SPANISH WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1940, Page 9

SPANISH WAR

SURRENDER OF MADRID EXPOSURE OF NEGRIN ADMINISTRATION. COLONEL'S REVELATIONS. The Spanish Civil War seems distant enough now. The memory of it and the passionate emotions it provoked are obliterated by a greater horror. Yet a reminder of some of its features is not altogether untimely, and Mr Ruper Croft-Cooke in his preface to Colonel Casado’s “The Last Days of Madrid”—which he has trans-

luted —says something which badly reeded saying. "In this country, throughout the war." he writes, "the intelligentsia were 'taking sides’ like preparatory schoolboys on Boat Race Day, while a nation was committing silicide. To those of us who Jove Spain and her people the idiot oratory of 'Save Spain' meetings was as painful as the 'Christian Gentleman' lull; cl, the Franquistas." “RESIST! RESIST!” "The Last Days of Madrid concerns the surrender of the city to General Franco told by the person who negotiated the surrender, in the dark days when the Negrin administration was actually ordering the re-sale of provisions and armaments purchased abroad while repeating "Resist! Re-

sist!" to the powerless army and the starved people. When the Civil War broke out. Colonel Casado was in command of the escort of the President of the Republic. Only 25 stall oilieers remained loyal to the Republic, of whom he was one. and in lhe September of 1!)3G. lie became Operations Chief of the- General Stall' of the War Ministry. In. March. 11)38. he assumed command <■!' the Andalusian army, and from May until the end of the war he commanded the Central .Army.

What gives his narrative a special significant is that he. of all people most loyal to the defeated cause, is most bitter in his indictment of the Government of Negrin and the Communists. No supporter of Franco could he more devastating—and. as lie was

in the centre of events, he knows the facts. As b.is translator so truly says. I it is "so dispassionately described. I with such documentation and detail,! that one feels that al least one chapter I m (he long story of the war has been I written truthfully and honestly." A DETAILED INDICTMENT. Of Negrin himself. Casado writes: I "ignoring the stark reality, he tried' te continue a suicidal war in accord- | ; nee with the plans of the Soviet Government.'' and in his last chapter, entitled “I accuse." he makes a ter-j rille and detailed indictment, which is not likely to be answered—or answer- ; ble. It is impossible in short space to abridge it satisfactorily, but the core

I of it may be given in one short quoiaI lion: "The people lothed this Governl ment. to which lhe Communists gave i the pompom name of Dr. Negrin's GoI vernment of National Union. The title leould not have been more imieeurate. i since it was not a Government, there i was nothing national about it. and Dr. Negrin was not at its head. !l vns jei: anti-Spanisli dictatorship, ruled b\ ; the Communis! Party. How did it igovern” The Minister of Agriculture, j Vicente Uribe, member of the Political | Bureau of the Spanish Communist | Party, received instructions from his party, winch in turn obeyed instructions from Russia." This is the verdict of an inveterate opponent of General Franco, and his book will confirm the suspicion, that

: many men even of the "Left" had, | that there was something excessively "phoney" about the "democrat w” c.mso in Spain.