THUNDER OF SHELLS FALLING IN MADRID

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 314, 21 December 1936, Page 5

THUNDER OF SHELLS FALLING IN MADRID

ONLY ECHO TO SUGGESTIONS OF CHRISTMAS TRUCE.

GENERAL MILITARY POSITION STILL REPORTED UNCHANGED.

COLUMN OF IRISH VOLUNTEERS ON WAY TO FRONT (Press Association—Copyright.) Received Noon To-day. MADRID, December 20. > The only echo of the Christmas truce suggestions is the thunder of rebel shells falling in the capital while the defenders’ famous repeating gun retaliates, shelling rebel positions amid brursts of machine-gun and rifle fire. Both sides are better organised than ever, and the general military positio nis unchanged despit sporadic successes on either side. A column of Irish volunteers for General Franco has left Lisbon for the front. The Loyalists have dubbed them “Irish Moors” in contradistinction to the term “Blonde Moors,’ 'applied to the insurgents’ German auxiliaries. A Moscow message states that the Soviet confirms the report of a Spanish rebel warship setting fire to and sinking the Russian Shipping Trust’s steamer Komsomol, due at Gibraltar on December 15, with 6209 tons of manganese iron ore consigned to a Belgian firm at Ghent. The sinking occurred between Oran and Cartagena on December 14. The fate of the crew of thirty is unknown. The newspaper Izvestia, declaring that the Fascist rebels are playing with fire, threatens reprisals for “this outrageous act of piracy.”