NEWS OF THE WEEK D URING the last week the Spanish
insurgents under General Mola have successfully prosecuted their advance on Bilbao : by Wednesday, having entered the flaming ruins of Amorebieta in the morning, they were in a position to attack the Basques' last line of defence. Their most difficult task is before them ; the Gaedacano line, lying from North to South across 'the two roads from Bilbao to Amorebieta, is declared to be proof against air attack and hand grenades. If ,President Companys keeps his promise to President Aguirre the Basques may be relieved by an offensive undertaken from Catalonia ; it appears also that they are receiving aeroplanes from Madrid. Unless his troops can outflank the Basque line, General Mola will not take Bilbao quickly. Broadcasting from Seville on Wednesday, the insurgents claimed that the destruction of Amorebieta, which they had attacked with incendiary bombs, was, like that of Guernica, due to the Basques themselves ; the admissions of a German airman shot down last week appear to have proved conclusively that the destruction of Guernica —a crime that blackens its authors' name—was due to German aeroplanes flown by German pilots. On the other hand, the explosion on H.M.S. ' Hunter ', off Almeria, on the South-west coast of Spain, last week, which killed 8 men, can be attributed only to a floating mine and to the fortunes of war which the guardians of non-intervention must face.
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