FORCE IN SPAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 133, 2 December 1936, Page 12

FORCE IN SPAIN

THREE GROUPS

DEEP CONCERN IN LONDON

United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 2. 2.40 p.m.) LONDON, December 1. The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" stales that it was slaled in the British official headquarters that between 5000 and 6000 Germans \*ete known to have landed in Spain and to be concentrated at the rebel headquarters in Seville. It is unofficially learned that the force consists of three groups, namely Storm Troopers, a detachment from the labour camps, and a detachment of the regular army drawn from the 9th Infantry Regiment at Nedlitz, near Potsdam, who said they had been warned on November 18 to prepare to go to Spain. Sir Percival Phillips reports from Gibraltar that the Germans are well equipped and brought the latest type of armaments. British Ministers, whose information on the subject is limited, are perturbed by this latest development. Officials of the German Embassy in London earlier in the evening flatly denied a report that between 2000 and 3000 German volunteers had left Germany for Spain, but a spokesman in Berlin admitted inability to check whether any or how many German volunteers were in Spain. Official quarters were very reserved. It was declared at the Propaganda Ministry that they were without news, but an official denied that any German troops had, been landed. It is learned from Gibraltar that German warships and steamers regularly call at Cadiz and leave visitors, but it is impossible to confirm whether any were landed equipped as soldiers. GRAVE FRENCH VIEW. The Paris correspondent of "The Times" states that official circles cannot confirm the news that 5000 Germans were landed at Cadiz, but they regard it as significant that Cadiz and other ports have been forbidden to ships. Such open intervention on Germany's part would, if confirmed, be regarded with the utmost gravity. Apart from the strategical dangers involved, the successful flouting of Britain and France on such a scale would only encourage the totalitarian States to further adventures which must inevitably provoke a world war. The Premier, M. Blum, and the Foreign Minister, M. Delbos, feel that the utmost must be done to check the present disastrous tendency towards unrestricted support of the Spanish belligerents by dictatorial sympathisers abroad. NOT UNIFORMED BUT ARMED. The diplomatic correspondent of "The Times" says: "The British Government has been informed that 5000 Germans who were landed at Cadiz passed through Seville en route for the rebel front. It is reported that they did not wear uniforms but bore arms and equipment. "Four thousand men have arrived at Barcelona from France for the disposal of the Valencia Government. "The news of the arrival of the German contingents has created deep concern in London and can only be deplored as an aggravating factor in a heavily-charged situation. It is presumed that large volunteer contingents cannot be sent to Spain from any State governed by a dictator without the knowledge and consent of high political authorities. Such contingents must be distinguished from groups leaving free countries to fight on either side. As the Non-intervention Agreement does not prohibit the importation of volunteer man power, though certainly it forbids their bearing arms, abstention could at present only be on a voluntary basis. The French plan for making non-intervention effective would apparently remedy this omission by extending agreed prohibitions to cover volunteer fighters." INTERNATIONAL LAW DEFIED. The "News Chronicle" says that the latest reports show that 5000, not 2000, Germans were landed, and adds: "This flies directly in the face of international law." The Madrid correspondent of the "Daily Mail" estimates the number of recent foreign reinforcements to the loyalists in the Madrid front as 15,000, including the Siberian regiment and three thousand German reinforcements for the rebels who are reported to have been landed from a German transport escorted by two destroyers.