Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1943. A CLIMAX IN TUNISIA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1943. A CLIMAX IN TUNISIA.

WHILE Mussolini has assured the Italian people that: “We will return Io Africa,” his pitifully ineffective bombast is mocked even by the Home radio m an announcement that the situation in Tunisia is reaching a climax. This last cannot be called an exaggerated description of the position reached on the North African battlefront. Thanks to the powerful and penetrating blows of their land, air and sea forces, the Allies are in a fair way to drive to the coast. That in all likelihood wdl mean the early capture of Tunis, the pocketing, as Mr Elmer Davis has called it, of Bizerta, and possibly the encirclement of the Axis forces opposing the Eighth Army and French units on the southern section of the Tunisian front. Today’s news, indeed, suggests that an extended defence even of the fortress of Bizerta is unlikely. Mr Davis, who speaks with some authority as Director of the United States of War Information, is credited with the declaration that: — There was no question that there would be Allied operations in Continental Europe this summer. He thought it possible to go ahead with invasion plans even though Bizerta remained for a time in Axis hands. 11l these circumstances it may be supposed that the minds of the Italian people are agitated much less by vain dreams of a return to Africa of the kind promised by their discredited dictator than by the likelihood that their country may become very soon and in the fullest sense a theatre of war. Already the Italians have had in the visits of Allied bombers to their naval harbours and centres of war industry a foretaste, but only a foretaste, of what is to come. The task of invading Continental Europe is formidable and the Allied commanders and the forces serving under them will be under no delusion as to the nature of the efforts and sacrifices the invasion will entail. In the extent, however, to which the people of Italy are capable of perceiving where their own interests lie and of taking appropriate action, the task of the Allies w\|ll be lightened. It must by this time be obvious to all Italians of normal intelligence that their nation has been led by Mussolini through crime to disaster. With their country reduced to the status, of a dependent, vassal of Germany, and Mussolini to the position of Hitler’s humble jackal, Italians are largely bereft of liberty of action. Even now courageous revolt might extricate them from the toils in .which they are encompassed. If, for want of leadership and organisation, they are incapable of a bold effort of that kind, passive resistance would be vastly more advantageous, from their standpoint, than continued tame submission to Germany. In the present course of events in Tunisia, and in the larger prospect thus opened, the Italians in any event may find the strongest incentive to do everything they can to end as speedily as possible the participation of their country in the war.