Columbus & Wellington

Christopher Columbus' grandson was made a duke by Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also King of Spain. Last week the Red Militia of Madrid got their hands on Don Cristobal Colon y Aguilera, 14th Duke of Veragua, 16th in descent from the Discoverer of America and breeder on his estates of some of the best fighting bulls in Spain. In 1893 the Duke, then a lad in short pants, was taken to see Chicago's Columbian Exposition. He never again visited the U. S. and refusing a U. S. offer of $428,000 for relics of the Great Navigator in his possession, sold them instead for $164,000 to the Spanish Government in 1926. Last week the 57-year-old Duke of Veragua was. for reasons unknown, executed in Madrid together with his brother-in-law, the 72-year-old Duke de la Vega. Meanwhile Government forces, before they were driven from tourist-beloved Ronda, the most picturesque "Picture Town" in Southern Spain, slew 800 Whites.

The Civil War's continued grinding horror had its focus in Toledo (see p. 21). Other military operations of last week were so stereotyped that Spanish strategists had time to point out to laymen of the Press that the White Armies under Generalissimo Francisco Franco were now engaged in trying to take Madrid by exactly the same tactics over exactly the same roads and passes as served British General Sir Arthur Wellesley to take Madrid from the Emperor Napoleon's great Marshals Ney, Massena and Soult in the Peninsular War. After that campaign Sir Arthur became the Duke of Wellington.

The British commander considered that he had Madrid definitely in his grasp after he took Talavera de la Reina in the year 1809. Last week, after Talavera de la Reina had been changing hands for days in desperate engagements between Red Militia and the Whites (TIME, Sept. 21), an entire fleet of German bombing planes with German pilots and German bombs went into action and Generalissimo Franco's ground forces occupied Talavera de la Reina in a manner sufficiently decisive to have suited even the Duke of Wellington. After this victory Madrid was only 45 miles from Generalissimo Franco's forces.

Today's war in Spain is unlike any previous struggle, with factors of which the Duke of Wellington never dreamed, such as fighting planes from technically neutral countries. For every German with Generalissimo Franco there seemed to be a Russian with Premier Largo Caballero. The newly arrived Soviet Ambassador Comrade Marcel Rosenberg rode about Madrid importantly in a Cadillac limousine while the Red Militia cracked out executions. Nevertheless, with Generalissimo Franco's forces advancing on Madrid at a rate of five miles per day, another White army under Colonel Juan Yague captured the former Red Militia General Staff Headquarters at Santa Olalla after savage bayonet fighting. At this the Madrid Government nervously issued what sounded like a desperate last-stand proclamation, calling "all citizens to the colors!" In Milan. Italy, ousted King Alfonso XIII of Spain popped into the Italian Royal Automobile Club, hopefully bought a set of Spanish road maps while his queen Victoria Eugenic was on sad business in Manhattan.

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