Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940. A NATION DEMORALISED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940. A NATION DEMORALISED.

♦- AS an example of the beat that Italian P ro P°? a ' Kli f® A the assertions credited to “I! Message™” .n one of Satm tliv’s cablegrams are pathetic rather than amusni e . ‘ optnin« statement that the tight in North Atnca ™ a - v ; and ma°y assume the most terrible aspect (as no doubt, lad from the noint of view of Marshal Graziani and his aimy), Xton to affirm that “h England is condemned to lose the wai, because . ~ compelled to divert to the Mediterranean considerable foie which otherwise would have been used for the defence ol t British Isles” and finally that: “The attack mNo tli Ai ca is the bst. proof that England fels the Italian swoid vith its mortal thrust.” These extravagant absurdities obviously can be addressed only to the people of Italy. Since the publication o iai - ino nonsense is still considered worth while, it must be supposed that the Fascist dictatorship has been much more successful in withholding the facts of the Avar from the Italia population than it has been in its conduct of military operations. That can only mean, however, that the full diselos ™ of the truth, which cannot long be postponed, will be so mucii the more shattering to the Italian people and damaging to then dictatorship. It is coming day by day to seem more likely that Italy will either collapse completely as a belligerent or be taken over by Germany. All that is now happening m the M estern Uesei and Albania, following upon the disasters suffered by the Italian fleet in its fugitive appearance at sea and in the attack of the Fleet Air Arm at Taranto, has to be considered with the fact in mind that the Italian people were dragged into the war much against their will, and that Mussolini and his gang won c hardly have had their way in June last but for their promises of easy and early victory. A week or two after Italy s en ij into the war, an American commentator observed :— The Fascist organisation can carry on its present desperate enterprise for a short time —I think a very short time. If it is possible for the Italian armed forces to carry out their pro£ r! \mme in Southern France, Gibraltar, Tunisia and the Eastern Mediter- ■ ranean within six weeks or two months, they may possibly survive. If they have to fight for a longer period, they are in my opinion lost. Italy is at the present moment the most demoiahse and dnarchical country in Europe. . . . Mussolini’s will alone has pulled this trick (Italy’s entry into the war) and it was the last despairing throw of a ruined gambler. He was ruined whether he came in or stayed out and and he is playing everything lie has on the chance of German victory in which he firmly believes. The great fact that German victory, would be the end of Italian independence has been clear to all of his helpless subjects for a long time. It is apparently still not clear to him. Taking account of the deadly demoralisation that undoubtedly exists in the Italian, body politic as well as of events in North Africa and Albania, prospects of an early collapse of Italy s total war effort seem by no means remote. One ol the mostimpressive indications of the straits to which she is already reduced appears in the statement cabled from London that, there is no evidence that the heavy and light British naval forces which are taking- part in the bombardment of Italian positions and lines of communications in North Africa havy been subjected to any enemy attack, either from the air or the sea. Not only have Mussolini’s hopes of making the Mediterranean an Italian lake collapsed in most miserable and ignominious failure, but his fighting forces have been unable to safeguard their communications even in the narrow waters ol the Adriatic, between Italy and Albania. Current news suggests, indeed, that as a result of destructive British attacks on enemy sea bases in Albania, the Italian forces in that territory are in serious danger of being isolated. The total position in the Mediterranean still has its complexities and features of difficulty, hut Britain and her allies are fighting with reasonably good prospects of eliminating Italy as a factor in the war.' It seems unlikely that the state of affairs now visibly developing will be modified otherwise than by a German occupation and military domination of Italy, and even in that- event Italy probably would be something worse than a dead weight on the hands of her senior partner.