NOTE OF ANXIETY DETECTED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21816, 20 November 1940, Page 7

NOTE OF ANXIETY DETECTED

Something Wrong With War Effort British Official Wlrelesi (Received November 19, 8.9 p.m.) RUGBY, November 18. Observers in London detect in Mussolini’s speech indications that Il Duce is on the defensive —an unaccustomed note in his discourses. He loves addressing welldrilled Fascist crowds. It was the fifth anniversary of the adoption by the League of Nations of a programme of economic sanctions designed to assist Abyssinia’s resistance to an act of unprovoked aggression by Fascist Italy in defiance of her obligations under the League Covenant and the Pact of Paris. The fact that the growing threat of a secretly calculated planned appeal to force the Nazis under the cloak of Hitler’s peaceful professions had subjected the League’s untried security system to such stresses and strain that in its first hour of trial it proved impossible to rally the collective will of the State to make it effective—this Mussolini chose once again to describe and celebrate as a Fascist “victory over 52 nations.” Here he was on sure ground which Fascist propaganda had made comfortably familiar to the Italian people, but as he passed to Italy’s entry into Hitler’s war on, what proved to be a miscalculation that the sacrifices of the Italians would be slight and quickly and handsomely recompensated by a share of the victors’ booty, his blustering falsification of tire historic record of Britain’s strenuous and unremitting efforts to safeguard peace betrayed an anxiety which became more evident as he reached Italy’s own campaigns. He seemed searching for some way of counteracting the impression growing among neutrals and prevalent even in Italy that for the time being something has gone wrong with the Italian war effort. Greek Campaign Costly In spite of his boasts of having command of the Mediterranean, the Italian Fleet has evaded engagements and waited behind shore defences to be battered to pieces by British airmen. The much advertised advance in the Western Desert has not been followed up in spite of the estimated Inferiority in material and numbers of the defence. The incursions into the Sudan have proved abortive. Now a coldblooded attack upon a scrupulously neutral neighbour, Greece, has been halted and the heroic defenders of a small and relatively weak State have actually forced back the Invaders. It is not surprising if all this has created some uneasiness in Italy itself, and II Duce’s denunciation of Pacifism and call for renewed vigour on the part of the Fascist party is interesting. It is certainly felt here to be significant that he found it necessary to insist at such length on the reliability of the Italian communiques. Tire Italians may have been getting puzzled by claims such as that in a recent official statement in Rome on the naval position that the Italian forces had sunk more British battleships than in fact Britain is known to have in the Mediterranean. There is some speculation in London whether his audience heard with entire relish II Duce’s boasts of his knight errantry towards his Axis friends in sending unsolicited Italian squadrons to take part in the German air war on Brtiain. It is more than likely that most Italians would prefer to do nothing unnecessarily to attract the attention of the Royal Air Force, while more ardent Fascists may wonder why these aircraft could not be usefully employed against “enemy” objectives nearer home. According to one versibn of his speech, Mussolini declared: “I declare it is false that three ships were sunk at Taranto. Three ships were damaged but none was sunk.” Il Duce also declared: “Greece is a tricky enemy. The Greeks hate Italy more than any other nation. Their hate is profound and Incurable.” A British spokesman stated that Musolini’s boast that Italy will soon, surpass and certainly equal the air power of other European countries does not remotely resemble the truth. It is pointed out that the losses of man-power which Mussolini was forced to admit relate only to the first six days of the conflict when no se“ i nus battles were fought. The speech generally is accepted as the best tribute the abilities of the Greek army could hope to receive from the enemy.