The International Brigade was the name given to the band of volunteers and mercenaries who travelled to Spain to fight against the fascist forces in the Spanish civil war. The brigade included such luminaries as George Orwell, who wrote his book Homage to Catalonia about his experiences in the war.
... he felt Catholics and Protestants alike might share. In 1548 he made the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands an entity separate from both the Empire and from France ...