Verge of Battle

One day last month the Falange Espanola's newsorgan Arriba whipped out a jingo editorial announcing that Spain was no longer neutral but nonbelligerent. A few days later Generalissimo Francisco Franco officially embraced this policy, laid claim to Gibraltar and an unspecified piece of North Africa. Last week Arriba again applied the point of a pin to El Caudillo's chubby behind. Producing a brand-new term to baffle international lawyers, Arriba declared that Spain was now a "moral belligerent."

"No one can fail to consider England as the most direct violator of our destiny," shouted Arriba. "Spain was first a neutral, then nonbelligerent, and now is physically on the verge of battle."

Spain, although devastated and decimated by 32 months of World War II's dress rehearsal, last week found herself in much the same position that Italy was in last spring: in the open season decreed by Germany, grabbers were keepers; if Spain continued to keep the peace, things she wanted might be snatched from under her nose.

Like Italy too, Spain wants more as the chances of getting more increase. Until last spring she wanted only to be left alone. Then, as Italy began screaming about her "Mediterranean shackles," Spain awoke to the fact that the two-century-old British possession of Gibraltar was a national disgrace. Smooth-talking Sir Samuel Hoare went to Madrid and lost no time in indicating to Franco that Great Britain was willing to make a deal over Gibraltar. The terms of the deal were supposed to be that after the war Britain would give the Rock back to Spain, lease it until international disarmament could be effected; meanwhile Britain would finance Spanish reconstruction in return for continued neutrality. With a national debt of some $2,000,000,000 staring him in the face, El Caudillo was naturally interested.

Then the German Army ripped through France. The Germans lined the road on the French side of the Hendaye bridge with tanks and motorized equipment to a depth of a mile and a half. This implied threat and, even more, the influence of his strongman brother-in-law, Ramon Serrano Suner, led Franco to change his mind.

El Cunadissimo. Spaniards' designation of Don Ramon as the brother-in-law-issimo is a none-too-gentle jibe at both Serrano and the Generalissimo. Privately they sometimes call Franco "that pulpy olive fashioned into the likeness of a man." For most Spaniards feel that Franco is a wobbler, that Ramon Serrano Suner is the power behind the fasces.

Don Ramon heads the Ministry for Press & Propaganda and so determines what Spaniards learn. He controls the police and so determines who shall live free or in prison. He heads the Ministry of Government (Interior), which now includes the Ministry of Communications, and so controls the post office, telephone, telegraph and cable systems. He heads the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista and so bosses Spain's sole political party, its 2,000,000 members, 800,000 associated female Falangistas and 600,000 Falange youths.

Serrano Suner was educated in Italy, where he absorbed his Fascist ideas. He married the sister of Franco's wife. Under the Republic he was an obscure Govern ment lawyer, but when the death of General Jose Sanjurjo made Franco leader of the Rightist revolution Serrano saw his chance to impose his ideas on the politically uneducated Generalissimo. Lean, tanned and photogenic, Serrano has a driving nervous energy. His was the idea to fuse Spain's heterogeneous Rightist elements -- Carlists, Monarchists, Traditionalists, Fascists -- into the Falange. While the soldiers fought at the front, he organized behind the lines; when the war ended, the Falange kept dissident elements among Franco's supporters from splitting the regime apart.

In internal politics Don Ramon has social ideas that are far to the left of those of the elements that first supported the revolution. He has admitted many onetime Leftists into the Falange. He has organized syndicates in Spanish industry, giving virtual control to the workers -- who to join the syndicates must be members of the Falange. The Falange runs the Auxilio Social, a nationwide social service supported by a sales tax, enforces Government-fixed prices of all food and clothing, distributes free milk to Fascist babies, supports orphanages that are brimful of war's victims, children. Serrano is also responsible for the dissatisfaction of many Spanish businessmen with the new regime. If they do not obey Government orders they are taken out and shot as dead as Leftists. In foreign policy Strong Man Serrano follows his good friend, Italy's Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano.

Hell & Heaven. The wreck of a country that is Spain today could use a few conquests -- Gibraltar, probably a slice of French Morocco and Algeria, possibly a nip of Southern France -- to divert the people's minds from their empty bellies, their sick and their war-crazed, their smoldering hatred and ever-present fear. Spaniards say: "It is hell now, but it is heaven compared to the war." Half a million are still in jail, packed six to ten in two-man cells, sleeping in two-hour relays. Twenty or 30 a day are executed.

Men without arms, men without legs, men with hollow, tubercular chests walk the streets of Madrid, Burgos, Barcelona. So do hollow-eyed women in mourning and women who look out of blank, uncomprehending eyes. Symbolic of Spain's people is the bronze statue of King Carlos in Toledo, which lies against its base with legs amputated by a shell, one arm gone and a gash from a shell fragment in its navel. Franco has decreed that the Alcazar be left unrestored, as a monument to "the fury of the Rojos."

The rich who passed the Spanish War in Biarritz and Monte Carlo can now live well at Madrid's Palace Hotel or Ritz, at Barcelona's Ritz or Colon. They can eat game, fish, fowl, meat, and Madrid's Ritz has a good swing band. The fairly well-to-do can get enough to eat by keeping chickens in their apartments. But to the poor everything is rationed. The bread ration consists of two small rolls, hard from brown flour adulterated with chick peas, beans, potatoes, sometimes gravel. The olive oil in which Spaniards cook everything is rancid; the good oil was sold to Italy. Eggs are rationed at one per person per week, cost as much as $1.50 a dozen. Milk is a luxury and coffee does not exist. Tobacco is rationed at 40 cigarets per week to men, none to women. In cafes boys and old men crawl under chairs to retrieve butts, which are made into bootleg cigarets.

There is no hard money in Spain, no more big duros for shopkeepers to clank on their counters. The paper money of large denominations is printed in Leipzig, the small bills in Milan. That, too, is symbolic. At the end of July there were 80,000 German engineers, craftsmen and clerks in the country, 30,000 Italian laborers and farmers.

With 100,000 to 150,000 tons of gasoline in storage, Spain could probably wage a short war. If Britain withstood a Blitzkrieg and dragged the war through the winter, Spain would soon be helpless. But if Britain begins to totter, Don Ramon Serrano Suner might well push El Caudillo beyond the verge of battle.

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