MESSAGE TO ITALY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1943, Page 4

MESSAGE TO ITALY

BROADCAST FROM BRITAIN. STATEMENT OF REMAINING TASK. (Received This Day, Noon.) LONDON, July 26. A call to the Italian people to accept the Allied offer of honourable capitulation and to clear the Germans from their country was made by the 8.8. C. today, in a message to Italy broadcast at frequent intervals. Quoting an authoritative British source, the message states that Italian Fascism was broken by two irresistible powers—firstly, the power of the Anglo-Saxon democracies and the ideals they stand for; secondly, the will of the Italian people, which rightly gauged the power of the United Nations’ arms. The task of the Allied armies and the Italian people will not be complete before the last German soldier on Italian soil has been killed, captured or thrown out of the peninsula, or before the Italian Government has accepted the Allies’ offer of honourable surrender. The Italians have begun to show their force and their confidence in the pledged Allied word. Thus the prospect of the defeat of Hitlerdom and peace in the near future is appearing on the European horizon.

Broadcasting in Italian to Italy, the Mayor of New York (Mr F. La Guardia) said Mussolini’s resignation had not indicated a fundamental change of Government, involving the destruction of Fascism. Mr La Guardia warned the Italian people that the Allies would not tolerate tricks to prolong the war or aid Hitler by the substitution of Badoglio for Mussolini. America would continue the war against Italy until the Fascist Government had been eliminated.

Remarkable scenes of enthusiasm were witnessed in New York, which has a huge Italian population, when the news of Mussolini’s resignation was broadcast. In Italian sections of the city strangers greeted each other joyfully. Hotel bars were jammed with Italians drinking toasts “to the new Italy.” All expressed a hope that Italy would soon be out of the war and described Mussolini variously as a skunk, louse and murderer, and with more profane epithets.