A DECISION IN SPAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 January 1939, Page 4

A DECISION IN SPAIN

£J:O far as resistance by the Republican Government to the insurgent and foreign forces headed by General Franco is concerned, the war in Spain appears to be nearly at an end. Possibly taken unawares by a winter offensive, the Government forces have suffered a series of shattering disasters in Catalonia. In spite of an assurance by the Spanish Premier, Senor Negrin, that “Barcelona will not fall,” and of the effort now being made at Madrid to create a diversion, it would not be surprising to hear at any time that the Catalonian capital had been taken by the insurgents.

That event, should it occur, no doubt would mark the end of the struggle in Spain which has been carried on for more than two years and a half between Government and insurgent forces. It is by no means certain, however, that the way would thus be opened to an immediate settlement in Spain. Much as he has been assisted by Italy and Germany, General Franco professedly stands for the establishment of a Nationalist regime in Spain. In the event of the Republicans being overthrown, it would no doubt appear speedily whether the insurgent leader is really capable of establishing such a regime, or is merely a puppet controlled efficiently by Italy and Germany.

Writing on that subject in the “Sydney Morning Herald,” a Spanish journalist, Senor Manuel Chaves Nogales, observed that:—

Italy ... before giving free course to an offensive which may decide the fate of the war, demands, as is natural, that her troops should fight under their own flag—that the victory should be an Italian victory. The only object of the recent Italian territorial claims (against France) was to prepare Europe for the conquest of the Spanish peninsula. Italy claims Corsica and takes the Balearic islands; menaces Tunis and occupies the Spanish zone of Morocco. These are elementary tactics.

On the other hand, Senor Nogales also affirms that the unanimous feeling of Spanish military circles in “Franco's Spain” is :—

If the Italians help us to win the war, we shall recognise and pay for their services, when the time comes; but the Spanish war will be won by the soldiers of Spain.

Senor Nogales declares that this general feeling is so visible that Franco has been compelled to take repressive police measures against the anti-Italian campaign of his own generals and officers. If the Italians intervene decisively to finish at one blow, he further observes, “they run the risk of encountering not only the resistance of Governmental Spain, but also that of the Nationalist Army, which is secretly proud of the pi'owess and heroism of the other camp, and which, if it had to choose, would prefer a ‘Red’ victory to that of the Italians.”

Assuming that this Spanish commentator has summed up the position accurately, the spectacle may presently be witnessed of Italy, with German support, turning.from the ostensible support, of one party against another in a so-called civil war in Spain to the straight-out conquest of the country. The gravity of the international issues that will be raised should events take that course could not well be exaggerated.