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Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 21, 26 January 1939, Page 11

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NORTHERN SECTOR. Nothing Short of Miracle Can Save City. COMMUNICATIONS DESTROYED. Independent Cable Service. (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, January 25. The French Ambassador has left Barcelona, states a cablegram from the city, and practically all newspaper correspondents have also gone. Communication between Barcelona and the outside world is virtually cut off. The single telephone line to France is jammed with official messages. It is estimated that over 500,000 have left from Barcelona in the last 36 hours, but 1,500,000 still remain. Three-quarters of the city are without water, electricity or gas. It is stated that the road to Gerona it now under machine-gun fire. The northern sector is retreating. Loyalists are dynamiting bridges and railways, and burning everything likely to be useful to General Franco. The majority of foreign observers-are of the opinion that nothing short of a miracle can save the city. General mobilisation and the recruitment of women to dig fortifications was left too late, and the so-called third line of defence consists merely of hastily dug shallow trenches, where the battleweary and inadequately armed Loyalists can do little more than hold out until all the material necessary for the Government to carry on the struggle is removed from the city. A message from Paris says a rebel bomber of German make crashed in the Pyrenees. The crew of five were killed. WITHIN A MONTH. CRISIS IN MEDITERRANEAN. (Received 11.30 a.m.) "LONDON, January 25. Well-informed people in London and Paris fear a crisis within a month in the West Mediterranean, says Mr. Vernon Bartlett in an article in the "News Chronicle," commenting on reports that German troops are concentrating at Klagenfurt and Villach, and that German officer* are already in Libya. STAFF OFFICERS ARRIVE. LEAVE FOR SEVILLE. (Received 2 p.m.) GIBRALTAR, January 25. Thirty Italian Staff officers arrived in the liner Saturnia and left for Seville.