SPAIN: 125 Days

Madrid’s tallest so-called skyscraper, the 14-story, U. S.-owned International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. building, received three of the famed Germansuperincendiary thermite bombs on its roof last week, but after sizzling according to specifications “with a heat greater than that of molten iron,” they finally sizzled out without setting fire. Downstairs the tall, sleek president of I. T. & T., Lieut.-Colonel Sosthenes Behn, an acquaintance of absent Alfonso XIII, remained very much present in Madrid, where he has chosen to stay during the whole of Spain’s present civil war. Scores of panic-stricken Madrid mothers decided that, even though Colonel Behn’s building seemed to be a target for White bombs, it also seemed able to take this strafing better than any other Madrid building, and in they swarmed with their children. The Spanish moppets surprised correspondents by not blubbering or bawling, accepted biscuits and milk from Colonel Behn after their mothers had fearfully asked, “how much will that cost?” and been reassured that the biscuits & milk were on I. T. & T.

Children were also the concern of the Soviet Ambassador, Comrade Marcel Rosenberg, who appeared last week to be the most authoritative pro-Madrid figure next to its military defender, General Jose Miaja, a strict professional in horn-rimmed spectacles. The so-called Madrid Government had dispersed (TIME, Oct. 26, Nov. 16). Its president, Don Manuel Azana, a Republican, was in Barcelona last week and its Premier, Francisco Largo Caballero, a Marxian, was in Valencia with the rest of the Cabinet. In a manifesto they claimed to be supported by the Soviet Union and by the Mexican Republic.

In all foreign capitals last week arrived Madrid’s first atrocity pictures of the war (see cut). Instead of making the mistake Italy made when she released unprintable pictures of Italian soldiers castrated by Ethiopians (TIME, Oct. 28, 1935), the Caballero Cabinet, sagely advised by Ambassador Rosenberg, released printable pictures of attractive children killed by White air raids without being horribly mangled (see cut).

Savage hand-to-hand battles in Madrid suburbs raged hotter every day as the week passed, and General Miaja announced with particular satisfaction that his Madrid machine guns had caught a wild Moorish charge by turbaned riders on Arabian steeds and mowed it down to the last horse and man. In the $25,000,000 University City founded by King Alfonso on the Capital’s outskirts, fantastic conflicts raged among the modernistic buildings. Dispatches reported Madrid defenders gunning from behind books in the Philosophy library, selling their lives dearly among the Classics. In an international war, such as that of 1914-18. the opposing commanders do not order their airmen to bomb the enemy G. H. Q., and thus are not bombed themselves. This week the Whites were so unorthodox as to hurl bombs into the very courtyard of the G. H. Q. in Madrid and astonished General Miaja barely escaped, his life intact but his illusions shattered. After G. H. Q. had been bombed obviously there was no safety in Madrid. The U. S. State Department radiophoned orders to Charge d’Affaires Eric Wendelin to close up the U. S. Embassy, move it to Valencia. A baby born on the I. T. & T. premises was immediately christened “Felix” by a telephone operator of that name who remarked, “there’s no time to wait for a priest.”

Burgos Recognized. On the 125th day of the war the German and Italian Governments recognized last week as the Government of Spain the White administration which was set up with Burgos as its Capital on the sixth day of the war.

Originally the Provisional President of this regime was white-bearded General Miguel Cabanellas, but on the 76th day of the war he administered the oath of President to Generalissimo Francisco Franco of the White Armies. These are a small, professional force assisted by some German and Italian aviation and supplies. Up to last week they had occupied 28 of the 50 provinces of Spain. Although everywhere outnumbered hundreds to one by the Spanish proletariat, they had not up to this week been ousted by popular uprising from any important area which they have occupied. Of the 68 branches of the Bank of Spain, 38 were under regular White administration, and the German Government, in extending diplomatic recognition, confirmed so far as the Reichsbank is concerned the regulation of Generalissimo Franco that a Spanishbank-note is worthless unless it bears his Fascist stamp.

The siege of Madrid, on the day Burgos was recognized last week, had been proceeding for 20 days and was directly in command not of the Generalissimo but of General Jose Varela, the man who went to the rescue of Toledo and lifted the famed siege of the Alcazar (TIME, Sept. 28). Last week Generalissimo & President Franco was in Salamanca when news of the Italo-German recognition came and with him rejoiced Spain’s No. 1 Philosopher, famed Miguel de Unamuno, Rector of the University of Salamanca. With the whole city celebrating, anyone who looked like an Italian or a German was hoisted shoulder-high by Salamancans who in lisping Spanish did their best to sing the Italian Fascist anthem Giovinezza and the German Nazi Horst Wessel Lied.

Since Madrid had not yet fallen, even though its Government had been chased out, Hitler and Mussolini were acting in a manner deliberately premature when they recognized Franco. Spokesmen at Berlin and at Rome made ingenious comparisons, asking foreign correspondents to reflect on precedents afforded by their own governments. Thus President Theodore Roosevelt, whether or not he provoked an insurgent rising in the United States of Colombia, made haste to recognize the insurgents in the Colombian province of Panama and as his reward obtained the Canal Zone, ultimately squaring Colombia with $25,000,000. Had Colombia, instead, taken a belligerent course, reconquering Panama and the Zone, the prestige of Washington would have suffered as much as will that of Berlin and Rome if the Whites are defeated in Spain. This week, European observers considered the recognition of the Burgos Government tantamount to a notice served by two dictators that they were resolved to assure at any cost White victory and the capture of Madrid.

With this implicit backing, Generalissimo Franco sent off diplomatic notes to the Great Powers, announced that he may at any time bombard Barcelona to check the entry of Soviet arms and munitions at that port. In the House of Commons, amid chanting of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” by Laborites, the Conservative and Liberal majority roared “Hear! Hear!” as Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden reacted to the Franco note thus:

“I wish to say categorically that I think there are other nations more to blame than either Germany or Italy!”

Europeans took this to mean that His Majesty’s Government would make every effort to keep British ships clear of Barcelona; would continue their thus far successful efforts to keep the French Cabinet of Radical-Socialists, Socialists and Communists quiet; and were tacitly at least on the side of Burgos rather than Madrid.

To assert themselves in the face of such reverses, the Radical authorities last week executed at Valencia the No. 1 Spanish Fascist, Don Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, Marques d’Estella, son of the late Spanish Dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera. Meanwhile, fighting at Madrid, the No. 1 Spanish Anarchist, famed General Buenaventura Durruti, was killed.

Paulino Uzcudun, the oldtime Spanish boxer with the hairy chest and concrete chin, was reported busy with a speedboat last week rescuing White civilians from Red ports. “My only regret,” said he, cuddling a submachine gun, “is that in war I can’t use my fists.” Spain’s No. 1 football forward, Ricardo Zamora, was throwing hand grenades last week and various bull fighters were engaged en both sides at Madrid. “The Great Belmonte” had stopped fighting bulls to become a rural policeman.