Last Chance

On the waterfront of Bilbao last week, city flags still hung from flagstaffs flaunting the city's 700-year motto: INVINCIBLE. The quayside was under fire from Rightist artillery, only six miles away a terrific artillery and aerial barrage had blown a gaping hole in el gallo (the rooster), Bilbao's vaunted triple iron ring of trenches. Rightist troops and trucks were pouring through. Shouted an exultant staff officer above the roaring of field guns: ''Bilbao is ours already, we can take it today, tomorrow, or whenever we want."

Neutral observers agreed with him. For 73 days the city that had never yet fallen to a besieger had fought off attack after attack. Last week the Basques counterattacked where they could, stormed hillsides, blocked roads with tanks, but their artillery was almost silent and their planes were useless. As had happened many times before in this shoestring war, Bilbao was falling for lack of munitions. At a 3 a. m. conference the Basques voted to hold out to the end, but at the front men were fighting with knives and stones. Down the coast road to Santander, 50 miles away, whither the Basque Government had already moved its records, streamed thousands of Basque refugees. Rightist planes refrained from machine-gunning them, unlike the retreat from Malaga to Almeria.

The Valencia Government did what it could last week to relieve pressure on Bilbao. It kept the Aragon front crackling with action. Against Cordoba in the south a major drive was started. For the first time in weeks Leftist planes bombed the outskirts of Salamanca, field headquarters of Generalissimo Franco.

In every sense of the word Rightists were anxious to make hay last week. Harvest time was almost at hand, and neither army will eat this autumn unless the barns are filled in the next few weeks. Reliable reports, too, had it that Rightist Franco's German and Italian backers were giving him his last chance, knowing that the Spanish adventure has become intensely unpopular with humble citizens in Germany and Italy.

A plan of campaign was carefully worked out for all the Spanish fronts in the next few weeks. As an extra dividend Italy threw in one more general, Alfredo Guzzoni, no Fascist militiaman but a regular officer of long service and proven ability.

If, with all this, Rightist Franco cannot now finally sweep Spain, Germany and Italy will probably abandon him, but not the Rightist principle. Diplomatically they may move for a compromise which will restore one of the sons of Alfonso XIII (probably Don Juan, the healthiest) to the throne of Spain, counting on the backing of Britain who is eager for anything that will halt the threat of a general European war.

Denying that he or any of his ministers had fled to Santander last week, Basque President Jose Antonio de Aguirre summoned newshawks to his office, handed out copies of a document addressed to the "Presidents of All Democratic European and American Nationals."

It read: "Is there not a breath of humanity left in the world's conscience to prevent the accomplishment of the most frightful injustice known to the world?"

President de Aguirre admitted the fall of Zamudio and Derio. suburban villages, cried, ''Bilbao never has been captured ... I swear to you it will not fall now." Back and forth over bloody Mount Santo Domingo on the northern shoulder of San Marina Ridge swept the hand-to-hand fighting. Five flights of German or Italian-built bombers poured death onto the hillsides. Four battalions of Rightists held the Santa Maria heights. Basque defenders, punished beyond belief reformed for their last desperate resistance to the grim, tightening circle with which Generalissimo Francisco Franco hoped finally to extinguish the proud Basque boast which had stood for 700 years.

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