BATTLE OPENS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 74, 24 September 1936, Page 9

BATTLE OPENS

DESPERATE EFFORT BY REBELS

SMALL TOWN TAKEN

GOVERNMENT SUCCESSES

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received September 24, noon.) LONDON, September 23. It is widely recognised that the actual battle for Madrid has begun. A message from Madrid states that Government forces were successful near Oviedo, and also defeated a rebel column from Avila which was attempting to drive a wedge between loyalists on the Guadarrama range and those in the Tagus Valley. The insurgents were making their most desperate effort between Santa Olalla and Torrijos, where following earlier rebel successes, the War Office at Madrid announced late tonight that the insurgents had been repulsed with heavy loss, including the destruction of a Moroccan detachment. ,• According to a message from Seville, General Franco stated that the insurgents occupied Torrijos after a violent attack assisted by aeroplanes, and that the Government forces were retreating to Toledo. Subsequently aeroplanes flew over the alcazar announcing the victory and encouraging the survivors to continue the resistance until the arrival of General Yague's column in 48 hours. DECISION IN ANDORRA. A message from Perpignan states that the Council of the General Assembly of Andorra, the State in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, with an area of 306 square miles under the joint suzerainty of the French President and the Spanish Bishop of Urgel, with a standing army of seven men, has decided by 12 votes to 11 not to seek French aid in the event of an anarchist invasion. A further message from Perpignan states that an anti-Fascist committee at Puigcerda arrested a French businessman, M. Fortuny, a French newspaperwoman, Jacqueline Caillou, and the Italians Pasquale Daliga and Giovanni Passant on charges of facilitating the secret passage of Italians to Spain and fraudulently exporting capital. CONDEMNED MAN'S FORTITUDE.

It is reported from Madrid that Senor Salazar Alonzo, a former member of Cabinet, and an outstanding Fascist, who was sentenced to death after being tried for participation in the present revolt, and also in the Asturias rising in 1934, faced a firing squad in the model prison. His eyes were not bandaged, at his own request, and he himself ordered the riflemen to fire. He fell dead.