THE TEMPEST IN SPAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24243, 28 September 1940, Page 9

THE TEMPEST IN SPAIN

A Woman’s Version Of Civil War IN PLACE OF SPLENDOUR. By Constancia de la Mora. Michael Joseph, London, through Whitcombe and Tombs. Price 16/-. Constancia de la Mora was born into one of the old and aristocratic families of Spain. As the granddaughter of a Prime Minister, she was educated to take her place in exalted circles. But even while she was a child she found herself worrying about things (the stark poverty of her father’s tenants, for example) which were supposed to pass unnoticed. After several drab years in a convent school she persuaded her father to send her to an English convent, where she became entirely happy. She returned to Spain an" attractive and eligible young woman, but to the dismay of her parents she insisted on marrying an empty-headed man with whom she imagined herself to be in love. Within a few years she was separated from her husband, and had broken the traditions of her class by working to support herself and her small daughter.

SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS This first part of the book is an extremely interesting autobiography. It throws a merciless light on the social background of a Spain which was badly in need of reform, and it does much to explain the reversion to an authoritarian regime after the triumph of General Franco and his Fascist and Nazi allies. In 1931 Constancia de la Mora became interested in politics, and was one of the few aristocrats who welcomed the Republic. She was the first woman to take advantage of the new ’ divorce laws: as soon as she was free she mar-

ried an officer to be known later as General Cisneros, leader of the Government air force. During the preliminary period of political unrest Cisneros and his wife were attached to the Spanish embassies in Rome and Berlin. They returned to Spain at the first threat of trouble, and were soon taking leading parts—Cisneros with the air force, and his wife at the Foreign Press Bureau. Here she became known to the Press correspondents from all over the world, and she is able to give interesting glimpses of men and women whose names are well known to newspaper readers. Her judgments on the Republican leaders, whom she saw at close range, are clear-cut and revealing. She writes with bitterness of the non-intervention farce which allowed Spain to be invaded by Gex-mans and Italians while the legal Government was unable to buy aeroplanes and weapons with which to defend its territory. And at the end, when the leaders had to. depart hurriedly from Barcelona, she tells a sombre but exciting story of flight, betrayal and escape. DEEP SINCERITY There have been numerous books about the Spanish Civil War, and there will be others in the days to come. But this version has been written by a Spanish woman who was no mere spectator of a national drama. She lived close to her country’s ordeal, seeing it through the eyes of . a true patriot. Her work has a passionate sincerity which makes it difficult to criticize her incomplete account of Russian intervention, or her rather sweeping generalizations on Spanish politics. History may prove her judgments to be broadly correct. But the book will be read mainly as a human document, written with indignation against a background of tragic events.