Machine Offensive

The offensive of the Spanish Rightist Armies--described as the greatest since the War -- rolled on with increasing force and fury last week. What began three weeks ago as the "Aragon Offensive." with a width of some 60 miles (TIME, March 21), had now placed the Rightists in possession of the whole of Aragon and they were sweeping on against Catalonia and the onetime kingdom of Valencia on a front of 135 miles. The objective of this drive was to cut the head of Leftist Spain from the body, to decapitate rich, industrial Catalonia, in which is the Leftist capital Barcelona, and leave as the trunk that portion of Leftist Spain in which are Valencia and heroic Madrid, still uncaptured last week after 20 months of war.

With almost every hour last week the final Rightist motorized drive across the plains of Aragon moved so far forward that correspondents with the Leftists kept referring in their cables to its "bewildering swiftness." Filing their stories in towns which changed hands before the dispatches reached print, they could realize with full force that the People's Army was for the time being in outright flight, pursued by a Military Machine in which the preponderance of tanks, planes and artillery was overwhelming.

There is an end to the plains of Aragon, and this week the People's Army had fled into the uplands of Catalonia and Valencia. It remained to be seen if the Military Machine could effectively blast its way through the hills as it had on the plains. In the air Rightist supremacy was not unchallenged, but over many a Leftist town and city in the theatre of war the whole sky again & again filled last week with as many as 200 Rightist bombers, and while two or three might be shot down the other 197 dropped their cargoes of bombs unscathed, returned in a few hours with more death.

France to Fight? It was time for Soviet Russia, France, or any other great power favorably disposed toward Leftist Spain to pour in the heaviest supplies of war material, and in Paris detailed assertions appeared that unofficially this was being done last week, although the French Popular Front Cabinet still kept its frontier with Spain legally closed to munitions.

The Leftist Paris paper Ce Soir, while continuing its campaign of protest against the undoubted Italian and German aid to General Franco, abruptly came out last week with the joyous announcement that 55 motor trucks, loaded with a total of 920 tons of supplies for the Leftists, were speeding to Barcelona, and that eleven truckloads were on the way from Lille, six more from Belgium. Neutral and Rightist papers in Paris carried more of the same news, the Rightist press coming out with detailed charges covering almost every day in February and March--for example, that on March 12; four freight cars of machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, plus 38 cars of knocked-down tanks ready for assembly and other heavy equipment entered Leftist Spain from France.

Since Premier Benito Mussolini is an omnivorous newspaper reader, French journalism was thus last week doing the Spanish Leftists the worst possible disservice, for this week II Duce was able to hurl at the French Popular Front Cabinet of Leon Blum threats that unless France stop such shipments of munitions, Italy will take measures of intervention far beyond any she has yet taken. Declared Informazione Diplomatica, the most highly authoritative newsorgan controlled by the Italian Government: "Such intervention would have unpredictable and certainly very grave repercussions and might compromise peace on the European Continent."

Since Lord Perth, the British Ambassador in Rome, was conferring almost daily last week on the most amicable terms with Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, II Duce's son-in-law, and since at Moscow the Stalin regime chose last week not to make counter threats which might have given Italy and Germany pause, the dominant factor in Spain's civil war was not to be found this week in Aragon, in Catalonia or in Valencia, but in France. The army, navy and air force of the French Republic are among the most powerful in Europe, but was it certain that French Premier Leon Blum, although he heads a Popular Front Cabinet, wants France to fight on such an issue?

Last Chapter? In Spain this week the U. S. diplomatic mission at Barcelona was packing up to withdraw toward France. The main force of some 60,000 Spanish Rightists under General Juan Yague, advancing toward Lerida, "the Key to Barcelona," found themselves briefly balked at the Cinca River. The People's Army had blown up all bridges for 50 miles along the Cinca to cover their retreat. Wading chest deep through the icy waters, the 60,000 Rightists crossed at Fraga, which had just been reduced to shambles by 160 Rightist bombers. Pontoon bridges were then flung over the Cinca, the motorized units roared across, resumed their role as the steel spearhead of the 60,000.

In Barcelona, less than 100 miles away, to the microphone leaped Premier Dr. Juan Negrin, exhorting all Leftist Spain to "join our valiant stand against the barbaric invasion directed by the hangmen of Europe!"

General Franco was quoted: "This is the last chapter of the civil war."

The Barcelona spokesman cracked back that General Franco is sticking his neck out to the Mediterranean between Catalan and Valencian armies which will close in on his flanks and crush the Rightists. "Never in history has a general offered his enemy such an opportunity."

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