THE AXIS POWERS

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21160, 9 July 1940, Page 5

THE AXIS POWERS

WEAKNESS OF ITALY HOW DEFEAT WILL COME PRIME THEATRE OF WAR (United Press Assn.—Mec. Teh Copyright) LONDON. July 8 It is through the defeat of Italy that the Axis Powers will ultimately be beaten, and British warships in the Mediterranean will play an important part in this, according to the well-informed naval correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. He scouts the idea of a British naval withdrawal from the Mediterranean, and emphasises that the Mediterranean remains the prime theatre of war. Although some of the details of future alignment are momentarily obscure, he says, fundamental conditions are unaltered. Italy is the weak element in the Axis through whose military defeat Hitler will ultimately be crushed, says the correspondent. British naval forces in home waters can and will cope with the weakened German Navy, although inevitably they will experience a great physical strain, and men and ships will be driven almost beyond the limit of endurance to maintain a watch on the French extended coastline under German control; but material and equipment will, nevertheless, suffice without withdrawing the Mediterranean Fleet. Usefulness of British Fleet Removal of the French Fleet from the western Mediterranean, while it would ease some of the pressure on Italy, would not affect either the safety or the usefulness of the British Fleet in the Eastern Basin. Nor would the removal of the French Fleet affect Britain’s control of the Atlantic trade routes through which ships must pass to reach the straits of Gibraltar. Consequently, British withdrawal from the Mediterranean would open the way to imports for Italy, which alone would be a strategical blunder. The safety of Britain’s Eastern Mediterranean Fleet is In no way jeopardised by the new conditions, because even if it cannot be supplied by way of Gibraltar the alternative route via Suez remains open, with the additional advantage of supplies and reinforcements can be drawn from Australia. New Zealand and India, with minimum exposure to enemy attack. It is wholly fatuous, the correspondent adds, to talk, as some do, of the British Fleet being bottled up in the Eastern Mediterranean, from which in a last extremity it could withdraw via Suez. Disaster has followed every British withdrawal from the Mediterranean since Blake broke the power of the Barbary pirates. Britain must learn from past lessons.