852.00/4274: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Phillips) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 5—1:50 p.m.]
6. A United Press despatch from Washington published in the local papers this morning for distribution in connection with the neutrality discussions before Congress [stated that?] it is intimated in official circles that the President will apply an embargo on war materials to Spain and Germany if the relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate. Although this report has not been commented on in the press any such action of course would be interpreted here as evidence of taking sides in the Spanish conflict.
From an unofficial but reliable informant who has recently been in Spain I gather that Franco’s Spanish resources are very limited and that he will require continued substantial foreign aid both supplies and men presumably from Italy and Germany. Other estimates place his need at the present time at about a minimum of 20,000 trained foreign troops in order to maintain even his present position. It is also reported that Franco has shown a lack of generalship and his army organization is most inefficient. The best of his Spanish troops are said to have been killed in the early days of the war and that Franco is making no efforts to raise other armies in Spain, but will rely primarily on foreign troops.
Up to the present it is impossible to obtain any accurate forecast of the nature of the Italian-German consultation concerning the reply to be sent to the joint Franco-British note regarding volunteers.2 Whether as a result of the recent Anglo-Italian negotiations Italy will endeavor to exercise some restraint upon Germany can only be determined by future developments since no reliable information regarding Italy’s real intention can be secured from the Italian authorities who merely reiterate that conditions in Spain are improving. They allege that Franco’s victory is only a question of time.
- See telegram No. 628, December 28, 1936, 6 p.m., from the Ambassador in the United Kingdom, ibid., p. 615.↩