PRICKING THE BUBBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 296, 13 December 1940, Page 6

PRICKING THE BUBBLE.

With the Greeks still advancing in Albania, and the British brilliantly exploiting the advantage they pained in the Western Desert earlier this week, Mussolini's Government faces a pretty problem. This was the time when an advance by Graziani's forces towards Suez would have been exceedingly welcome in Italy. It would have enabled the Fascist propagandists to say that the conquest of Greece was not, after all, essential to Italy, that Suez was the real jroal and Graziani the man to reach it. But this consolation has been denied them. Graziani'.s advanced force has moved, but in the wrong direction. Sidi Barrani has been lost, and the report to-day i-t that prisoners taken exceed 20,000 in number. Considering that the opposing armies had been watching each other closely for months, the achievement of surprise must have been exceedingly difficult. That it was achieved speaks volumes for the British leadership. No doubt the Italian people will not be told of this reverse, but they will not fail to note in their officinl communiques a tone markedly different from those to which they have been accustomed, and after the cold disillusionment of the flreek campaign they will draw their own conclusions. The balloon of Italian propaganda has been blown up tight, and the prick of military defeat may deflate it very quickly.