Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1940 THE ITALIAN OFFENSIVE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 264, 5 October 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1940 THE ITALIAN OFFENSIVE.

Having advanced from Libya to Sidi Barrani, occupying l en route tiie unimportant posts at Solium and Buqbuq (or Ragbag) which the British forces used to delay the enemy, the Italian army has halted in order to consolidate its position. At the same time some of its troops are making their way from Solium into the desert. to the oasis at Siwa, 200 miles to the south. Their strategy is to protect their coastal forces with a front of 200 miles, but the fact that it stretches across an arid desert far from the Italian bases must be a continual nightmare to the command. Men must be equipped to withstand the scorching death blasts that sweep across these wastes, their food and water must be assured, and their supplies of munitions maintained at the high rate modern warfare demands. The speed with which the Italians entered Egypt was not surprising. The posts at the three places named were only lightly held by delaying forces and once they retired in accordance with the British strategy the Italians were permitted to move forward; but before they reached Sidi Barrani they suffered heavy casualties. Since then they have been harried by British airmen and naval units ; their bases at Tobruk and Derna have been battered, and their work of' consolidation made extremely difficult. The plan to make Sidi Barrani the base from which to extend their operations is fraught with the greatest obstacles and it must be established before Marshal Graziani can issue the order for the advance that will bring two armies to battle. Meanwhile, the British—and possibly soon the Egyptian—forces are awaiting the enemy. They can wisely choose their own battleground in the Western Desert. The main defences begin at Mersa Matruli, about 100 miles from Sidi Barrani, and 150 miles from Alexandria, which the! Italians have boasted they will soon enter. A correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph who has surveyed the defence lines in the Western Desert pictures the British Army patiently waiting to do battle with "the enemy. “Just one hour’s drive from here,” he writes, “across the savage, broken plain, Mussolini has piled up a store of arms ready to break on Egypt. Masses of Italian vehicles are gathered in the Sidi Barrani area.” What progress if any the enemy is making from Sidi Barrani has not been stated of late. He has roads to make under the hazards of bombing, so that days must elapse before he will come into contact with the main British defences. The advanced positions are pictured by this correspondent as almost impregnable, and in fact he was impressed hy the manner in which the whole scries of de-

fences have been improved. Meanwhile, in East Africa British and South African bombers are devastating Mussolini’s ports and other bases, sinking ships, destroying airfields, petrol dumps and supplies, and wearing down the morale of these isolated enemy forces. In attacking Egypt the Italians have accepted a gamble with Fate in the shape of the desert ivliich has sent armies in past ages to their doom.