The rebels, who in November 1936 had fought to enter and failed, walked in yesterday as troops of the generally recognised Spanish Government, and not a shot was fired at them. The supporters of Franco in the city, the “fifth column” he once spoke of, had been waiting for this moment for more than two years.

Lloyd George's belief in a revolutionary fifth column [the term hadn't been coined then] driving the strike was replicated on Fleet Street. On October 1 [1919] The Times thundered: "The attempt of the strike leaders to subvert Constitutional government in this country and to starve the nation into acquiescence in their revolutionary designs will be defeated, as other onslaughts have been defeated, by the firmness of the people in defence of its liberties."

Fifth column

Meaning

Noun