In 1938, the fascist generals who had launched their insurrection two years earlier had divided the country but had not been able to seize Madrid. The Republican government was running out of fuel, arms and options, and decided on one last roll of the dice. Juan Negrin and his government agreed to send their army, including the International BrigadesInternational Brigades Full Description:Military units composed of approximately 35,000 foreign volunteers from over 50 countries who fought for the Spanish Republic. Recruited, organized, and controlled by the Comintern (Communist International), they were idealized as symbols of anti-fascist solidarity. Brigades included the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the British Battalion, and the French Commune de Paris Battalion. They suffered catastrophic casualties, particularly at the battles of Jarama, Brunete, and the Ebro. Critical Perspective:The International Brigades are both the war’s most romanticized and most manipulated institution. The volunteers’ courage was genuine—many were unemployed workers, intellectuals, and veterans of previous struggles. But the Brigades were also a Soviet instrument, used to enforce Communist Party discipline within the Republican camp and to marginalize anarchist and non-Stalinist leftists. Their dissolution in 1938, ordered by the Republic to appease the Non-Intervention Committee, was a betrayal of the very idealism they embodied. , across the River Ebro to strike deep into Nationalist territory, in the hope that a solid victory would inspire the British and the French at leas