The Fighting Ends In Spain

Southland Times, Issue 23782, 1 April 1939, Page 6

The Fighting Ends In Spain

AFTER two years and eight months of implacable warfare the people of Spain are once more to be united under a single Government. There will be some, no doubt, to whom the result will seem a triumph for Spanish nationalism. Others will regard it with detestation as the triumph of reactionary forces or as a betrayal of Spain and a victory for the foreign supporters of fascism. The indisputable facts, however, are that Spain has been reduced to an insignificant status among the nations of Europe, that the country as a whole has .suffered immense losses in life and property, and that the spiritual and social degradation innate in a civil conflict must remain a tragic influence in Spanish culture for generations to come. Foreign estimates of casualties vary considerably, but it is probably true that at least 1,000,000 persons have lost their lives. The principal cities have been bombed and shelled until their noble architecture is a blurred and damaged outline among the ruins. Civilians have lived in a constant tension, striving to adapt themselves to the sound of the bombers, to the rush for underground shelters and to the sight of blood in the broken streets. The industries of Catalonia have been damaged so severely that they can be rebuilt only at great - expense and as part of a long attempt to replace a shattered economic system. In the agricultural districts the recovery may be quicker; but here, as in the towns, the social bewilderment and the abrupt political transitions will remain a handicap to productive effort. At first, perhaps, there will be a deceptive calmness. The people are exhausted, and will be eager for peace. But the bitterness and cruelty of the past 32 months cannot be thrust aside like the shadows of a dark dream. Few families have escaped bereavement, suffering, terror or financial ruin. The memories of brutality and sudden death which lurk in the minds of millions of people must become a potent force beneath the surface of national life during the period of reconstruction. Will this force express itself in apathy and despair, or in the gradual revival of political feuds? The Spaniards, it should be remembered, are intensely individualist in outlook. They dislike centralized government; it is no accident that the anarchist, whose political philosophy is mainly a fanatical insistence on freedom and equality, should have survived to the end of the war as the nucleus of the extreme left wing. Italian Influence

Meanwhile the war has had a profound effect in the outside world. Italy and Germany have used it as the means of advancing their own imperialistic designs and as a kind of laboratory in which to test the new weapons of warfare. The results of this intervention are among the most obscure problems that will have to be solved in Spain in the next few years. General Franco has proved successful in the field, but it is doubtful if he will be the foremost, or even a prominent, figure in the new political regime. There will be much speculation about the degree and forms of Italian influence. It is difficult to believe that the Spanish people will submit quietly to domination from outside. Signor Mussolini will have to depend on the cooperation of a friendly Spanish Government if he is to make substantial economic and strategic gains from his share in the campaign, and it is an open question how long the new regime will be able to resist the pressure of a reviving national sentiment. The war is at an end, but the fundamental problems of the Spanish people are still in their own hands, and must be solved somehow in the difficult years that lie ahead. Meanwhile it may be unwise to accept the result too readily as a victory for fascism. If it is indeed a victory, it has been gained only at an immense cost to Italy, whose intervention has had neither the swift and dazzling success nor the immediate and tangible gains of the Nazi coups in the east. Fascism is vulnerable as soon as its exponents are forced to depart from the tactic of political blackmail and to try their fortune in the field. The lesson that war impoverishes the victorious and the defeated alike should not have had to be learned again so soon after the catastrophe of 1914-18. It may be written in future histories that Signor Mussolini made his greatest mistake in sending his troops to the battlefields of Spain.