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Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 4, 30 September 1943, Page 4

Most people whose thinking is not clouded by mawkish sentimentality will thoroughly approve of the reminder, contained in the first issue of the “Eighth Army News” published on the Italian mainland, that Italy is a defeated enemy. Since the fall of Mussolini and the collapse of Italy there has been a tendency (which has found some reflection in this country) to look upon the Italians as a harmless people who were led unwillingly to war and have now expiated their offence against civilization simply by surrendering to the Allies. The records of the past decade do not support this concept. A very large section of the Italian people, inspired by Fascism, clamoured for conflict. The conquest of Abyssinia revealed the Italian military machine as a cruel, remorseless weapon of aggression, and it received the fullest support of the Italian people as a whole. The national temper of Italy in 1940 was belligerent to a high degree, and there were repeated popular demonstrations urging the seizure of French possessions, long before Mussolini considered the moment propitious to stab France in the back and fling Italy’s weight into the conflict. In the North African campaign the Italians gave scant consideration to captured Empire troops till their illusions of strength were shattered by British arms. The Italian role today I? expedient and bears every appearance of being a cunning attempt to appeal to Anglo-American sentiment and good nature. This will be Germany's role tomorrow—still more adroitly and thoroughly played—if the Germans are encouraged by Italy’s experience to think that meekness and some show of co-operation in defeat will enable them to save something from the national wreckage upon which they can rebuild their military might.