WAR IN SPAIN: Police Job

Early this week Loyalist resistance in northern Catalonia collapsed, and in a swift advance northward from Gerona the Rebel Armies of Generalissimo Francisco Franco occupied Figueras, for eleven days the fourth capital of Loyalist Spain. As last as their transport could keep up with them, they bore down on the frontier towns of Port-Bou, La Junquera and Puigcerda. It was only a matter of hours before the Generalissimo would wipe out the only remaining Loyalist territory in northern Spain and be master of the Spanish side of the French-Spanish frontier from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean. A Republican official told correspondents the Rebels' offensive was no longer a military operation, it.was "a police job."

Its communications cut, its food supplies, gone, its ammunition exhausted, the Loyalist Army disintegrated almost overnight into a disorganized rabble. As the Rebels pressed relentlessly on, a wild churning wave of soldiers and civilians, rushing for the border, rolled before them. Veterans of Belchite, Teruel, the Ebro campaigns carried their rifles, hauled machine guns and field pieces, even drove tanks up to the frontier, where they were confiscated. They were determined not to let General Franco capture any war weapons. At one point alone 4,000 were crossing the French border every hour. At another point a Loyalist Army band played patriotic Spanish airs while the bedraggled and defeated army crossed into France. Of the 200,000 men left in the Loyalist Army. 150,000 were expected to reach France and safety, 50,000 would probably be captured or surrender before they got there. The refugees, interned in concentration camps, had their board bills guaranteed by the Loyalist Government, which still has gold.

No less panicky was the Spanish Government in its retreat. Loyalist President Manuel Azaña passed over the border on foot. President Luis Companys of Catalonia and his government got to safety. So did President Jose Antonio de Aguirre of the now non-existent Basque Republic. Premier Dr. Juan Negrin stuck it out until the last minute, then took to a mountain pass to France. The last of his ministers were shortly on his heels.

It was only at the last moment that the French Government, after debating all week what to do and after failing to persuade Generalissimo Franco to agree either to setting up a neutral zone or to declaring a general amnesty, decided to open the French border not only to the fleeing army but to as many civilians as cared to enter. Probably what helped France make up her mind was the thought of what might have happened had the frontier been kept sealed. The Loyalist Army might well have decided to make a suicidal last stand on the border. Both a massacre and an international incident were possible.

As it was, conditions were bad enough. For almost a week France had refused admittance to all but a selected few. Wounded soldiers, civilians injured in air raids had been turned back. There were no hospital facilities, on the Catalonian side not even the most primitive medical attention. Piled up opposite Le Perthus was a mass of suffering humanity that sprawled all over the roads, even covered the fields.