Word: catalan
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...elaborately touted final offensive against Catalonia, first threatened four weeks ago, again failed to materialize last week, was postponed from mañana (tomorrow) to mañana (tomorrow). What attacks there were on the Aragon front were all on the Leftist side. A brave but foolhardy attack by Catalan militiamen against a Rightist stronghold known as Hill, 1100 was beaten back after a loss of some 400 men caught in a blast of machine-gun fire on the barbed wire. Not even one Spanish square mile changed hands last week...
...Rich Catalan farmers, who experienced the recent Anarchist-Communist disorders, appear to favor the Rebel side as much as they do the present regime in Barcelona and it was indicated that the Negrin Government might assume a more conservative policy in order to win over these farmers and business men." The Negrin Government, not yet settled in their new offices in Barcelona, announced simultaneously that death would be the penalty for any Catalan trying to escape into France...
...important military action by either side had taken place on Nov. 7. Preliminary to the great Franco offensive, Rightist bombers came meanwhile down from over the mountains to blast the living daylights out of Catalan Lerida, later Barbastro, killing some 300 civilians, in the process. It was useless to pretend that the towns lacked military importance. Lerida, a key town in the Leftist defense of Barcelona, was the temporary headquarters of Leftist Commander General Sebastian Pozas, and Barbastro not only contained many Leftist ammunition dumps but was last week an important Leftist base. One of Lerida's bombs landed...
...such a bombing produced its theoretical effect, the breakdown of civilian morale, but there were signs last week to show that in Catalonia at least it might. Catalans who indulge in street fighting at a hat's drop are in general poor soldiers. For a full year they frankly shirked their full share of Leftist fighting, partly because not one foot of Catalan territory is yet invaded by Rightist troops. Now, suddenly, they find that not only has their autonomous Catalan Government been practically swallowed by the Valencia regime, which fortnight ago moved its Spanish Leftist Government...
Last November an admission that the Madrid Government dared not move to the then anarchist-ridden Catalan Barcelona, or words of praise for the founder of the powerful, much-feared Jesuit order, would have been tantamount to treason...