EUROPE TO-DAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 47, 24 January 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

ITALY’S LAST 500 YEARS. It was in the 14th century that Rienzi, the last of the Roman 'Tribunes, was killed in the capital. , .At Trent, the famous Church Council was held on and off from 1545 to 1563.

Sardinia surrendered to a British fleet in 1708 and was handed over to Austria.

In 1783 and again in 1908 Reggio —at Italy’s toe —was destroyed by earthquakes. In 1800 Napoleon led his armies through the Great St. Bernard Pass on his way to Italy, and five years later that daring general, determined on vast conquests, crowned himself King of Italy at Milan, little dreaming that within ten years his power was to be broken for ever.

Not till 1857 was the huge task of boring under the Alps begun. For unnumbered centuries the mountains had been a harrier to trade and travel, separating Italy from the rest of Europe. By 1870 the work was complete and the Mount Cenis tunnel open to traffic. Another vital event in the history of this ancient land was the victory won by Garibaldi. With a small armv he landed at Marsala in 1860 and won Sicily from the King of Naples—the beginning of the unification of Italy. Since then a man has arisen in the land who has had vision and strength of will. Having gathered the youth of Italy about him and given himself the supreme control which a Dictator alone can wield, Mussolini has changed Italy more in a few years than Italy changed in a few centuries before his day.

There is order and progress. There is unitv. The new Rome is rising on the old. The Pontine marshes have been drained. The railways have been speeded up. Commerce has been extended—and Abyssinia has been won.— (G.).