In Madrid the Franco-Spanish conference is reported to be reaching
important agreements for co-operation in Morocco. There seems no doubt that France has suffered a severe set-back there. It is not so much that Abdel Krim has had any overwhelming military success, but he has succeeded in sapping the loyalty of some of the tribes who have up till now been fighting with the French. It is admitted that he has been able to make considerable territorial progress and that the French line has been bent, if not broken, at one point at least. It seems that Abdel Krim has slackened his pressure north of Fez along the line of the Ouergha and has begun a new attack from the East near Taza. He has evidently got very near to that town, for the civil population, at any rate the women and children, have been evacuated. No doubt the situation of the French Government is a very embarrassing one. On the one hand they are urged by the Nationalist Press to take more energetic action, and on the other they are threatened by their Socialist majority that unless the war is speedily terminated, the Cartel des Gauches will break up.
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