Evening star., 1936-11-07

1t was not known whether the gov
ernment would establish it's headquar-
ters at Valencia, Barcelona or Alicante
President Manuel AZana has been in
Barcelona for several weeks
Can insurgent radio broadcast from
Jaca, not confirmed from Madrid, said
insurgent troops had advanced into
Madrid proper. A report from Lisbon
said the Fascists had taken the Toledo
Bridge within Madrid at dawn The
Madrid advices, heavily censored and
delayed several hours, indicated only
that the insurgents were in the city's
outSkirts.)f
Marcel Rosenberg, the Russian Am
bassador, closed his embassy and left
with his staff for Valencia. 1t was be-
lieved he planned to establish a pro-
visional embassy there, at Alicante or
in Barcelona.
Attack Besiegers Heavily.
The tattered proletariat ranks, at
the gates of Madrid, sought frantically
to smash through the Gordon of be-
siegers advancing from outlying Sec
tions of the city
A terrific insurgent bombardment
from Madrids suburbs was answered
by the crashing shells of the govern
ment's heavy artillery.
Buildings in the center of Madrid
quivered from the shock of the
bombardment.
The battle for possession Of the
Spanish capital was near a climax.
Party leaders exhorted the defending
militia to fight without quarter, with
out truce" War ministry officials said
the next 70 hours would tell the story.
The quaking populace that re-
manned after the government decided
to abandon the capital heard the ever
nearing din of battle as fierce Moorish
hordes of the Fascist attackers in
vaded the outskirts of the city.
Fear-stricken women and children,
even men, voiced the dread question
paramount in every mind of those
remaining in the seemingly doomed
capital:
What will the Moors do? Will
they kill us alp"
As mounting panic swept the city,
deeply shaken by the news Premier
Francisco Largo Caballero and his
cabinet aides had decided to aban-
don the capital, long lines of refugees
streamed out of the east gates of
the city-bound for Valencia or in
termediate havens away from the
crescendo OF war.
simultaneously, bloody bandaged
soldiers, workman fighters and girl
volunteers, many of them In agonies
OF fesh-torn pain, staggered in from
the other side of the city-from the
firing lines where Socialist defenders
still fought an apparently lost cause.
Cold fear mounted as the roar of
shot and shell neared the Puerta del
Sol-the Times Square" of Madrid.
Fascist sympathizers. in belligerent
mood, began grouping, and it was
feared street fighting would break out
within the capital itself even before
The arrival of the dreaded Moors.
Terrific conclusions shook the city
as the retreating government militia,
fighting their long-heralded "last-
ditch" stand in the southern suburbs,
fell back across the iAanzanares River
on the south rim of Madrid proper
and dynamited the Toledo and Segovia
Bridges.
In the drizzling rain of the gray
morning, long lines of Red Cross am
balances moved necessarily from the
flrst-aid dressing stations near the
battle front to hospitals in the city
itself, then back agaLl.
Hundreds of wounded-militiame
overall uniformed worker fighters,
even girls who had joined in the
active combat-streamed back from
the firing lines.
Their faces, gaunt with pain, told
only too plainly that the end was near.
They shook their heads, too exhausted
for speech.
THE Moors!" They whispered,
stark eyes wavering.
Wave after wave, the swarthy fez-
topped invaders smashed through the