MEDITERRANEAN THEATRE: Enter Italy

The hot afternoon sun of June 10 was almost down the heavens of western Eu rope when Dictator Benito Mussolini stepped out on his balcony in the Palazzo Venezia at Rome to announce that now, the Allies’ darkest hour in nine months of fighting against Germany, was Italy’s hour to take active part on Germany’s side.

Now that Italy’s risk was the least it had ever been, Italy would fight “to safe guard her honor, interests and the future”.

… A great people is truly such if it con siders its obligation sacred and does not avoid the supreme trials which determine the course of history.” Now that France was struggling for her life-breath, and Great Britain was girding against invasion, Benito Mussolini cried: “We are taking up arms to resolve, after reaching a solution of the problem of our continental frontiers, the problem of our frontiers on the sea.

“This gigantic conflict is only a phase … of our revolution. It is the conflict of poor, numerous peoples who labor against starvers who ferociously cling to a monop oly of all riches and all gold on earth. . . .

“Now the die is cast and our will has burned our ships behind us. …

“Italians, in a memorable mass meeting in Berlin, I said that according to the rules of Fascist morals when one has a friend one marches with him to the end.

“This we have done and will continue to do with Germany, its people and its vic torious armed forces. . . .

“On this eve of an event of import for centuries, we turn our thoughts to His Majesty, the King and Emperor, who al ways has understood the thought of the country.

“Lastly, we salute the Fiihrer, chief of great allied Germany.

“There is only one order. It is categorical and obligatory for everyone.

“It already wings over and enflames hearts from the Alps to the Indian Ocean: conquer.

“Italian people, rush to arms and show your tenacity, your courage, your valor.” In Paris, which he was soon to leave as the Germans drew nearer, hard-pressed Premier Reynaud sighed:”And this is the moment that Mussolini chooses to declare war on us! France has. nothing to say.

Posterity will be able to judge.” The people of Italy answered their War Lord with their usual obedient roars of applause, and rushed to arms -where? By specifically exempting his immediate neutral neighbors, plus Turkey and Egypt, from his bellicose declarations, Mussolini forecast actions at sea and in the air rather than on land as Italy’s chief contributions to the troubles of France and Great Britain. The combined air power he would encounter was probably much less than his own (2,900 firstline planes, 8,000 pilots), and not likely to be reinforced soon. At sea the odds were against him though his central position in the Mediterranean tended to balance matters. ‘

Nevertheless, Italian concentrations were reported on the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia. If he dared push into the French Riviera, Mussolini was in danger of being disastrously squeezed on the

MUSSOLINI He picked a good time.

narrow, cliff-bound shore. Through the Alps to France was uphill dangerous work, for the passes spread wide into Southeastern France.

Street Fighting. In its first day the war between Benito Mussolini and the Allies largely took the form of local abuse, sabotage and despair.

In Rome the first night of war was black. A few people danced in the soft summer air under wan cerulean lights.

Fascist militia sombrely walked the streets.

In the afternoon bands of hooligans had made fists outside the British Embassy and firemen had held their hoses ready to syringe them away in case their excitement led to violence. As night fell the city’s lights failed to wink on. The Vatican was blacked out too, lest its neutral and holy illumination guide airborne enemies on a raid. Inside, disheartened Pius XII knelt for an hour in his chapel in prayer. British diplomats would be evacuated by warship to Albania, thence could make their way into still neutral Greece, it was said. The Simplon-Orient Express had, of course, stopped running.

At La Linea, Spain, in sight of Gibraltar, the 10,000-ton Italian liner Chelind and a smaller compatriot were scuttled when the crews heard the news of war. The Capo Noli (3,921 tons), running down the St.

Lawrence River, was set afire and run aground to keep her from falling into the hands of the Royal Canadian Navy. Elsewhere about the world Italian shipping ran to cover or destroyed itself.

In Bogota, Colombia, a crowd of 4,000 broke up Italian shops.

In Eire Italian confectionaries were emptied. In Glasgow students threatened resident Italians. In London the squalid, Italianate Soho district was a scene of riot.

“Now we have all the dirty so-&-so’s in one boat and we shall sink the lot of them,” observed a London navvy.

“It’s rather awkward at this time,” said another type of Briton, “but it’s really a good thing, you know. . . . There is an enemy we can beat.”