ROME AS-OPEN CITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 24, 28 July 1943, Page 5

ROME AS-OPEN CITY

POSSIBLE FIRST STEP Rec. 9 a.m. LONDON, July 27. ! "The expectation is that Marshal Badoglio will declare Rome an open city, as Italy's first step along the path to ultimate surrender," declared Reuters Algiers correspondent. "Marshal Badoglio's immediate policy appears to be to safeguard the home front by eliminating the members of the Fascist Party, buttressing the monarchical authority, and setting up a firm government through which negotiations could 'be undertaken. Evidence of this is the disappearance of Fascists from the new Government and of all vestiges of Fascist mumbojumbo, and the emphasis on the Royal family in proclamations and current pronouncements. Marshal Badoglio, while keeping in the war, gives the new Government a chance to establish itself and arrange preliminary peace moves without political or military disorder. It is stated that any eventual overtures for settlement would be directed to General Eisenhower." While the unchecked progress of the Allies in Sicily, the glaring loss of Italian fighting spirit, and last week's bombing of Rome were im-. portant contributing factors, it is thought that realisation by the Italian Command of the impossibility of carrying out a delaying rearguard action aiong the Italian peninsula, with the utter absence of air cover, brought about Mussolini's downfall. This lack of air cover is illustrated by the raid on Bologna, when Flying Fortresses made a sight-seeing trip without meeting one enemy fighter or the slightest flak. ' The British United Press points out that the Italians for the past 24 hours have' given no war news over their radios. Vichy radio says that Mussolini's mouthpiece, Signor • Gayda, former editor of the "Giornale d'ltalia," has been replaced by Senator Bergamini.