NERVOUS ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25238, 29 May 1943, Page 5

NERVOUS ITALY

DEFENCE PREPARATIONS i LUFTWAFFE TAKES CONTROL LONDON, May 27. The Luftwaffe has taken over charge-, of the defence of Southern Italy, according to Algiers radio. I Reuter's Algiers correspondent says i Mussolini’s islands, ceaselessly battered ; by three-way Allied hammer blows, are being reduced from defence bastions to grimly-held bridgeheads, which the enemy, is supplying only with the greatest difficulty. The Rome News Agency says Italy’s defences against aerial attack are now properly organised, Allied planes will | no longer have it all their own way | when they attack Italian cities. 1 The Rome radio, commenting for the ; first time on Mr Churchill's statement j that Italians would have a place in | the life of the new Europe if they overthrow their leaders and sue for I peace, said: “We have had experience | of British justice, and never again are we having any. Mr Churchill’s words say precisely what Italians think the British ought, to do. We are not, however, such fools as to expect that. We know perfectly well public opinion in England counts for nothing under the I dictatorship of Churchill, money power, the Jews, and Roosevelt.” Evacuation of Islands The New York radio says Italian workers in Sardinian and Sicilian war factories have been placed under martial law. The Italians are making preparations to blow up port installations and jetties at Cagliari, reports the Moscow Tass Agency. Evacuees from Sardinia are arriving at Naples every day. The evacuation of Sicily is also proceeding rapidly. Reuter’s Zurich correspondent says that as an invasion precaution French industrial districts are warned to keep an emergency water supply sufficient for 48 hours, and are also told to keep drinking water in hermetically-sealed containers. The Swiss Telegraph Agency reports that the evacuation of part of the French Mediterranean coast has already begun, though not officially ordered. From various sources on the Continent come reports which, taken together, unquestionably show that recent air raids, following the military disaster in Africa, are having deep psychological consequences in Germany. Defeatism in Nazi Ranks The Zurich correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reports that a wave of defeatism has spread through the Nazi Party ranks. “There has been much discontent and mounting criticism since recent war developments,” he adds. The Berlin correspondent of the Basle National Zeitung reports: “Three questions which the people of Germany are asking constantly to-day are: ‘How long can. the'war last? When will the Luftwaffe be able to make appropriate reprisal raids on Britain? Can food rations now be considered to be at their lowest level? ’ “Everyone is now anxiously saying: ‘I only hope there will be no defeat on the eastern front.’ ” The Manchester Guardian’s special correspondent writes: “At the moment it would seem that moral pressure and the appeal to the individual’s sense of duty are being relied on to arrest what is unmistakably a decline in. German morale. The authorities may /hope that warnings will be sufficient, but tne Black Guards and the Gestapo, which already have the general populace firmly clutched, are bound sooner or later to extend their disciplinary control over the Nazi Party itself.”