END OF CIVIL WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 116, 19 May 1939, Page 7

END OF CIVIL WAR.

SPAIN CELEBRATES.

Gay Festivities And Public

Holiday Held.

RELIEF FOR EX-SERVICEMEN.

United Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received 10 a.m.)

BURCOS, May 18.

Iwo days' celebrations, officially marking the end of the civil war, began this morning in a ll provinces with the firing of rockets at 8 a.m.

'I he day was announced as a public holiday here, after which, following the Spanish custom, quaint effigies representing Ferdinand If. and Isabella, and the peoples of their Dominions paraded in carnival fashion through the streets beaded by dancers in period costume.

A State Gazette publishes a decree providing relief for ex-servicemen and their families in the interval between demobilisation and resumption of work.

he 1 itnes" Madrid correspondent says that General Franco to-day entered the capital, which event, according to the Ministry of the Interior, symbolises the termination of the war.

About 2(10.000 troops are already here. I lie population lias swollen from ].(3)0.000 to 2.000.000. Six hundred 'planes prepai in*; to participate in to-morrow's \ ictory Parade display wheeled over the city. All shops are closed and btisiness is at a standstill.

To-morrow's programme shows tliat 130,000 Spanish, 10.000 Italian and 2000 to 4000 German troops will march past General Franco, who has decided to accept the Laureada, the highest distinction of the Spanish Army.