WAR IN SPAIN

1,000,000 Have Died

Early this week Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain and Premier Edouard Daladier of France announced that their Governments were simultaneously recognizing the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain and withdrawing recognition from the Loyalist Government of Premier Dr. Juan Negrin.

In London Loyalist Ambassador Pablo de Azcarate was called to the Foreign Office and handed his walking papers. In Paris Loyalist President Manuel Azana left the Spanish Embassy, where he had lived since the fall of Catalonia, and took a train for the village of Collonges, on the Swiss border, where he expects to live in exile. He had left behind his resignation, to be made public at an "opportune moment." As a last gesture of international courtesy a lone French Foreign Office underling saw Don Manuel off.

The Marquis Quinones de Leon, Generalissimo Franco's French representative, made ready to move into the big, bleak Avenue George V Embassy, and in London the Duke of Alba, Generalissimo Franco's agent to Britain, prepared to take up quarters in the imposing Spanish Embassy in Belgrave Square. Opposition M. P.s cried "Shame!" and "Betrayal!" in the House of Commons when Mr. Chamberlain announced the recognition of Generalissimo Franco; in France Socialist leader Leon Blum felt "nauseated" when M. Daladier made his announcement to the Chamber of Deputies. But both the Chamber and the House were expected to approve by large majorities. For both countries the eight-year-old Spanish Republic had ceased to exist.

The French-British recognition of General Franco's Spain left only a handful of nations still recognizing the Loyalists, chief among which were Soviet Russia, China, Mexico, Cuba, the U. S. With the probable exception of the Soviet Union, they too were expected to change over promptly.

More than any other single action, the Chamberlain-Daladier move doomed any lingering Loyalist hope that Madrid could carry on alone. Dr. Negrin's plane was reported ready to carry the former Premier out of the country and many other Loyalist leaders in Valencia and Madrid prepared to flee. At least 10,000 Loyalists felt their lives sufficiently in jeopardy to want to take up the offer of a ride on British and French warships to neutral ports.

Surrender of the remaining one-fourth of Spain now in Loyalist hands was expected to come within a few days. After two years, seven months and one week of a bloody warfare which has caused untold destruction and led to the death of an estimated 1,000,000 persons the war was all but over.

Tug of War.

Whatever peace might mean to war-weary Spain, to the outside world the approaching end of the Spanish War was merely the signal for the beginning of a diplomatic tug of war between the European democracies and dictatorships. Germany and Italy believe they will exert more influence because they helped Rebel Spain win the war with men and munitions. France and Britain hope to get the new Spain into their camp by lending her money.

Last week Generalissimo Franco was reported from Paris as planning to become the non-political head of the State, naming his wife's reportedly pro-Nazi brother-in-law, Ramon Serrano Suner, as the political head.

To flattering requests from France and Britain that the Generalissimo declare a general amnesty; and to French and British hopes that Spain would remain "independent," Francisco Franco snapped: "The admiration for me expressed by neighboring democracies today leaves me as indifferent as the abuse they heaped on me yesterday."

Triumphal Entry

Barcelona, conquered month ago by the Rebel Armies, was last week given its first look since the beginning of the war at the No. 1 Rebel, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Early one morning a 21-gun salute roared out from Montjuich fortress as Generalissimo Franco, accompanied by his Moorish guard, motored into the centre of the city. Taking his place on a stand on Barcelona's large and battered Via Diagonal, now appropriately renamed Avenida del Caudillo (Avenue of the Chief) for El Caudillo Franco, the Generalissimo reviewed units of the seven Army corps that had taken part in the Catalonian offensive.

As they have usually done when glory was being dished out, his Italian "volunteers" again got away with the biggest helping. At the head of the parade of 80,000 troops rode the Italian Chief of Staff, General Gastone Gambara. Behind his strutting chestnut pony came the Italian Littorio Division and the Italian members of the Black, Blue and Green Arrow Legions. Overhead, 30 Italian planes flew in a formation of the Fascist emblem. When the Italian forces had passed on, the Rebel divisions were allowed to pick up the leavings.

El Caudillo climaxed his martial pageant with his first radio address since the fall of Catalonia, assured those Spaniards under his rule that "the symbol and guarantee of our future is the army you acclaimed today."

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