Press release. No.194 : English edition

              WMC page 2.
GENERALITAT DE CATALUNYA
PRESIDENCIA
COMISSARIAT DE PROPAGANDA
Avinguda 14 d'Abril, 442 bis   :   BARCELONA   :   Telèfon 82215
COMUNICAT DE PREMSA
ENGLISH EDITION NUMBER 194
BARCELONA MARCH 23
ITALIANS IN SPAIN
The Non-intervention Committee is still clinging to the pretence that the war in Spain is a civil war. There may, it admits reluctantly, be one or two Italians in Spain, but volunteers are, after all, volunteers. It ignores the overwhelming mass of evidence about the presence of Italian regular army troops in Spain with diplomatic ease.
The evidence can be summarized briefly. The loyal troops on the Guadalajara front declare that those opposing them are Italians. In support of this is the fact that every prisoner taken on that sector has been Italian. After that come the statements of the prisoners themselves, given in the presence of reliable witnesses. These statements agree that there were forty thousand regular army troops on the Guadalajara front.
Next comes the documentary evidence. Many of the prisoners have been found to be carrying their regular army papers; on one of them a telegram, originally from Mussolini, but redirected by the commander in Spain, encouraging the troops was found. Many messages from Italian generals have also been found on the prisoners.
Next come the statements made by reliable eye-witnesses of the disembarkation of Italian troops in Spain, giving the dates, numbers and names of the ships. These statements have more than once been supported by the local consulates. Finally, there were statements made by the Italian press itself, in which the troops in Spain were openly discussed.
But the Non-intervention Committee views this overwhelming mass of evidence and is not overwhelmed.
Italy's reward for sending her armies to invade Spain is to be appointed protector and guard of Spain, the coast which has already suffered from Italian shells fired from guns that were, at least, not Spanish. This is the first time in the history of the world that an aggressor has been appointed, by an impartial committee, to patrol the coasts of the country he is invading.