SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 December 1937, Page 7

SPANISH CIVIL WAR

BATTLE AT TERUEL [RY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] LONDON, December 30. A message from Salamanca says that the battle at Teruel has developed along a 24 mile front. Fleets of new tanks and aeroplanes and heavy guns have been thrown into action. Its importance may be judged from an insurgent general staff statement which said that the result at Teruel may decide the fate of the war. A staff colonel, who was a military attache in the Great War, said that even France in 1918 did not often see a battle of this ferocity. The Teruel correspondent of the British United Press says that the Im ternational Column came into action when the insurgents attacked the Republicans to the north of Teruel. The insurgents cut off the attackers, inflicting 90 pei’ cent, of casualties, and finally got to with in 10 yards of the seminary walls. To-day, Republican dynamiters penetrated the buildings, but 1000 civilians, including priests, were still inside. The dynamiters crept along passages into rooms which were filled with smoke from many fires. They hurled grenades through doors and windows. Sometimes when they entered rooms, they were mowed down by a hail of insurgent bullets at pointblank range. The Republicans may end this dramatic but costly form of assault by blowing up the seminary with mines. For this move three tunnels are already

dug, but an attempt will be made to remove all civilians before the mines are fired. Republican guerilla, bands behind the lines, blew up six bridges across which General Franco’s reinforcements were being brought up. CONFLICTING CLAIMS. (Reed. December 31, 1 p-m.) LONDON, December 30. The position in Teruel is still obscure. The Republicans claim to have repulsed fierce counter-attacks by the insurgents. The insurgents assert that the garrison is holding out, and that the relief forces advanced a mile, and occupied the first line of i defences.