"SUPERB"

Evening Star, Issue 23691, 26 September 1940, Page 15

"SUPERB"

On his return from his tour of the Franco-ltalian front, Signor Mussolini published a letter addressed to the Prince of Piedmont, Commander of the Italian forces in the West, in which he declared that all Italians and foreigners should acknowledge that Italy “ crushed France’s Alpine Maginot Line in a four-day battle in a blinding snowstorm.” The conduct of the Italian troops, ho said, was “ superb,” and he added : “ The French tx-oops resisted savagely to the end—that is to say, till the armistice and even a few hours after, for they had been kept in ignorance of what had happened in the rest of France.

“ The battle was hard and bloody. Thousands of men who became casualties hear evidence to this. The names of those who fell on the field of honour will be made known. As for the wounded whom I visited in the hospitals, I declare that it is difficult to find in the whole world another race which, through the most cruel physical sufferings, could show as much calm and stoicism as the Italian race.” The Italians first attacked on the Alpine front on June 21. the day on which the Trench received the German armistice terms. Thev made no advance until June 24. the day on which the Trench signed the armistice with Italy. On that day the limit of their advance over the frontier was two miles.—Washington ‘ Post.’