CITY ISOLATED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1939, Page 7

CITY ISOLATED

NO HOPE OF EFFECTIVE DEFENCE SERVICES DISORGANISED (Received This Day, 11.25 a.m.) BARCELONA, January 25. The French Ambassador has left Barcelona. Practically all newspaper correspondents have departed. Communication between Barcelona and the outside world is virtually cut off. , The single telephone line to France is jammed with official messages. It is estimated that over 500,000 people have evacuated Barcelona in the last 36 hours, but 1,500,000 persons remain. Three-quarters of the city is without water, electricity or gas. It is stated that the road to Gerano is now under machine-gun fire. In the northern sector the retreating Republicans are dynamiting bridges and railways and burning everything likely to be useful to General Franco. A majority of foreign observers express the opinion that nothing short of a miracle can save the city. General mobilisation and the recruitment of women, to dig fortifications, was left too late and the so-called third line of defence consists merely of hastily-dug, shallow trenches, where battle-weary and inadequately armed Republicans can do little more than hold out until ill the material necessary for the Government to carry on the struggle is removed from the city.