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Teacher to Pupil. France, where a bitter debate over recognition had taken place fortnight ago, decided last week to send as her first Ambassador to Franco Spain a man who could wield the most influence over the Generalissimo. Premier Daladier called from retirement 82-year-old Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, France's greatest living soldier and her "hero of Verdun." Some 30 years ago the white-mustached old Marshal was an instructor in France's famed war college, the Ecole de Guerre, and one of his not-too-bright pupils was a young Spaniard named Francisco Franco. During the Riff wars pupil and master met again when Marshal Pétain, General Franco and the late General José Sanjurjo (No. i Spanish Rebel until his death in an airplane crash in 1936) jointly planned the French-Spanish campaign of 1925-26 against Abd-el-Krim.
The old Marshal will probably remain in Spain only until the next critical weeks have passed, when he will be succeeded by a career diplomat. His first job on his arrival this week will be to convince his onetime pupil to send home his Italian helpers, but there was little evidence last week that General Franco or II Duce would take kindly to such a suggestion at present.
General Franco did not bother to appoint a big-name Spaniard as his Ambassador to France. He proposed Jose Felix Lequerica, a stanch opponent of the Spanish Republic since its 1931 inception and a Basque who has long opposed the traditional nationalism of the Basque country. Since the Franco capture of the Basque town of Bilbao, Lequerica has served as its mayor. France accepted him as the first Ambassador of "New Spain."
In another effort to curry favor with General Franco, the French Government closed French ports to all supplies moving to the Loyalists, authorized Franco agents to seize Loyalist property in France.