Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1943. TEMPORISING IN ITALY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1943. TEMPORISING IN ITALY.

PRECISELY what stage has been reached in Italy as between the undoubted desire of the mass of her people for peace and the attempt of an allegedly anti-Fascist Government to carry on the war is not meantime clear. According to a Reuter correspondent in Switzerland, who was quoted in a message received yesterday, tension in Italy has reached breaking point. An actual break is needed, however, to clarify the situation.

What is clear as matters stand is that the Badoglio Govern- . mente is playing the game of Nazi Germany, eithel* under compulsion, or because it chooses to do so. A day or two ago it was reported that in a direct message to the United Nations, carried by an emissary to a neutral country, Marshal Badoglio had given a warning that if his (Badoglio’s) Government fell, z Hitler was prepared to establish an Italian puppet Government, backed by the armed forces of the Nazis. Accepting this message at its face value it would appear that Italy already has a puppet Government prepared to do the bidding of its Nazi taskmasters. That is exactly what events, as far as they have gone and are known, may be taken to suggest.

All that has come from Italy, with an appearance of official authority, in the way of protest against the Allied demand for unconditional surrender is marked by a disingenuous distortion of facts and by a desire to serve at all costs the interests of Nazi Germany. With the German overseas news agency asserting that: “The common enemy of Italy and Germany seeks to destroy the national life of both countries,” which is an unblushing lie, the Italian news agency is reported to have admitted that the Italian people want peace, but as adding:—

The United Nations pretended to act in accordance with two fundamental principles: (1) They had no territorial aspirations. (2) They merely wished to restore the liberty of the oppressed Italian people. This second aim was fully achieved on July 25, when we regained the freedom which the Allies were anxious to present to us. But this liberty does not seem to satisfy them. It does not seem to serve their only purpose—unconditional surrender. . .

This might very well have been composed in Berlin, or in the Brown House at Munich. Quite probably it may have been. It is, of course, true that the United Nations'wish to restore Italian liberty, but it is not true that they desire merely to do that. They are pledged, for instance, to destroy both Nazism and Fascism root and branch and incidentally;' to bring to just, trial and punishment both Gorman and Italian Avar criminals.

The assertion of thej Italian news agency that the aim of restoring Italian liberty “was fully achieved on. July 25” has every appearance of being false. Mussolini t and some of his accomplices have been more or less definitely set aside, but there is no proof whatever that the present Government of Italy is anything else than the Fascist regime wearing a mask and prepared to be, like Mussolini, the jackal of Nazi Germany.

No valid reasons have been given by the Badoglio Government or its mouthpieces for objecting to the Allied demand for .unconditional surrender. The explanation obviously is that no valid reason can be given and that the Badoglio Government, dare not disclose its actual motives. It is self-evident- that acceptance of the Allied terms would impose no greater hardship on the Italian people (save in the extent to which they are still at the mercy of Nazi Germany) than it has imposed on the Sicilians who arc now rejoicing in their liberation. "What the Badoglio Government is asking for is an opportunity ostensibly to make peace with the. Allies, but actually to assist Nazi Germany by stipulating that there shall be no occupation by the Allies of Italian territory. A sincere repudiation of Mussolini, who placed Italian forces and Italian home and colonial territory at the disposal of the Nazis, demands that Italy should now be made available to the Allies as an avenue of Approach to Ger-man-occupied Europe and Germany herself. That is the essential issue now at stake, and it may be hoped for Italy’s sake, as well as.on other grounds, that the life of an Italian Government evidently intent on doing everything it can to oppose the moderate and reasonable terms of the Allies, and to assist Nazi Germany, will he very short indeed.