WAR IN SPAIN: WAR IN SPAIN

1,000,000 Have Died

Early this week Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain and Premier Edouard Daladier of France announced that their Governments were simultaneously recognizing the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain and withdrawing recognition from the Loyalist Government of Premier Dr. Juan Negrin.

In London Loyalist Ambassador Pablo de Azcarate was called to the Foreign Office and handed his walking papers. In Paris Loyalist President Manuel Azańa left the Spanish Embassy, where he had lived since the fall of Catalonia, and took a train for the village of Collonges, on the Swiss border, where he expects to live in exile. He had left behind his resignation, to be made public at an "opportune moment." As a last gesture of international courtesy a lone French Foreign Office underling saw Don Manuel off.

The Marquis Quińones de León, Generalissimo Franco's French representative, made ready to move into the big, bleak Avenue George V Embassy, and in London the Duke of Alba, Generalissimo Franco's agent to Britain, prepared to take up quarters in the imposing Spanish Embassy in Belgrave Square. Opposition M. P.s cried "Shame!" and "Betrayal!" in the House of Commons when Mr. Chamberlain announced the recognition of Generalissimo Franco; in France Socialist leader Léon Blum felt "nauseated" when M. Daladier made his announcement to the Chamber of Deputies. But both the Chamber and the House were expected to approve by large majorities. For both countries the eight-year-old Spanish Republic had ceased to exist.

The French-British recognition of General Franco's Spain left only a handful of nations still recognizing the Loyalists, chief among which were Soviet Russia, China, Mexico, Cuba, the U. S. With the probable exception of the Soviet Union, they too were expected to change over promptly.

More than any other single action, the Chamberlain-Daladier move doomed any lingering Loyalist hope that Madrid could carry on alone. Dr. Negrin's plane was reported ready to carry the former Premier out of the country and many other Loyalist leaders in Valencia and Madrid prepared to flee. At least 10,000 Loyalists felt their lives sufficiently in jeopardy to want to take up the offer of a ride on British and French warships to neutral ports.

Surrender of the remaining one-fourth of Spain now in Loyalist hands was expected to come within a few days. After two years, seven months and one week of a bloody warfare which has caused untold destruction and led to the death of an estimated 1,000,000 persons the war was all but over.

Tug of War.

Whatever peace might mean to war-weary Spain, to the outside world the approaching end of the Spanish War was merely the signal for the beginning of a diplomatic tug of war between the European democracies and dictatorships. Germany and Italy believe they will exert more influence because they helped Rebel Spain win the war with men and munitions. France and Britain hope to get the new Spain into their camp by lending her money.

Last week Generalissimo Franco was reported from Paris as planning to become the non-political head of the State, naming his wife's reportedly pro-Nazi brother-in-law, Ramón Serrano Suńer, as the political head.