STRONG FLEETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 90, 18 April 1939, Page 9

STRONG FLEETS.

BRITISH AND FRENCH.

Disposition Of Warships In Mediterranean. MOVE AGAINST TANGIER. (Received I.SO p.m.) LONDON, April 17. Almost the entire British Mediterranean Fleet is in the neighbourhood of Malta, including the aircraft carrier Glorious, six cruisers, 39 destroyers, seven submarines, six torpedo (boats, ten minesweepers, six depotships, an escort ship, a net layer and a mine layer. French warships at Gibraltar now total 13, and comprise two battleships, three cruisers and eight destroyers. The aircraft carrier H.M.S. Terrible and the French warship Fantasque are patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar. The destroyers Bouloimaie, Foudroyant and lUestois have arrived. The possibility of a totalitarian move against Tangier is believed to be the reason for concentration of reportedly large numbers of Italian sailors in Tangier, although there is no warship, Bays a Paris message. About 12,000 Spanish troops have been transported from the mainland to Spanish Morocco in the past 48 hours, and all have been concentrated near the Tangier zone, eays the Tangier correspondent of the British United Press.

Spanish newspapers in Tangier report that 00,000 soldiers are now stationed in Spanish Morocco, as compared with 38,0.00 before the civil war.

General Franco has postponed the Madrid victory parade to May 15, the city's patron saint day. Meantime, piracies will be held in Seville, Valencia and Burgos. ITALY'S NEEDS. HEAVY DRAIN OF ARMIES. (Received 2 p.m.) ROME, April 17. Kxtraordinary annual appropriation of t-Vi.55,000 for ten years was announced "'•'> strengthen the Army's fighting ••liciency." It is reliably reported that <liis is required mainly for Albania, Libya and a French frontier.