THE NEW REGIME

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

THE NEW REGIME

WARNING TO ALLIES In the course of his statement to the House of Commons on the Italian situation after the downfall of Mussolini Mr. Churchill said he did not know what was going to happen in Italy. Writing in the "Christian Science Monitor" towards the end of May on the reported rift between the King and the Duce, which he said was invented to confuse the Allies, Mario Rossi declared that Italians knew there were certain elements, who, with the help 'of the Vatican, would like to save the Monarchy and a Fascist regime without Mussolini. Such a Government, he asserted, would not be accepted by the Italians and would have to be imposed on them by the Allies with an army of occupation. These elements, continued the writer, that lend themselves to a policy in favour of the House of Savoy and Fascism (where Mussolini would be replaced by a "moderate" like Count Dino Grandi or Marshal Badoglio) pretend that Italy needs to be governed by a dictator, if it is not to fall into anarchy. "Nothing," says Rossi, "could be falser. In spite of twenty years of dictatorship, Fascism has not succeeded in conquering the Italian people. Their behaviour in this war proves it sufficiently. It was the youth, educated in an atmosphere of Fascism, without any knowledge of what was going on in the outer world, which abandoned Mussolini in the moment of trial. It is the Italian youth which is against him today, and is preparing the revolution in Italy. It will not permit the Fascist regime, which it refused to obey, to continue under another name." The Monarchy, continues Rossi, has lost much of its prestige in Italy. The King, in violating his oath to respect the Statute of Italy, and putting himself at the service of a regime which has given the country nothing but misery and military disasters, is ruined morally. For twenty years the King has supported Mussolini in all his acts of violence and warlike adventures. He saved the Fascist Regime when it was in danger. When he could have saved the country from complete ruin, it was he who declared Avar, first against France and Britain, later against the United States. It must be kept in mind that in Italy the King alone has the right to declare war. The Crown Prince, as well as his father, has compromised himself with Fascism. Mussolini would not have named him to the command of the central, southern, and insular parts of the Peninsula, if he were not I sure of his fidelity. Italians know all that. The propaganda of the rift between the Monarchy and the Duce was designed to prevent an invasion of Italy by the Allies, upon which the whole Peninsula would rise at the first landing. (It might be added that the people of Sicily have since confirmed this.) Rossi concludes: "The liberal and democratic spirit of the Risorgimento

is anything but dead in Italy. This is shown by the prisons and concentration camps, crowded with Italians who love the independence and liberty of their country. This is shown by the thousands of persons who, faithful to their democratic principles, haVe shut themselves up in silence, and refused to collaborate with Mussolini. It is on them that Italians count, and it is they whom the Allies should aid and encourage in their own interest. For the cause of the Allies is also the cause of free Italy, and not the cause of a Monarchy which sold Italy to Mussolini, or a Mussolini who sold Italy to Hitler."