"Appalling Catastrophe"

As admirably British as their tightly rolled umbrellas, a brave little group of seven M. P.'s of assorted British parties arrived in Madrid last week. After calm inspection of the scene of carnage they radioed home: "We make no comment upon the military situation, but a city of a million inhabitants is being subjected to attack from the ground and from the air. . . . Starvation is at work and epidemic seems inevitable. . . . We doubt if the magnitude of the appalling catastrophe is fully understood."

This was very nearly all that needed saying about the siege of Madrid, which reached its 31st day this week, but meanwhile Soviet munitions were arriving to bolster the cause of proletarian Premier Francisco Largo Caballero who fled with his Cabinet from Madrid to Valencia (TIME, Nov. 16), and the enormous quantity of gold which his adherents took from the Bank of Spain was beginning to have its effect. It was established last week that disguised Spanish fishing smacks, heavily armed, have been regularly running this gold to Marseille. The Bank of France has been buying it as fast as presented, and in the name of Largo Caballero and other Spanish Marxians as individuals, bank accounts have been set up in France. On the Pyrenees frontier last week seedy-looking persons crossing from Spain were found by French customs guards to have gold pieces and even ingots concealed in loaves of bread. Thus it appeared that before fleeing from Madrid the Cabinet not only "democratized" rifles and pistols by handing them out openly but must also have flung to the Madrid mob a portion of the nation's metallic reserves.

This week the Largo Caballero Cabinet claimed to be "resuming the offensive on all fronts." With what they have been able to buy in France and have been sent by Russia, the Spanish Premier at Valencia and Spanish President Manuel Azana at Barcelona got their Red militia going in drives on Talavera de la Reina, El Escorial and Toledo near Madrid and, on the north coast of Spain, started a drive toward Burgos which, since the sixth day of the war, has been the Capital of the Whites who acknowledge Francisco Franco as their President and Generalissimo. In an eye-for-an-eye spirit, the Whites replied to the Red execution fortnight ago of the eldest son of Spain's onetime Dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera by reporting executed last week at Segovia Jose Largo Calvo, 22-year-old son of the Premier.

At Valencia up spoke the Air & Marine Minister of the Largo Caballero Cabinet, enormous Indalecio Prieto: "I surprised many and aroused the indignation of many others at the beginning of the war by predicting the fight would be long and hard. Everyone seemed to believe it would be a question of two or three weeks. I was right. And I believe it again safe to say that the conflict will extend at least through December, January and February and enter a far more intensive stage than the present battle for Madrid."

"Rain in the north and snow in some sectors," continued the Air & Marine Minister professionally, "will slow up aviation and artillery. This time will be used for fortifying by both sides. . . . Franco will be unsuccessful in blockading Barcelona unless Germany and Italy openly throw their fleets to his support. ... I lament the impoverishing of Spain--for unlike an international war this cannot have fruits of victory for anyone. There can be no reparations collected by the winner. Large quantities of the country's wealth have been shipped abroad. Alas for Spain!"

With this gloomy outlook before them, the Largo Caballero Cabinet decided to see what the League of Nations could be got to do. While themselves receiving aid from Russia and Mexico, with numerous Soviet pilots fighting in their air force, the Cabinet flashed off to Geneva a declaration that "the armed intervention of Germany and Italy in the Spanish Civil War in favor of the Rebels [is] an intervention which in itself constitutes a most flagrant violation of international law . . . menacing peace and goodwill among nations. "On receipt of this note, the Council of the League prepared to convene in a week or ten days and the British and French Cabinets dithered, expecting that Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff will behave as though the League Council were a soap box and he the orator chosen to tell the world that whatever is Left is right and whatever is Right is wrong. In Moscow last week Comrade Litvinoff made a sprightly beginning at this by bawling to the delighted Soviet Congress: "We take from the hands of collapsing European Democracy the banner of Liberty, and fill it with a new Socialist-Soviet content!"

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