7 Weeks to Go

On the Madrid front last week there was little fighting beyond the customary Rightist shelling of the centre of the city. But there was no loafing on either side. New dugouts were going up, fitted with heat and electric light, drainage ditches were being dug on trench lines and supplies of food and clothing were being rushed into the city. To the east hundreds of workmen were driving spikes and laying rails for two new sections of track to bring Madrid into direct rail connection with Valencia again, for winter was coming on, and in the high altitude of the Spanish plateau there were not more than six or seven weeks of possible fighting weather left before operations must cease for the long winter's siege. Since the Rightists cut the direct rail route from Valencia just a few miles outside Madrid, communication with the coast has been by road or by rail and then truck in from suburban Alcala de Henares. This route is now being made the course of a new railroad and the line from Madrid northeast to Huesca is being extended southeast to Utise for another rail connection to Valencia.

Everyone knows that the next seven weeks are morally certain to see another Rightist offensive against Madrid. Around Gijon, last Leftist territory on the Bay of Biscay, there was much less than seven weeks to go. Snow was already under the tractor treads of the slowly advancing Rightist tanks; fogs and rains made aerial bombing almost impossible. Whipped on by El Caudillo ("The Chief") Franco's demands that "Gijon must fall before the snow," Rightist troops did capture a vitally important strategic peak on the Gijon front, but the city was still 30 miles of rough terrain from its attackers. Gijon refugees reaching France last week reported "the city is near starvation."

Far in the south of Spain the same desire to beat the winter in the high mountains of Sierra Nevada put none other than bombastic Rightist "Radio General" Gonzalo Queipo de Llano off the air last week and into action for the first time in months. Neutral observers hailed this as prelude to a long delayed advance along the seacoast toward Almeria.

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