Foreign Troops in Spain That makes all the more significant
the story of the land- ing of a contingent of Germans, variously estimated at from 3,000 to 5,000, at Cadiz as reinforcements for General Franco.. First reports gave. the event the character of a sensation. Grave it undoubtedly is, but it must be viewed in relation to the general influx of volunteers to join either side. The increasingly international character of the struggle was impressively described in the House of Commons on. Tuesdays by Wing-Commander James, who has just returned from a flying visit to Madrid. That the Government forces have been immensely strengthened by guns and aeroplanes and men from Russia is an open secret, and simultaneously with news of the arrival of the Germans at Cadiz came news of the arrival of several thousand French at Barcelona. There is a palpable difference between volunteers coming of their own will from a free country and " volunteers " from a totalitarian State where the movements of every citizen across the frontiers are rigorously controlled. But there is also some difference, even, in a totalitarian State, between allowing men to go to Spain under the persuasion of high. pay or from any other motive, and despatching them thither by Government authority. There is no reason to suppose that the latter course has been taken. To that extent the bland ignorance of the affair in German official quarters may have some justification. But the dangers of making Spain an international battlefield are grave, and are increasing.
