Yerrifie Battle Takes Toll of Many Thousand Lives Teruel, Dee. 31, Nationalist field. radios to-day announced that their advance units had" entered Teruel, spoiling the Repablicans. sole claim to any major victory in the present Civil War, The streets on the outskirts of the city were heaped with dead, Casual ties were estimated ju thousands, American members of the Tnicr ational Brigade engaged—Ttalian Legionnaires in hand-to-hand Aghting fon the Campille Road, The Nationalists are entering the! houses of "Teruel," the "Nationalist radios proudly broadcast. Due the speed of the advance, it was uncertain how far they had penetrated the city, However, some reports said that the besieged Nationalists in Teruel have been liberated and there was wild rejoicing in the streets, The entry followed 48 hours of the most hitler kind of fighting along 0 25 mile front which quickly narrowed down to twelve miles. The Nationalists said they planned quickly to mop up the city, hoping to trap most of the Republicans. Nationalist frontier despatches said between 20,000 and 25,000 casualties had been Feported—United Press, At dawn, the general offensive was launched, with three the town from different directions. lon, from where the town was sub-Jected to an intense bombardment, At the same time, the other columns intensified" heir attack.
This resulted in the Loyalist forces being pushed back four kilometres.
Beleaguered Group Attack Shortly after the capture of La Muclla, the Nationalist defenders in the town itself, who had been holding. out for several days, decided to Tush out of their stronghold and effect a contact with the attackers, This they succeeded in doing fairly easily, and at 4 pin. Nationalist troops entered the town.
Spasmodie firing continued until late night, when the Nationalist forces became complete masters of Teruel.
Throughout the day, all operations were carried out under extremely dimieult circumstances, owing to the Intense cold.
The thermometer varied from seven to eleven degrees centigrade under freezing point.
On both sides, as many men collapsed from the cold as were wounded by jgunlire—Havas.
Mahan Legions Rome, Jan. 1 The recapture of Teruel by Nationalist forces was announced in screaming head-lines by the press here to-day.
The participation of Italian legions the attack on the town was parleularly stressed by most of the newspapers. "Italy is proud that her black legions took part in the battle, thereby fulfilling an extremely dim cull task." "La Stampa" writes today.
Other journals state that General Franco will never forget that the "meagre success of the Bolshevist brigades" "had been sufficient for those who were "timidly" drawing nearer to Salamanca to put a halt fo their relations with the latter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.