ROMAN LEGIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1938, Page 2

ROMAN LEGIONS

A LETTER FROM ITALY. IN THE MOSCOW NEWS. (Supplied), Fascist Rome loves parade. Rarely a day passes without some display of armed force. Columns march through the streets and squares and on a pedestal, next to the bronze Caesar, stands a living Caesar reviewing the regions of the new Rome. The bronze Caesar holds a scroll of parchment symbolising tiie laws and civilisation brought by Rome to the ancient world. The living Caesar stands in defiant pose. in the morning, the Fascist newspapers, with their hysterical bragging and slobbering ecstasy, threaten to set the world on fire. These sheets have written without any quibbling that Italian air-planes can reach India, which is only awaiting the “Italian saviour.” Tunis, Egypt, the Near East and the Balkans are all. of course, within easy reach. In the centre of Rome on tbc walls of the Basilica di Massenzio, may be seen marble maps showing all the territories ruled by ancient Rome. The colour of Rome extends over almost the whole of the then known world, including Spain and the British Isles. Giuseppe Bottai, a former wine merchant and the present Fascist Minister of Education. once informed the world that these maps were “a proud reminder and a promise for the future.”

FASCISM EXALTS MILITARISM. The Fascist megalomania might have remained a subject of interest only to psychiatrists and lovers of anecdotes, had it been confined to war-like newspaper .articles and comic opera parades. But the Fascist dictatorship ruling Italy is seeking to conduct its adventurous on 42,000,000 Italians and on other countries as well. Having proclaimed war file “supreme valor of mankind,” Fascism exalts militarisation to hyperbolic heights. There exists a special military passport which decides its holder’s opportunity for study, for employment for promotion and so on. Such passports must be possessed h.v every male above the age of eight! Fascism pushes the militarisation of the country forward b.v terrorism, robbery of the population, by devouring resources accumulated for decades, and by treaties with other Fascist countries, which enslave Italy to them.

The number of guns bombers, and warships grow, but even here Fascism meets with one entirely unforseen circumstance. A gun does not fire without a gunner, a bomber does not take off without a flyer, ships need sailors, regiments are. composed of soldiers,

masses of people are necessary. But as regards the masses the affairs of Fascism are far from satisfactory. The cities of Italy are crowded with men in military uniform. But it cannot be said about these men, as was said in the old books, that they are “strapping young men with fine military hearing.” Most of the Italian soldiers have a wretched appearance; they are short of stature narrow of chest, sluggish of movement, and flabby of muscle. The peasant youths, whom Fascism drives into the barracks, bring with them fatigued and wasted bodies as a result of a life of semi-starvation in the villages. The city youths bring with them all the earmarks of the degeneration in the fetid and squalid quarters of the Italian poor.

REDUCED TO ONE MEAL A DAY

“We have no fear of .sanctions. Italians are used to eating once n day,” the enraged Mussolini stated in one of his speeches during the period of the Abyssinian war and sanctions. That the majority of the population has been reduced under Fascism to taking one meal a day, and a wretched meal at that (meat is a rare luxury tor the peasants and workers), is true. But it is even more true that this Fascist ration is hardly capable of steeling the soldiers mobilised by Fascism, either physically or morally.

For military considerations, Fascism pays much attention to the socalled demographic problem, Mussolini once figured out that to rule the world Italy required a population of over 60,004,000. Official propaganda demands more children bachelors are subject to a special tax, and women have been assigned by the Fascist system to the role of breeding machines and cooks only.”

in spite of nil this, the si hint ion. ns regards the growth of population is disastrous, according to the admission of the fascist pres., itself, in addition to a tremendous mortality rate, the Italian hirtli rate is declining with each year. As the Home “Tribune” Ims cynically stated, the decline in the birth rate during the last lo years, that is, the period of the fascist rule, has deprived Italy of lo army divisions. The fall in tin* birth rate has so alarmed fascist circles, that recently Mussolini himself raised an outcry. “What an* we coming to?” he wrote in an article in “Popolo d’ltnlia.” “Tf things continue unaltered, wo will have no soldiers to defend our empire in 20 years!”

Meanwhile fascism is hastening to make use of those reserves of mail-power which arc still under its control, to engage in military adventures, without which it cannot exist. Soldiers receive 'sudden orders to heard ship in two hours and often are not even given the opportunity to notify their relatives. They sail without know-

ing where they are going and then, on landing, learn that they are in Spain

and are General Franco’s “volunteers.” Ignorant and brow-beaten, their only dream being to keep body and soul together. goaded by officers and special detachments of military police, they light until they meet a serious obstacle. Meeting such an obstacle, however, they either bun helter-skelter in frantic far. or surrender to the enemy.

FIRED ON OWN SOLDIERS. This was demonstrated by Guadalajara. The thousands of Italian prisoners taken h.v the Spanish republican army readily explained how happy they were to he prisoners and how alien and incomprehensible the Fascist military adventures were to them. It- will be remembered that Fascist Italy began its military intervention in Spain hv firing on its own soldiers. The world press has carried reports of hundreds of Italians being shot for refusal 1o go to the front after finding themselves in Spain and discovering how they had been deceived. In Abyssinia the Fascist conquerors were successful only where bombers and modern artillery operated against barefooted detachments of Abyssinians, equipped with nothing but spears. But where the Abyssinians succeeded in breaking through the barrage set up hv European technique and in coming face to face with the Fascist, ranks, they usually wiped out the Fascist for-

ces. Those of the soldiers who have survived file Abyssinian spears and the African fevers, are returning to Italy, whore. Hacked like sardines in railway ears, they often sing their soldiers* songs with a. new refrain, which translated into English, means: ‘Oh. loader. loader. leader, why is there nothing to eat?” Breaking down under the burden of expenditures caused by the maintenance of a huge armv in Abyssinia, the Fascist state is also faced with the problem of what is to he done with the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who. up'’ii ceasing to he soldiers, immediately become unemployed. Francesco Coprdla, the well known Fascist reactionary, with the impudence which generally distinguishes Fascist, writings, has published in one of the Italian newspapers an article to the following effect: It must be remembered that a. former soldier is not just an unemployed man, but one who knows how to handle a rifle. Tt is doubtful whether he will be willing to continue to starve now as be did before, being conscripted. This may cause considerable unpleasantness. It is best to keep this soldier as far away from Ttaiv as possible.

Thus do the Fascists themselves admit, that, being 1 unable to solve their internal difficulties, they a re looking for a solution in military adventures, and are seeking to drown the groans of the starving people with the roaring of guns. The preparations for a great war are becoming ever more frantic and ruthless. The armaments progiamine grows apace.