1938: Spain, Civil War In

Military Campaigns.

The year 1938 opened with terrific fighting in progress between Government and Insurgent forces in Aragon, around the town of Teruel lying some 130 miles directly east of Madrid. Having brought the Insurgent campaign in northwestern Spain, against the Basques and the Asturians, to a successful conclusion with the capture of Gijon on Oct. 21 (1937), General Franco was in process of transferring his troops in somewhat leisurely fashion, in the midst of bitter winter conditions, to Aragon. On Dec. 15, the two months' lull in the fighting had been suddenly and unexpectedly broken and the initiative seized by his enemies. In a rush from two sides at Teruel, a strategic salient at the southern end of the Insurgents' line, from which they enjoyed great freedom of movement and could threaten Madrid's communications with Barcelona and Valencia, the Government forces had succeeded, after a week of intense fighting, in entering the town itself on Dec. 21. The Insurgent garrison held out until January 14, but by this time towns and villages for miles about Teruel were in Government hands.

Into the great counter offensive which General Franco at once launched the Insurgent Generalissimo flung reserves to the number of 150,000 men and strongly supported them by airplanes and a great superiority in artillery. For six weeks, through January and into February, in the midst of snow and ice in the high valleys around Teruel, the struggle continued, until, on Feb. 22, in a third major offensive, the wrecked town was recaptured by the Insurgents. The casualties in this costliest and most ghastly battle of the war were estimated at 40,000. While the final recapture of Teruel did much to restore General Franco's prestige at home and abroad, the Loyalist Government professed itself well satisfied with having compelled him to measure forces in a place not of his own choosing and to have forced him, despite his final success at Teruel and his great superiority in material resources, to abandon his earlier plan of an offensive against Madrid from the northeast through Guadalajara. The battle of Teruel, they held, had saved Madrid, at least, for a time.

Soon after the reoccupation of Teruel by the Insurgents, the long-heralded Insurgent offensive in Aragon, by which it was planned to cut off industrial Catalonia from the rest of Loyalist Spain and bring the war speedily to a close, opened and developed with bewildering rapidity into a general movement that eventually involved the whole front from the French border to Teruel. It began on March 9 from Saragossa, the Insurgents' headquarters, in a drive down the Ebro valley eastward towards the sea. Advancing quickly eastward on both sides of the Ebro River, Insurgent forces that were more completely mechanized than at any time in the war won success after success, overwhelming all resistance and at times cutting off whole divisions of the enemy and producing a near rout. Carefully coordinated airplane bombing and artillery barrages with frequent tank attacks and a strafing of the retreating soldiers by hundreds of planes were features of the drive, as was likewise an accompanying campaign of bombing of Barcelona and other coastal cities designed to break down civil morale. Between March 5 and March 18, there were eighteen air raids on Barcelona resulting in a thousand persons killed and many more injured.

To the south of the Ebro the right wing of General Franco's army succeeded in capturing a number of important centers lying at some distance from the river; Belchite, Hijar, Montalban with its Utrillas coal mines, and Alcaniz, fell one after another, while on the river itself Quinto and Caspé, at the two principal crossings of the Ebro between Saragossa and the sea, came into the possession of the Insurgents. The loss of Caspé on March 17 was especially serious as it had been the headquarters of the Loyalist army in lower Aragon. The principal objective in this region south of the Ebro was Tortosa, fifty miles from Caspé, of military importance because through it runs the Barcelona-Valencia highway. When progress towards this city from the west was slowed up, after the capture of Gandesa on April 2 by General Valino, because of the more difficult terrain of the coastal Sierras and stout Loyalist resistant at Certa, the Insurgents successfully executed a turning movement to the south and captured the seaport of Vinaroz on April 15 and from that base succeeded in taking Tortosa from the south. Its fall signified the cutting in two of Loyalist Spain.

North of the Ebro three drives eastward into Catalonia developed. The two more southern of these, under Generals Yague and Berron, eventually effected a junction and advanced together on Lerida, a city of 22,000, the principal rail and road junction of Catalonia and considered to be the military gateway to Barcelona. From Lerida, on April 3, the Loyalists were driven headlong, and shortly afterwards the city of Balaguer, lying directly to the north, surrendered also. The third and more northern drive by the Insurgents moved eastward from Jaca along the foothills of the Pyrenees, captured in its course nine of the ten passes through the Pyrenees, and, on April 7, took possession of the hydro-electric station at Tremp which supplied sixty per cent of the electricity for Catalonia, and joined forces with the two Insurgent armies from the south. Meanwhile, at the southern end of the long line, a new drive from Teruel to the sea at Sagunto developed and threatened to cut off Madrid from its source of supply through Valencia.

At this point, heavy spring rains and a stiffening of Loyalist resistance in the face of the extremity of the danger now threatening its cause saved the Government the final catastrophe of the loss of Barcelona and slowed up the Insurgent drive. From April 20 until the middle of June, the military situation remained largely in stalemate. The Government used this breathing space to reorganize its defenses. In order to bring greater unity into the army command, General José Miaja, the veteran defender of Madrid, was placed at the head of the Loyalist forces in the whole Madrid-Valencia area. General Sebastian Pozas who had directed the defenses of Catalonia was removed from command. In political circles, the Communists gained greater influence through the pressing need of their organizing ability, and at once used their power to insist on reviving the system of army commissaries over which they placed a Communist, Jesus Hernandez, as director of the system. In a new and stronger cabinet, Alvarez Del Vayo replaced Indalecio Prieto as foreign minister. The prime minister, Dr. Negrin, though failing in a direct appeal to France for war supplies, managed to secure elsewhere its needed new equipment.

In the middle of June, the Insurgent offensive reopened, this time in a drive southward in the Levante region, with the capture of Sagunto and Valencia as the principal objectives since their occupation would involve the isolation of Madrid as well as the acquisition of a rich orange-growing region. On June 13, after a series of minor successes, General Aranda achieved the capture of Castellon de la Plana, a city with a large Carlist population, an important port for commerce with Italy and the military key to Valencia. Passing on southward, General Aranda finally crossed the Mijares River and occupied Villareal. Here began a battle in which 200,000 men were engaged. In the course of it, on July 5, General Aranda's army of Galicians broke through General Miaja's defenses at Burriana and pushed south to within ten miles of Sagunto. While these events were happening on the seacoast, the Insurgent right wing and center under General Varela were operating in the interior and succeeded in surrounding Barracos and approaching Viver and Segorbe. In this June offensive, active fighting was also revived in the Cordoba region where the Insurgent General Llano wiped out a Government sector that had long menaced the iron and coal mines at Penarroya. Turning northward to gain control of the rich mercury mines at Almaden he succeeded on July 24 in capturing Castuera, a mining town rich in iron and lead, but failed to reach the Almaden mines which continued in possession of the Government.

On July 25, just as General Franco's main battle line was about to move forward in a final drive against Sagunto and Valencia, the Loyalists saved the situation by a swift and well-organized counter offensive across the lower Ebro in the neighborhood of Gandesa, and drove a salient some fourteen miles in depth into Insurgent territory on the south side of the river. While General Franco's line was not broken, nor Gandesa recaptured, this Loyalist assault on the Ebro effectively held up General Franco's drive to the south against Valencia. Through four months of furious fighting the issue on this Catalan front swayed to and fro in severe, though generally indecisive, small-scale engagements. The Insurgents in this region were led in person by General Franco, and were reported to number 100,000 men of whom 80,000 were said to be Italians. Terrific bombing of Loyalist communications marked this phase of the struggle in which it was estimated that a daily average of 10,000 bombs fell on Government lines. Both sides lost heavily, casualties amounted, it was reported, to 40,000 for each army. Not until the 16th of November were the Loyalist forces wholly out of the salient that they had captured on July 25, and the Ebro established once again as the boundary between the two armies. Overwhelming superiority in mechanized equipment, in artillery, tanks and planes finally proved the decisive factor. So well provided was General Franco with planes that at times two hundred Rebel bombers were operating at once over a small area. With his counter offensive in the Ebro sector won, General Franco, as the year approached its close, had before him the choice of a push into Catalonia aimed at Barcelona or the resumption of his drive against Valencia. Both of these fronts had been greatly strengthened during the period of the Ebro battle.

Equipment.

Through 1938, as in earlier years, the Insurgents continued to enjoy a vast preponderance in material resources. The shortening of General Franco's lines through the elimination in 1937 of the Asturian and Basque resistance gave the Insurgent leader greater offensive power and a more overwhelming advantage in war materials. By the beginning of the year, he already controlled practically all of the mineral resources of Spain with the exception of the mercury mines at Almadén and the coal mines at Utrillas. The latter fell into his hands along with sixty per cent of the power centers during the Ebro drive. The mines not only served to keep his munitions factories supplied but exports and rents from them provided him with credit abroad for the purpose of other war needs. General Franco's weaknesses in 1938 were in man power, not in material equipment. Both sides continued to receive assistance from abroad, especially in airplanes, pilots, and technicians. Both sides grew more adept in weaving the various branches of mechanized warfare together. General Franco's genius in doing so in the Aragon offensive proved him a field commander in modern warfare of the first rank. But in unity and excellence of leadership, the Government army began to give evidence of catching up with its enemies. In skill and initiative in executing surprise tactics it won wide admiration, as did its courage and morale in the face of the Insurgent Ebro offensive.

Air Raids.

In the air, General Franco continued to enjoy numerical superiority throughout the year, though this was not so marked as in 1937. Both sides bombed civilian centers, though in doing so they maintained that their purpose was always to reach military objectives only. The Insurgents employed this weapon more consistently than the Loyalists. Their anti-aircraft weapons were reported to be more effective than those used by the Government. The effect of air bombardment on morale was considered by foreign observers to be surprisingly small.

Partly because of the emphasis on air warfare and partly because of the absence of heavy artillery on both sides, towns as centers of resistance continued to play an important part; prolonged struggles for the possession of towns and villages taking place again and again. Foreign military observers emphasized the increasing power of defense as a striking feature of the struggle. In open infantry fighting, the use of the tank and a new anti-tank gun were conspicuous features. It was estimated that the Government had received about 200 tanks from Russia and the Insurgents 400 or 500 from Italy and Germany.

Political Situation.

Nationalists.

The political situation behind the Franco lines continued through 1938 to remain in much the same state as the developments of 1937 had left it. The Nationalist (Insurgent) Government functioned from the city of Burgos, which in 1937 replaced the earlier center of Salamanca as the capital of the civil government. General Franco continued as Chief of the State, Head of the Government, Generalissimo of the Forces by Land and Sea, and the National Leader of the Falange. On Oct. 1, the second anniversary of his accession to power, he was again proclaimed to these offices in a colorful ceremony at Burgos, in the presence of the representatives of twenty-three nations.

The forced union of all political groups into one national party called Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J. O. N. S. (Juventud Offensiva Nacional-Sindicalista), which was brought about by the decrees of April 19, 1937, continued to be the official political organization of Nationalist Spain. The diverse elements in this organization remained almost, if not quite, as separate in appearance, program, and political outlook as in the days when they functioned as separate parties, each with its own militia, uniforms, banners, and loyalties.

The most picturesque as well as the most compact group continued to be the Requetes, with their red caps and khaki shirts, representing in the military sphere the Carlists or Traditionalists. This party is said to number around one million, with its century-old center in Navarre and its main strength in the Basque provinces, the mountainous districts in Catalonia and in scattered groups of adherents in Valencia. The reappearance of the Carlists was one of the surprises of the Spanish civil war. Carlism was supposed to have been fairly well stamped out of existence at the time of the Bourbon restoration in 1876 and yet in 1936 it sprang at once upon the scene as though by magic, and showed itself ready to place in the field thousands of well-trained militia organized in tercios under army officers. The Requetes were soon the storm troops of the Nationalist army. Politically the Carlists are, as always, an absolutist monarchical group, though at the moment they have no specific candidate for the throne. Since the death in Vienna of the aged last Carlist legitimate pretender, the succession to the Spanish throne has been regarded by the Traditionalists as open. They are said to regard the reaccession of Alphonso XIII as both undesirable and politically impossible but to look with favor on the candidacy of Alphonso's younger son, Don Juan. Promised by General Franco that, when the proper time comes, the question of monarchy will be taken up, they eventually agreed to enter the National Party in company with the Falangists whose political program they dislike.

A smaller monarchist group is the Renovacion España which supports the candidacy of Alphonso XIII. Its members are too small to allow it to exercise much influence.

The largest and most important of the several political parties fighting for the Nationalist cause and now included within the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las J. O. N. S. is the Falange. The Falangists were politically organized in 1932 by Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the former dictator, with a program of a modified Fascism for Spain that included the deification of the state, national socialism, and a dictator advised in technical matters by workers' syndicates and a chamber of corporations. The majority of the party are said to be absolutely opposed to the restoration of the monarchy and to desire dictatorship pure and simple. They are advanced Socialists and demand 'a genuine Spanish revolution with just conditions for the workers and the middle class.' In the military arena, the Falangists are distinguished by their blue shirts and forage caps and are organized in units that carry the names of sixteenth century Spanish military formations.

The political organization of Nationalist Spain is thus one in which deep cleavages exist. General Franco as a Fascist ruler differs from the German and Italian Fascist models in that he has never been the leader of a great popular movement and has no united totalitarian party to back him. Neither Falangists or Requetes represent a true Franco party and one of them is not a Fascist group at all. The personnel of his council are as contradictory in their political outlook as the elements that constitute his Nationalist party. Furthermore, the movement of Spanish Fascism which Franco leads differs from foreign models in not being anti-Christian but, on the contrary, definitely pro-Catholic. Neither church nor army has as yet been subdued to the state as a pure Fascist movement would require. His program of government as announced at the end of January, 1938, while along Fascist lines, was designed to appeal to a wide variety of interests. It provided for (1) a labor charter with provisions for separate unions of workers, technicians, and employees, (2) agrarian reform to include 'a judicious distribution of the land,' (3) revision of the legislation of the constitutional Cortes, (4) reconstruction of devastated areas, (5) a large degree of local government, (6) a modern system of taxation, (7) freedom of the press, (8) a foreign policy based on peace 'compatible with dignity.' How far his program and performance have won for him the loyalty of the general populace in the region under his command, now comprising thirty-five of the forty-five provinces of Spain, remains uncertain. Beyond gratitude for law and order there would appear to be much indifference. His strength and reliance continue to be in his army made up of the several elements of (1) the bulk of the regular army that declared for nationalism, (2) the foreign legion, (3) the militia, (4) the Moors, and (5) the Italians and Germans, who total, it is said, some 80,000. Assisted by an able general staff and in command of great resourses, Franco's reputation as a field commander advanced as the year progressed.

In a statement to the press in April, General Franco defended his revolt and regime as a necessary act of patriotism to save Spain from anarchy and Communism into which the government of the Popular Front was plunging it in the summer of 1936. He declared that for the assistance given by Italy, Germany, and Portugal 'not one inch of Spanish land has been given or promised.' Foreigners commented, however, that he must be excluding mining and trading concessions granted for the cost of armaments that were enabling him to largely motorize his entire army and that played such a conspicuous part in the Aragonese and Catalonia campaigns. His further statement that 'not one foreigner has joined the Nationalist armies except . . . in the ranks of the Spanish Foreign Legion' ran counter to the boasting of the Italian Fascist press concerning the victory won in Spain through the assistance of the Black Arrow, the Blue Arrow, the Littorio, and the 23rd March Italian divisions in the Insurgent army.

In the political sphere the outside world remained uncertain whether the leader of the Insurgents should properly be regarded merely as one more reactionary Spanish military dictator or as the chief of a new Spanish form of a Fascist state.

Loyalists.

Behind the Loyalist lines, the central government in 1938 continued under the leadership of Premier Negrin, a moderate Socialist who took office in May, 1937, at the head of a Government of Republicans, Socialists, and Communists. The most out-standing member of the Government for many months was Indalecio Prieto, who became minister of war. A Centrist Socialist, Prieto strongly believes in the union of working-class parties of the Left and bourgeois Republicans and thinks that the emphasis of government in Spain should be on economic reform, and that violent revolutionary tactics can only result in anarchy. He is, however, a non-Marxian, and in April, 1938, was replaced by Alvarez del Vayo, a warm admirer of Russia.

A predominant force behind Premier Negrin's régime from the start has been the Communists. Their increasing influence and prestige in governing councils and their apparent transformation from a revolutionary group into the mainstay of the antirevolutionary forces and the chief anti-Franco power in Spain has been the most striking political development since the outbreak of the civil war. Their opportunity came in November 1936, when Russian help alone saved Madrid from falling into the hands of the Insurgents and placed at the disposal of the Communists precious war stores such as no other party commanded. For some months, they continued to cooperate with Largo Caballero's Left Socialist-Anarchist government, avoiding overt expression of dissatisfaction with its inefficiency, arrogance, and poor organizational features, but in May, 1937, they took advantage of an Anarchist uprising in Barcelona to bring about Caballero's downfall. From that time forward, their policy was one of unification with the moderate Socialists and close collaboration with Right and Left wing Republicans whose program was publicly declared to be the defense of parliamentary democracy within the framework of the existing social system.

Other Loyalist governing agencies such as the Junta de Defensa in Madrid as well as the Generalitat of Catalonia have come under predominant Communist influence. On the outbreak of the war, the Esquerra, the traditional party of Catalan nationalism, constituted the government of Catalonia. It soon found itself helpless before an Anarchist organization called the Central Militia Committee, which practically constituted a second government in that state and carried it further toward social revolution than any other part of Spain. With the influx of Russian help in November, 1936, a Stalinist Communist party called the P. S. U. C. (Unified Socialist Communist Party) rapidly gained strength and weakened the grasp of the Anarchists and also of the P. O. U. M., the party of the Trotskyists. Here as elsewhere, the organizing ability and military resources of the Communists and their knowledge of the art of propaganda made them the dominating political factor. Many of their new members have come from military, police and administrative circles, as well as from the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie and the well-to-do peasants. The percentage of workers among the Communists is said not to be large.

The policy of the Communists has been to strengthen order by deprecating the useless risings and frequent strikes that were characteristic of the Anarchists, to champion the rich peasants against the trade unions by opposing the nationalization of peasant lands, to please this same class by opposing any further anti-religious movement and to weaken the Anarchists by setting their face against collectivization. In the military sphere they have stood for compulsory military service, unity of command and the reestablishment of the commissaries with the military units.

As the Communists have increased in power, the Anarchists and the P. O. U. M. have tended to decline and many of their members to shift their alliance to the growing party. Largo Caballero remained General Secretary of the U. G. T., the Socialist Trade Union, until January 5, 1938, when, in the interest of general harmony, he withdrew and was succeeded by José Rodriquez Vega who was committed to a policy of collaboration with the Government. In April, when the Insurgents were breaking through Loyalists' lines everywhere, the U. G. T. and the C. N. T. (respectively the Socialist and Anarcho-Syndicalist trade unions) arrived at a peace pact and thereafter worked fairly well together.

As the Negrin Cabinet gave evidence of ability and courage in reestablishing order, building an efficient national army, organizing war industries under government control, and winning the goodwill of foreign governments, the swing away from extreme Leftist politics became more pronounced and the determination more evident to create a national union for the winning of the war on a moderate basis.

The most serious problem before the Government, as 1938 drew to a close, was the shortage of food made acute by the presence of something like three and one half million starving refugees who had crowded into Government territory as the Insurgent forces pushed eastward. Premier Negrin pleaded at Geneva for the official assistance of the League in the removal of restrictions on the importation of food, disinfectants and medicines, but this was not forthcoming, and the Insurgent blockade of Government harbors by sea and air continued.

International Relations.

Foreign Aid.

In the sphere of international affairs the Spanish civil war in 1938 was frequently overshadowed by the recurring crises in central European affairs. The absorption of Austria into the German Reich came in the very month of Franco's drive down the Ebro, while the seizure of Czechoslovakia drove the news of the later counter offensives from the front pages of the newspapers. Foreign intervention continued an outstanding feature of the Spanish civil war, but in this year, to a greater extent than had been previously the case, the Spanish policies of the five foreign nations most closely concerned came to be more and more closely linked up with their policies elsewhere. The thin veil of neutrality thrown by the Non-Intervention Committee over the activities of these foreign states in the affairs of the peninsula became extremely tenuous and frequently was openly discarded all together. The main line of the policies, however, remained much as in previous years. Germany and Italy continued to send expensive assistance, especially technical aid and airplanes, to General Franco. The Russians dispatched similar vital aid to the Loyalists, while England and France endeavored to inject sufficient reality into the doctrine of non-intervention, at least to limit the activities of the dictator nations there and to delay a Franco victory to a point where peace by negotiation could be effected.

Germany.

The motive of Germany's intervention was explained by Hitler in a speech before the Reichstag on Feb. 20, 1938, in which he said that he would look upon the introduction of Bolshevism into Spain as not only an element of unrest in Europe but also as upsetting to the European balance of power. On another occasion, he also admitted the economic motive in the words: 'Germany needs to import ore. That is why we want a Nationalist Government in Spain so that we may be able to buy Spanish ore.' Another pressing consideration generally attributed to him by foreign observers has been the desire to place a Fascist nation on the southern borders of France in order to surround that nation with unfriendly neighbors who will keep her occupied as the Drang nach Osten proceeds.

Italy.

Mussolini's commitments to the Insurgent cause are even heavier than Germany's. Italian aid has not been confined, as Germany's has largely, to materials of war and technical assistance. Italian Black Shirts taking part in the Ebro drive were said in late May to number 30,000 and to be strongly supported by many scores of Italian planes piloted by Italian airmen. The Italian Fascist leader laid aside all pretense of neutrality as he publicly boasted of Italian military successes and openly corresponded with the Insurgent leaders. In a congratulatory telegram to General Franco on July 18, at the opening of what the Insurgent leader termed his 'third triumphal year' Mussolini declared that 'Fascist Italy is proud to have contributed blood and equipment to the victor.' His interest in the outcome of the struggle, which observers thought increased as the progress of German Nazism contracted the likelihood of the expansion of Italian Fascism in central Europe, was based on strategic considerations of the future when the Spanish Government would be in a position to threaten British and French imperial communications and Spain would occupy a strategic position in the rivalry of the Powers for control of the Mediterranean.

Russia.

Russia's contribution to the struggle continued to be more quietly, though not less effectually given, than German and Italian aid to the Insurgents. Russian planes, pilots, and munitions steadily found their way throughout the year across the Pyrenees to uphold the hands of the hard-pressed Barcelona Government. Russian organizing ability and experience in propaganda also helped from within, through the Communist organizations that were strengthened and guided into more practical and moderate paths than had been pursued by earlier Spanish Marxists. Russian aid was predicated upon the undesirability of having another member added to the Fascist group of states.

Great Britain.

British policy through 1938 rested on a wide variety of considerations, growing out of her far-flung imperial interests. Her course seemed more incalculable and therefore more the object of the hopes and fears of the rival contestants than the policy of other foreign nations whose interests were more obvious. As an imperial power holding Gibraltar and vitally concerned to keep open communications with India, Egypt, and Palestine, it was obvious that England could not be unconcerned in the fate of a nation in such a strategic position as Spain to affect the balance of power in the Mediterranean world. The English Government had also to bear in mind the protection due to an extensive Anglo-Spanish commerce, which is several centuries old. British investments in the peninsula total close to thirty million pounds, with most of them, by the beginning of 1938, located in Insurgent territory. As early as November 1937 English commercial agents were functioning in Nationalist territory. Furthermore, as the strongest of the democracies of northern Europe, England could not look on unconcerned at the extension of the Fascist system. The resignation in February of the British foreign minister, Anthony Eden, the advocate of sterner methods with dictators, indicated the general direction in which British policy in Spain and elsewhere would move. The prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, had become convinced that vital British interests were threatened at too many points around the world to be safe and was determined to relieve the situation by agreements with the Fascist dictators of Germany and Italy, at the same time preventing, if possible, the consolidation of the Rome-Berlin Axis. This view of his main problem necessarily conditioned his policy in Spain and made it unlikely that he would approve the official opening of the French frontier in behalf of the Loyalists who, through their prime minister, passionately pleaded for such action in a special trip to Paris made for that purpose at the time of the Ebro drive.

The Spanish political situation seemed to indicate to the English that whichever side won the final results would probably be a dictatorship imposed either from the Left or from the Right, with only the hope remaining that in the long run the Spaniards, being the strong individualists they are, would come to pursue a strictly Spanish policy. The history of foreign intervention in Spain gave little encouragement, the English ministers thought, to the belief that anything but a neutral policy in Spanish civil wars paid satisfactory dividends. (See also GREAT BRITAIN: Foreign Policy.)

Anglo-Italian Agreement.

British efforts to arrive at an understanding with Italy finally took form in the Anglo-Italian agreement signed on April 16, in which England showed herself prepared to pay a heavy price for peace. The agreement undertook to settle all outstanding disputes between the two states in the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and Spain. In relation to Spain, Italy pledged herself to accept the British plan which had been approved by the Non-Intervention Committee, providing for a proportional evacuation of foreign troops from Spain, and promised that after the civil war was over she would not leave any troops in the peninsula or entertain any plans of changes in Spanish territory either in the peninsula itself, the Balearic Islands, or Spanish Morocco. The whole agreement, which provides among other things for the recognition by Great Britain of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, was only to come into effect after a settlement of the Spanish question. In other words, the latter was to be a prerequisite of the recognition of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia. Defending the agreement before the House of Commons on May 2, 1938, Chamberlain said: 'I do not think that we could feel that we were taking steps towards general appeasement unless at the same time we could see that a Spanish settlement was in reach. That is the reason why we have made this Spanish settlement a prerequisite of the entry into force of this instrument and a prerequisite, therefore, of the recognition of the Italian conquest.' The Anglo-Italian treaty was followed by Franco-Italian negotiations along similar lines and by preliminary steps taken at the meeting of the Council of the League in May for the recognition of Italy's East African conquests.

From this determined policy of non-intervention in Spain, Chamberlain did not allow himself to be driven, despite a new outbreak of 'piracy' in the Mediterranean and the bombing of many British ships in Spanish harbors. British ship owners who were making fortunes in Spanish war zones must, the Prime Minister said, take their own risks. By the end of June, there had been fifty-nine attacks on British ships and thirty-six British seamen had been killed. Thereafter, however, as a result of stronger diplomatic representations, the attack on British vessels died down somewhat until a recrudescence of the attacks occurred in the weeks immediately following the Munich agreement. Meanwhile, the British Government continued to play its long game of waiting and hoping (while arming at top speed) for some circumstance to weaken the alliance, so dangerous to English peace, of Germany, Italy, and Japan. 'If in the process of keeping the English nation at peace, China, Ethiopia, Austria and Spain must be thrown to the wolves, Chamberlain,' his critics said, 'would regret it but not hesitate.'

Withdrawals of Foreign Volunteers.

In July, the British plan for the withdrawal of foreign volunteers as approved by the Non-Intervention Committee was accepted by both Governments in Spain 'in principle,' and British hopes for the moment ran high that this constant threat of a European conflagration 'could be at least limited,' but their hopes were dashed when, on Aug. 21, General Franco, despite his early favorable reply, rejected the whole scheme. He demanded, instead of a proportional withdrawal of troops from both sides, the dispatch of an equal number from each army and asked, in return, for the concession of belligerent rights at once instead of after the withdrawal of 'a substantial number.' The reluctance of the non-Fascist nations to grant belligerent rights to General Franco until his military strength had been cut down by a proportional withdrawal of foreign infantry, was based on their realization of the seriousness of this step for Loyalist Spain. With belligerency rights granted, General Franco would at once, it was evident, attempt to establish a wholly effective blockade of the whole coast of Loyalist Spain, from Almeria to the French border. With his superior naval and air strength, concentrated in the Mediterranean after the close of the Basque campaign, and in possession of an air base at Majorca, it was feared that he might be able to put the Government's munitions factories out of commission by depriving them of raw materials from overseas, and so produce actual starvation and epidemic conditions by holding up all supply ships. With belligerency rights withheld, the Insurgents' blockade could, within the limits of international law, be ignored and individual shippers could take their own risks in a traffic of arms and food to Loyalist Spain.

General Franco's rejection of the carefully devised plan of the Non-Intervention Committee wrecked its program, brought its activities to an end for the time being, and was a heavy blow to the British Government's Spanish plans. One month after General Franco's rejection of the Non-Intervention Committee's proposals, Prime Minister Negrin, on Sept. 2, electrified the League of Nations, which two days earlier had listened to a bitter arraignment of the policy of 'realism' in European politics in relation to the Spanish civil war from Alvarez del Vayo, by announcing that the Spanish Government 'has just decided on immediate and complete withdrawal of all non-Spanish combatants taking part in the struggle on the Government side' without reference to similar action by the Insurgents. Negrin invited the League to appoint an international commission to arrange the necessary details and supervise the withdrawal of the troops. He explained that his Government took the step 'to remove every pretext for calling in question the national character of the Republican cause.' His action was variously interpreted. Some people believed that it merely indicated the Government's realization of the close interplay of European policies and its fear of a quick Fascist settlement for Spain in the pattern of that later devised at Munich for Czechoslovakia, and the consequent desire to take its case to the League of Nations while there was yet time. Others thought that it was a gesture in the direction of opening a door to mediation. This latter impression was strengthened when, on October 2, in a speech before the Cortes, Premier Negrin stated that a purely Spanish settlement on the basis of mediation between Spaniards without foreign interference would be welcomed by the Government. The Insurgent press, however, reiterated its determination never to accept mediation or a compromise agreement.

The Commission appointed by the League of Nations arrived in Spain in the middle of October and by Nov. 12, the first contingents of the Internationals, the foreign volunteers fighting on the Government side, were on their way to France. It was estimated that the total withdrawal, including foreign medical units, would require approximately three months. The numbers would not, it was said, exceed 10,000 persons. Government spokesmen pointed out that these foreign volunteers had served the purpose of shock troops while Spaniards had been undergoing necessary training, but were now no longer required as the building of an efficient, all-Spanish fighting machine was practically completed.

Meanwhile, following closely upon Premier Negrin's League announcement, though said to be quite independent of it, Mussolini ordered home from Spain 10,000 Italian troops. While this number represented but a fraction of Italian forces in Spain, it being estimated that there still remained not fewer than 75,000 infantry besides many hundreds of airplanes, this gesture by the Italian Fascist leader had important international consequences. Chamberlain seized the opportunity to put into operation the Anglo-Italian pact of the preceding April. The British Prime Minister declared that, by withdrawing 10,000 troops from Spain, Mussolini had fulfilled a promise he had made at Munich, which Great Britain had indicated that she would accept as the 'settlement' necessary for bringing the pact into force. At Munich, Chamberlain said that Hitler and Mussolini had assured him 'most definitely that they had no territorial ambitions whatsoever in Spain' and that he was 'convinced the Spanish question is no longer a menace to the peace of the world, and there is no valid reason why we should not now take the step which would obviously contribute to general appeasement.' The British Parliament approved the pact by a majority of 345 to 138 and, on its signature in Rome on Nov. 16, it went into force, presumably settling the outstanding problems between Italy and Great Britain, and reducing the Spanish war, so far as the relations of the two Powers were concerned, to a purely domestic Spanish issue. See also COMMUNISM; LEAGUE OF NATIONS.