The Sidewalks of Madrid

For weeks banners have stretched across the narrow alleys leading to Madrid's trolley-thronged Puerta del Sol urging Spanish Radicals to go out and fight for the Government. For weeks trenches hastily dug in the outer boulevards have been guarded by groups of excitable, untrained Red Militia. Despite all this, nobody in the centre of the capital could quite believe last week that the final attack on Madrid was so close, until the wind shifted and the deep throb of distant cannonading sounded over the city.

Women dashed through the streets, waving market baskets, taking part in a drive to enlist men who had failed to go to the front. At week's end came the first daytime air raid on the capital. Under orders from White Generalissimo Francisco Franco no effort was made to drop heavy bombs. White aviators contented themselves with cutting didos in the air, ripping off belts of machine gun bullets at the sidewalks of Madrid. When the planes had gone and the racket ceased the streets were dotted white with leaflets calling on Madrid to surrender before the real hell of heavy bombing was loosed upon it.

Meanwhile, as foreign correspondents with the White Army reported that they could see the twinkling lights of Madrid at night, the Government forces defending the capital suddenly received a new commander-in-chief last week, 60-year-old General Sebastian Pozas Perea. This onetime Minister of the Interior is a capable officer and expert tactician who has long been submerged in the political squabbles of Spain's Leftist Government. With his predecessor, General Jose Asenseo, booted upstairs to Undersecretary of War, General Pozas moved mountains to get a sense of discipline and a few rudiments of drill into his militiamen. A lucky hit by a rebel bomber on a reported Russian freighter unloading at Cartagena seemed to prove Britain's assertion that Russia was supplying tanks, artillery and planes to Spain's Red Government, but practically none of this material last week reached the Madrid front. President Manual Azana of Spain and other Cabinet officers had fled fortnight ago to Barcelona and this week the London Times indicated that Premier Largo Caballero's jig was up, thus: "Great Britain now considers with less hesitation the prospect of recognizing the Government of Franco inasmuch as the Madrid Government has brusquely rejected the British offer to help in the exchange of prisoners and hostages."

At sea, things were not going much better for the Reds. From the grimy deck of the Rebel destroyer Velasco, came one of the most exciting rolls of film yet to be taken in Spain's civil war. Weeks ago, off the Galician fishing town of El Ferrol, the Velasco encountered the Loyalist submarine B6. A few lucky shots and the submarine was flooded. She began to sink by the stern. On deck a Rebel seaman snapped away industriously with his camera while the Loyalist crew huddled abaft the conning tower, while an overloaded lifeboat was filled with survivors, while the submarine dived straight down leaving the waters dotted with men swimming for their lives (see cut).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.