Big News Expected From Italy Soon

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 207, 1 September 1943, Page 5

Big News Expected From Italy Soon

Great Middle East Army Ready to Strike United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Tuesday, 9 p.m. LONDON, August 31. London is alive with reports from many quarters to the effect that the mounting crisis in Hitler’s Europe is likely to produce big developments imminently. Italian turmoil, Danish revolt and Bulgarian unrest coupled with reports of a great Allied army on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean ready to strike new blows, present a picture in which many developments, are possible, but Italy is figuring most prominently. The Daily Express’s diplomatic correspondent says neutral diplomats in London are convinced that big news, which will be good from the Allied viewpoint, will be coming from Italy in the immediate future. It is fully expected that military moves against Italy will speedily bring an announcement of capitulation. It is stated on behalf of the Foreign Office that no information has been received substantiating a report that Italy is signing terms of capitulation, but the Daily Telegraph points out that Italian capitulation must necessarily take the form in the first place of military surrender. The terms may, therefore, have been served on Rome not from the Foreign Office but from General Eisenhower’s Headquarters. The United Nations’ radio, broadcasting to Italians from Algiers to-night, warned that the Allied aerial, naval and ground forces concentrated in the Mediterranean are ready to strike against the Germans. They may land in the north and south of the Italian peninsula and converge towards the centre. The Rome radio spokesman, broadcasting in English to-day, outlining what he described as Italy’s peace and war aims, said: “We are still fighting Plutocracy and Bolshevism. The war’s fiercest fighting has not yet begun. We shall have peace with justice next year if we make up our minds not to be intimidated.” Meanwhile the whole Axis transport system in Central and South Italy is cracking under the Allied air onslaught. The latest smashing attack against Orte brings the list of vital centres in South Italy devastated by Allied air blows to thirty. It is reported from Berne that troops were again called out to-day in Milan, Turin and Genoa to disperse crowds demonstrating against the Government for allowing Count Ciano to escape. The Rome radio to-night announced a significant reshuffle in the Italian prefect system, including a new prefect for Rome and a general as prefeot for much-bombed Foggia. The Associated Press’s Cairo correspondent who has just returned from a fortnight’s tour of the Middle East, says the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to the Turkish border hums with the activity of a great Allied army. There are many indications that these forces are ready to strike. The Germans are apparently aware of this threat and have shown their apprehension by the establishment of a regular programme of flights over the Eastern Mediterranean. The troops which had been drawn up on the northern border to guard against a German thrust towards the Middle East oil lines are now largely free to join in the assault on Europe. A network of aerodromes has been constructed both to supply the widespread troops and provide air cover for the operations to come.