The Fight for Bilbao News of the fighting in Spain
during the past week has been scanty, but the main struggle has been on the northern front, where the insurgents arc making desperate efforts to capture the mountains that surround Bilbao. They have met with hard-won success, the extent of which is not quite clear, for the Basques have been counter-attacking with effect, and though General Franco's men at one point captured the key-position of Mount Sollubi, the Basques' , who have remodelled their command and put President Aguirre at its head, have regained all but the summit, which is probably in the effective possession of neither side, since either can sweep it by artillery fire. The insurgents have an immense superiority in the air and Government machines which tried to fly to Bilbao over French soil had to land for lack of fuel and were sent back to Barcelona under the non-intervention provisions. As a result Bilbao is suffering heavily from aerial bombardment, and worse may be in store for it yet, in view of what happened at Guernica. Fortunately some thousands of women and children are being evacuated with British and French aid, in spite of the complaints of General Franco, echoed at Berlin and Rome, that such action amounts to intervention in favour of the Basques. Meanwhile intermittent fighting goes on round Madrid, and a new assault, to wipe out the memory of Guadalajara, is vaguely threatened.
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