WAR IN SPAIN

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 51, 1 July 1938, Page 2

WAR IN SPAIN

FRANCO “A FIGUREHEAD” NEW ZEALANDER’S OBSERVATIONS “Franco is a figurehead; the German and Italian High Commands are the real forces behind the Nationalists in tlie Spanish conflict,” said. Ml- T. Spider, a New Zealander,’to a press representative. Mr Spiller, who is now touring the Bay of Plenty to raise funds for the New Zealand Spanish Medical Aid Committee, has returned after fighting for nine months with the Loyalist forces in - Spain, being wounded on three oqfca- , sions. 0 ! n Wednesday night he gave an address in Opotiki. The aim of Mr Spiller’s committee > is to 'keep the three New Zealand nurses ■in Spain supplied with medical equipment. Mr Spiller quoted the enormous number of casualties which had to be dealt- with and mentioned that troops from both sides were treated alike, as they were looked upon as noncombatants when wounded. N»t a Civil War. “(At- first the conflict in Spain may have been a civil war, but it is now a struggle between the forces of democracy and Fascism,” said Mr Spiller. “Fascists looked round for a likely place to strike, and Spain was the weakest link in the chain. If democracy is defeated in Spain, Fascist ac- ■*, tivitv will spread to Czechoslovakia, to the whole of Western Europe, and then once more the youth of the British Empire will be called upon to defend the ideals of democracy,” he declared. The ruthless methods adopted by the insurgents in Spain were described by Mr Spiller, who said that the death-roll in the conflict had been the greatest per head of combatants in any war in history. Thousands ct children had been killed or maimed in air raids carried out to terrorise the defenders into submission. It was; typical of Fascist regimes that theyfocussed the mind of the people outside the routine of daily life, and the action of the Germans and Italians in Spain had had this effect on the. people of the two countries.