REPUBLICAN SPAIN

Grey River Argus, 5 December 1938, Page 3

REPUBLICAN SPAIN

SUFFICIENT MAN-POWER. LONDOft, October 16. Mr. H. W. Buckley, the Special Correspondent in Republican Spain, of the “Daily Telegraph,” surveys the position there in the following report from Barcelona to-day:— With their armies locked in a deadly grip near the banks of the Ebro River, both sides in Spain are endeavouring to undermine the rearguard of the opponent by propaganda. The Franco side hopes bread dropped like manna from bombing squadrons will win over short-rationed Republicans. Government propaganda is of a political character. In Franco Spain copies of Dr. Negrin’s Thirteen Points —the Government programme —arp passed unobtrusively. Eleven weeks of the heaviest fighting of the war on the Ebro has#fully restored Government faith in its armies. Since the beginning of July Republican ‘forces have registered three major successes. The drive to capture Valencia before the valuable rise crop was harvested was decisively paralysed. Gen. Queipo de Llano’s important attack to reach the Almaden mercury mines started off with great elan, and 4,000 loyal soldiers were cut off and captured along with large quantities of material. Yet a decisive counter-attack under Gen. Asensio, led in the field by Col. Perez Salas, who saved Pozoblanco last year, silenced the Franco" "offensive/ ’

Government military experts had hardly hoped that the Insurgents would make the Ebro offensive a major issue. The Republican forces reached no decisive military point, not even Gandesa, and much less the key town of Alcaniz. Since then Gen. Franco is believed to have suffered some 70,000 or 80,000 casualties and is still only half way back to the river. FRANCO’S SHORTAGE. In a test of man-power the Republicans feel they can win. They have had between 30,000 and 40,000 casualties on the Ebro. But the largest cities in Spain—Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia—remain in Government territory and are reservoirs of troops with a higher level of education than the peasants on whom the Generalissimo must draw. He has already a marked shortage of officers and shock troops. People who should know tell me that the Government has enough gold to carry on for two years. But whether this is important or not seems doubtful, because some days ago I saw an air fleet of Gen. Franco’s forces in the air which was worth at least £1,000,000. Moreover, he dropped 300,000 bombs in two months on the Ebro Valley, and bombs cost from £lO to £lOO each. When it is realised that Gen. Franco began the war without money—for the Government had all the gold in Madrid—it can be seen that war scarcely seems to depend on gold deposits. The Government’s chief problem at present is in the rearguard, ' which must be fed on food bought at very high prices—owing to the cost of transport and insurance of the ships —abroad.

Life is grim in Barcelona these days. The bread ration is regular and sufficient but oil, meat, fish, beans and rice—staple Spanish foods—are harder to get. People travel 40 or 50 miles on overcrowded trains in order to barter a few cigarettes for oil or meat from the pheasants. The Army absorbs most of the transport which ’ should move food supplies about and prevent the present unequal situation. There are also deficiencies in organisation. Large ships full of food supplies lie for days in Barcelona harbour with no attempt to unload them, with the possibility of their being sunk at any moment and running up enormous insurance charges. It often means a long \vait in a queue to board a tramcar. And once aboard, the current is quite likely to fail. The tram service is sometimes out of action for hours on end, owing to shortage of electric current. At breakfast time queues begin outside the restaurants for lunch. Air raids night after night keep the population without sleep, the last straw on overstrained nerves. . My hairdresser has to cut my hair by an oil lamp, because the lights in his shop are off from seven o,’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night. He has paraffin lamps, but there is no paraffin. He has solved the problem by using weed-killer in the lamp—it seems that ‘kerosene is used in these preparations. He lives 50 yards from the port and has 1 had

bombs fall all around his home. Possibly he eats rather better than many people, because he exchanges bottles of perfume and soap for meat and vegetables. Yet, with all his difficulties, he tells me that he does not think that hunger or the of .air raids will make the Republican surrender. There has been some friction between the Central Government and the Generalitat of Catalonia, whose guest it is in Barcelona. Dr. Negrin is much overworked as Prime Minister and War Minister. His scientifically trained brain and enormous energy and dynamism make him a War Minister whom his followers hail as brilliant; he has revolutionised the Army since he took over in April. But he is not a politician. He said in Parliament recently: “I am not a skilled politician, and may God protect me from becoming one.” The Catalan Generalitat is presided over by a clever politician, Sr. Companys. He and his friends feel slighted by governmental measures encroaching on autonomous privileges without due negotiation. Nevertheless, the fact that the Ebro' Army is made up in large part of Catalan soldiers and the high morale it has shown, would seem to indicate that there is no fundamental weakening of Catalonia’s resistance to Gen. Franco.

Noisy political discussions can often be heard in 'cafes and in railway trains. I have heard the Government openly criticised and condemned. This does not prevent considerable hardship be.ing..suffered by persons who, owing to associations or actions before the war, are now under suspicion. The antiespionage service called the SIM (Servicio Investigacion Militar) has on occasion caused criticism by its methods. Some of its prisoners are kept incommunicado for long periods and without relatives being informed as to their whereabouts.

Many of those arrested are kept on prison ships in Barcelona port, and I am.told that conditions there are exceptionally bad. The prisoners suffer agonies each time there. is a bombardment, although so far the attacking aviators have not hit these ships. On the other hand, conditions in the Model Prison in Barcelona are good, and political prisoners seem to receive every consideration. So at least I am told by the families of prisoners. I have visited a. number of prisons and conditions seemed to be good, but it is always difficult for anyone on a brief visit to be sure that he is seeing everything. The Word “reconciliation” is now heard frequently in Government Spain., Judging by opinion on this side of the front line, there is little chance of the formation of any kind of “neutral” Government to unite Spaniards.