Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1943. A BEGINNING IN ITALY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JULY 27, 1943. A BEGINNING IN ITALY.

3fUCII as the downfall of Mussolini will be welcomed by a vast majority of the Italian people and throughout the civilised world, it is not in itself and at the stage to which events have meantime been carried, an event of finally decisive significance. There is as yet no reason for regarding the assumption of authority by King Victor Emmanuel, with Marshal Badoglio at the head of “the military government of the country, with full powers,” as anything else than a face-saving manoeuvre and masquerade by gangster and reactionary forces * in Italy, including a large part of the Fascist Party and 01.

those who have been its principal supporters

At its face value and in the simple meaning of words, Marshal Badoglio’s statement in his proclamation that: “The war continues” means that, with the backing of the King, he is content that, for the time at least, Italy should continue to play the same ignominiously slavish part in relation to Nazi Germany as she played under the leadership of Mussolini. It may be, of course, that Badoglio and those who stand with him are talking of continuing the Avar only in the hope 01. negotiating peace with the Allies. The latter, however, are pledged to accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Italy —iio\y politely phrased as “honourable capitulation”—a surrender involving the complete extirpation of the Fascist regime.

In this there need be no clash of fundamental interests between the Italian nation and the United Nations, but the Allies may well find it impossible to enter into any settlement with the House of Savoy or with Marshal Badoglio. The commanding facts of the existing situation are that the Allies are in a position to impose their will on Italy, and that it is inconsistent with the re-establishment of Italian freedom that any recognition should be extended to a monarch who has been at least a consenting party to the carnival of international brigandage, infamy and ruin over which Mussolini has presided during the last 21 vears.

A meeting of anti-Fascist Italians in New York last moitth adopted unanimously a resolution declaring that the rule of the House of Savoy should end simultaneously with the Fascist dictatorship, and denouncing King Victor Emmanuel as “an accomplice in the murder of all. Italians who fell victims to Fascism because they loved their country and liberty.” It is more than likely that an unfettered vote of the Italians in their homeland would endorse these declarations and the demands thev embodv.

hi their book “The Remaking’ of Italy,” five Italian exiles affirm that

after the experience of Fascism, the distance between the monarchy and the people (of Italy) has become obvious and insuperable. Instead of putting obstacles in the way of the dictatorship, the King and the Court circles have facilitated it, and have linked their destinies with those of the most reactionary forces of the nation. The monarchy has broken its solemn oath to uphold the power of the law, and has alienated the freedom of which the Italian people made it the supreme guardian. In foreign politics the King did not hesitate to sanction the alliance of Italy with Nazism, and the consequent war against the democracies. . . .

It is hardly to be believed that King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Badoglio, who has been described as a typical Piedmontese disciplinarian and nationalist, who will fight as long as the King orders him to do so, are capable of leading Italy into peace with the United Nations.

What Italy needs is not a reshuffle of Fascists and other reactionaries, but a Government truly representing her people and prepared to face and grapple with the dangers of effecting a decisive break with Nazi Germany. Perilous as that course may be, it is on all grounds vastly to be preferred to inviting a continuation and extension of the Allied offensive to which Italy is so obviously vulnerable.