* * * Spain and its Repercussions The armies in
Spain and the Non-intervention Committee have both relapsed into a state of deadlock. The last meeting of the committee only clarified the conflict which the British plan had produced, M. Maisky insisting that the withdrawal of volunteers must precede, Count Grandi and Herr Ribbentrop repeating that it must follow, the granting of belligerent rights. The Committee has postponed its next meeting indefinitely, and its members for the moment will occupy themselves with technical questions such as the best means of restoring a system of control, unless indeed lack of funds, due to default in payment of dues by all the Great Powers except Great Britain, forces the Committee into ignoble liquidation. On the day the Committee met, four ships, British, French, Italian, and Greek, were being bombed by aeroplanes which the insurgent authorities at Palma admit (in spite of General Franco's denials) were under their control. Fortunately, the countries which suffered by the attack have behaved with a restraint from which Germany might take an example. In Spain itself General Franco has at length achieved a consolidation of the Army with the Phalangists and Requetes, which gives his regime an even more outspokenly totalitarian form ; the Government in Valencia is presumably considering the depressing lessons of the great offensive, which was primarily designed as a trial of strength for the " new model " army it is attempting to organise.
Previous page
