Word: valencias
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Victorious Generalissimo Francisco Franco proclaimed over the Burgos radio at 2:20 p. m. on March 29 that the Spanish Civil War had officially ended. His troops had occupied Madrid, Valencia, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Jaén, Albacete-almost without resistance. Italian planes from Majorca had made a last bombing trip over Gandia, British-controlled Mediterranean port. A few anarchist soldiers were still putting up a feeble resistance in isolated districts and clean-up campaigns were bound to continue for some time. But, broadly speaking, Generalissimo Franco was right: the war was over and for the first time...
...rampant, 1,000,000 Madrileños were half-starved. No restaurant served meals, no bars had drinks. Lentils and dried beans were all anyone could get to eat, and precious little of them. A daily average of 2,000 were reported dying of hunger and sickness. Communications with Valencia, Alicante, Cartagena- warmer cities on the coast-had broken down. No railroad trains ran for there was no coal. No buses moved, for the gasoline supply had given out. Order, direction, organization had broken down...
General José Miaja, the "Savior of Madrid," his war minister, Segismundo Casado, political and trade union leaders and others who feared reprisals had fled to Valencia. Over the Madrid radio Foreign Minister Julian Besteiro, British-backed negotiator who was largely responsible for turning the face of Madrid from defiance to surrender, counseled: "Madrileños! . . . The moment has arrived for avoiding further bloodshed. . . . Let us all be calm and serene, at present, accepting the surrender of Madrid as the best means of salvation. . . . Viva España!" Thus ended, after two years, four months and 21 days...
Whether or not surrender was the best means of salvation, it was the better part of valor. In the south, through Córdoba and Toledo, the Franco main armies were reported advancing, meeting with no resistance. At Valencia it was reported that Loyalist troops had been ordered to withdraw without risking further bloodshed. All that seemed to remain was Franco's own triumphal entry into Madrid and the mopping up of the south, a procedure that in Catelonia required only a few weeks following the collapse of Barcelona...
...what he said. When a British food freighter, the Stangate, was intercepted by a Franco warship and escorted toward a Rebel port, the British destroyer Intrepid overtook the convoy and forced the freighter's release. The Erica Reed, U. S. relief ship to Loyalist Spain, moved out of Valencia unharmed...