WHERE ITALY STANDS.

Evening Star, Issue 23382, 27 September 1939, Page 8

WHERE ITALY STANDS.

The war, it is plain, makes an uncomfortable environment for Italy. She has nothing to gain and might have much to lose from its extension, and cannot possibly feel satisfied with the results of her Axis partnership as the position stands. From that alliance Mussolini, with a cooler head and a brain better fitted to judge realities, has had to see almost all the advantages go to his brother Dictator. Albania was a morsel on the other side, but ,Albania is mainly valuable for defensive purposes, and nobody ever wanted to attack Italy, as, for that matter, till she began aggression a few weeks ago, nobody dreamed of attacking Germany. To tbe greater resources of Germany and the advantages of her geographical position that onesided working out of the partnership, which has always been unpopular with Mussolini’s countrymen, must be ascribed. It is hard to believe that only four years ago Italy was included among the Allied Powers who passed resolutions at Stresa for the purpose of keeping Germany in check. The Stresa front collapsed when it was followed by the invasion of Abyssinia and imposition of sanctions which, while it was not sufficiently drastic to restrain

her war machine, drove Italy out of the League and into the arms of Germany. Italy and Germany worked hand in hand to win the Spanish war for Franco, but it was a shock to 11 Duce, at which he could only disguise his mortification, when Germany used her strength for the annexation of Austria, which Mussolini, on an earlier occasion, had marched troops to the frontier to prevent. Now the Russians have imposed a check to Herr Hitler’s south-eastern march, but the aggrandisement of Russia in that region would no more suit the Italians than that of Germany, so that nothing in the outlook goes well for Rome. Before anything else Italy has need of peace, so that Abyssinia, which was acquired before the alliance with Germany and has meant nothing yet except bills and taxes, may be made to pay for its conquest. Signor Mussolini therefore has special reason to be a mediator, and his latest speech has been on the text that the war which his partner provoked should now be called off. Poland is vanquished; Germany has got her way; nothing remains therefore for Britain and France to fight for; so the argument runs. But that argument is not convincing for a moment. Britain and France, who had no wish to fight, but were forced into it, have given pledges, and they will honour them. The war from their viewpoint is only begun, and it will not be ended till the Nazi bullies have ceased to be a terror to anyone. The Italians, to judge from their newspapers, do not understand. They are disappointed and puzzled by the Allies’ attitude. That is regrettable, but if the Italians think what it was that they, as well as others, resisted) in the World War, and what they resisted in earlier wars fought for their independence against Austria, understanding will come to them. And 11 Duce, though he has worked only for another’s profit since the Axis was formed —neither Rome nor Berlin seems likely to get anything out of Spain—is still in a better position than Herr Hitler to-day. He has the chance of keeping out of war and the Fuhrer is in it—far deeper in it than was contemplated by his plana when he reckoned on destroying first this neighbour, then another, in Europe, risking resistance only from the weak. For Herr Hitler the day that will level him with the most obscure victims of his oppressions surely comes.