Spanish towns east of Balaguer, Spain — the midpoint of the 100-mile front — are heavily shelled. The Italian press boasts of the accomplishments of its brigades in Spain.
Spanish rebel armies were credited with new gains in Catalonia today. In the five days of their new drive the rebels estimated they had occupied more than 230 square miles of territory in northeastern Spain. An official rebel communiqué announced the capture of Alos de Balaguer, a town on the northern bank of the Segre River within striking distance of Artesa, the so-called “key to Catalonia.” A column of Moroccan and Navarrese troops operating around the El Monsech Mountain range north of Lérida suddenly struck south from Peralba and Figuerola to seize Alos after a battle. Capture of the town placed General Francisco Franco’s troops about ten miles from Artesa, on the opposite bank of the Segre. Government reinforcements were reported to have been rushed to the Artesa shore of the river, where machine gun nests have been established to prevent a rebel crossing.
Today’s thrust was described as one of the biggest of the current drive. The rebels listed a score of mountain positions from which government forces were driven by heavy machine gun and artillery fire. Eighty rebel planes participated in the attack, aiming particularly at the Tremp-Barcelona Highway, the loyalists’ supply line. The rebel gains reported today were along a front extending southward from Cap de Sierra, which is southeast of Tremp, through Lérida, to Ribarroja near the Ebro River. Cap de Sierra, which the rebels captured, is an electric power source and important for loyalist communications. Rebel cavalry conducted mopping up operations in the Ribarroja and Aspa sectors. It is east of these two towns that the rebels have penetrated the Llena Mountains into a corner of Tarragona province.
Rebels estimated that in five days of fighting on the Catalonian front there were 10.000 casualties among the 500,000 troops engaged. The rebels claimed 7,000 prisoners have been taken since the offensive began. Franco’s greatest gain in the southern sector was made by the Llena mountain spearhead which has advanced seventeen miles since December 23. The spearhead is 40 miles from Tarragona, which is fifty miles down the seacoast from Barcelona. The rebels are attacking the loyalists’ second line of defenses in the Llena Mountains. In the central, or Borjas Blancas-Balaguer sector, the government’s first line is said to be holding firm. In the Monsech Mountains east and northeast of Tremp, the battle is reported deadlocked. The rebels made two air raids on the city and port of Barcelona. The 1,407-ton British steamer Stancroft was sunk, but its crew was saved.
Although the foremost rebel column is eighty miles from Barcelona, its goal, there were reports from Barcelona that the government capital might be moved to the southern two-thirds of loyalist Spain, which is separated by a rebel wedge to the sea at Tortosa. The possible capitals mentioned were Valencia or Cartagena, which are ports on the Mediterranean, or Albacete, which is 100 miles inland and is the government’s chief military and aviation training ground. Valencia was the loyalist capital after the government fled from besieged Madrid on November 7, 1936. The capital then was moved to Barcelona on October 28, 1937, when Valencia was threatened.
France today started reinforcing her East African colony of Somaliland against Italian pressure for a bigger empire by rushing a warship to Djibouti. The 1,969-ton dispatch boat D’Iberville of the French East Mediterranean fleet steamed south from Beirut, Syria, to the Somaliland port. Other naval units were expected to follow her into the Red Sea as the result of an appeal for reinforcements from the governor of Somaliland. France has no fleet in the Red Sea. Djibouti, by its railway connection with Addis Ababa, is the principal outside link for Italy’s Ethiopian empire.
Simultaneously it was learned that Italian military caravans have occupied and have been holding for 18 months some oases in the disputed arid frontier between France’s Somaliland and Italy’s Ethiopia. The foreign ministry announced, however, that no official confirmation could be found for press reports of mass concentrations of Premier Mussolini’s troops in Ethiopia facing Somaliland. An official pointed out that the frontier region is a vast expanse of desert where mass movements of troops would be difficult. Nevertheless, it was acknowledged that small units of Italians had taken “two or three” oases to which France also has laid claim but has not occupied with soldiers. The border was charted by a map of 1879, but some points have never been fixed clearly.
These occupations, however, were viewed as a far cry from reported preparations for an Italian invasion of Somaliland. The Paris Soir, a leftist newspaper, published dispatches that Italian troops had taken six posts in French Somaliland. The newspaper’s dispatches also said Italian loudspeakers along the railway from Addis Ababa announced several times a day that the “taking of Djibouti is only a question of time” and that “the French will be thrown back into the sea.”
Tension between France and Italy over French Somaliland in East Africa threatens to torpedo Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s projected visit to Rome next month with his foreign secretary, Viscount Halifax. This statement was made by diplomatic circles in London tonight. Official sources refused to comment on the situation arising from unconfirmed reports that Italian troops have penetrated the French Somaliland frontier. However, the cabinet watched developments closely. It called for reports from British diplomats with a special knowledge of the area on the effect of recent Italian moves. Chamberlain was in constant contact with Halifax, and it was suggested that their trip to Italy on January 11 may be called off if any drastic action is taken by the Italians.
That Jews will be segregated in ghettos in many German cities has become a practical certainty. The Nazi party is causing the eviction from their homes of thousands of Jews. Within the last few days Jews living in buildings also occupied by Aryans have been informed by their landlords that they must leave after the legal period of notice has expired. Although German officials have announced repeatedly that anti-Jewish measures would proceed in a lawful manner and have denied that ghettos were being planned for Jews, the eviction measures are taking place without official announcement.
A new German decree segregates Jews from Aryans on trains. The German papers point to America’s Jim Crow laws as an example of a working system.
Crowds gather in Surany, a city ceded to Hungary, where demonstrations began on December 24. Hungarian police fire into a crowd, killing two Slovak men. Police beat at least 200 others.
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia dissolved and its leaders went into exile in the Soviet Union.
American opera singer Grace Moore gave the Duchess of Windsor a deep curtsey during a concert in France and started a new controversy over whether or not the duchess counted as royalty and was entitled to receive such an honor.
The Soviet Union established the Medal “For Distinguished Labour”.
Russian poet Osip Mandelstam dies in a Soviet labor camp.
Jews employed in the Jerusalem public works department went on strike today demanding “less murder” of Jewish workers. A Jewish carpenter was killed yesterday and a Jewish truck driver shot and wounded today. In each case the assailant escaped into hiding places of the old city of Jerusalem. The workers demanded that the government take more effective safety measures.
France claims Italian troops have crossed Somaliland borders to occupy unfortified oases.
Congressional leaders of both parties said today that they expect the first session of the Seventy-Sixth Congress, which opens next Tuesday. to be one of the most turbulent in history. For six months or longer the lawmakers of the nation will tussle with a wide variety of controversial legislation. There are many issues calculated to heat the emotions. There are others demanding the most attentive and lengthy consideration which will fray the nerves of conscientious members. At this date, a majority of the incoming senators and representatives agree, President Roosevelt appears to be facing a congress hostile to many of his pet proposals. Much depends upon his attitude and he has not indicated any disposition to retreat from experimentation or to cease his demands for additional power.
Capitol Hill veterans recalled that the President suffered three major setbacks from the last congress which was overwhelmingly Democratic. The Senate killed Mr. Roosevelt’s Supreme Court packing bill and repudiated his punitive tax theories, abolishing both the undistributed profits tax and the Roosevelt method of taxing long term capital gains as ordinary income. The House, by a close vote, threw the government reorganization or dictator bill into the wastebasket. In the light of these reverses from a congress that was known as the President’s rubber stamp when it came into existence, observers ask what may be expected from the next congress with its large increase in Republican representation and its continued percentage of so-called conservative Democrats who have rebelled against many of Mr. Roosevelt’s requests.
The President announces a plan for training 20,000 pilots annually, which he hopes to have installed in colleges nationwide by the next school year. President Roosevelt today added to his huge defense program a project calling for the training of 20,000 civilian pilots annually at a cost of $9,800,000 a year. He announced his approval of the program presented by the Civil Aeronautics authority. The program will be under supervision of the National Youth administration and army and navy flyers will be instructors. First test of the program will be made during the second semester of the current school year of about a dozen colleges and universities, where the instruction will be given to students between the ages of 18 and 25.
Mr. Roosevelt said that he has authorized the allocation of $100,000 in NYA funds for training approximately 300 students in this tryout, and that later he will ask congress to appropriate the necessary $9,800,000 for the annual program. The President said that the program was aimed only at instruction in civilian flying, not combat flying, giving only the required training for pilot licenses. But, he added, the program would provide a reservoir of trained pilots. He said that he expected a large number of those trained would enter the army or navy reserve corps, which would require additional training, including combat flying.
The 103rd National Parliament of Science opens in Richmond, Virginia, and research about mental health is a major focus.
More arrests are made in the McKesson and Robbins investigation, this time for blackmail against the late Philip Musica.
At the Pan-American Conference in Peru, the eight-point peace plan brought by Secretary Hull becomes the Declaration of American Principles, stressing mutual cooperation and respect for laws.
General Chiang Kai-shek reiterates his belief that Wang Ching-wei, head of the Kuomintang, is receiving medical treatment for illness, specifically a heart condition. There is some speculation that Chiang is trying to leave room for Wang to “save face” and return.
Battle lines zigzagging through China were stalemated, though intense guerrilla fighting took place today behind the lines concurrently with nebulous rumors of a New Year’s truce. Japanese claimed their lines included all of Chahar, Suiyuan, Hopei, Shantung, Shansi, Kiangsu, and Anhwei provinces, a large part of Honan, and parts of Chekiang, Kiangsi, and Kwangtung. Neutral observers believed the claims were exaggerated.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 150.43 (-0.95).
Born:
Ron Greene, American college basketball coach (University of New Orleans, Mississippi State, Murray State, Indiana State), in Terre Haute, Indiana (d. 2021).
Jean Hale, American actress (“In Like Flint”), in Salt Lake City, Utah (d. 2021).
History Diaries 