Word: catalonia
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...loss of no other city or area could be as ruinous to the Spanish Republic's fate as Barcelona's. Spain's most important seaport, its industrial mainspring, its metropolis, Barcelona in Rebel hands would probably lead directly to the conquest of the rest of Loyalist Catalonia, a wiping out of the Madrid-Valencia area, the ultimate victory of Fascism in Spain...
Whether Barcelona fell or not, however, the Government had its last-ditch plans: The fight would continue in northern Catalonia. If that were taken, the Government would move back to southern Spain. If that, too, fell, if they lost Valencia and Madrid, the fight would still be continued underground...
...month ago 40 miles from the front, became a theatre of War. The hitherto narrow Rebel corridor to the sea was widened to about 115 miles and contained the additional advantage of a good port at which Rebel supplies brought direct from Italy could be unloaded. And Loyalist Catalonia, jammed with 6,500,000 inhabitants and refugees, shrank to an area little bigger than that of Massachusetts...
Refugees from southern Catalonia fleeing before the Franco advance clogged all roads as the Loyalist Army retreated. Hundreds of Rebel planes bombed and strafed roads and bridges. For the Loyalists there was one slight consolation in the battle for Catalonia: their retreat was orderly, they allowed no great number of their soldiers to be taken by the Rebels, few Loyalist supplies were left behind...
...Generalissimo Franco. The French General Staff has long viewed with misgivings the establishment of a Fascist power on France's southern frontier. There were signs that to "neutralize' Italian aid to Franco the French might unseal the Spanish frontier and allow military equipment to pour into Catalonia, as it poured in during the last big Franco offensive last March. Such an action would, of course, anger Dictator Mussolini (see p. 18), would be just the ingredient needed to produce a first-class European crisis...