The Wanganui Chronicle FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1937. REPUBLICAN OFFENSIVE IN SPAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 245, 15 October 1937, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1937. REPUBLICAN OFFENSIVE IN SPAIN

'THE reported Republican offensive in Spain is evidently an effort to compel the insurgents to dissipate their forces along a fairly wide front and thus make it impossible for the attack on Madrid to be developed in full strength. The insurgent forces having secured the control of the coastal regions on the Bay of Biscay, arc now able to remove elsewhere. Madrid may not be strategically as important as other points, but the psychological value of having possession of the capital cannot be overrated; it would strengthen General Franco’s claim that belligerent rights should be accorded him. The insurgents claim that the Government’s attack on Saragossa has been repulsed. Saragossa lies north of Madrid, somewhat more than half-way to the Pyrannean frontier. Its importance strategically lies in the fact that it is the most important town on the river Ebro, and the railway line which runs east by south to the Province of Taragona, which lies immediately south of the Province of Barcelona. Saragossa lies approximately in the centre of the line of the present attack which runs from Jaca, which is directly north of Saragosso by one hundred miles to the Province of Teruel, which lies about the same distance southward of the city.

Assuming that the attack upon Saragossa has been repulsed, the next move of the Government troops would be to endeavour to achieve an encircling movement. The number of'men reported to be engaged in this movement is 200,000, and the engagement extends over a front of 250 kilometres. This gives an average of 800 men to the kilometre. In other words, to hold a line of the length of the Wanganui Avenue would take about 1000 men. This does not, of course, mean that they are all engaged in the front-line defence; it would include the supports and those engaged in communications. In such circumstances the vital factor is communications, which would enable the attack to be directed at any point and developed there. The attack bears the complexion of being purely a Catalonian effort, having the advantage of a compact province behind the lines. The main line of advance must inevitably be through Saragossa, and the general plan of the present attack must be that of an encirclement of that town. Meanwhile Madrid is being shelled in order to encourage a diversion from the Saragossa front.