APAD: The Fifth Column

 

Meaning:

    Infiltrators or collaborators with the enemy.

    

Background:

 

   In October 1936, in the hostilities of the Spanish Civil War, the nationalist

   General Emilio Mola and his supporters besieged Madrid with four columns of

   troops.

   

   Mola claimed he had additional troops within the city. The claim was reported

   in the New York Times like this:

   

     Police last night began a house-to-house search for Rebels in Madrid...

     Orders for these raids ... apparently were instigated by a recent broadcast

     over the Rebel radio station by General Emilio Mola. He stated he was

     counting on four columns of troops outside Madrid and another column of

     persons hiding within the city who would join the invaders as soon as they

     entered the capital."

     

   Explicit mention of the hidden troops as the `fifth column' was reported in

   the US newspaper the Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper, on 14th October 1936:

   

     "Out of hiding came a few of the phantom `fifth column' - the fascist

     auxiliary force dreaded by the loyalists."

     

   The term has migrated in use over time and is now sometimes used more

   generally, to mean traitor or spy.

   

   Ernest Hemingway wrote a play called `The Fifth Column` in 1937, in which he

   expressed his opposition to the Spanish fascist regime.

   

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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At times of tension, we overseas Chinese found ourselves in an unenviable

position as the potential fifth column in both the adopted country and the

motherland. It's probably totally unrelated, as I told him, but my friend Bill

recently visited his birthplace, a city to the southwest of Beijing. The town

had expanded for decades and looked modern in every way, but three hotels in a

row told him the same thing: ``We are not qualified to take a foreign passport

as ID'' and he had no choice but to check in the only one owned by the

government in his side of the town.