The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1939-02-09

authority. The famous French
chief of staff, known to, every
member of the A.E.Fa Gen, ,Mau7
rice Weygand, dispatched, as an
official observer, General Jean
Duval, whose extended report
published last June in, Paris
Qibrairie Plon) under the title,
Lessons of the Spanish War,
give professional account of the
war in the Peninsula and its
lessons for both soldier and civil
ian. The book gains weight from
the unconditional endorsement of
General Weygand.
AT the outset, says General
Weygand in his introduction,
there was on the one hand an
established government, and on
the other a small group of men,
determined to free their country
from intolerable servitude. To
begin with, odds favored the for
mer, possessed of an army and
supplies, far greater territory,
gold, seaports, almost the entire
fleet, and through it ready access
to outside aid. But the govern
ment was without unity and was
dominated by foreign Influence.
Will Unite Nati9p ,. -.
General Duval is confident that
the war is regarded by the Span
ish people as a crusade against
alien communism and that it will
unite the nation as it has not
been united for centuries. He
anticipates that the postwar
government, with the realism in
herent in Spanish character, will
play an independent part in Euro
pean affairs, leagued with neither
Germany, France, Italy nor
Great Britain, but cultivating
friendly relations with all, while
it dedicates it's energies to the
rehabilitation of its war-torn
land.
Analysing the causes of the
revolution, the General says that
the Republic of 1881 was torn be-
tween a multitude of parties
whose ambitions and SUSCEPTIBLE
ties were played upon by the
agents of Moscow. Communist
and anarchist agitators led the
urban workers to believe that q
Union of Iberian Soviet Repub-
lies, once all power and property
were in the hands of a dictator
ship of the proletariat, would
guarantee them a voorhees,, tax
less, carefree existence. Workers
militia amounting to 100000 arm
ed men, far outnumbering the
Regular Army, were formed by
the anarchist, communist, and So
cialist parties. These illegal or
CARNATIONS were covertly aided
by the supine Republican Minis
tiers. Army equipment was stor-
ed in warehouses in the large
cities of eastern Spain, where il
would be easily available to the
radical mobS.
Start Uprising
In 1884, as General Duval
points out, the communists at
tempted to establish a soviet
Spain, when they founded a
bloody uprising in Catalonia and
the Asturias. They were defeat
ed by the Spanish Army. In
1885 they broadened their alliance
with the Socialists, left Republi-
cans and Syndicalists, and en-
tered the 1896 elections. Defeat
ed by nearly half million votes,
they nevertheless seized, control
of the government and by the
murder of Rightist Leaders, pre-
cipitated the present WArrre Gen.
eral Duval traces the, actions Of
the communist leaders in. Spain
directly to orders from the Sew
enth World Congress of Com
munism, held in Moscow in Aug
ust, 1885, and quotes Russian
plans for a Popular Front Gov
eminent in Spain to be followed
in due course by the ousting of
the allied parties of the Left and
formal establishment of a soviet
regime.
Surveys Situation
The French observer thus
sums up the situation as of July,
1896, on the eve of the Spanish
war: When, from the tribune of
the Cortes ParliamenD, Calvo
Sotelo courageously denounced
the hideous actualities of the class
struggle, he echoed the senti-
ment of a large part of the mid
die class. There were even work
ers and peasants who had begun
to feel that if they had ito die,
they might as well die, with their
boots on, The government ne 20
longer defended their rights
not even the right to live; they