ITALY’S FORCES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 211, 14 June 1940, Page 8

ITALY’S FORCES

HER NAVY CONSIDERED GOOD. THE ARMY POORLY EQTJJPPeA. -■"—The Italian navy is good, but the army is badly equipped, the air force is out of date, there is no air raid precaution system, and war resources are lacking.” Thus Mr G. "Ward Price, the., noted British journalist, sums up Italian defences in an article in the “Daily Mail.” “Apparently,” he writes, “Mussolini is contemplating the most dangerous gamble by a European statesman since Napoleon the Third challenged Prussia in 1870 and lost. Mr Price has had many contacts with Mussolini, and has travelled widely in Italy. ■ “Why does one of the shrewdest politicians in the world consider taking such a risk ? Because he believes Hitler will win a first-round knock-out and wants to share the spoils of victory.” Mr Price recalls that the Duce did not conceal Italy’s unpreparedness from Hitler when the Rome-Berlin Axis became an alliance in 1939, but he stipulated that his pledge of support would not be effective for three years.

However, if Mussolini entered the war his navy would be a very formidable arm so far'as Britain was concerned, because the narrow mid-Medi-terranean waters only 300 miles across, with naval bases on both sides and the fortified island of Pantellaria in the middle—would be ideal for Italy?s submarines. She has between 110 * and 125 submarines, and flotillas of mases (surface craft, capable of 40 miles an hour, in which the Italians have specialised).

Skilful Handling. 1 Mr Price recalls that 90 submarines took part in a naval review in 1938'. They manoeuvred skilfully, submerged simultaneously, altered their course 90 degrees and rose simultaneously between advancing warships containing Mussolini and his guests. “With its fast torpedo boats, its score of cruisers and its two new 35,000 ton battleships, the Italian navy must not be underrated. It is more antiAllies than the army, because Italian sailors remember the British naval demonstration in the Mediterranean during the Abyssinian campaign. “The Italian army preparations are far less advanced. It lacks heavy artillery, anti-tank guns, even uniforms. It. has only 1,800 anti-aircraft guns, including 450 recently sent from Germany. Actually 10,000 would be required in the event of war against England and France. / “The Italian air force entered upon mass production too long ago for the majority of the ’planes to bo modern. Mussolini has also been misled about the number of ’planes in service. “This he discovered last October, when a ’plane in which he was travelling made a forced landing at an aerodrome where there should have; been a flight of bombers. “II Duce asked.to see the bombers. He found they existed only on paper. That cost the Air Minister (General Valle) his post. I have been told that a great production effort is going on, and that output has reached GOO ’planes a month.”

Bottled Up. Mr Price directs attention to the Italian lack of copper and shortage of coal, iron and petrol. The production of explosives, he says, is reported to be at a maximum of 200 tons a day, whereas the war-time need would be 1000 tons a day. “Italy would be crushed in a long campaign by blockade,” he proceeds. “The Allied contraband control has already affected Italian trade. It is also causing a conflict between the British Ministry for Economic Warfare, anxious for a 100 per cent, blockade against Germany, and the Foreign Office, which believes it unwise to provoke another nation to enter the war. “The contraband, control is especially infuriating to Mussolini. When he denounced it to.a hundred industrialists last month he foamed at the mouth.” Mr Price discloses for the first time what Mussolini said in this speech, of which he has obtained a copy. t Mussolini declared that for eight months he had suffered a chagrin which caused him physical suffering, because not a single Italian ship had escaped the Anglo-French control. “Look at tbe fantastic, capricious way our goods are treated,” he cried. “Yesterday they confiscated our sultanas. Another day they hold up our pepper. Last week a merchant asked whether he would get his eggs from Malta before they were chickens. “We are literally British prisoners between Gibraltar and Suez, and the British rejoice at it. “They have indicated to me that they could easily bombard Rome. Just let them send a battleship to the mouth of the Tiber and see what would happen! “Italians must recognise that any ration desiring independence must have direct access to an ocean;

Comrades! Keep calm, but let us prepare ourselves to confront the grandiose, events of which we cannot forever be jmere spectators. Our motto now is ‘open the throttle.’ That is the way to assure victory.”