FORTUNE EXPENDED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19335, 27 May 1937, Page 13

FORTUNE EXPENDED

FINANCE FOR REBELS ITALIAN AID SOUGHT LONDON, April 14. Senor Juan March, one-time street arab of Madrid, who became Spain's richest and most powerful figure and friend of King Alfonso, is reported to have spent; nearly all of his fortune financing General Franco's rebellion. ft is said that he is down to his last million, but is still confident that the insurgents will win and thTTT he will get all his money back from Hie victorious Fascists.

lie, has just, gone' 1o Italy to bog further armed assistance from Signer Mussolini to enable I lie attack on Madrid to be renewed. To newspaper correspondents at Naples he said affairs in Spain were "progressing favourably" and that when victory was complete he would be happy to grant newspaper interviews.

Before he loft Gibraltar he admitted that the bulk of his vast fortune had been spent, but that enough remained "to keep Jito until tho Bolshevik thieves are driven from Spain or J die."

Scnor March, who is 80, played a big part behind tho scenes in inducing Mussolini lo intervene in .Spain. While in Italy news of General Franco's reverses has been concealed from the public. The Gorman press, particularly the Frankfurter Zeitungr admits the chances of defeating Ihe Spanish Government art! now small. The newspaper draws the lesson from the German army that in modern war swift success is not possible as army strategists heretofore thought, and air

bombing and mechanised units have not proved the success they wen; expected to be.

Though nothing of the sort is admitted in Germany, it is undoubtedly iTie discovery that the "Spanish dress rehearsal for the next war" has shown that lightning victories cannot be won even with the most powerful weapons, that has curbed Heir Hitler's enthusiasm for sending Gorman troops to Spain to fight the "Bolsheviks."