THE JACKAL SNARED

Evening Star, Issue 25470, 28 April 1945, Page 7

THE JACKAL SNARED

MUSSOLINI IN PARTISAN HANDS MAY FACE SUMMARY TRIAL (Rec. noon.) LONDON, April 27. Free Milan radio, quoting ' I! Liberta,' the organ of the Milan National Liberation Committee, said the following communique had been issued: " Mussolini, Farinacci (former secretary of the Fascist Party), and Pavolini (secretarygeneral of the Republican Fascist Party) were arrested by Customs guards at Nesso on Lake Como." Milan radio later stated that Mussolini may be tried by the par. tisans themselves. It is stated that the revolt in North Italy flamed into being when Mussolini, in Republic Fascist uniform, appeared in the city. When the trouble began he fled to the monastery at Lake'Como. The radio said that the partisans ■ also captured Marshal Graziani, commander-in-chief of the Fascist armed forces. The radio revealed that the patriots' customs guaord surprised Mussolini and his party at lunch. According to an official announcement by the Swiss radio, Mussolini's, wife, son, and daughter tried to escape iota '. Switzerland. Several motor cars on Wednesday morning arrived on the Italian side of the frontier post .at Chiasso. The Italian

police commissioner explained to the chief of the post that Signora Rachele Mussolini, her son and daughter, besides the wife of the Fascist Minister and eight others in the cars, wanted to enter Switzerland. They were refused entry, and the cars turned away in the direction of Italy. Milan radio further reported that Buffarini Guido, Minister of the Interior in the new Republican Fascist Government which Mussolini established in 1943, has also been captured. THE DECLINE. AND FALL. For the last two years the star of Benito Mussolini has been in the decline, and it now seems probable that he will suffer the disgrace and death which his one-time favourite, son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, experienced. After the Fascist drive in 1926, he became Dictator of Italy and head of the Government which, in 1936, conducted the campaign for the annexation of Abyssinia. Declaring war against the Allied Powers m 1940, shortly before the collapse of France, Mussolini allied himself with Hitler, and in the fighting in North Africa proved, his country a broken reed. In 1943, after the North African campaign had ended disastrously for the. Axis Powers and the Sicilian campaign was moving to a victorous conclusion for the United Nations, Mussolini suffered the ignominy of defeat at a sensation session of his Fascist Grand Council, at which inkpots were thrown and he was deposed by his former Ministers. King Victor Emmanuel took personal command of the armed forces, and Marshal Badoglio assumed leadership of the new anti-Fascist Government, it was announced on July 25, and Mussolini was imprisoned as his 17-year-old dictatorship was swept away. On September 3 the Allies began the invasion of Italy, and five days later it was announced that Italy had capitulated.

This left Germany to conduct the defence of Italy against the invading forces of the United Nations. Nine days later came a report that a German coup at the island castle where Mussolini was captured had resulted in his rescue; preventing Marshal Badoglio from handing him over to the Allies. Shorn of their former powers, the Fascists tried Mussolini's son-in-law, Count Ciano, for treason, and he was condemned and shot, but Mussolini became but a pallid reflection of the former Dictator. Recent photographs released l by the Germans have shown him much thinner than in the days of his dictatorship, and the famed aggressive jaw was noticeably withdrawn. The latest reports that he is in the hands of the Italian partisans promise a speedy end to the once-great figure who strutted the European stage.