NATIONALIST AIMS.

Wairarapa Age, 28 July 1936, Page 5

NATIONALIST AIMS.

ACCORDING TO GENERAL FRANCO. SAYS GOVERNMENT VICTORY MEANS RED TERROR. (Received Monday, 7.45 p.m.) LONDON, July 27. General Franco, interviewed by the “Daily Mail’’ said: “The revolution is a nationalist movement to save Spain from Russian domination and replace her in the ranks of great nations. A Government victory would mean a Red terror. Only to-day Communists burned alive twenty-seven persons near Seville. Three-quarters of the country and the colonies are already in our hands and Madrid is hourly expected to fall’’

The revolutionaries claim a success in the Guadarrama Mountains and announce that the Government troops retired with heavy losses. The Government Generals Caminero and Ramirez, with the infantry commander Don Manuel Moras, fled to Portugal and surrendered to the authorities at Braganza.

Three hundred rebel artillerymen from the Loyola Barracks at San Sebastian broke through a Government force, took field guns into the hills overlooking the city and began a two hours’ bombardment. A Loyalist detachment, accompanied by miners and militia from Bilboa, launched a coun-ter-attack on the gunners, who, are defiantly serving their pieces in what the Socialist leader Prieto describes as "the last death-rattle of the rebellion.” Malaga may not be able to defend itself, because, though nominally under Government control, it is overrun with

looting mobs, who have commandeered motors and are imprisoning and shooting all anti-Red citizens. They dragged out from a prison General Paxtrot, former Garrison Commander, and shot him in cold blood. The Governor of Valencia, which is in Government hands, has guaranteed the safety of Britons from Malaga, into which starving Spaniards are crowding from adjacent districts.

Two rebel aeroplanes flying northwards from Morocco are reported to have been shot down. A sergeant-pilot flying a rebel officer from Morocco to Spain solo, looped, driving his passenger out, after which he flew to Madrid and joined the Government. Fifty aeroplanes which have arrived at Barcelona from France are stated to be the first consignment of a Government purchase of three-hundred machines.

The British warship Douglas rescued the famous educational expert Madame Montessori, from. Barcelona, from which place a merchant ship took her to Gibraltar, with eighty-seven refugees, including a troupe of sixteen English dancing girls, who were herded into a schoolhouse and slept for five nights on a concrete floor without undressing. The German battleship Admiral Scheer is expected at Barcelona shortly. Her sister ship, the Deutschland, has arrived at San Sebastian, where the evacuation of refugees is satisfactorily proceeding. The presence of these battleships has greatly added to Germany’s prestige. She has acceded to Austria’s request to safeguard her nationals in Spain. The savagery in Seville is described as appalling. Soldiers shot down unarmed workers, who seized any weapons from chairs and syphons to hatchets and razors. The rebels drove them into a house and thence from storey to storey and room to room until they butchered them on the roofs with rifles and bayonets.

TRIBUTE TO THE NAVY. GOOD WORK IN SAVING REFUGEES. (Received Monday, 9.5 p.m.) LONDON, July 27. A British destroyer took off foreigners at Seville. The Repulse has gone to Majorca to bring off refugees from Palma. Two hundred Swiss landed at Marseilles from Barcelona by the British destroyers Garland and Douglas lustily sang in unison “God save the British Navy.” TIDE OF WAR. GOVERNMENT INCREASINGLY CONFIDENT. (Received This Day, 1.23 a.m.) MADRID, July 27. The tide of war appears definitely to be running in favour of the Government, who claim control of the entire coast with the exception of Vigo, Corunna, Cadiz and Algeciras. An important battle may possibly occur within sight of Gibraltar. A column of Loyalists from Malaga is rapidly approaching the rebels from Algeciras.

The Government also claims to hold the entire petrol supplies of the Peninsula and is daily receiving a million cartridges from munitions factories at Toledo and Murcha. The Premier, Senor Gilrai, interviewed said: “We are convinced of victory because the Navy and Air Force support us. We are already considering the reorganisation of the Army, based on strengthening the Popular front. All danger of a siege of Madrid has disappeared.”