TENOR CHANGED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21150, 19 July 1943, Page 3

TENOR CHANGED

ITALIAN COMMENT dangersToreseen FALL OF SICILY LIKELY (By Telegraph—Press Assn.- —Copyright.) (11 a.m.) LONDON, July 18. The whole tenor of Italian comment on. the Battle of Sicily has changed in the past 24 hours. The Italians are now admitting that the island may fall.

According to Rome despatches to Swedish and Swiss newspapers, Italian troops are being withdrawn ,I'iom Haute-Savoie for tlie defence of the Italian mainland. The Berne correspondent of the New York Times says that, with the candour that has always preceded the announcement of bacl news, official circles in Home admitted that the Allies were benefiting from the German preoccupation in Russia to push the Sicilian invasion while the Russians, who should have been relieved by Allied operations, are gaining' no respite.

Tne announcement coincides with the newspaper revelation that further help from Germany is highly problematical. The leit-motif in the press is “Stand or fall.” The Giornale d'ltalia, suggesting the possibility of Allied operations against the Italian mainland, constantly refers to the immense floating reserves which the British and Americans are still not using. Axis Dilemma Commenting' for the first time on the invasion of Sicily, Hans Fritsche, broadcasting on the Berlin radio, said: "Tiie German people realise that we have to distribute our forces across vast spaces .of the European coastline, while, the enemy is able to choose the point of attack and concentrate his forces. The enemy is trying the old Wilson trick of appealing to the Italians to capitulate because he is making such slow military progress in Sicily.” An Italian report says that detachments of Allied troops are constantly being dropped from the air behind the Axis forces. The Allies have already landed at least 11 divisions with heavy equipment. Three Italian divisions concentrated at mainland ports to reinforce Sicily are still in port, kept there by the Allied blockade. The Vichy radio claims that large Axis infantry reinforcements, supported by strong air and armoured forces, arrived on the Catania plain. The British First Army is participating in the assault against Catania.