The capture of Barcelona marked Gen. Franco's greatest success of the entire civil war and climaxed one of the most crushing military offend sives of modern times., The Catalan offensive was launched*on Christmas Eve as an "end the war" drive, and carried the Nationalists into Barcelena in approximately one month.
The offensive led to the occupation of 15000 square miles of territory including 500 towns and villages.
Gen.
Franco now is master of ree-fourths of Spain which con-alns approximately 20,000,000 of the nation's 24,000,000 people, Also included in this area are the nation's most important agricultural and industrial areas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.