Decapitation

Correspondents with the Leftist Armies, retreating before the Spanish Rightist offensive on a front of 200 miles (see map) kept darting warily up into this town or that last week, scuttling back almost as soon as they arrived. As one cabled, "the changing front is like shifting sands." In frenzied efforts to keep the People's Army fighting, such powerful speakers were rushed to the front as Communist Deputy Andre Marty of the French Chamber who dashed about shouting: "Fight on! French troops are coming to help you repel the Fascist hordes. If you can hold out for three days, they will be here!"

No soldiers of France entered Spain up to this week, but some 6,000 Leftist soldiers fled over the mountainous Pyrenees frontier into France, and of these some 4,000 were promptly shipped by the French back by rail to Loyalist territory. From Barcelona the U. S. diplomatic mission moved 20 miles nearer France on the coast. Leftist Premier Dr. Juan Negrin called for 100,000 fresh volunteers for the People's Army, and Defense Minister Indalecio Prieto no longer spoke of victory but tried to persuade the French that unless they sent help the methodical advance of Generalissimo Francisco Franco might not stop in Spain but smash right on into the French Republic.

Meanwhile the great Rightist offensive was doing well, but the caution of the Generalissimo continued strongly in evidence. The No. 2 city of Catalonia is Lerida, No. 1 being Barcelona, and last week Rightist General Juan Yague waited for three whole days with an overwhelming force before Lerida, while other supporting Rightist units on his left and right wings completed their scheduled gains. Then the Generalissimo ordered: "Proceed to take Lerida!" In a full day of savage street fighting, with Rightist tanks crashing down barricades, artillery pounding ahead, Lerida was taken in one of the bloodiest fights of the war.

The Generalissimo had thus won "The Key to Barcelona," as even the Leftists have called Lerida, but it was 80 miles to the keyhole. With General Yague just starting keyholeward this week, twelve assorted Rightist forces were all making unchallenged claims to sweeping victories all the way from the French frontier which was smothered with refugees, down to Teruel. A major Rightist drive hurled itself down the widening valley of the Ebro River, and with Leftists surrendering so fast that what to do with so many prisoners became an acute Rightist problem, the Generalissimo besieged Tortosa from the land with troops while Rightist warships blockaded the broad delta from the sea, 20 miles distant.

Meanwhile the Lincoln-Washington battalion of Americans suffered its heaviest blow of the war. Caught behind the enemy lines as the Rightists smashed through, the battalion tried to fight its way back in small groups. Nine men attempted to swim the swift Ebro River, three got across. At week's end only 150 of the 450 Americans had been accounted for.

As the Rightists approached the sea this week their thrust decapitated Leftist Spain, cutting off from the southern trunk in which are Valencia and Madrid the northern head in which is Barcelona. There this week Catalonia's greatest Leftist statesmen strove to prevent the Anarchists from staging one more grand massacre of white-collar people and any possible sympathizers with the Generalissimo. In Paris, where the French Government was in hourly, friendly touch with Barcelona, officials sighed: "Let us hope the Spanish war does not end as it began, with mass murder."

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