ON THE REBEL SIDE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4953, 9 February 1937, Page 7

ON THE REBEL SIDE

THE SPANISH CONFLICT. GENERAL FRANCO’S MEN. After a very brief visit to General Franco’s Spain and before attempting to sum up my impressions, I would express gratitude to my Spanish hosts, being fully aware that inquisitive civilians are a nuisance to people conducting a war which, whatever its rights and wrongs, means life or death to each of them, writes Mr. Anthony Crossley, M.P., a Conservative member of the British Parliamentary delegation to Spain, in the Manchester Guardian. I made one promise to General Franco —and I made it of my own free will—that I would try ot dispel certain misapprehensions which exist in this country concerning his Government. There is nothing in this article except certain strategical conjectures of my own—which is not based either on the evidence of my eyes or on the evidence of witnesses whose impartiality I could not doubt. Not one word of unconfirmed evidence of servants of the regime is here included.

Contrary to my expectations, I found few restrictions. Papers were necessary when travelling. Some hotels were commandeered. Occasionally light restrictions were imposed. There was no food shortage. Agriculture and, to a great extent, factory life proceeded normally. Prices were low. In the towns there was no sense of sullenness or discontent. Nor was there any sense of stalemate. On the other hand, everyone is resigned to a long war. There is no curfew. Majority’s Approval. This may have been sometimes a form of protection; but I did receive in San Sebastian, Vittoria, Burgos, Valladolid, Salamanca, Avila, and Toledo a very strong impression that the great majority of the civil population quite genuinely desired the victory of the Whites. (As the Government troops, except the Basques, are entirely recruited by and administered by the P.O.U.M. (Marxist Unification), the General Workers’ Union, now Markist,, the Anarchists, and the Syndicalists, I think the general appelation White and Red —the latter used in Spain on both sides of the war—is simplest for this article). There are probably few Moors left to-day. The siege of Madrid and the winter have both taken their toll. The first rush to enlist in Morocco is certainly long since finished. That magnificent body of troops, the Foreign Legion (85 per cent. Spanish) is still however, very strong. In the meantime, while these bodies have captured and retained much territory, the generals have been steadily training the Requetes, sometimes wrongly called Carlists, actually Traditionalists, whose scarlet berets signify all that is best in the old Spain. They receive no pay. They are first-class military material. Their numbers form a huge reserve to draw upon. We found more than one Englishman serving with them who bore testimony to their keenness and courage. Undoubtedly with the Foreign Legion they will form the principal fighting troops in the next months. The Fascists (Phalange) are an altogether inferior body, employed in the more menial tasks of military service. My impression was that all the best leaders belonged to the Requetes rather than to the Phalange. , . t gv International Aid. There are undoubtedly many German troops arriving, though I heard no figure higher than 14,000. That must be conjecture. There are many technical Germans and, I doubt not, some pilots. I was assured by the most reliable independent witnesses that so far none (except, perhaps, a few volunteers in the 15 per cent, of the Foreign Legion which is foreign) had yet appeared in the Madrid district. There seemed to be very few Italians on the mainland, though doubtless there are some pilots. Of materials of war there are German guns and tanks, Italian light tanks, German bombing aeroplanes (slow,, and, I imagine, out of date), and many extremely effective Italian fighting' aeroplanes. On the Red side there are undoubtedly Russian troops—the figure given to me, which I cannot confirm, is 25,000. But more than 100 were killed when Boadilla was recently captured. I wonder whether they were sent by the Government or the Commintern —i.e., whether they were an expeditionary force or volunteers. I am inclined to think the latter. There is the International Column, containing troops of every nationality. A large number of Frenchmen are serving with this body. From Many Lands. Of material of war there are Russibn bombing aeroplanes, extremely fast, and fighters, fast but not good to manoeuvre. Russian tanks (easily

destroyed from close quarters, but carrying a good gun); Czechoslovakian rifles; much French rifle and machine gun ammunition; shell cases from many countries. Truly an international war on Spanish soil! Madrid did not fall at the first assault because the delay in relieving Toledo enabled the International Column to arrive just in time. The Red militia, hopeless in open warfare, has earned the respect of the Whites in street fighting. Further, General Franco was extremely anxious to leave an escape road open, as this was his only chance to find his secret sympathisers in Madrid alive. I would predict that no serious effort to capture Madrid will be made until a sufficiently large number of Requete troops are fully trained, and that when the day comes his Germans will have their properly-assigned role. I would predict, too, that General Franco will be forced most reluctantly to complete the encircling movement, but he can only do this without undue danger to his rear if the battle front to the west and north of Madrid is reduced. At the moment his salient position to the south of Madrid appears on the map an almost incredibly weak one for an undoubtedly able general to tolerate for two months. I can only assume that it measures his contempt for his opponents in open warfare. I found everywhere the most complete confidence in the ultimate fall of Madrid. The Unseen Things. I must add that there was much we did not see. We did not see the trenches, nor an artillery position, nor an aerodrome other than in passing. This was partly due to a fog, partly to the fact that stray civilians are a nuisance on a battlefield; but perhaps chiefly to a laudable intention to keep us out of any conceivable danger. But the Spanish habit of raising our expectations very high and then taking us to a place where we saw nothing at all or of requiring permits, which might have been prearranged, from generals who were usually absent from headquarters was extremely irritating at the time. We did see all we desired of the troops behind the front line itself.

Undoubtedly both sides kill the great majority of their prisoners. General Franco, however, does not as a rule kill his Civil Guard prisoners or Regular Army prisoners. The killing of prisoners is a bestial business, but I accept as fact the trail of desolations and the wholesale murders of all suspected of Right sympathies left behind in every village on the Red retreats. We had absolutely independent evidence of tortures, mutilations and burnings on the part of the Reds and of women executing women. As for religion, to give one example, at Toledo only six out of 136 priests hid. Religious pictures in Toledo had been slashed. At Navalcarnero the priest had been burned. Had he been shot first? As for the Moors, undoubtedly they were at first given to looting. This hereditary failing was, however, brought under control long before Madrid was reached. The Moor is by religion a rigid respecter of another man’s wife. One of the most remarkable testimonies to the acceptance of the Moor —there is no colour bar in Spain—is the friendship, obvious everywhere between the' Moorish troops and the small children. Of the utter ruthlessness on both sides there can be no doubt whatever, and on this score alone, taking into account the complete clash between two modes of living in a country where the Centre is despised on all sides, I cannot conceive of mediation as a practical possibility. Conclusions. To conclude. The civil Government in Nationalist Spain is orderly and surprisingly free from open repressions. Work as usual and reconstruction are General Franco’s mottoes. In the army there is extraordinary, perhaps unjustified, confidence that the war will undoubtedly endure many months. The extent and dangers of intervention are daily increasing, and there are at least four countries whose relative guilt cannot, in my opinion, be distinguished. The siege of Madrid will not be decided one way or the other for a considerable time. The ruthlessness has been appalling, as in a war between incompatible doctrines it must inevitably be, but the atrocities on the Red side outbid those of the Russian Revolutions itself. Suspected disloyalty on either side is a cause of death, but on the Nationalist side there is invariably a trial—it may be only a form—while on the Red side the Anarchists recognise neither law nor form of law. I came hoping above all else that this civil war would not prove the cause of a European conflagration. And mixed up with this tragic and determined bloodshed I carry away with me memories of the proud walls of Avila on its lovely hill, of the loveliest square in Europe in Salamanca, of the supreme majesty of the snow-clad Sierra de Gredos, and of Burgos Cathedral, with all its strength and grace combined. But above all, I came away thanking Heaven. that I v happened to be born in a country, where freedom is possible.