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Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1943. EXTENDING A PRECEDENT.

Germany lias so frankly macle a jackal of Mussolini and a convenience of his country and countrymen that there is nothing obviously improbable about the report that German officials and members of the Gestapo, are withdrawing from Italy. The possibility of a “blind” is mentioned, but it does not seem at all unlikely that Hitler “is about to abandon Italy to her fate and leave her to face the threat of Allied invasion unaided.” This final betrayal of an ally would merely extend on an enlarged scale the precedent set by Marshal Rommel in his hasty retreat from Egypt to Tunisia. At El Alamein and on a number of other occasions of hasty retirement, as all the world knows, Rommel abandoned Italian divisions under his command, not only leaving them to their fate, but seizing their transport, vehicles for the use of his German troops. According to a cablegram received from London yesterday: “There has been no official German declaration of continued Axis solidarity, nor are there indications that the Germans are ready to supply Italy with means for defence.” There has been, it is true, according to an earlier cablegram, a declaration in the official journal of the German Foreign Office that the German army will defend every inch of Italian soil and that: “The German-Italian brotherhood in arms will stand its ultimate and suprejne test wherever the enemy attacks.” This, however, may be only a piece of stale and outmoded propaganda, or something that got into official print by mistake. The precedent set by Rommel seems much more likely to be relevant to the circumstances in which Italy and Germany are now placed. It is highly probable that the Nazi dictatorship regards the .defence of the Italian peninsula, with its long and vulnerable coastlines, as a hopeless undertaking, in which nothing else cotild be expected than defeat and heavy loss. In their positions and along their exposed lines of communication, any forces attempting to defend Sicily, Sardinia and Southern Italy obviously will be exposed to a tornado of Allied air attack and will stand in some danger, too, of being ent off by Allied landings further north. With better prospects of successful resistance, Germany for her own sake, certainly would elect to defend Italy. It is true that the alternative is to take up a strong Alpine line across northern Italy, but this is far from covering the total position. With the Italian Peninsula and the Adriatic in Allied hands, not only the Balkans, but Austria and Germany herself will be much more exposed to attack from the south-east than they are now. New air bases would be. available to the Allies from which they could easily direct concentrated bombing attacks on parts of Germany and occupied territory now inconveniently distant. Prospects of cutting off Germany’s principal remaining supply of oil, from Rumania, would also be much improved. Should it prove, as it well may, that Germany has decided not to waste strength in attempting to defend the Italian peninsula, it may be hoped that the logic of the situation will, impress itself speedily on the fighting forces and people of Italy. Mussolini and some of his accomplices no doubt are prepared, in mere desperation, to let the struggle continue to the end, but the population and armed forces of Italy would be astonishingly foolish if they condemned themselves needlessly to slaughter and destruction. The vast majority of Italians have far more to hope from defeat than from continuing the war. If they are guided by a common sense regard for their own interests and those of their country they will take the earliest opportunity of insisting upon submission to the Allied demand for unconditional surrender.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19430518.2.4

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1943, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
627

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1943. EXTENDING A PRECEDENT. Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1943. EXTENDING A PRECEDENT. Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1943, Page 2

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