THE STATE OF MADRID

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 97, 21 October 1936, Page 11

THE STATE OF MADRID

AS REBELS ADVANCE

UNCENSORED DISPATCH

In an uncensored dispatch from Madrid, sent on September 26, the special correspondent of "The Times" described conditions in the capital and the danger in which the city stands owing to the advance of the insurgents to Toledo. The situation in Madrid has taken oh a grimmer 'aspect. Gradually the difficulty in getting food supplies has increased, said the dispatch. The organising ability of the Madrid Town Council is being put to ever greater tests. The valley df the Tagus was until recently the main avenue of supplies of meat for the capital. General Mola's offensive at Talavera, where the great cattle fair was almost due, closed it. The Ponton de la Oliva on the Lozoya, the main water supply, is in danger from the operations at Somosierra. The artificial lake at Manzanares, an alternative supply, is only a little more distant from the Guadarrama front. The only clear roads from Madrid to the sea are the direct Madrid-Valen-cia highway (210 miles) via Tarancon and Utiel and the Madrid-Cartagena highway (265 miles) via Aranjuez (30 miles from Toledo), Albacete, and Murcia, with branches to Alicante and Almeria. The one railway linking Madrid to the coast runs southward via Aranjuez, passing seventeen miles east of Toledo, and then south-eastward via Albacete to Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia. ; SUPPLIES OF FOOD. The insurgents . are pressing upon Toledo [Toledo has fallen since this dispatch was written.] The threat to the vital junctions of Castillejo, on the railway to the coast and only twenty miles from Toledo, and Algodor, on the line to Andalucia and even nearer to Toledo, is becoming very real. Thesa junctions are almost as important

rid itself. If the insurgents reach thorn Madrid will soon be reduced to sore straits. [The rebels now claim to have isolated Madrid by the destruction of the Madrid-Ararijuez railway.] The Alcarria, that region along the higher reaches of the Tagus between the Madrid-Cuenca and Madrid-§ara-gossa roads, could supply vegetables and fruits and some meat, mostly goat, but its reserves are limited. The capture of Aranjuez, ten miles from Castillejo, would cut one of the two vital highroads to the Levante region. These brief topographical remarks indicate the full gravity of the thrust which General Mola is making; the more paralysing because of the rapidity and unexpected force with which it is being delivered. Madrid stood up well to its first aerial bombardment. The dull thud of bombs dropped on * aerodromes around Madrid has often been heard before. The citizens realise what the threat of merciless bombardment printed on leaflets dropped by insurgent airmen may mean. DAILY EXECUTIONS. Madrid being an open town, such a threat, if carried into effect, would be an act of vandalism. Moreover, it might well decide the fate of the 6000 prisoners, mostly Monarchists, priests, monks, . and members of the Eight Wing parties, now crowding the prisons in the capital. The fate of the Conservative classes is sorry enough. The ghastly daily array in the morgue has been made more horrible by the bodies of murdered women. Two have been recognised. One was the Marques* de Silvela, wife of the Marques who, with his younger brother, was taken from his house and shot some time ago. He was the eldest son of the Liberal Prime Minister, Don Francisco Silvela; as secretary of the Comite HispanO-Inglese under the Duke of Alba he had shown himself a firm friend of Great Britain. The other, Senora de Aldama, wife of an architect, was shot because she would not reveal where her husband and son were hiding. -The distressing daily exhibition of corpses has preoccupied those in authority and seems to have created a revulsion of feeling from which some good results might be hoped. It is certain, however, that other clandestine Courts continue to function. They maintain a procedure which provides for some sort of judgment and sentence. It is still sufficient for the accused to be a nobleman or priest to be condemned to death. EXCESSES CONDEMNED. The first measures of Senor Largo Caballero's Government included a welcome attempt to put an immediate brake on the wholesale assassinations. The new Spanish Cabinet is bending all its energies to the formidable task of meeting the advancing insurgent forces and introducing order into a situation that was rapidly slipping towards chaos in the hands of the outpaced "pure Republican" mandatories of the Frente Popular. New realities have asserted themselves in the Frente itself. The swapping of Governmental teams, cleverly effected in midstream, has brought a salutary sense of responsibility to the leaders of the unions, for the first time entrusted with the political leadership of the Republic. The new Prime Minister and Minister of War, Don Francisco Largo Caballero, a man of about 66, has a reputation for keeping a cool head an a crisis. He will need all his ability. The difficulties of his task may be summed up in the reflection that he has to fight a civil war and conduct a revolution at one and the .same time. Their extent will be shown by a simple glance at the-map of Spain. Of the provinces into which the country is" divided there are, only eighteen that: may be counted as entirely loyal to the central Government, and they include the four Catalan provinces, where the policy of the Generalitat since the- revolt has become more egocentric than ever. .The eighteen are:—Albacete, Alicante,"Almena, Barcelona, Castellon, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Gerona, Guadalajara, Jaen, Lcrida, Madrid, Malaga, Murcia, Santander, Tarragona, Valencia, and Vizcaya, totalling 11,520,000 inhabitants in 175,293 square kilometres.' The insurgents occupy seventeen provinces -~Alva, Burgos, Cadiz, the Canaries, Coruna, Leon, Logrono, Lugo, Navarra, Orense, Falencia, Pontevedra, Salamanca, Sevilla, Soria, Valladolid, and Zamora, totalling 7,850,000 inhabitants in 155,857 square kilometres. Fighting j has. lately been going on in fourteen ! provlnces—Avila, Badajoz, the Balearic Islands, Caceres, Cordoba, Granada, Guipuzcoa, Huelva, Huesca, Oviedo, Segovia, Teruel, Toledo, and SaraRossa. totalling 6,770,000 inhabitants in 172,752 square kilometres.

By special arrangement neuter's . world service, in addition to other special sources of Information, is used in ths compilation of the overseas Intelligence- published in this Issue, and aft rights therein Jn Australia and New -are>-ress" 1"1-