Second Anniversary

One evening two years ago a bored United Press night man in Paris picked up a buzzing telephone to hear his London office calling. "Our subscription call from Spain hasn't come through," London told Paris. "We can't raise Madrid. Will you try?" A few minutes later the Paris international operator reported: "The Spanish operators don't answer."

That was on July 18, 1936. Five days earlier Europe had been warned of the extent of unrest in Spain by the murder of Monarchist Deputy Jose Calvo Sotelo, onetime Finance Minister, at that time head of the Monarchist organization Renovation Espanola. He had been taken from his Madrid apartment by uniformed Assault Guards of the Spanish Government, delivered dead to a cemetery caretaker. Sensing a big story, knowing that armed guards were patrolling Spanish cities, newshawks in Paris woke up string correspondents along the Spanish border, put in a call to Oran, in French Morocco. At 1:30 a. m. Madrid suddenly came through with a seven-word official statement: "The Government is master of the situation." These words were the first intimation to the outside world that revolt had broken out in Spain.

At noon that day the weak, confused Government of Left Republican Santiago Casares Quiroga issued a communique condemning a revolt that it admitted had broken out in Spanish Morocco, but protesting that "nobody, absolutely nobody had taken part in this absurd scheme" in Spain proper. But before the week was out Premier Casares Quiroga's "nobody" had grown to a formidable list of somebodies, including Spain's best generals, 75% of the Spanish Army of 120,000 officers and men, many devout Catholic communicants, an overwhelming majority of the numerous Roman Catholic clergy, former noblemen and landowners, Fascists and Carlists.

The generals seized power in Old Castile and Navarre, in the north, and in much of Andalusia, in the south. Their chosen leaders in order of authority were General Jose Sanjurjo, Marquis del Riff, General Manuel Goded, General Francisco Franco. General Sanjurjo was killed in an airplane crash near Lisbon, General Goded was captured, imprisoned and executed when he failed to take Barcelona. No. 3 of the original slate -- General Franco -- became head of the Rightist Army. Meanwhile, in turbulent Leftist Madrid, Premier Casares Quiroga stepped down, to be succeeded, in a day of whirlwind Cabinet shiftings, first by the now-forgotten Diego Martinez Barrio, then by Republican Jose Giral Pereira.

Twice in the last century -- 1834-39 and 1871-86 -- Spain was rocked by the Carlist civil wars. During the 1920s she suffered several general strikes, a seemingly interminable Moroccan War, an ironclad, royally inspired dictatorship under Primo de Rivera. In 1931, she ousted her King, adopted a modern, republican constitution. In 1932, General Sanjurjo led a shortlived Monarchist revolt in Seville. In 1934, Left extremists staged an equally abortive but longer armed rebellion in Asturias. Interested though it was, Europe left Spain's domestic convulsions strictly to Spain.

Last week, on both sides of the battle line, celebrations marked the second anniversary of the present civil war, the world was racked by Spain's troubles. More than 1,000,000 of Spain's 23,500,000 lives were estimated to have been lost in battles, street fighting, before overworked execution squads of both sides. Cities, villages, countrysides had been ruthlessly pillaged, bombed, destroyed. The country's economic life had been ruined. Spain's large gold reserve had been considerably reduced. Even worse, important nations had aligned against each other; Spain's private war had time & again threatened to become a European free-for-all. Before the war's first week had passed, a squadron of Italian planes, carrying Italian Army aviators to Rightist Spain, crashed in French Morocco--mute testimony that Fascist Italy was interested. In the first two weeks, German aviators arrived in Seville. Later Russian aviators and technicians poured into Valencia and Madrid. International antiFascists of many countries made their way to Leftist Spain to form an International Brigade. Later Italy and Germany sent hundreds of aviators. Italy dispatched an entire expeditionary force.

During the first week of the revolt, Rightist radio stations ended their programs with a fervent "Viva la Republica!" after that "Arriba Espana!" Rightist generals declared they were Republicans fighting to save Spain's Second Republic. But the issues quickly deepened. Before long, Spain's Civil War had become, at best, a fight between the haves and havenots; at worst, between black reaction and ruthless radicalism. To many it seemed that Communism's clenched fist and Fascism's upraised arm had been locked in a finish fight.

At the start, few outside of Spain knew the names of Spain's opposing leaders. During two years of fighting, a pageant of Spanish names has passed before the world, some to rise steadily to fame & power, some headed for oblivion in the cruel test of modern warfare, some to die. Generalissimo Franco was to march forward to become the acknowledged dictator of a Rightist Government recognized in one way or another today by 26 nations. His trusted colleague, General Emilio Mola, former Spanish Chief of Police, leader of the rebellion in Old Castile and Navarre, was to die in an airplane accident. General Mola's biggest success: the careful, expert start of the campaign which ended Basque independence. His most signal failure: inability to break through the Guadarrama Mountains and take Madrid in the early days of the war.

Loud-mouthed General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano was to be robbed in time of his famed radio voice, with some question being raised as to whether he still remained supreme last week in his Andalusian bailiwick. Illiterate ex-Smuggler Juan March, styled "King of the Balearics," an expert in bribing his way out of jail, originally backed the revolt. But he was to find a two-year war too much for any one man to finance. Now he shuttles back & forth between Spain and Rome.

On Spain's ever-diminishing Leftist side, political mortality of statesmen and generals was also high. Hard-boiled Socialist Francisco Largo Caballero, miscalled the "Spanish Lenin," first Minister of Labor under the Republic, former president of the Bricklayers' Union, was Premier for eight months, then was rudely ousted and forgotten. Former newsboy, ex-publisher Socialist Indalecio Prieto, builder of the Leftist People's Army, writer of brutally frank war communiques, for a year Minister of Defense, took his marching papers after the disastrous Aragon defeat last spring.

Steadily growing in Leftist political, if not military stature is genial, bald, double-chinned General Jose Miaja, "Savior of Madrid,'' ruler of Southern Leftist Spain, said to have been converted to Communism. His resounding declaration--"Madrid will be the tomb of Fascism"--became one of the slogans of that city's heroic defense. Mysteriously killed in battle was history's first Anarchist general, Buenaventura Durruti, organizer of the first Anarchist militia. Also passed out of the picture is the brains of Madrid's defense--42-year-old, tall, Austrian-born, Canadian-naturalized Emilio Kleber, former commander of the International Brigade, globe-trotting general of revolutionary armies.

For brilliant, literary President Manuel Azana, statesman-reformer, there has been the anonymous life of a figurehead. This week he emerged to make a radio address. For more than a year, a Socialist physician, Dr. Juan Negrin, educated in Germany, a fluent linguist, frequenter of Madrid's swankiest cafes, has ruled Leftist Spain, his decrees being subject to periodic scrutiny by an obedient, peripatetic Cortes.

No longer in the military news is Leftist General Sebastian Pozas (TIME. Feb. 14), whose army ran in panic on the Aragon front. Instead there are Leftist chiefs like Enrique Lister, leader of Madrid's famous 5th Regiment, nucleus of the People's Army, in charge of the defense of Catalonia, switched recently to the Valencia front. Generalissimo Franco's most trusted henchmen now are Generals Miguel Aranda, Rafael Garcia Valino and Jose Varela, each in charge of one of the three prongs of the Valencia drive. Last week General Varela's Castilian Army Corps won a signal victory by capturing heavily-fortified Mora de Rubielos. The Rightist Armies continued in a swift advance down a steep grade, capturing Barracas, 3,000 feet above the sea, nearing Viber, 1,500 feet high, threatening Segorbe, 900 feet up.

With Rightist arms in possession of three-fourths of all Spain, with Rightist Armies steadily advancing, most observers believed last week that Franco was headed for a final victory. In a war full of surprises, however, with the retreating Leftist soldiers contesting every square mile, few could predict that victory would be soon.

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