ALLIED COMMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 June 1940, Page 5

ALLIED COMMENT

ITALY EARNING CONTEMPT OF WORLD Prospect of Long War Opened FAILING UNEXPECTED GERMAN COLLAPSE ASSURANCES TO BALKAN STATES RIDICULED Mussolini has made his decision to throw in his lot with Hitler and has declared war on Britain and France, a Daventry broadcast reports. This announcement was made in Rome in a short address given by Mussolini. Shortly afterwards Count Ciano informed the French and British Ambassadors that Italy considered herself at war with the Allies as from June 11. In a fifteen-minute speech, Mussolini said Italy was going' to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West. He claimed that they had hindered the advance and threatened the existence of Italy. Italy, he said, was not going to involve other nations in the struggle and he asked Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Switzerland to take a note of those words.

A British official comment on Mussolini’s entry into the war said the Allies were fully prepared to meet the intervention of Italy as Germany’s vassal. Mussolini had reassuring words to give the Balkan people, but all nations knew what reliance could be placed on the promises of the Axis Powers, as Denmark, Norway, Holland, Luxemburg and Belgium knew to their cost. The Fascist Government had waited to intervene at the moment of greatest inconvenience to the Allies. Italy’s action would earn the contempt of the world. Unless Germany collapsed unexpectedly, the war would be a long one. M. Reynaud, French Prime Minister, in a broadcast, said France had nothing to say about Italy’s action. The world would judge it. As he had said several times in recent declarations, there was no problem between France and Italy that could not be settled by negotiation. The. Pope and President Roosevelt had tried to prevent the extension of the war, but it was all in vain. After referring to the heroic resistance of the French troops on the Western Front, he said the Allies were stronger in the Mediterranean than anywhere else. Mr Duff Cooper, British Minister of Information, said Mussolini had acted with characteristic cowardice and treachery and had taken the opportunity of stabbing an old friend in the back. Mussolini’s action would go down as one of the vilest in history. He had chosen to fight with Italy’s hereditary enemy against Italy’s hereditary friends. The Italians had never won a war without assistance except against unarmed Abyssinia. If the impossible happened, and Germany won the war, Italy would be reduced to a vassal State.