September 1939 will be highlighted as a crucial turning point for French attitudes towards the recruitment of Spanish contractors and soldiers. Despite those changes in attitude, the Spanish contribution to France's defence in 1939/1940 – and to the French resistance – was never recognised by politicians in the post-war era. This is a fourth aspect of the entangled Franco-Spanish history of the Second World War that will be analysed in this paper, thereby highlighting how the memory battles between French Gaullists and Communists, reinforced by the context of the Cold War, left little space for the commemorative inclusion of «outsiders». info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess All rights reserved http://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/ 0.483 2018 HISTORY 50 / 95 = 0.526 2018 Q3 T2 0.32 2018 History 2018 Q1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion 16, 2 (2018), 203-224 Journal of Modern European History Journal of Modern European History 1611-8944 316001 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/148702/files/texto_completo.pdf Postprint 2659618 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/148702/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Postprint oai:zaguan.unizar.es:148702 articulos driver 2025-01-24-14:51:19 ARTICLE