Carlists v. Legitimists

To Gibraltar last week the Rightist Government sent an official announcement that El Caudillo Francisco Franco has expelled from Rightist Spain Francis Xavier Charles Marie Anne Joseph, Prince of Bourbon-Parma, Carlist pretender to Spain's vanished throne.*

Among the Spanish Rightist parties which back the Franco Government are two royalist groups. Of these the Legitimists want to enthrone former King Alfonso XIII's third son Don Juan. The Carlists had as their candidate old Don Alfonso Carlos, who 65 years ago tried by an armed insurrection to seize the throne. When the new revolution broke out 18 months ago, he was 86. All he did was to order some 60,000 Carlists to fight under Generalissimo Franco while he sat tight in Vienna. Then one day he was killed by an automobile, and his second cousin, Prince Xavier, was chosen as the new Carlist pretender.

Pretender Xavier, only 48, went bustling down from Paris to Salamanca "for the purpose of investing Franco as Regent" (i. e., as a Carlist Regent). After the Generalissimo and the Prince conferred, it was announced they had agreed "on the necessity of uniting all Spaniards worthy of the name on a basis of national and traditional principles."

When Prince Xavier stayed on in Rightist Spain, however, not only Legitimists but powerful London friends of Franco became alarmed. After all, the mother of Legitimist Juan is a British princess who today lives in London, receiving full honors from the royal family as Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Last week's Rightist announcement at Gibraltar said the Carlist Pretender had been expelled from Rightist Spain for engaging in "political activities."

Meanwhile Leftists announced that refugees from Rightist territory told of an attempted Rightist mutiny at Saragossa on January 4, after which two captains, four lieutenants and ten enlisted men were executed.

* An uncle of Archduke Otto of Habsburg, who is pretender to the throne of Austria.

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