MADRID SKYLINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 18

MADRID SKYLINE.

SPANISH REGIONALISM UPSETS FOREIGN IDEAS. A YEAR OF WAR AHEAD. (By ERNEST HEMINGWAY.) MADRID, May 11. There were poppy petals in the newdug trench, blown from the grassy fields whipped flat by the wind from the snowcapped mountains. Across the pinewoods of the old royal hunting lodge rose the white skyline of Madrid. Forty yards away a Fiat light machine-gun tapped in sharp deadliness. and the bullets passed with the quick, cracking sound that makes recruits think they are explosives. We •sheltered our heads behind the up-thrown dirt and looked across the rolling, broken ground where 13 months ago Largo Caballero's offensive against the pine-spotted hill of Garabitas, that dominates Madrid, had failed. The hill is there, just as the skyline of Madrid is still there, but steadily in the last two months the Government has been running out trenches to outflank it. A famous brigade, nicknamed "Th« Moles of Usera,'' who took the trench of death that dominated that battered suburb and dug and mined their way forward until the Franco forces had to give up position after dominating position 011 that front, arc pushing steadily forward, outflanking I this hill which could resist any amount of frontal attack. A Curiosity in Morale. It was good to see the moles again. I had not been with them since early December and was curious to see how their morale was after communications had been cut between Madrid and Barcelona. "Show me on the map how it is in Catalonia," the commander asked. I showed the line and explained just what had happened. The commander followed it with only mild interest. "Good," he said. "Now I want to show you something interesting. This is much better than Usera. The ground is better for work and we have marvellous projects."

There you have it. That is the one unaccountable factor foreigners never figure when analysing the Spanish campaign. This factor is the regionalism of the Spaniard. It can have a bad effect when desiring to link up operations on the biggest scale, but once one sector is isolated from another instead of being panicked, they seem relieved at not being bothered by the necessity of contact with another region. To-dav I have talked with a dozen Spanish officers that I knew well, and not one asked anything but perfunctory questions about how things are going on the coastal or Ebro fronts. All they wanted to do was to tell how well things were in their own sector. Sectional Pride. This can be a weakness,' and as a weakness it can be overcome, but as a strength it can never be inculcated or replaced.

Madrid now has a war of its own and seems happy with it. The Levante has a war of its own and is proud of it. Extremadura and Andalucia have their war and do not have to worry about Catalonia. They are relieved. Catalonia is fighting on her own now and considers she has something worth fighting

for. It's a strange country all right, and history has proved that when you divide it is when it becomes most dangerous. United, there has always been sectional jealousy. Once divided, comes the pride of province, of section, of city and of district. Napoleon found this out to his defeat, and two other dictators are discovering it to-day. More Solid Than Ever. An army has to be fed and munitioned. This one is being both. Rations are shorter in Madrid than this time last year, but better balanced. There is more bread and meat twica a week foi the civilian population. Spring has been about two months late, and green vegetables are lacking, but |ow beginning to come up from Valencia. It has been a hard winter, cold and with little fuel, but there is no trace of grey sunken hunger looks in faces such as one saw in Austria after the war and during the inflation. The officers I have talked to In tlie last two days visiting the central front say they have enough munitions to fight a year if necessary, and more is being manufactured all the time. "What we need is artillery, more automatic weapons and 'planes, and we will be ready to take the offensive.** Discounting all optimism, this trip has been a revelation to me flying from the Catalonian front. Madrid is unchanged and more solid than ever. Each day and night trenches and saps are being run out to outbank the enemy and eventually relieve the siege of the city. Certainly there will be hitter fighting to defend Castellon, and Franco will try to cut down from the Teruel sector between Castellon and Valencia, but there is a year of war clearly to be seen ahead where European diplomat* are trying to say it will be over in a month. —N.A.N.A.