Homage to Catalonia: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Immersed in life at the front, Orwell discovers that material concerns prove to be a more present worry than the enemy. In the trenches, what matters most is food, lighting, and, in particular, warmth. Orwell notes that, in general, throughout his time in Spain, he experienced very little actual fighting. He never lived through the bombings and attacks that are generally thought of as the horrors of war. Rather, in his experience of the trenches, opportunities to engage in combat and actually wound the enemy were extremely scarce.

During his day-to-day activities on the hill, Orwell reflects on the futility of this kind of war, while at the same time admiring the beauty of the landscape. He describes the long mountain chain of the sierra, the valley, the surrounding hills, and the Pyrenees seen in the distance. The landscape is quiet, bare, and strangely devoid of birds. To Orwell, it looks dead and empty.

At night, patrols are sent to the valley between Orwell’s position and the Fascist trench. Despite the cold and the chance of getting lost, Orwell often takes advantage of this opportunity to walk, which he considers a welcome break from trench life. After various attempts, he manages, on one occasion, to come close to the Fascist line. Suddenly, he hears the sound of steps approaching him and, in his panic at being discovered, hides behind a bush. Luckily, the enemy passes by without noticing him.

Orwell is given the title of corporal and put in charge of twelve men. He describes the difficulty of training the soldiers, most of whom are teenagers whose lack of discipline and experience represents a serious danger to their own companions. At the front, because of their need to sleep, young boys prove incapable of guarding a position at night. Orwell judges that, were the enemy to make any attempt to attack, they would have no difficulty in taking control of their vulnerable position.

Inefficiency, Orwell thinks, is inherent to the Spanish militias. As groups organized based on the founding principle of social equality, the militias aim to function as a model classless society, where all soldiers are treated just the same, regardless of rank and experience. Democracy is valued over hierarchy and, therefore, when it comes to obeying orders, men are free to disagree with their superiors. At the beginning, Orwell is skeptical of such a system. He believes that the militias are inefficient groups incapable of maintaining discipline and of winning the war. However, over time, his personal experience changes his views. The discipline that can be found in the militias, he argues, runs deeper than in ordinary armies, for soldiers’ commitment is rooted in personal conviction, not in fear, and they are therefore less likely to desert. In addition, Orwell argues, history would later show that the militias were in fact capable of defending the front on their own for many months, without any help from better-organized troops.

Meanwhile, life goes on in the trenches, where the soldiers are obsessed with everyday survival. Firewood is so scarce that soldiers spend all their spare time running around looking for fuel. They are so used to the task that they become experts at classifying plants according to their burning properties. On their expeditions, even though they are occasionally shot at by Fascist machine-guns, their desperate search for firewood always proves more important than the threat of sudden death.

Other discomforts are less important than the cold. Dirt becomes a normal part of life, and soldiers are treated well when it comes to the food, wine, cigarettes and candles they are rationed. In the trenches, even seemingly trivial objects such as candles are potentially life-saving. During night-alarms, for example, when soldiers are crawling around in the dark, a candle can save a man from being trampled to death.

This war of stagnation, which Georges Kopp calls “a comic opera with an occasional death,” has causes that Orwell is unaware of at the time. The nature of the terrain made any attack extremely difficult. Perched on individual hilltops, the positions are well protected, such that only artillery—which neither side possessed—would have allowed for actual fighting to take place. Additionally, war materials of all kinds were in short supply. Rifles were mostly useless, ammunition was sorely lacking, and there were very few revolvers, pistols, or bombs. Finally, there was also a shortage of other necessities, such as maps, telescopes, and even gun oil. All of these circumstances made direct battle difficult and unlikely.

As a result of shortages at the front, most of the casualties continue to be self-inflicted, the consequence of the bad quality of weapons, the soldiers’ general lack of experience, and the Spaniards’ tendency to treat firearms as a harmless toy. Life-threatening errors are ordinary occurrences. On one occasion, Orwell’s entire company shoots at him from the hilltop after mistaking him for the enemy. Another time, when Orwell is photographing soldiers with their machine-guns, one of them jokingly fires his gun, almost wounding him in the face.