DUCE'S MISTAKE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 250, 16 December 1940, Page 2

DUCE'S MISTAKE

NAVAL DISPOSITION POLITICAL PANIC OVERCOMES REASONED THOUGHT According to the naval correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, it is no longer possible for the Italians to maintain their lines ol

communication with their oversea armies. They have provided, he says, the most ludicrous example of political panic overpowering the reasoned' thought of naval experts. By attempting to withdraw tlieir main fleet from -TJaranto to Cagliari, resulting in the battle off Sardinia. _ the Italian naval command committed a major blunder. British naval experts have thus been provided ■\yith an opportunity of summing up the new situation in the Mediterranean, Their conclusions are that Italy's strategic dispositions have been broken and the basis of Mussolini's defensive plans, bofh in Albania and Libya, has been endangered . The naval correspondent of The Times especially calls attention to the improvement of the British strategical dispositions as the result of possession of Greek harbours some of which are among the best in the world as compared with the situation when the fleet was based on Alexandria, which is some 800 miles from the vital centres of Italy's communications.

The Times expert also points out that Suda Bay affords an excellent harbour at Crete, arid is 400 miles nearer than Alexandria to the localities in which naval operations against Italy can most effectively be carried on. Thus a 500-mile radius from Suda Bay he claims, takes in Brindisi, Taranto, Messina and Syracuse, .while "'the Libyan ports, except Tripoli, are only 250 miles from Crete.