TROOPS MASSING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 9, 8 December 1937, Page 9

TROOPS MASSING.

CROWDED RAILWAYS. SPAIN’S ZERO HOUR. LONDON, Nov. 27. Hundreds of trucks rumbled over all roads leading east from Madrid last night, carrying seasoned Government troops to reinforce the defenders on the Aragon front. There the greatest battle since the civil war began in July, 1936, threatens to develop. , , , In Southern Spam the rebels are rushing men and materials by nn- 1 expresses to the Andalusian i . * , an attack on Almena,. to be dneeted from the sea, appears Spanish Goveninient rtoff oft Franco will launch what he hopes to be a death blow in the Aragon zone, instead of against Madrid. PLAN TO ISOLATE MADRID. For many months now there has been practically no change in the line 1 of the eastern front, which extends almost directly southward for ' 170 miles from the French border to Teruel, between Madrid and the Mediterranean coast. The rebel drive southward, .in an at-

tempt to cut off Madrid from the coast and from Valencia, never extended beyond Teruel, but it is thought that Franco will now attempt to drive east from there to the sea. Should he succeed he would cut off Madrid from Barcelona, and isolate the powerful Catalonian area of the northeast which has offered 60 stiff a resistance to his armies. DRIVE AGAINST ALMERIA. There is evidence in the south of Spain that a determined attempt will be made by the rebels to take the coastal city of Almeria, which stands at the eastern limit of the rebel line in. southern Spain. General Franco has made no progress in that zone for six fonths. It is expected that the attack will be directed by the Italian General Dellano from the rebel cruiser Baleares. An Italian column has been assigned the task of taking the city, it is reported, but it will have the assistance of Spanish reinforcements. . Feverish preparations are being made bv the rebels for an offensive throughout Andalusia. Operations are expected to begin m the region of Martos, 75 miles inland from the southern coast of Spain. Troops are being concentrated at Penarroya, Cordova, Fuentegenil, Rute, Priego and Archidona. NON-STOP EXPRESSES. A tremendous number of troop trains are crowding the tracks. Expresses arc running non-stop from the rebel southern seaboard in the region of Gibraltar to the southern inland front, to which great quantities of men and munitions are being rushed. All passenger traffic has been suspended. Rebel troops have been diverted from any. unimportant fronts to Andalusia. It appears that the attack there is designed to synchronise with the attempt to, take Almeria, thus creating in southern Spain a major diversion which would weaken the Spanish Government’s resistance to the Aragon drive to isolate Madrid.