SPANISH CONFLICT

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 August 1936, Page 5

SPANISH CONFLICT

FORCES MASSING FOR CRUCIAL BATTLES. Press Association Electric Tele=r<inh—Copyright LONDON, Thursday. No vital advantage was gained by either side to-day in the Spanish conflict, but forces, are massing at stragetic points preparatory to crucial battles. The district round Saragossa is the scene of the heaviest fighting in the civil war. Government aeroplanes are bombing the neighbourhood of the city,, where the insurgents have gathered. Government columns are pressing forward, and the battle may prove decisive for a large area of northern Spain.

Conflicting assurances of confidence are still being issued from the rival camps. ITALIAN PLANES CRASH. i TWO AIRMEN KILLED. ORAN, Friday. Three out of six Italian aeroplanes from Sardinia for Spanish Morocco made a forced landing on French soil. One crashed twenty-five miles from Nemours, Algeria, and two airmen were killed and a third injured.

Five machine-guns were found aboard the second machine, which landed near Or an, and the third landed near La Moulouya. ITALIAN STATEMENT. (Received Saturday, 10.10 a.m.) ROME, Friday. An official inquiry has been opened into the use of Italian planes in Morocco. It is stated that if it is established that tho planes were Italian they must have been connected with private enterprise. INTERNATIONAL ASPECT. CAUSING SERIOUS CONCERN. (Received Saturday, 10.10 a.m.) LONDON, Friday. The “Morning Post’s” diplomatic correspondent says the international aspects of the civil war in Spain are beginning to cause serious concern in London. The discovery that Italian aeroplanes were supplying the insurgents until arms is causing acute complications. In view of the statement of M. Yvon Delbos (French Foreign Minister), if proved, that other Powers are arming the rebels, France will be free to reconsider her refusal 1 to assist the Government. It is now considered that the situation will require very skilful handling to prevent the civil war becoming an*international issue.

The prospects of the Five Power Conference are already compromised and whatever is the final result of the civil war, it can only widen the rift in Europe. If the Government is victorious, it will tend to make Fascist Italy and Germany turn more closely to each oilier. On the contrary a rebel victory will lead France to rely more on the Soviet.

The “Guardian’s” Barcelona correspondent says that whatever the outcome of the civil war the social power of the Church has been definitely destroyed and the political influence of tho Army has disappeared. CONFIDENT OF VICTORY. GOVERNMENT POSITION. (Received Saturday, 10.10 a.m.) MADRID, Friday. The Government is so confident of victory that it is asking numbers of the militia to return to their jobs, and claim that the rebels in the south arc hemmed in by Government forces, while the situation in the north is unchanged. The Government has replied to the International Commission at Tangier, agreeing not to use the port as a supply base, and demands that France be similarly barred. The Spanish newspapers point out that a Fascist victory would mean that France would be surrounded by hostile Powers. The defeat of France would mean tiiat Germany and Japan would attack Russia. Thus the most terrible world war may result from the Spanish struggle.