Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1936-09-24
INTERNATIONAL
NEWS REVIEW
CONTINUED from Page ~

treaty was written for the purpose OF
preserving peace in Eastern Europe,
and since the recent Franco-Russian
alliance threatened to interrupt that
same peace, there would be no point
to discussion at this time-to dis
cussion about LOcarnO. Although it
may be in vain, it is implied that Ger
many, through diplomatic means, will
try to explode the Franco-Russian al
lance which, from the German view
point, neutralizes whatever safeguard
ing effect the Locarno treaty might
have. Seemingly recognizing that the
argument cannot be ignored, Great
Britain, France and Belgium have
agreed to postpone the London con-
ference; it may be held in December,
but no one knows now.
In Spain.
While so many of the worlds pres
ent struggles deal with problems of
an international kind, the civil war in
Spain is, so far, national and do
nestle affair although not entirely
devoid of possibilities of future inter-
national complications. And that civil
thing the modern world has known; it
is characterized by cold. deliberate,
systematic cruelty, and at this mo-
ment it is impossible to say who is
the most ferocious-the government
troops or the fascist rebels.
af hn c1i of toi
the other day when the government
troops undermined the alcazar-the
fortress-on the peak of granite rock
in the city of Toledo; here about LOO
rebels-men, women and children
had remained almost since the begin
ming of the civil war. and all efforts
to dislodge them had failed. Then, in
their desperation, the government
troops used T. N. T. (trinitrotoluoD,
one of the deadliest explosives de-
veloped by chemists of the World War
age, and one of the massive towers of
the old fortress tumbled down while
pieces of masonry and rocks rained
down upon the city of Toledo. Esti-
mates of the number of victims
range from 500 to 1000, but there
were enough rebels left to keep up
machine gun fire at the attackers.
In Madrid the government justified
its attack on the Toledo alcazar by
saying that it had offered the rebels
safety for their women and children,
and by claiming that rebels in other
parts of Spain had used even worse
methods against those loyal to the
government. AS the rebels did not
accept the offer of safety to women
and children the government had no
alternative. 1t set off the charge.
Generally, one gets at this moment
the impression that the rebel armies
are making better progress in their at
tacks than are the government troops
in their defense. Madrid is the OBJ
jective of the rebels, and armies with
combined strength of $4,000 men
are said to be converging upon the
capital.
Unbiased observers agree that a
fascist victory would be a calamity
whose reverberations would be felt in
varying forms, still exists; they also
agree that the revolution, started by
the fascists, from every fair and just
viewpoint, was criminal mistake
from its very inception.
League Meeting.
While dictators bark in some parts
of Europe, guns in another. the League
of Nations assembled in Geneva this
week for its seventeenth annual gene
raj session. There, too, was explosive
material, for Italy had made it known
that she did not care to take part I'M
less the League ruled Ethiopia out on
the ground that there is not now any
nation bearing that name-there is
merely an Italian colony.
Proposals have been made to the
effect that the League concentrate its
efforts on applying the articles of the
League covenant, as it now exists, rath-
er than go to the task of revision.