BIG BATTLE FOR CITY

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 10854, 25 March 1929, Page 5

BIG BATTLE FOR CITY

MEXICAN STRUGGLE FOR PREMIER PACIFIC PORT

REBELS TAKE OFFENSIVE FOR

FIRST TIME

•jnued Press Assn, by El. Tel. Copyrigln (Australian Press Association.) (Received March 25. 12.45 p.m.) XETW YORK, March 24. The New York Times’ Mexico City correspondent states that airplanes, artillery, cavalry, infantry and other units are engaged at Mazatlan, Mexico’s premier Pacific port, where fighting has been going on since three o’clock on Friday afternoon. This information is rather startling. Yesterday’s optimistic news from the Mazatlan front gavo the impression that a battle for the possession of the city was practically out of the. question. There are no reports yet concerning the losses on either side but that the rebels are making determ ind efforts to seize possession of the city in advance of the arrival of. Federal reinforcements appears certain. ■ For the first time since the outbreak of the revolution, the rebels are undertaking a real offensive, which some here interpret as an entire change of policy, as hitherto the rebels have abandoned, vyithout offering resistance, all cities held by them in Monterey, Salt, fllo and Torrecon sectors. Latest reports that the American consul, Mr Blocker, at 'Mazatlan, had been killed in a Federal-rebel clash, are discounted here. Despatches from Yaqui Valley in Sonora indicate that the area is being evacuated by foreigners and that rebels have threatened 1 to seize their property. M