ITALIANS IN LIBYA

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4432, 5 September 1939, Page 3

ITALIANS IN LIBYA

MILITARY PREPARATIONS WILL EGYPT BE ATTACKED ? When the swift Savoia Marchetti 75 of Ala Littoria lands one at Benghazi, two and a half hours after leaving Tripoli airport, the door has only to open to teach by touch that one is in a different world. The humid heat rolls in and sponges the skin (writes G. L. Steer in the London ‘ Daily . Telegraph ’ following his recent trip to Libya). . And when one drives in the morning up into the Jebel of Cyrenaica the khaki-brown cliffs of the ranges of Tripoli are forgotten. Grey rooks spring up around one, _ laced _ with Aloppo pines, stunted juniper and the wild olive; there is a wine-red earth in the depressions of the plateau, where wheat grows high. This wealth without subsoil water (for the rain promotes the harvest) continues through the old Greek colony of Gyrene until one drops down grandiose curves and hairpins to Derna, a pretty white city on the sea, looking more like old than modern Italy, with purple bougainvillea trailing from one side to the other of the mam shopping streets, the Arabs asleep in the sun.

NARROW FRONT FOR CAMPAIGN. This is Greece, in rock, climate, and colour. It is Greece by geography, tor while Italy is over 400 miles oft, Crete is less than 200. It is also a boundary; for soon after Derna the Jebel flattens away, the vegetation humbles itself to the ground, the sand begins to blow, there is no fresh water but a scorching sun. To the south run long, monotonous ridges that block off the Sahara. One hundred and ten miles of this boredom lead one to Tobruch, Italy s principal naval base in Libya, another 78 to Barbia, and another 31 to the Egyptian frontier and Solium. One notices that all the roads _ converge at the great pillar which Signor Mussolini has constructed on the frontier. A war here, if it ever comes, must be fought upon a narrow front; and frontally. There is no room, and there are no communications for -the sort of counter-attack planned by France, and Italy from their respective Jebels in the west. When General von Brauchitsch, the German Commander-in-Chief. visited Libya during the first week of May, he spent more of his active time on the Egyptian side than on the Tunisian. It was considered in Egypt perhaps significant that in Tripolitania—the Tunisian side —he saw fortifications, but in Cyrenaica the Egyptian military exercises. He reviewed troops, tanks, and motorised units, both at Derna and Tobruch. Little wonder that Cairo was nervous, and wondered whether a stroke against her was coming from the sky.

LITTLE DEFENCE APPARATUS. is there justification for this nervousness to-day ? I can only give the impressions of a short visit. 1 was not encouraged to go to Kufra, Jarabub or the big camp at Acroma behind Tobruch. First, I found little defensive apparatus in Cyrenaica, except in protection of the ports of Tobruch and Derna, which was shielded by a copious artillery. This was only natural; for Derna ships fresh drinking water along the coast eastward, including Tobruch, where the water is salt and oily; and Tobruch is a small base holding, the day I was there, three destroyers and nine submarines.

Along the roads the defences are somewhat sketchy. Benghazi itself is protected by a few abandoned pillboxes, Bardia by a few light positions, and only Tobruch has large empty areas prohibited by barbed wire; either the Italians are masters of field camouflage as compared with the French, or, more probably, they have not yet seriously fortified this zone except with artillery. Clearly, they are not preparing against a land attack from Egypt. Are there then any signs that they are preparing an offensive? The points the traveller notes, as I noted, which decide against an immediate Italian offensive must be accepted with this proviso: that Italy since the Ethiopian campaign has made herself the master of speedy mass manoeuvre—for example, the landing of troops in Albania, ancl of colonists in Libya, and the manoeuvres which have switched whole divisions from one side of Libya _ to the other in a week. Her motorisation and road organisation arc both efficient and anfple, and she is continually practising tunes on the two of them. Thus the positions of the Italian army in eastern Libya may change at anv moment.

To-day the 21st Italian Army Corps and the native troops attached it are not in attack positions. The majority of the white troops, probably because" of the cost involved in supplying them with water, are concentrated round Derna or between Derna and

reno, at anything between 180 and 250 miles from the Egyptian frontier.

“ LONG VIEW ” OF SITUATION. It is true that the oasis of Jarabub, opposite the Egyptian oasis of Siwa, is strongly held by mechanised Camel Corps. Yet they also depend on lorries from Tobruch (that is, Derna) for drinking water. In war they might take Siwa, but it is difficult to see how they would supply themselves for the further attack, across 250 miles of waterless desert, exposed to aerial punishment, on the principal fortress of Egypt, Mersa Matruh. As for mysterious Kufra, if there is anything cooking in Kufra it is for the dish not of Egypt, but of Wadi Haifa. So much for the immediate future. What of beyond? I must confess that, on the long view, my brief journey in Cyrenaica has caused me anxiety. There aro no immediate preparations to attack Egypt. There is no will among officers or men to be at war with Britain (though it is a commonplace of the Italian creed that their wonderful aviation can scuttle the British Navy when the Duce calls). Marshal Balbo used, during the Abyssinian war, to be considered a firebrand; his eyes, it was said, sparkled at the sound of Suez. If that was ever true, I do not think that it is true to-day. I believe that he personally is much too enthusiastic about his mass colonisation to want to fight. The pity is that neither he nor the Italian army control events. The master impression one gathers after a

visit to Libya is that they are under orders; whether they like it or not, they arc carrying out a military policy m excess of the purely defensive needs of Libya. The main points for the future that my visit impressed on my mind are these, in order; Libya could easily be defended by half to two-thirds of the force at present her garrison. Her military aviation is already more powerful than that of Tunisia and Egypt combined, and it can more easily be reinforced from the metropolis than the air fleets of either of those two countries. Similarly, the army in Libya can be more readily reinforced from Italy. Of more immediate importance than these logical principles are the signs on Libyan soil, which are: The amount of artillery at present in Libya exceeds the capacity of the artillery regiments in the garrison. The construction of enormous military depots proceeds apace, particularly around Tripoli, the chief and safest port of debarkation from Italy. The road system leading to the Egyptian frontier, which runs parallel to the great Strada Litoranea from a point south of Acroma through Gasr cl Arid, has been improved, as well as the side roads leading to it from the Litoranea. Above all stands the major strategic principle of the Italian Empire. If Italy were by any chance dragged into war by the Reich, her first objective must be to save the garrison and the imperial glory of Ethiopia from destruction by land and sea blockade and native rebellion. Whether she liked it or not, she could only save Ethiopia through Egypt. She could only reduce Egypt by direct assault on Mersa Matruh and by demoralising bombardment of Alexandria and Cairo. NO PROMENADE TO CAIRO. The Libyan command knows that this course would not bo comfortable. There could be no promenade to Cairo. Egypt’s artificial defences are not comparable with the work which the French have put into Tunisia, nor are the men that hold them, in numbers, comparable with the French North African army. But her natural defences are far more powerful. She can. in short, only be attacked along a narrow front, which is the coastal road, and which is long. “ bombable.” and waterless. Nor would Italy’s water difficulties begin with the frontier; they begin in her own territory over 300 miles from Mersa Matruh, east of Derna. Her supply organisation, admirable though it is, would be taxed to the utmost by naval and aerial bombardment.

To sum up on Libya and Egypt. There are no immediate signs of preparation of an offensive against Egypt. The people on the spot do not want it. They are not their own masters. The signs, both logical and material, of an eventual attack on Egypt give more ground for care. It would be difficult, though not assuredly so disastrous to Italy as an offensive on Tunisia, it could lie paralysed, and therefore, given the goodwill and good sense ot Marshal Balbo, the danger of it may never arise if more white troops are provided for Egypt, and in particular if the aviation at the disposal of Egypt is enlarged to the level of its interesting and bloodless task.