Abstract

Guernica and after: Australian war correspondents and the Spanish Civil War

The bombing of Guernica ( 26 April 1937 ) during the Spanish Civil War is one of modern history's great atrocity stories. International outrage at the time over the mass death of civilians, the historical significance of the Spanish Civil War and the enduring fame of Picasso's painting have ensured that Guernica is a continuing symbol of the horrors of industralised warfare. The wider world was alerted to the bombing by George Steer's famous article in the The Times. Another prominent observer of events at Guernica was the Australian war correspondent, Noel Monks, who covered the war for the Daily Express of London. The destruction of the Basque town changed the course of Monks' life and confirmed him in his career as a war correspondent, one of the longest serving Australians in that field.

In this paper I want to look at the role played by Monks in reporting the Spanish Civil War and also that played by Ronald Monson, another Australian war correspondent working in Spain for a Fleet St newspaper. I shall show how their coverage of events in Spain between 1936 and 1939 established their careers as "professional" war correspondents, further enhanced the reputations of Australian journalists working in London and laid the ground for the achievements of such famous reporters in the Second World War as Alan Moorehead and Chester Wilmot. I shall also examine Phillip Knightley's analysis of the media coverage of Guernica in his seminal history of war reporting, The First Casualty. As this year, the 70th anniversary of the bombing, has seen considerable attention paid to the consequences of the outrage, it is fitting to look at the part played by Australians in drawing the attention of the world to the Spanish conflict.

Richard Trembath
University of Melbourne