ITALY’S FALL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1941, Page 7

ITALY’S FALL

WORK OF MUSSOLINI REBIRTH MYTH. MERELY A VASSAL STATE. Italy as we knew it is no more. . The independence for which Garibaldi and Mazzini began their struggle less than 100 years ago has vanished overnight, writes a correspondent on the Italian frontier. The United Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed barely 70 years ago with Rome as its capital, has become a German province. Mussolini’s dream of empire has faded before ever the last blank map on the wall of the Roman Forum was filled in.

Italy today is as helpless as France in Hitler’s hands, as humiliated as Bulgaria, more truly beaten than Po-. land oi- Czecho-Slovakia. And the Duce who boasted of her coming triumphs six months ago is the direct and supreme cause of her downfall. In 1922, when the Blackshirts marched on Rome (followed by their leader in a sleeping car) Fascism was proclaimed as a movement by which a new Italy, purged of corruption and sloth, young and vigorous, was being born. Though blotted by many cruelties, half-hidden murders, and dark deeds, the new system had its creative side.

A respectable record of social and economic achievement could be set against its crimes. In the easy phrase of his admirers, Mussolini “did a lot for Italy.” He might have done more if the craze for conquest had not got into his blood.

Today the rebirth of Italy under Mussolini is an exploded myth, even at home. With the crumbling of Italy’s armies overseas under the blows of Britain, the deluded Italian people have seen through the fundamental hypocrisy of Fascism. CURSES ON MUSSOLINI.

In the general disaffection which now exists against the Duce and his circle, party secrets are no longer kept. Corruption in high places, divided counsels, ruthless personal power interfering disastrously at every point, political “stunts” distorting and defeating the plans of military leaders, are suddenly laid bare. What claimed to be a new and infallible mode of government stands revealed as a device to keep an unscrupulous, ignorant and cynical oligarchy in control.

Italians who yesterday accepted Fascism with respect even though they felt no affection for it, today curse it as a blight upon their country. But most of all they curse the man who embodies the Fascist system and has sold his own people to Germany in order to keep that system and himself alive. The German occupation of Italy, now as effective as that of France, though as polite and cautious, is no mere offshoot of Nazi conquest. It was undertaken perhaps reluctantly, certainly not until the imminence of total internal collapse following military disaster made it essential if the foundations of the Axis in Europe were to be saved.

After the loss of Cyrenaica and the Greek fiasco, Italy was ripe for revolt. The battles in Libya and Albania, Taranto and the failure of the Italian air force against the British, were caused not by lack of gallantry in the Italian forces, but by political interference, incompetent leadership and bad equipment. NAZIS FORESTALL ARMISTICE. To prevent the first resounding collapse of totalitarianism in Europe the Nazis had first to save Mussolini from the consequences of his folly. To do this they had to occupy Italy with troops and take over the true reins of Government there, always with the appearance of friendly collaboration. The process took time, partly because its first stages had to be accomplished secretly, partly because communications between Germany and Italy were restricted. To Italian amour-propre concessions were made. Hitler was always careful to spare the feelings of his beaten partner. But the thing is done today, and a rising against the Fascist regime is as nearly a physical impossibility as the Gestapo and the Reichswehr can make it. It remains only for Goebbels’s propaganda machine to persuade the Italians that it is better so. Immediately before the German occupation Italy was ready for a separate peace. A few more reverses abroad, a few more weeks of pressure on Italy herself, and the move would have been made with or without the Duce. The Italian army was beaten, and knew it; the navy was crippled and short of fuel; the hopes placed in the air force had proved vain. Some good judges believe that if Britain had made her bombing of Italian towns really heavy for a short time and had then made a peace offer to Rome the Fascist Grand Council itself would have insisted on an armistice.

The chance for that has gone now, but the collapse of tlffi Italian war machine remains a fact.

Perhaps the bitterest pill for Mussolini and his admirers to swallow is the fact which they must now recognise among themselves, that the Fascist system and policy, which set out to make the Italians a nation of conquerors, are the root cause of their military failure.