ITALIANS IN SPAIN

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20271, 25 March 1938, Page 4

ITALIANS IN SPAIN

EVACUATION UNLIKELY NURSE BACK FROM WAR WIDESPREAD INTERESTS Disbelief in cabled reports that Mussolini intended to evacuate Italian troops from Spain was expressed by Sister Mary Lowson, Australian nurse from the Spanish Government's fighting front, who is undertaking a lecture tour through New Zealand. "I do not believe that Mussolini would abandon his dreams of a new Roman Empire unless he was sure he was beaten," said Miss Lowson. The Italians had, undoubtedly, met with utterly unexpected reverses in Spain. It was said that they had lost more troops in one battle than In the whole of the Abyssinian campaign. Nevertheless, she was convinced that Mussolini would not easily be persuaded to release his hold in Spain. . The importance of Germany's interests in Spanish ores.and metals for Hitler's rearmament programme made it appear most unlikely that the Germans would leave the country. They had guns mounted on the coast all round Gibraltar, and across on the other sides of the straits in Spanish Morocco, thus securing the route for their trading vessels. ESPIONAGE SERVICE.

The Spanish Government was well informed through its espionage service of the intentions of the Germans and Italians and were with reason sceptical as to the genuineness of Mussolini's offers. The majority of Spaniards, in Miss Lowson's opinion, are definitely supporters of the Government and acted as serious deterrents to the rebels' campaign in those parts of Spam dominated by General Franco's army. Subversive tactics in favour of the Government even went so far as to blow up bridges and railways on the routes to be followed by Fascist troops. Thousands had deserted to the Government from the rebel army, including some of the Italian soldiers who were .fighting in the Government's Garibaldi brigade. The Germans, on the other hand, were the real Nazi type, and were not easily won over to the Government. HOW LONG WILL IT LAST. A certain hesitancy in answering a question as to how long she thought the war would last was attributed by Miss Lowson to the impossibility of gauging the actions of other nations in the Spanish crisis. The Government claimed, she said, that it could hold out unaided for two years more. If the arms embargo were relaxed, its resistance could, she believed, be prolonged beyond the stage when the Germans and Italians would be forced to retire on account of internal pressure in their own countries.

At present it was possible to bring in medical and food supplies over the French frontier. Ammunition was, of course, barred. It was the first time in history that a legal Government had been forbidden to import arms to put down a rebellion in its own country. At the time of the fighting in Bilbao, she said, trainloads of ammunition were held up'on the French frontier, while the defence of Bilbao was rendered impossible for the lack of it.