CRUCIAL MOMENT FOR ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25301, 11 August 1943, Page 3

CRUCIAL MOMENT FOR ITALY

(Rec. 0.45 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 10. “Badoglio is desperately trying to unite the Italian people for a lastditch stand,” says the British United Press correspondent on the Swiss frontier. “To expect Italy to desert Germany at this crucial moment in the war and trade her national honour as an escape from fighting is an insult,”, said the Rome radio. “Italy cannot break her bonds. The fact that the greater part of Sicily is in the enemy’s hands is no reason for throwing up the sponge. A war is not lost or won until the last battle is fought, and the last battle of this war is a long way off.” The correspondent adds that the Government is reported to be bitterly against any terms which would give Jugoslavia such Adriatic ports as Flume and Trieste. The Italians are hinting, however, that they would, of course, make peace immediately if the Allies guaranteed the territorial integrity of metropolitan Italy. The Italian people must now know that such terms are not acceptable, and would only be likely to increase the discontent, particularly in the bigger Italian cities.

“It is significant,” says the Milan correspondent of the Die Tat, “that Ovra, the secret Fascist police, are still in existence throughout Italy, although the Fascist Party has been disbanded for some time.” The Associated Press correspondent in Switzerland says that the renewed air raids on northern Italy resulted in increased strikes and underground political opposition. Troops were used in Genoa to keep workers at their jobs. A number of imprisoned Leftists were released in an effort to appease the population. The Socialists continue their effort to start a general strike throughout the nation. The Berlin radio announces that Signor Bastianini, the former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, has been appointed Italian Ambassador at Ankara.