While the Republic is running short of supply, especially ammunition, Hitler and Mussolini are strengthening Franco more and more. The fall of northern Spain to the Fascists gave Franco control over the steel industry and the coal mines, allowing him to assure payment for this help.

The desperate struggle of democratic Spain is moving many people throughout the world. Polls in the USA are showing that 76% of those having an opinion about the civil war were in favor of supporting the Republic.

Anthony Eden, British foreign minister, had changed his opinion from the beginning of the war (total neutrality) to help the Republic. He understood that Britain could only loose in the conflict: if Franco wins, Fascism will be definitely the main power in Europe and if the Republic wins, he feared the Communist party would take over the country. Only the support of the democratic nations could help the Spanish government to win the war and urge back the Soviet/Communist influence. Chamberlain disagreed completely with Eden. For Chamberlain, Hitler and Franco were bulwarks against world Communism, reliable partners and would never threaten Britain.

France, on he other hand, is suffering from internal political problems. The Fascist groupings in France are growing in number and influence, as their counterparts on the left. With Chamberlains thread, to be left alone if they provoke an attack by Hitler and Mussolini, France is forced to a Republican-unfriendly neutrality.

Colonel Rey d'Harcourt, commander of the garrison in Teruel, surrenders to the Republican army. The greatly reduced garrison was isolated in the cellars of one of the main buildings, cut off from water, and encumbered by several hundred civilian refugees, including the bishop of Teruel and the chairman of the local Red Cross. The latter came out under a white flag to ask permission to evacuate the wounded from the Assumption Hospital, which had been surrounded and isolated, but not touched, by the entering Republican army. The Republican army guaranteed the evacuation of the hospital and also promised security against reprisal for all persons of non military age who had taken refugee with the garrison.

Today, after the old, the woman, and the children had left the cellars, the famished garrison demanded of the Colonel that he surrender their military hopeless position.

Colonel Rey d'Harcourt and his remaining 1.500 soldiers surrender to the Republican army and the Spanish government.

After the last of the soldiers left the cellars, a group of around twenty woman dressed in black are coming out of the cellars, to the surprise of the Republicans . The secretary of the War minister welcomes them asking, if they where nuns, "No, señor.", replies one of them, "We are the whores of the garrison.".

General Franco, under pressure of his European allies, presents a "Spanish government" in Burgos, to replace his former administration, the military junta ruling the conquered areas, in order to satisfy the basic prerequisites of European politics. This Fascist puppet government, consisting of members from the conservative and monarchist parties, has no influence or power. Franco is ruling as an dictator. Nevertheless the conservative world press is celebrating this pure propaganda as "normalization" in Spain and the "return of orderly conditions".
They ignore that in the Fascist controlled zone the number of executions is higher than the losses on the front. The order Franco is bringing Spain is the order of a cemetery [1].

[1]
20.000 people were killed in the Republican zone by illegal executions and assassinations, most of them during the chaotic first three months of the war. Those assassinations were considered illegal by the government and jurisdiction was fast reestablished, death sentence only exceptional.
On the national side reprisals and assassinations were sanctioned by the officials and carried out with organized efficiency and determination. 200.000 executions and assassinations during the war in the Fascist controlled zone, another 200.000 prisoners died between 1939 and 1943 under the Franco regime.

Gabriel Jackson, "The Spanish Republic And The Civil War, 1931-1939", Appendix D, 'Deaths attributable to the civil war', pages 526 to 540. ISBN 0-691-00757-8