Robert Hale Merriman

Robert Hale Merriman
Born	November 17, 1908 Eureka, California, U.S.
Died	April 2, 1938(1938-04-02) (aged 29) Tarragona, Second Spanish Republic
Cause of death	Killed in action or executed
Education	University of Nevada, Reno University of California, Berkeley
Employer	University of California, Berkeley
Known for	Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Military Service
Allegiance	Spanish Republic
Service/branch	International Brigades
Unit	The "Abraham Lincoln" XV International Brigade
Battles/wars	Spanish Civil War

Robert Hale Merriman (November 17, 1908 – c. April 2, 1938) was an American doctoral student who fought with the Republican forces in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He was killed while commanding the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the International Brigades.

Early years

Merriman was born in Eureka, California, the son of a lumberjack. He grew up in Santa Cruz, graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1925, and went on to study economics at the University of Nevada. To earn some extra money while attending the university, he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) where he received basic training with arms.

On May 9 1932, he graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics, and later that same day wed Frances Marion Stone, one year his junior. Upon completing his degree, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. Later that year he returned to California as a doctoral student in economics at the University of California, Berkeley and worked as a teaching assistant. The Merrimans became an active and popular part of an idealistic community of liberal and leftist graduate students, which included future renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

In 1935 Merriman exercised a one-year scholarship to see communist economics first hand in Moscow, in particular agricultural economics. His wife accompanied him.

Later, when applying to join the XV International Brigade in Spain, he stated on his application that when in Russia he had spent a year studying at 'a communist academy' - perhaps referring to the International Lenin School - then had gone on to study the Soviet agricultural economy. However, his wife's memoir makes no mention of the Lenin School or other communist school, but does recount Merriman's visits to Soviet farm collectives, discussions with Soviet economic officials, and other activities concerned with the agricultural economy.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Merriman became convinced that defeating the fascists in Spain and then Germany would prevent a second World War, and against his wife's wishes and the advice of their friends, he left for Spain before his scholarship year was up to volunteer with the Republican side. His wife temporarily remained in Moscow.

Spain

Combat

Soon after his arrival in Spain on January 11, 1937, Merriman found his way to the town of Albacete, location of the headquarters and training bases for the Republican International Brigades, and was quickly accepted into the XV International Brigade. Also on January 11, he began keeping a diary, which he maintained until November 1, 1937. His diary was later to prove a valuable historical resource.

The International Brigades, including the XVth, were recruited, organized and directed by the Comintern (Communist International), with a recruitment center in Paris. About 3/4 of the mostly young recruits were communists before they became involved in the conflict; more joined the party during the course of the war. The Lincoln Battalion (later to be popularly known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade) was one of four XV International Brigade battalions and was composed mostly of American volunteers. Like the European battalions, the Lincoln was composed largely of communists; but unlike the Europeans, the majority of Americans were students who had no previous military experience. Merriman's ROTC training meant that, at the age of 28, he was at first put in charge of the training of the 428-man Lincoln, and then by the end of January, appointed battalion commander. He held the rank of Captain of the Spanish Republic.

The Lincoln Battalion first saw action at the Battle of Jarama (6–27 February 1937). Their role was to prevent Nationalist forces taking the main Madrid-Valencia road. The Lincolns took appalling casualties, particularly in the assault of Pingarrón, which became known as Suicide Hill. Merriman himself sustained a serious arm and shoulder wound.

Following Jarama, he was appointed chief of staff for the XVth Brigade, and while recovering from his wounds, he spent his time organizing and training the International Brigades. His place as battalion commander was taken by US Army veteran Martin Hourihan. On March 2, Merriman cabled his wife to join him in Spain. She helped nurse him back to health and also joined the International Brigades.

The depleted Lincolns, together with the depleted British Battalion and a second understrength US battalion (the George Washington Battalion), were reorganized into a regiment commanded by Briton Jock Cunningham. A second regiment of the XV International Brigade was composed of remnants of the Dimitrov Battalion and Sixth February Battalion and a Spanish battalion (Volontario 24). The two regiments next fought in the Battle of Brunete (July 1937), and again suffered appalling losses. Of the 2,500 men of the XV who went into the battle, only 1,000 effective soldiers remained.

The Americans ... were cut to pieces. The Washingtons sustained fifty percent casualties and the Lincolns were heavily depleted as well. Of the eight hundred Americans in the Lincoln and Washington Battalions at the start of the Brunete offensive on 6 July, only five hundred effectives remained.

In November 1937 Merriman prevailed upon his wife to return to the U.S., ostensibly for the purpose of raising funds for the Brigade. But in her retrospective view, he had come to believe the war was unwinnable for the Republicans, and his real purpose was to send her to safety. He entrusted her with the diaries he had been keeping since his arrival in Spain. They last saw each other on November 17. She departed for the U.S. on December 22, with the intention of eventually returning to Spain.

Death

Now recovered from his wounds, Merriman was still chief of staff for the XV International Brigade, but largely acted also as a battalion battlefield commander. He led the Lincoln-Washington Battalion during the Battle of Teruel during the Aragon Offensive (March 7-April 19 1938). The battalion was badly beaten with great loss of men, and hastily reconstituted with untrained and badly-equipped or recently hospitalized recruits. Under heavy attack by Nationalist tanks, aircraft, and fast-moving truck-borne infantry, the Americans were again badly mauled at the Battle of Belchite (March 10). The battalion was shattered, broken into smaller elements. In danger of being surrounded, they were forced to retreat towards Catalonia and its boundary river, the Ebro.

Merriman took charge of a mixture of elements including the brigade staff of commanding officers, and remnants of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion and the XI International Brigade. On the night of April 1, they retreated to a hill just outside the town of Gandesa. On the day of April 2 they attacked the Nationalist forces in Gandesa in an attempt to break through in the direction of Corbera d'Ebre to Republican lines, but were repulsed. The survivors were forced to return to the hill. On the night of April 2, he led another attempt to break through Nationalist lines, this time via a cattle trail. The men formed a column and began filing towards Corbera, but in the dark they lost contact and the column fragmented into smaller groups. A group including Merriman, brigade commissar David Doran, and survivors John (Ivan) Gerlach and Joe Brandt inadvertently stumbled into a Nationalist encampment. Gerlach and Brandt later stated they heard gun shots and the order in Spanish, “Manos arriba” (Hands Up). Gerlach and Brandt then fled and lost contact with Merriman. It is believed that Merriman, Doran and others with them were either killed outright then or executed after being captured. Their remains were never found.

For some time, Merriman's family was led to believe he was safe because of conflicting reports about his whereabouts. His wife never heard from him after March 1938. On April 13, there was news that he had "miraculously escaped death or capture", but she eventually came to believe he died in the retreat.

Ideology

Merriman apparently subscribed to the communist ideology, or was on the verge of doing so, by the time he arrived in Spain. Prior to January 1937, he either was uncertain of it, or chose not to openly profess it, even to his wife. In his wife's memoir, she states positively he was not a communist. And according to various accounts written by those who knew him or knew of him in Spain, and to Comintern archives, he was not a communist, or in any case not a member of a communist party. When he enlisted with the XV International Brigade, he was listed as an “anti-fascist”, a label used for non-communist volunteers.

In January 1937, shortly after he enlisted, he applied to join the Communist Party of Spain. It is possible his motives were not idealogical, as membership of the party was de facto required for any leadership position in the International Brigades. However, his diary entries of Feb. 17 and 18 of 1937, written on the eve of the Lincoln Battalion's first battle, read in part:

...May others live the life I have begun and may they carry it still further as I plan to do myself. Long live Communism!...Long live the Soviet Union! Men may die but let them die in a working class cause.

There is no evidence that Merriman ever acted under the direction of any foreign or communist entity.

Legacy

Following Merriman's death, the XV International Brigade was reconstituted mostly with Spanish communist volunteers and folded into the regular Spanish army. It remained in the lines for nearly eight more months. It fought in one more major engagement, the Battle of the Ebro (July 25-September 23, 1938). Following the battle, the Spanish government demobilized the surviving foreign volunteers in the International Brigades, and most were pulled out of Spain by the end of December 1938.

His widow later remarried and had three children. She worked at Stanford University, and in 1986 published a memoir, American Commander in Spain. She died in December 1991 at the age of 82.

The 6'4" Merriman is believed to have been the inspiration for Robert Jordan in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Merriman and Hemingway briefly met in Madrid, and Hemingway was "deeply impressed" with the young idealist.

Sources

• Merriman, Marion; Lerude, Warren (1986). American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Nevada: University of Nevada Press. ISBN 0-87417-106-7.
• Eric Blaine Coleman, Some Men Put In Their Lives: Americans in the International Brigades, Spain 1936-1939, (2001)
• Antony Beevor, Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 (2006) ISBN 978-0-297-84832-5
• Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War. (Revised edition 2003) ISBN 978-0-14-101161-5

External links

• Merriman in Spain
• The Lincoln Brigade in Spain
• New York Times review of book about Merriman
• Merriman in the Spanish Civil War (Spanish)
• The photo archives of the American Volunteers in Spain - ALBA