FIERCE BATTLE RAGES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 121, 22 April 1938, Page 2

FIERCE BATTLE RAGES

SPANISH CIVIL CAMPAIGN. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, April 20. Tlie Burgos correspondent of the London Times says a furious battlo is raging at Tortosa, which is blazing under artillery fire. The Republicans, despite their desperate resistance, are unable to hold the Nationalists on tlie right bank, but have established defences on the left bank of the River Ebro, abandoning much material. LARGE FORCE SURROUNDED. 'The Nationalists have surrounded 20,000 Republicans in the mountains soutli-west of the Ebro whom the cavalry ranks are rounding .up. r The Barcelona correspondent of the Times says the Republicans defending Catalonia have established a strong line behind the Ebro and still hold the bridgeheads at Seros, Lerida and Balaguer. Tlie Republicans have counter-at-tacked and stopped the insurgents’ advance. BRITONS ASKED TO LEAVE. The British Consul-General lias appealed to the British colony .of 280 persons in Catalonia to pack up and be gone by April 22. Tortosa. is an old Spanish town on the Ebro River 40 miles south-west of Tarragona. It has a population of about 25,000. The Fbro River, one of the key positions in the present campaign, rises in Santander province within 20 miles of the Bay of Biscay; then it flows 440 miles south-east to tho Mediterranean below Tortosa.