Evening Post FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1940. RETREAT AFTER HEAVY DEFEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1940, Page 6

Evening Post FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1940. RETREAT AFTER HEAVY DEFEAT

Evidence of a great victory in the Libya-Egypt theatre hourly increases. The first phase was the British capture of Sidi Barrani with many prisoners. Had this been followed at, once by a determined Italian counterattack from west of Sidi Barrani, it would have seemed that Marshal Graziani still had faith in his power! to retrieve his fortunes and to equalise matters. But today comes news, based on air observation, that "a j general Italian retreat is developing" j —in other words, that Graziani accepts defeat. Whether defeat and retreat will be converted into rout, or whether an Italian withdrawal can be carried out in complete order to some defensible position, is still not clear. But Mr. Churchill's statement in the House of Commons indicates that a very large and important part of the Italian army is definitely caught in the net of an encircling movement which the British completed round Sidi Barrani; also— equally important—that the Italian forces westward of and outside the net are being harassed in their retreat by aircraft and warships, and that the Navy "is shelling the chief | road open to the retreating enemy." For a while there was a question whether the encircling net was strong enough to hold the Italians inside it —or, as Mr. Churchill puts it, whether the encircling positions ("captured by General Sir Maitland Wilson's forces after their brilliantlyexecuted desert march") could be effectively maintained, and "whether the net could be forced at all points! to the sea shore." Perhaps for a] while some of the encircled Italians filtered through the net, but at least 20,000 Italian prisoners did not. j Their arrival in Cairo will convince j Egypt. |

The battle for Sidi Barrani is now a closed chapter; and though the issue of the Italian westward retreat to Bardia (in Libya) via Sollum (on the Libya-Egypt border) remains open, Mr. Churchill is able to claim "a victory of the first order," in the course of which "the best part of three Italian divisions, including numerous Black Shirt formations," have been "destroyed or captured." Besides seeing the prisoners, Egypt will have the heartening experience of seeing Egyptian soil freed from the Italian invader. A factor of first importance, encouraging the hope that even greater misfortune awaits Marshal Graziani's army, is "the mastery of the air established by the Royal Air Force in the very beginning of the attack." On the first day, the R.A.F. bombers bombed on a terrifying scale—2o tons of bombs were dropped on a single Italian aerodrome—and drove the Italian airmen out of the air. The R.A.F. now operates'with "practically no losses," while the bombarding warships "have received neither damage nor casualties"; and "hour after hour British pilots continue to carry on the destruction of Marshal Graziani's army." So the chance that the retreat will degenerate into a debacle remains good. The swift initial action of the R.A.F., and the fact that the British desert march effected enemy surprise in conditions which (it had been said) did not admit of surprise, will impress Berlin as well as Rome. The May days of infantry's defencelessness against diving bombers and rushing tanks are gone; and, as Signor Ansaldo admits, the days of "gloomy communiques" in Rome have come. Now, as never I before, Mohammedanism knpws the true calibre of Mussolini, its selfappointed leader. The Italians are beginning to know his calibre also. The art of Signor Ansaldo and of Signor Gayda will be strained to its utmost, but the evidence from Egypt and Albania is overwhelming, and Italy will wish to know iiie reason why.