NEWS OF THE WEEK
ACERTAIN relaxation of tension marks the Spanish situation in both the military and the diplomatic spheres. The battle for Madrid, unsurpassed hitherto in this campaign for intensity and ferocity, has died down, partly as a result of heavy fog and partly because the two sides have fought themselves to a standstill. The attack is only suspended and the fate of Madrid remains uncertain. But Spanish territory lies on both sides of the Mediterranean, and much more serious international complications were threatened at the end of last week by insistent French reports of the presence of large bodies of German troops in Spanish Morocco and predictions of a permanent German occupation of that territory. The less disturbing accounts reaching the British Government proved to be nearer the truth, as messages from inde- pendent British journalists at Tangier and Ceuta have shown, and with the assurances given by Herr Hitler to the French Ambassador in Berlin, and the permission accorde4 by the Spanish insurgent authorities to British and French officers to travel about Spanish Morocco and see for themselves, the alarm has died down. The most serious charge, for which there seems to be substance, is that Germany is deliberately fomenting unrest among the Moslems.- * *
