Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1943. ITALY AS A LIABILITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1943. ITALY AS A LIABILITY.

4 j QNE of the facts of the war now thrown into clear prominence is that Italy would have been of far greater ultimate value to her Axis overlord, Germany, as a neutral than as an active ally. For Germany, as well as for Italy, there is shattering disillusionment in the course events are taking at present in Sicily and may take presently, as the military commentator of the Berlin radio (Captain Sertorious) has duly noted, in other parts of Southern Europe. That Italy, if invaded by the forces of the United Nations, would become a serious liability for Germany must always have been obvious. It must be supposed that when Mussolini, inspired' by hopes of quick and easy plunder, offer to join Germany in the war, Hitler and his fellow gangsters accepted the offer only because they believed that such developments as are. now taking shape would never occur. Instead of envisaging an invasion of Europe by the United Nations the Nazis were led away by hopes, not only* of extending their conquests through Egypt and Russia into the Middle and perhaps the further East, but of striking from -'West, Africa across the Atlantic to South America. At the cost of much fighting and heavy sacrifices, the Allies have so completely destroyed these Axis dreams that it may probably be true, as some reports have declared, that Germany recently was quite willing, though only on her own terms, to facilitate Italy’s withdrawal from the war. A scheme is said to have been'evolved under which the House of Savoy would have resumed its authority in Italy, Mussolini and the Fascist Party would have been ostensibly set aside and the government of the country would have been entrusted to such men as Marshal Badoglio, Count Dino Grandi and perhaps Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and former Foreign Minister, now Italian Minister to the Vatican. The idea is reported to have been that under a government of this character, Italy should seek peace with the United Nations, but on the condition —an all-important condition from Germany’s standpoint—that she should be allowed to resume her neutral status. Ju an article published in the “Christian Science Monitor” in May last, Mr Joseph C. Harsch said there was reason to believe that these terms were actually before President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill at the conference they were then holding in Washington. If the Italian overture was in fact made, ils rejection naturally was to be taken for granted. Even had the United Nations not been pledged to accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Italy and Germany, it would have been an act of incredible folly to allow Italy to resume her neutral status. A neutral Italy, as Air Harsch observes, would be a more certain barrier to Allied military operations from the Italian peninsula than a belligerent Italy. So long as Italy is in the war, Italy is a potential Allied air base and. a potential base for a jump across the Adriatic, where Yugoslavian guerillas are waiting eagerly for just such an event. For precisely the reasons that would have made her more than willing to facilitate ' Italy’s return to a neutral status, Nazi Germany is bound to do everything in her power to oppose the extended invasion of Italy brought into prospect by the highly successful Allied landings in Sicily. The possibilities of Allied action from the bases they are now intent on capturing in Italy are very wide and far-reaching. It is a part only, though an important part, of these possibilities that from bases in Italy the Allies would be able to bomb intensively every part of Southern and Central Europe, from the Rumanian oilfields to the industrial territory of Silesia. The great interior transport routes on which Germany relies so largely would equally be laid, open to devastating attack. Nazi Germany thus has Italy on her hands, no longer as a convenient pawn, able to offer access to African and other territories, but as a lerrible military liability. The retributive burden thus imposed on Axis gangsterdom is the greater since Italy is far from being the only avenue by way. of which the Allies may hope to attack “the soft under-belly of the Axis.”