14 Months

In the high mountains surrounding Gijon on the Bay of Biscay winter had already come last week. Rightist troops shivered along mountainous paths slippery with seven inches of snow, fought every inch of the way by indomitable but ill-equipped Asturian miners who heartily cheered the snow that bogged down their enemies' tanks and heavy artillery, grounded their planes. Rightist capture of Gijon seemed in expert military eyes inevitable, but if snow and bad weather continued that capture might be postponed for many weeks, possibly till spring. The slated siege of Gijon would likewise tie up many thousands of Rightist troops badly needed for transfer to other fronts.

Only 18 miles southwest of beleaguered Gijon another siege was ending its 14th month, but in this case the roles were reversed. At Oviedo, once a city of 70,000 people, a Rightist garrison was still holding out against a circling force of Asturian miners who have sworn to capture and kill Oviedo's commander, General Miguel Aranda "if we have to get him over the dead bodies of our own children."

One of the best hated men in Spain. Miguel Aranda first came to Oviedo in 1934 with the rank of colonel and orders from Madrid to help put down a revolution of Asturian socialists and anarchists against what they saw to be a swiftly developing fascist dictatorship. With ruthless Foreign Legionaries and Moors, imported into Spain for the first time in its history, Aranda did his work well, causing the death of numberless men in a few weeks.

Just before the beginning of the present war Miguel Aranda was in Madrid but he hustled back to Oviedo on orders from General Franco, took over the garrison of 2,000 men and seized the city. Ruthless Miguel Aranda may be, an able officer he certainly is. Spurred on by personal hatred for Aranda, forces of 8,000 and 10,000 men have besieged Oviedo, furrowing its streets and battering its houses with as many as 3,000 shells a day--while the Asturians still had munitions. For many weeks the city and its garrison were entirely cut off, every man limited to three quarts of water a day for drinking and washing, a loaf of bread and some beans. Eleven months ago a Rightist relief column from Grado on the west was able to chop through a corridor 18 miles long, in some places only 1,000 yd. wide, to bring men, munitions and food into Oviedo. Still besieged on three sides was Oviedo last week, and Miguel Aranda, now a general, was still its commander, but there was plenty of food in the shell marked shops, the soldiers had plenty of munitions. To reporters Commander Aranda explained his methods of keeping the populace loyal: "We put about 700 men in prison.* Others, mostly young fellows, slipped off and joined the Reds. But the majority remained with us. We put them to work."

Elsewhere in Spain last week fortune favored the Leftists. In the south, Leftists got under way an offensive which made progress toward cutting Rightist lines of communication between Seville-Cordoba and the north. In the north another Leftist offensive thrust forward to cut a rail line connecting Rightist Spain with the French border, the Saragossa-Huesca railway. Meanwhile Leftists sent a heavy barrage of over 1,000 shells into Toledo, completely wrecking a big Rightist munitions plant.

* Also in prison last week, not in Rightist Spain, but in France, lodged barrel-chested Major Julian Troncoso, Commandant of Irun, Franco agent on the French-Spanish border. Arrested for alleged connection with the subnapping episode fortnight ago (TIME, Sept. 27), and the terrorist activities of a Rightist French secret society, Les Cagoulards (the Hooded Men) Major Troncoso boasted that Franco would retaliate with arrests of French consuls in his territory. Franco threatened the San Sebastian French consul with arrest, then capitulated, was reported to have booted out Major Troncoso as his Irun agent.

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