ITALIAN ARMAMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 May 1931, Page 5

ITALIAN ARMAMENTS

NEXT WAR PREPARATIONS.

[BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.]

ROME, May 5.

The next war will be one of lightening movement, declares the Italian War Minister, Signor Caistrocchis, in his report on the Army Estimates. The Minister asserts that. Italy has taken the boldest of initiatives in her deduction of armaments to the lowest possible level. In support of this contention, the Minister cites Italy’s recent renunciation of hen naval parity with France in light craft. The Minister also makes a comparison of their present military expenditure, namely, thta of Italy of £28,000,000, while France is spending £54,000,000. “Surprise, aerial and chemical aggression will be the main feature of future wars,” says the report, which advocates the most intimate co-ordina-tion between military preparations on one hand and scientific industrial preparations on the other hand. The Minister remarks: —“One of the ‘conditions of the rapid solution of a new war is that of an aggressive surprise, to enable us to swoop unexpectedly i upon the enemy. War in the air will, therefore, be of the greatest importance, because, by the use of direct lightning action in the air, it will influence the operations of all the other armed forces.”