NEW AMBITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 11

NEW AMBITION

ITALY'S PLANS

CONTROL IN SOUTH-EAST?

MEDITERRANEAN

BIG NAVAL PROGRAMME

"PURELY DEFENSIVE"

United Press Association—By Electric Tel«-i craph—Copyright. LONDON, April-7. The "Daily Telegraph's" naval correspondent, Mr. H. C. Bywater, says that Italy is planning a big naval programme immediately the Abyssinian war is over, aiming at

absolute control of the south-eastern Mediterranean and the highway, eastward.

The programme includes the rapid completion of the two 35,000-ton battlecruisers the Vittorio Veneto and that Littorio, the construction of mora cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, additional naval aircraft, and new for* tifled bases and aerodromes in Sardinia, Sicily, Libya, and Eritrea.

Exercises to test the practicability; of blocking the Mediterranean route between southern Italy and Africa have already been carried out.

The French naval bases at Bizerta and Tunis are not regarded as serious obstacles to Italy's new ambition, as it is claimed that they could be rendered untenable by an overpowering aitl offensive. Both are less than an hour's flight from Italian aerodromes. It is claimed that Malta, which is only 65 miles from Sicily, could be similarly; neutralised. There are at present 40H Italian aircraft in Sicily and Sardinia^

Italian spokesmen declare that thtf new policy is purely defensive, but any; Power attacking Italy might have tqj reckon with total stoppage of it* Eastern trade.