State of Alarm

It should have been a sober impressive moment when the first constitutionally elected Cortes since the Second Republic assembled in Madrid last week and took their seats in the Congreso de los Diputados. But nobody had time to pay any attention to them for all hell was breaking loose in Madrid, Badajoz, Valencia, Murcia, Granada, Teruel and the north.

All across the map of Spain little bands of anarchists and syndicalists were declaring general strikes, raising red and black flags, setting fire to convents and churches, taking pot shots at Civil Guards and soldiers. Troops were mobilized through most of Spain. Premier Diego Martinez Barrios declared a "State of Alarm," which he explained was not martial law, but the next thing to it.

Accurate news was hard to get since the rioters' first act was to cut every trunk telephone line in sight. Most conspicuous leader was one Sergeant Pip Sopena, lately transferred from the Ministry of War to a recruiting office in Badajoz for suspected Communism. Seventy-eight people were killed, many more wounded before the Government with a sigh of relief could declare the revolt well under control.

In the height of the outbreak Spanish Fascist Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the late Dictator, offered the Government 1,500 trained men to help suppress it. Though politely declined, Spanish wiseacres found that offer the most significant in the entire affray. Rumor would not down that the entire uprising was backed not by Radicals but by Royalists and Fascists in an effort to throw the acknowledged Rightist swing of Spanish voters behind an open dictatorship.

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