NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 143, 14 December 1942, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

ITALY'S NEMESIS

BETWEEN TWO FIRES

Since the opening in October of the Allied offensive at both ends of the Mediterranean coast of North Africa Italy has, for the first time on any considerable scale, become the target of Allied attacks. The ports of Genoa and Naples, ana now Palermo in Sicily, have been heavily bombed, and Turin has suffered as severely as any German city from the raids of the R.A.F. In addition the Italian navy and marine have sustained great losses from onslaughts of British submarines and surface craft as well as from the air. But it is doubtful whether Italy has suffered so much from her enemies as from her ally, Germany.

Germany has long been plundering Italy, as she plunders the rest of Europe, particularly in regard to food, which is constantly being drained away from Italy to Germany. According to one German authority, "Italian deliveries of tropical fruits, vegetables, dried vegetables, fresh fruit, and fruit pulp for jam-making, wine, preserves, etc., have been so directed by common agreement- during the past few years that German requirements have been met to a large extent." This drain of food to Germany seriously lowers the standard of life in Italy. . While German rations have recently been raised, Italy has the lowest bread" ration in Europe, excepting Poland and Greece. The normal consumer in Germany received 2250 grammes of bread per week, the normal consumer in Italy 1050. This links up with Goering's recent statement, "Whoever starves, it will not be Germany." Plunder for Germany. In industry as in agriculture Italy's economy has been greatly altered, for the worse, to suit Germany's demands. Industrial man-power has been depleted in Italy to supply labour to Germany as well as to grow food for Germany. Germany's normal supplies of raw materials-iron, steel, scrap, coal, etc.— for Italian industry have not been maintained. The consequences to Italian industry have been disastrous. Signor Gayda, writing in "Giornale d'ltalia" in July last, warns that "a process involving the reduction or rather the demobilisation of industry would inevitably be~ not temporary, but permanent," that "the closing of the factory always means the loss— often irreparable—of the whole body of precious irreplaceable skilled labourers who had created the industry." The whole article is significant of the growing realisation that Italian industry, so laboriously built up by the Italians themselves, so extolled by the Fascists, will soon be a thing of the past, Nand as an example of the widespread fear that at the peace Italian industry will be totally unable to figure in the world .market. Germany further injures Italian industry and agriculture by withdrawals of man-power. A recent estimate is that 350,000 Italians are now working in Germany, but this does not include 50,000 agricultural labourers and other groups, so that the true figures.are over 400,000. Italian Arms Crippled. The Germans for their own selfish ends have starved Italian war factories, failing to supply them witii essential materials and seizing their skilled technicians and workmen for service in Germany. An example of this neglect is the great scarcity of anti-aircraft guns in Italy. It was only after repeated appeals for help that Hitler consented to send German guns to Italy, enabling Mussolini on December 2, 1942, to express the hope that R.A.F. bombers will now.be given "the welcome they deserve," the inference being that the welcome to date has been, pretty feeble. Another result is that the Italian air force, once so prominent in" Europe, is now equipped with grossly . inferior, material. Examples are the continued use of inefficient three-engined types, and, still more striking, ■ the employment as a night fighter of.the C.R.42, a hopelessly antiquated machine. The G.R.42 is a' biplane, less formidable than the Gloucester Gladiator, which has been obsolete in the R.A.F. since 1938. No wonder the K.A.F. bombers can visit northern Italy with practical impunity. The Italian fleet has not been allowed material to replace the heavy losses in cruisers and destroyers, so that it must now choose between providing escorts for.convoys or screens for the battle fleet,' thus reducing the value of the fleet by 50 per cent. A notable example of Italian naval weakness, is provided by the action on December 2, when a vital Tunis convoy was given a totally inadequate escort with disastrous results. Bleeding to Death. Germany is bleeding Italy to death for her own benefit. Italian casualties up to March, 1942, amounted to 658,000, of which 275,000 were prisoners in British hands alone. The total is very much higher now, representing a heavy toll from the original army which at full mobilisation in 1940 was one and a half millions, with a quarter of a million native troops.

Italy is now a slave State —her peasants are slaving for Hitler in Italy, her industrial workers are slaving for Hitler in Germany, and her soldiers are doing the same in Eastern Europe. Such a slave State cannot possibly claim equal status with other leading Powers, consequently the term "Axis" implying partnership has become meaningless. There is probably worse to come, for Italy lies "between two fires"—the Allies and Germany—and is likely to become a battlefield between them. Such,"is the plight to which Italy has been reduced, not like the rest of Europe by conquest after a fight against overwhelming odds, but by the shameful choice of "one man and one man alone"—Mussolini.