BEGINNING OF THE END

Evening Star, Issue 23175, 26 January 1939, Page 13

BEGINNING OF THE END

MIRACLE NEEDED TO SAVE CITY DEFENCE MEASURES LEFT TOO LATE BARCELONA, January 25. (Received January 26, at 12.30 p.m.) • The French Ambassador has left Barcelona. Practically nil the newspaper correspondents have departed. Communication between Barcelona and the outside world is virtually cut off. The single telephone line to France is jammed with official messages. It is estimated that over 500,000 have been evacuated from Barcelona in the last 36 hours, but 1,500,000 remain. Three-quarters of the city is without water, electricity, and gas. It is stated that the road to Gerona is now under machine-gun fire. In the northern sector the retreating Republicans are dynamiting bridges and railways, and burning everything likely to a be useful to General Franco. The majority of foreign observers express the opinion that nothing short of a miracle can save the city. The general mobilisation and recruitment of women to dig fortifications were left, too late, and the so-called third line of defence consists merely of hastily-dug shallow trenches, where the battle-weary and inadequately armed Republicans can do little more than hold out until all the material necessary for the Government to carry on the struggle is removed from the city. BRITISH EMBASSY STAFF EVACUATED GENERAL CALM IN CITY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 25. (Received January 26, at 11.30 a.m.) The Consul-General, who remains at Barcelona, is reported to have informed British subjects who have not availed themselves of the opportunities of evacuation that they are welcome to take refuge in the Consulate if the situation deteriorates. Mr Stevenson and the rest of the British Embassy staff embarked on the cruiser Devonshire, which proceeded to Port Vendres, where it will remain with Mr Stevenson on board until-further notice. According to Press messages reaching London, general calm prevails in Barcelona despite the serious situation. CITY WITH A HISTORY Barcelona is the chief seaport, second largest city, and most important manufacturing town of Spain. On the north-east coast, at the mouth of the Llobregat Valley, 430 miles by railway north-east of Madrid, and connected by railway with Prance, it is the capital of Barcelona province. In a_ beautiful, sheltered position, it consists of two parts separated by the Rambla, the principal thoroughfare, enjoys a fine climate, and is one of the finest towns in Spain. A bishop’s see from 343, it has a Gothic cathedral, dating from 1298, and many other Gothic churches, a university, founded 1430 and rebuilt 1873, a naval institute, academy of arts, wellstocked libraries, a building containing archives of Aragon, museums, palaces, public schools, charitable institutions, nullrings, pelota courts, parks, promenades, and electric trams and lighting. Before the civil war it was a port of call for nearly 40 important shipping lines, and the headquarters of a dozen others. It has two wireless stations and a commodious harbour, with a maximum depth of 36|ft. Some 2,500,000 tons of shipping entered the port annually, and the average annual commerce was valued at £35,000,000.

The chief exports were fruit, vegetables, silk. wine. oil. cereals, cork, cotton goods, soap, leather goods, and salt, and the imports coffee, sugar, raw cotton, spirits, coal, and iron. Manufacturing and other industries, of which the spinning and weaving of silk, cotton, and wool were the largest, employed 160,000 persons. There are large industrial suburbs and seafaring quarters.

As Barcino, an Iberian city. Barcelona is said to have been founded by Hamilcnr Barca, the Carthaginian, in the third century b.o. Conquered by the Romans, it was renamed Julia Faventia, and by the second century a.d. bad become an important trading centre. As Barcinona it flourished under the Visigoths, and as Barjaluna the Moors captured it in 713. In 801 it was taken with Catalonia hv the Franks, and after its union with Aragon in 1137 it rivaled Genoa and Venire, but after the discovery of America declined.

At the city’s zenith its Consnlado del Mar. or code of maritime law. was almost universally accepted, and insurance of shipning is said to have originated in Barcelona. Taken bv the Englishin 1714. bv the French in 1809 and 1823. allied first to this country and then to that, the later history of Barcelona is kaleidoscopic* Many deaths occurred during the influenza epidemic of 1918. the rate of mortality at one period beins as high as 1.200 dailv. The population at the census of 1910._ was 587.411, and the latest estimate is 621,000.