REBELS ONE UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 12, 15 January 1937, Page 7

REBELS ONE UP.

BATTLE FOR MADRID. First Phase Not Favourable To Government. CIVILIANS DEPARTING. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 14. "The Times" JVfadrid correspondent says that the outcome of the first phase of the battle for Madrid, which bad weather has temporarily halted, has not been favourable to the Government troops. Meanwhile, the evacuation of the civil population continues. Most of the 250,000 already departed, are people of independent means. Those remaining are poor, or people of most modest incomes, and many have relatives fighting with the rebels. The shortage of schools is now worse than ever, and millions of children have not been taught for seven months. Loyalists advanced to-day to University City, the scene of bitter righting for two months, capturing the clinical hospital administration building, a portion of which was blown up before the insurgents were dislodged. The Government troops encountered a rebel counter-mine and suffered severe losses. At Bayona, the Government executed 207 hostages as a reprisal for the recent bombing of Bilbao. A Valencia communique claims that the Loyalists defeated an attempt to land strong insurgent forces at Estrepona. It is reported that the rebels heavily bombed Malaga, and that there were many casualties. The Government has lodged a protest at the Foreign Office against raising the subject of Spanish gold at the Nonintervention Committee. Italv had previously urged that the Valencia Government should not be allowed to draw on Spanish gold reserves.

Coast Mined. A message from Lisbon states that the Portuguese reply to Britain regarding the prohibition of volunteers to Spain was dispatched within 28 hours of its receipt. Portugal agrees to participate in the most stringent measures to prevent the enlistment and transmission of volunteers destined for Spain, - but will await the promulgation of such measures by other countries in order to draw inspiration from them. It is further reported from Lisbon that General Franco has warned the Powers that he has mined the whole of the Spanish coast, including the entrances to nine ports controlled by the Government, namely, Malaga, Almeria, Cartagena, Valencia, Barcelona, Tarragona, Bilbao, Santander and Gijon. Dispatches from Valencia state that the Spanish Air Ministry says Government aeroplanes bombed Melilla yesterday. The attack was directed particularly against a wharf belonging to the Minas del Rif Company, owners of RiffiaH iron mines where German ships are constantly loading ore. The party of British naval officers who are to visit Spanish Morocco to investigate the reports of German activity there left Gibraltar yesterday in the destroyer Vanoc. A message from Bucharest says that Rumania has taken steps to ban volunteers to Spain. SPANISH CREW RELEASED. TRANSPORTED TO MALAGA. British Official Wireless. (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, January 14. The crew of the Spanish ship Aragon, seized by the German Navy in reprisal for detention as contraband of the cargo of the German steamer Palos by the Basque authorities, was released today. The ship has been disposed of to the insurgents. In response to a request from the Valencia Government the . British destroyer Achates made a rendezvous with the German warship, on which the men were held, outside Spanish territorial waters. It took off the Spanish sailors and transported them to Malaga.

SHARP WARNING ISSUED. AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS. WASHINGTON, January 14. The Acting-Secretary of State, Mr. R. W. Moore, issued a sharp statement yesterday warning Americans against taking part in the Spanish war. He said they would be unpatriotic, in view of the nation's policy of non-inter-ference, and they would be subject to the loss of their citizenship if they took an oath of allegiance to any other country.