WAR IN SPAIN: Killing Blow

The armies of Rebel Generalissimo Francisco Franco marched up to Barcelona on three sides last week and, with no more than a sniper's fusillade, the biggest city in Spain fell. No European military action comparable to it had taken place since the Prussians took Paris in 1871, and, according to all calculations, the Spanish Rebels like the Prussians, had won their war.

Madrid had held out for two and a half years. But Madrid lies on a plain and behind a deep-cut river bed. Barcelona lies defenseless in a cup. Furthermore, when the Rebels tried to take Madrid in 1936 they were far inferior in numbers and not much better off in material than the defenders. And the defenders of Madrid were spirited militia, men like the "iron" regiment which snatched up its arms from the dead. The Republican Army that was forced back on Barcelona had been outnumbered and smashed for five weeks by the greatest concentration of war material since 1918.

Last week the People's Army was in full disorganized retreat northward through what remained to them of Catalonia—an area about the size of Connecticut. Some brigades had 120 men left out of a normal complement of 1,500. Some companies had only 25 rifles and no machine guns. And as a further sign of demoralization, behind it the People's Army left a large part of what stores of food and gasoline remained.

For the third time the Loyalist Government's capital was moved. Premier Dr. Juan Negrin set up headquarters in the little fortress town of Figueras, 17 miles south of the French border and 40 miles north of the advancing Rebel lines at week's end. He announced a fight to the finish and declared that fresh troops with new arms would establish a line on the Ter River. In an odd dispatch. New York Timesman H. L. Matthews stated that the French border had "opened just a little" so that war material could get to the Loyalists. There was no official indication of this in Paris. Nor was there any indication in the exhausted Loyalist Army that the orders of the civil authorities would be heeded.

Vincent Sheean, one of the last men to give up a fight against reaction, wrote democratic Spain's obituary when, after inspecting the scene, he reported:

"A fascist triumph in Catalonia appears to be beyond question. ... It seems to me sure that the Spanish tragedy will end its days of active war very soon. . . .

"At present it seems that the moment for plain speaking has arrived, and is in fact overdue, and the soldiers appear to think the same. The southern part of the Republic is starving and isolated without war material. It is all over now, and those who have most admired the courage and pride of the Republic must hope only that the survivors will obtain mercy from the fascists."

Hegira. Even if men and materials were to be had, the problem of distributing them was next to insoluble. For every road in the area was choked with refugees, not only a half million that had left Barcelona, but thousands more that the advancing Rebels swept before them. It was one of history's greatest and most tragic hegiras. From heights on the French frontier as far as eye could see a steady river of humanity slowly rolled toward the border.