The year 1940, one of the most fateful in the annals of modern Italy, will go down in history as the one in which Mussolini chose to stake the continuance of his Fascist régime on the defeat of the Western Powers and the victory of the Axis. Questions of foreign policy must, therefore, occupy the major portion of our résumé of the year under review. The remainder of the space must go largely to an account of the military operations in the Mediterranean and East Africa.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Rome-Berlin Axis.
In the closing weeks of 1939, several significant statements concerning foreign policy were made in Italy. On Dec. 8 the Fascist Grand Council, in the first important pronouncement made on international affairs since the outbreak of the war in early September, reaffirmed Italy's adherence to the Rome-Berlin Axis. Prior to the Grand Council's communiqué, considerable doubt had been cast on Italy's position, because of her failure to take up arms at once in aid of her German ally. It was generally felt that the announcement of Dec. 8 would put an end to any remaining hopes that Mussolini might be induced to join the Allies. On Dec. 12 Virginio Gayda, Mussolini's recognized spokesman on foreign affairs, declared in a radio address that Italy must have control over the outlets from the Mediterranean so as no longer to be a 'prisoner' of that sea, a demand that he reiterated in his organ, Il Giornale d'Italia, on the 21st.
On Dec. 16, Count Ciano, the Fascist Foreign Minister, delivered an epochal address before the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations. He sought to justify Italy's not having automatically entered the war at Germany's side as provided in Article III of the Pact of Steel of May 22, 1939, on the grounds that the alliance contained an unpublished proviso pledging the signatories to seek to avoid war for at least three years. According to Ciano, Italy had asked for this proviso because her armaments would require that interval for repair and renewal after 'the huge wear and tear on material caused by the wars we had fought.' This statement was interpreted abroad as an admission that Italy had stayed out of the war because she was quite unprepared—an interpretation indignantly, if not convincingly, repudiated in Italy.
The Soviet Union's war against Finland aroused considerable anti-Russian feeling in Italy, where a few months earlier sympathy for Poland had been notable by its absence. Crowds demonstrated, editors deplored, and there were even reports of Italian citizens volunteering to fight for Finland. By mid-December 1939, the situation had become so serious that the new Russian Ambassador to Rome was summoned home even before he had presented his credentials; a few weeks later Ambassador Rosso returned from Moscow. In January and February it was persistently reported that Italian planes had been sent to the hard-pressed Finns, first via Germany, then via France when the Nazis refused to let them pass through their country. There was naturally considerable speculation as to whether Berlin's support of her new Russian friends might not be unfavorably regarded by Rome, and the sudden end of the Finnish War in March was doubtless greeted by relief in both of the Axis capitals.
During the winter, Italy sought to keep France and Britain guessing as to her ultimate intentions. The Western Powers, of course, wanted Italy to stay out of the war, but they were unwilling to make those concessions, territorial and otherwise, which might have placated the Fascists. It may well be doubted that any concessions, no matter how extensive or humiliating, would have won real neutrality from Mussolini, for the fate of his régime had become so closely tied to that of the Nazis that he was in a very real sense a 'prisoner' of Hitler. In other words. Hitler was in a position to obtain Italian 'cooperation' whenever he wished to exert the necessary pressure.
Relations with Germany.
Italy's relations with Germany during the winter months were, as befits allies, intimate though not always without certain contretemps. The Germans were, of course, pleased at the Fascist declarations of December 1939 closing the door on the possibility that Italy might join France and Britain. At the same time Mussolini sought to keep from becoming too closely tied to the Germans by pursuing what his spokesmen described as an 'independent' policy. Any such policy was doomed to failure by the utterly disproportionate strengths of the two partners. In the Balkans, where the Fascists hoped in particular to have an 'independent' policy, they were completely checkmated by the fact that any opposition to German designs there would be exploited by the Soviets—the last thing that Rome wanted.
On May 7, 1939, Hitler had declared in a speech in Rome that he intended 'to recognize the natural boundary which providence and history have clearly traced for our two peoples,' and that 'the frontier of the Alps . . . shall be regarded as untouchable forever.' On Dec. 31, 1939, the two governments agreed that a plebiscite should be held among those inhabitants of the South Tyrol who were of German origin. Those voting for German citizenship were to be given until the end of 1942 to go to Germany. After the vote had been held in January 1940, it was found that out of 229,500 eligible to choose, 166,488 (72 per cent) opted for migration to Germany, 27,712 (12 per cent) decided in favor of Italian citizenship, and some 35,300 (16 per cent) failed to register a choice and therefore remained Italians. In February the return of those who had voted for German citizenship got under way. In order to settle all the claims arising out of this mass migration the two governments entered into a trade agreement on Feb. 24. But there was a wide divergence between them as to the amount of compensation due Germany for the property of those who had chosen to migrate to the Reich, and this may have had something to do with the report of March 22 that Mussolini had consented to let 82,500 Germans stay in the South Tyrol.
On Feb. 25 Hitler declared in a speech that 'we are travelling along parallel lines with Italy because our interests are mutual.' Three days later an Italo-German cultural accord was signed. In early March, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop made a hurried trip to Rome, where he saw Mussolini on the 10th and Pope Pius on the 11th. Whatever his visit may have had as its object, it was generally believed to have been a failure. In any event, General Soddu, Undersecretary of War, declared in the Chamber on the 13th that Italy had constructed an 'Alpine Line of the Lictor' along the French, Swiss, German and Yugoslav frontiers. This statement confirmed previous reports that the Fascists were busily strengthening the fortifications defending the Brenner Pass.
Apparently in an effort to clear up outstanding differences and to concert plans for the future, Hitler met Mussolini at the Brenner Pass on March 18. The substance of this historic interview, which lasted two and a half hours, has been the subject of much speculation. In general, observers tend to agree that the initiative came from Hitler and that he sought more active collaboration from Mussolini. Whether this collaboration was to take the form of a renewed drive for peace, or of more intimate relations between Italy and Russia, or of actually getting Italy to join in the war against France and England, is difficult to say. Perhaps Hitler had several cards up his sleeve and played them one after another. He may, as the Pact of Steel requires, have informed his partner concerning his plans for the invasion of Scandinavia and have used this revelation as a means of luring Italy into a diversion against the southern flank of the Western Powers. At any rate, the feeling in Italy after Mussolini's return from the Brenner was that the meeting had been a failure from Hitler's point of view.
Franco-Italian Relations.
The early spring saw a few feeble and final efforts on the part of France and Britain to improve their relations with Italy. An Italian trade delegation arrived in Paris on Feb. 26, and on March 6 reached a commercial agreement with the French Government. Two weeks later M. Reynaud told the Foreign Relations Committee of the French Senate that France sought an end to her differences with Italy. He declared that a Mediterranean entente among France, Italy and Spain was an indispensable basis for peace. Little attention was given to this conciliatory gesture in the Italian press, and on April 25 Count Ciano described it as 'inopportune.'
Anti-British Reaction.
The British were, meanwhile, encountering similar rebuffs. In the latter part of March a British Treasury official was sent to Italy to renew trade negotiations and to hear Italian complaints about the blockade. Little came of these talks and by mid-April there were mass demonstrations against Britain in Milan and other Italian cities. On April 30 the British Government announced its decision to deflect British merchant shipping bound for India from the Mediterranean to the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. The Italians were alarmed, and became even more so when on May 2 Prime Minister Chamberlain announced that a considerable portion of the British Fleet was on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean.
For further data on Italy's relations with other countries, see EGYPT; FASCISM; JAPAN, and YUGOSLAVIA.
Tripartite Alliance.
Ribbentrop's hasty trip to Rome in September may have had something to do with arranging for the signature of the tripartite alliance by Germany, Italy and Japan which took place at Berlin on Sept. 27. The Italian public was apparently surprised that Japan had been substituted for Spain as the new ally (See SPAIN: Internal Affairs), and there was some doubt as to whether the obviously anti-United States animus of the pact was politically wise. Italy, not being an Asiatic Power, was expected to profit from the arrangement only indirectly, presumably through a diversion of British attention from the Mediterranean area to the Far East.
Other Powers were said to be on the point of joining this alliance in order to share in creating the 'new order' not only of Europe but of the whole Eastern Hemisphere, perhaps even of the world. However, nothing very spectacular or tangible came of Molotov's visit to Berlin, Nov. 12-14. Later in the month Hungary, Slovakia and Rumania joined the alliance. But the expected adherence of Bulgaria did not take place, and by Nov. 25 it was admitted in Berlin that no more adhesions were expected for the present. As long as Russia, Turkey, France and Spain were not members, the alliance could hardly pretend to represent the European continent as a whole.
Relations with the United States.
Italy's relations with the United States went from bad to worse during the year. The American people were much disappointed when Italy entered the war, for as long as she remained a non-belligerent there remained a glimmer of hope that she might not go in on the side of the Nazis. Throughout the spring the United States Government continued to urge Mussolini not to go to war.
On June 10, the very day that Italy finally entered the war, President Roosevelt delivered an address at the University of Virginia in which, after recounting his fruitless efforts to persuade the Italian Government not to extend the war to the Mediterranean area and Africa, he declared that 'the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.' This remark naturally aroused intense resentment in Fascist quarters. On June 19 the State Department warned both Germany and Italy that in their armistice negotiations with France they must not violate the Monroe Doctrine by tampering with the French possessions in the Western Hemisphere.
As American help to Britain mounted in volume, so did the anti-American tone of the controlled Fascist press. The deal announced in early September by which Britain gave the United States sites for naval bases in return for 50 over-age American destroyers was particularly annoying to Italy because small vessels of that type were especially useful in the confined waters of the Mediterranean. Later in the same month, after the Axis had persuaded Japan to join it openly in an alliance, the Fascist press took a bold line towards the United States, telling it to mind its own business and keep out of European affairs. Another incident arose over the despatch sent on Oct. 3 by Herbert Matthews to his paper, The New York Times. In this he reported that the Axis Powers were vitally interested in seeing President Roosevelt defeated in the forthcoming election. The President quoted from this despatch in a press conference shortly thereafter, and as a result Mr. Matthews was expelled from Italy on Oct. 7—only to be readmitted a few weeks later.
ITALY AT WAR
Rumors of War.
The fact of the matter was that Italian participation in the war had long since been decided on in principle. The only question still remaining open was the exact date on which it should take place. On April 14 Giovanni Ansaldo, editor of the Leghorn Telegrafo and a spokesman for Count Ciano, told the armed forces in a radio broadcast that Italy's entry into the war was only a matter of months, even of weeks or days. On April 27 Count Dino Grandi, President of the Chamber, declared that Italy would not stay out of the conflict indefinitely. Cynics explained Italy's increasingly bellicose attitude by citing the rapid spread throughout the world of the idea that Germany might win the war, now that she had made such an easy conquest of Denmark and Norway.
In the opening days of May, on the eve of Germany's Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries and France, Italy's position was described as no longer 'non-belligerent,' but 'pre-belligerent.' After the Blitzkrieg began, the warlike ardor of the Fascists rose in direct proportion to the success of the German armies. Public demonstrations, press campaigns and all the usual instruments for working on public opinion were employed to prepare the country psychologically for war.
It must be admitted that the Italian people were anything but enthusiastic about the war. They had been in a virtual state of war since the summer of 1935, and had been living under a war economy for over a decade. The only inducement which the Fascist Government believed would overcome this apathy was the promise of easy conquest and loot. It, therefore, constantly held out assurances of a quick victory and of large territorial gains. With no dissenting voices allowed, this campaign to arouse the people's lust could not fail to attain considerable success. Reports that the Royal House, the Army, the Vatican, and even some of the Fascist hierarchs were opposed to Italy's going into the war, however true they may have been, were beside the point, for in Italy it is Mussolini—and Mussolini alone—who decides what the country is to do.
On May 17, Il Duce's paper, Il Popolo d'Italia, warned that Italy was about to go to war, a warning virtually confirmed by Ciano two days later. Herbert Matthews cabled from Rome to The New York Times on the 26th that Italy would probably enter the conflict between the 10th and 20th of June. On May 30 he reported that mobilization had been going on quietly in Italy and that by then some 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 men were under arms. By June 1 the success of Hitler's victory in France appeared to be so overwhelming that Mussolini was obliged to enter the conflict at once or lose any hope of profiting from a Nazi victory. Last-minute French efforts to buy him off with concessions in regard to the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, the Suez Canal, Tunisia and perhaps elsewhere were 'too little and too late,' as Fascist observers remarked. Premier Reynaud told the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 4 that if Italy entered the conflict it was because she deliberately wanted war, for France had offered to negotiate the issues separating the two countries. This offer he repeated on the radio two days later.
War with France.
On June 10, as the Germans were reaching the outskirts of Paris, Italy finally declared war. At 4:30 P.M. Count Ciano handed the French Ambassador a note stating that 'His Majesty the King and Emperor declares that from tomorrow, June 11, Italy considers herself at war with France.' Fifteen minutes later a similar document was handed to the British Ambassador. At 6 P.M. Il Duce spoke to the crowd from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia. He asserted that 'this is the hour of irrevocable decisions' and that Italy was going to war 'against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies. . . . We want to break the territorial and military chains that confine us in our sea, because a country of 45,000,000 souls is not truly free if it does not have free access to the ocean. . . . This gigantic conflict is only a phase of the logical development of our revolution. It is the conflict of poor, numerous peoples who labor against starvers who ferociously cling to a monopoly of all the riches and the gold on earth.' He went on to declare that 'Italy does not intend to drag other peoples who are her neighbors into this conflict. Let Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Egypt and Greece take note of these words of mine, for it will depend entirely on them and only on them whether these words are fully confirmed or not.'
Clement Attlee, speaking the following day in the House of Commons on behalf of Prime Minister Churchill, said that Mussolini's decision to embroil his country in war was wanton and without excuse, and that Britain and France had constantly striven to come to an agreement with her. Mussolini's declaration of war, he declared, was for the sordid motive of picking up the leavings from the kill of another beast—the policy of the jackal. In France Prime Minister Reynaud ordered the seizure of all Italian holdings. In both countries suspected Italian fifth-columnists were rounded up.
Actual warfare between Italy and the Western Powers was initiated on June 11 by an air raid on the British naval base at Malta. The same day also saw raids by Italians on Aden, and by the British on points in Libya and Eritrea. The next day British planes bombed industrial centers in Genoa, Milan and Turin, a procedure repeated frequently thereafter. On the 22nd there occurred the first air raid on Alexandria, the great British naval base in Egypt, a city that during the succeeding months was to be a constant target for Italian attacks.
Along the Franco-Italian frontier there were only light skirmishes even though the French were holding their line in the Alps very lightly; most of their troops had been drawn off to meet the German thrust in the north. Paris fell on the 14th and on the 16th Marshal Pétain asked for an armistice. Hitler and Mussolini, therefore, met in Munich on the 18th to settle on the terms to be offered France. The Nazis, however, made it quite clear that the negotiations with the French would not be a joint Italo-German affair. The armistice signed in Compiègne Forest on June 22 was, therefore, between France and Germany only. However, one of the clauses provided that it would come into effect only when a similar agreement had been made between France and Italy. French delegates arrived in Rome on the 23rd, and on the following day an armistice was signed by General Huntziger for France and Marshal Badoglio for Italy. It provided that the 'Italian troops will stand on their advanced line in all theaters of operations'; that along the French frontier a zone extending 50 kilometers westward from this line was to be demilitarized; that zones of greater depth were to be demilitarized on the Libyan frontier along Algeria and the French territories to the south; that an unspecified zone (shown only on a map which was not published) in Tunisia, and all of French Somaliland, were likewise to be demilitarized, while Italy was to be given the use of Djibouti and of the French section of the Addis Ababa railroad. Furthermore, the naval bases of Toulon, Bizerta, Ajaccio and Oran were to be demilitarized—in the German Armistice the French had already been obliged to concentrate their warships in designated ports for laying up under German or Italian control. Armistice commissions were to be appointed by the Italian Government to see that these terms were enforced.
Thus in two weeks, during which the Italian forces were engaged in only minor skirmishes, the position of France as a Mediterranean Power was virtually destroyed. The Italian Government later announced that during the first four weeks of the war its losses in dead, wounded and missing on all fronts were 4,097. Control commissions were sent to North Africa and Syria to supervise the carrying out of the armistice terms. These did not, however, succeed in obtaining anywhere near all the demands they made on the Pétain Government, demands which would virtually have changed those regions into Italian colonies. Whatever hopes the Axis may have had of utilizing the units of the French Navy which had not fallen into Britain's hands were shattered by the latter's successful attack on Mers-el-Khebir on July 3. Six days later, British warships operating in the Western Mediterranean chased several Italian warships into harbor. Thereafter, the Italian Navy tried to avoid direct encounters with the British, preferring instead to confine itself to submarine and aerial forays. One of the few exceptions to this rule was the fight on July 19 in which the Australian cruiser 'Sydney' sank the fast new 'Bartolomco Colleoni.'
War in Africa.
When Italy entered the conflict it was widely remarked that Mussolini must be calculating on a war of no more than six months' duration, for it was known that Italy's resources were sufficient for a period of only about that length. During the summer the Fascist Government was clearly going on the assumption that Britain would soon collapse, presumably as the result of a successful Nazi invasion. The Italians, therefore, were content to let the war on land—on the Libyan-Egyptian frontier, and around the borders of Ethiopia in the Sudan, Kenya and British Somaliland—simmer while the Germans broke the British Empire at its center. The only exception to this policy of 'economical warfare' was the invasion and conquest of British Somaliland. This area was of very little strategic value to the British; and after the Italian occupation of French Somaliland it had become virtually untenable. The Italians invaded the protectorate on August 4. The small British forces, after putting up a stiff rearguard fight against the greatly superior numbers of Fascist troops and materiel, withdrew by sea from their last foothold, Berbera, on August 19, and Italy celebrated a rather empty victory.
Italian East Africa had been cut off from the homeland both by land and by sea since June 10. Only by air, across many hundreds of miles of barren desert, was it possible for the Italian Government to communicate with its East African empire—and even then only by escaping British vigilance in the Sudan. Supplies of food, ammunition, gasoline and other necessary war commodities, collected in Ethiopia before the war, were gradually consumed as the year wore on, with small or no possibility of replenishing them. It was thus possible for a relatively small mixed force of British, Rhodesians, South Africans, Anzacs and colonials to keep in check the 100,000 or more Italian troops in East Africa.
The British Government naturally made use of the anti-Italian ardor of the Ethiopians. On July 12 it was announced in the House of Commons that Ethiopia was to be recognized as an ally. Six days later it was divulged that Haile Selassie had reached Khartoum from his place of exile in England. The British hoped that he would give new life to the revolt which had been smouldering in Ethiopia ever since its conquest by Italy. On Nov. 3, Dr. Martin, Ethiopian envoy in London, asserted that one half of his country was then in the hands of rebels.
In the Eastern Mediterranean desultory operations were marked during the summer by the exchange of air raids on such places as Tobruk, Bengasi, Alexandria, and Haifa. A particularly devastating raid was made by the Italians on Tel Aviv, an undefended city of slight military value in Palestine, on September 9. British naval units also bombarded ports in the Dodecanese Islands and in Libya. On June 28 occurred the still unexplained death of Marshal Balbo in an airplane accident over Tobruk in eastern Libya. The British denied that any of their planes were in the vicinity. Rumors of skullduggery within the Fascist camp have been neither proved nor disproved. Balbo was succeeded by Marshal Graziani, a famous colonial fighter and a veteran of the Ethiopian campaign.
Italian Advance into Egypt.
Early in September the much-heralded 'big push' of the Italians into Egypt got under way. There was also intensified fighting in Kenya, where Italian patrols made local advances here and there, without, however, seriously endangering the British position. Likewise in the Sudan the Italians occupied British border positions at such places as Gallabat and Kassala, but failed to press the attack on towards Khartoum and other important strategic centers. The only serious Italian attack was that made from Cyrenaica along the Mediterranean coast into Egypt towards Alexandria. A less hospitable country could hardly be imagined than that through which Graziani had to launch his attack, for the region is noted among geographers and explorers as one of the most difficult in the world. As the Italian forces, estimated at around 250,000, went forward into Egypt their line of communication and supply became correspondingly longer—even water had to be supplied from a distance. Furthermore, since Mussolini was unwilling to let his fleet contest the sea with the British Navy, Graziani's left flank was constantly exposed to bombardment from British ships.
After offering only slight resistance, the Allied forces—'Free French' and Polish troops, as well as the Anzacs, fought side by side with the English—fell back beyond Sidi Barrani, taken by the Italians on Sept. 17. At this point the Italian advance came to a halt. During October there was little activity on land in this sector. On the sea that month was marked by the sinking of three Italian ships by the cruiser Ajax (one of the victors in the battle with the Graf Spee off the River Plata) on the 12th, and an Italian long-range bombing attack on American-owned oil refineries in the Bahrein Islands in the Persian Gulf on the 19th.
Italian Debacle in Egypt.
On Dec. 9, in Western Egypt, the British Army of the Nile suddenly took the offensive at Sidi Barrani. The post was taken in a surprise attack of British and Australians from the rear, while Italian attention was engaged by a feint from the sea, and shelling of the British fleet. Though Graziani later declared, in a remarkably frank report to Rome published in Italy on Dec. 22, that he had had advance knowledge of the attack, the evidence seems to indicate that the Italians were taken by surprise. By the 15th the British had reached the Libyan frontier after smashing five Fascist divisions, taking some 40,000 prisoners and capturing quantities of matériel. Some 30,000 Italians took refuge in the fortified camp at Bardia, where they were subjected to a siege from land, sea and air. On Jan. 5, 1941, Bardia fell. (See also EUROPEAN WAR; GREAT BRITAIN: War in the Mediterranean and Africa.)
Italo-Greek War; British Air Raids on Italian Objectives.
Ever since the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese Islands in 1911, relations between Italy and Greece have been far from cordial. The inhabitants of this archipelago are, for the most part, Greeks; and, by every test of history, geography and ethnography, they belong to Greece. Italy's failure to return the islands to Greece as once promised caused deep resentment, and this feeling was aggravated by the harshness of Fascist rule. Nor have the Greeks ever forgiven or forgotten the Italian bombardment and occupation of Corfu in 1923.
The Fascist Government pretended to take great offense at the British guarantee extended to Greece by the Chamberlain Government early in 1939. The truth of the matter was, of course, that Rome regarded Greece as within its Lebensraum, or spazio vitale. After the Fascist conquest of Albania at Eastertime in 1939, it was foreordained that sooner or later an Italian attack would be made on Greece—unless, of course, by some means or other the Greeks could be persuaded to submit to Italian rule without fighting.
During the latter part of the summer constant Italian pinpricks kept the Greek Government on its guard. In mid-August the Fascist authorities accused the Greeks of beheading an Albanian patriot. Axis pressure on Greece to renounce Britain's guarantee was underlined when, on Aug. 15, a submarine, at the time described as 'unidentified' but later proved to be Italian, torpedoed and sank the Greek cruiser Helle in the harbor of Tinos in the Aegean Sea. The Greek Government replied by decreeing emergency measures and sending large bodies of troops to the Albanian frontier. On the 22nd a British spokesman in Athens promised air and naval support from his country if Greece were attacked.
Following Ribbentrop's visit in Rome, Sept. 19-22, the Axis Powers renewed their pressure on Greece. On Oct. 12 the Greek army was said to have reached full mobilization. On the 26th an Italian communiqué declared that the Greeks had attacked an Albanian frontier post. When, therefore, the Italians invaded Greece at 6 A.M. on the 28th, the event came almost as an anticlimax.
The Italian invasion was undertaken by several Fascist columns operating from such bases as Porto Edda (Santi Quaranta), Argyrokastron, and Koritza. At the same time various Greek cities, largely undefended, were treated to aerial bombardments in the classical Blitzkrieg manner. The Italian campaign proved, however, to be anything but a Blitzkrieg. For one thing, British assistance—which in the cases of Poland, Norway and the Low Countries had proved either not forthcoming at all or else 'too late and too little'—reached Greece at once in the form of planes and naval units. The British occupied the Greek island of Crete, with its valuable harbor at Suda Bay and its potential naval and air bases. Thus the noose around the Italian Navy was drawn another inch tighter.
On Nov. 1 the R.A.F. made its first raid on Naples, bombing a number of military and industrial objectives. On the 13th Churchill gave the House of Commons details about the now famous attack by British bombing and torpedo-carrying planes against the Italian fleet at Taranto. For some time Admiral Cunningham, Commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, had been trying to lure the Italian fleet into combat, but in vain. He therefore decided to go in after it with his air arm. According to Churchill, three of Italy's battleships, one-half of her Navy's capital strength, in addition to several smaller craft, were put out of commission. The Italians belittled the effect of the raid, calling the British report fantastic. Two weeks later the British again reported that they had inflicted damage, this time on six Italian warships, in an encounter near Sardinia—after which the Italians ran for cover. Rome again denied these claims, while making large counter-claims of its own. But the fact remained that as the year closed the Italian Navy was conspicuous by its absence even in Adriatic waters, where British and Greek ships repeatedly penetrated to sink transports or bombard Albanian ports.
During the first few days of their campaign against Greece the Italians made a certain amount of headway in some sectors, but without cracking the main line of Greek defense. By Nov. 8, however, the deepest Italian thrust—that toward Yanina—had been stopped. From then on the invasion went into reverse, and by the end of three weeks of war the Italian forces were back where they started from. On the 10th, Rome announced that General Visconti Prasea had been replaced by General Soddu as Commander in Albania. The Greek counter-invasion of Albania was marked on Nov. 22 by the fall of Koritza to the invaders, and on the 30th by the taking of Pogradee. Along the Adriatic coast the Greek advance reached Porto Edda on Dec. 6, Palermo on the 14th, and Khimara on the 23rd. Inland, Argyrokastron fell on Dec. 9, and by the end of the year the Greek forces were converging on the port of Valona, already reported to be useless as a result of Allied naval and aerial bombardments. (See also GREECE.)
One may well ask why a supposedly first-class military Power like Italy met such resounding reverses at the hands of a relatively weak nation like Greece. There is, of course, first of all the fact that the Greeks are a tough, liberty-loving people and that they were defending their own soil against invasion, whereas the Italian soldiers had no such incentive. There was also the fact that the Italian troops were told by their Government that the Greek Army would not resist, either because it would regard discretion as the better part of valor or because some of its commanders were said to have been suborned. In either case, the Fascists were cruelly disappointed by Greek 'deception.'
The question then arises as to why Mussolini should have embarked on such an adventure on only a few hours notice—Gayda later admitted that the attack had been improvised almost on the spur of the moment. The best explanation seems to be that Il Duce, who was scheduled to meet Hitler at Florence on Oct. 28, wanted to confront his Axis partner with a fait accompli. For several weeks Laval, then Vice Premier in the Vichy Government, had been trying to persuade Hitler to make him the Number 2 man in the 'new order in Europe.' Laval had great inducements to offer Hitler in the form of the French colonies and several ships of the French navy. Mussolini, aware of this plot, decided that the best way to maintain his position in the Axis was to stage a brilliant Blitzkrieg against Greece. The Germans were not at all pleased at their partner's action, but it was not until Nov. 24, after Koritza had fallen, that there was any official German utterance condemning the Greeks for extending the war and acting as a tool of the British.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the war began. Mussolini declared, on Nov. 18, that in the end Greece would be conquered and 'her back broken.' On Nov. 30, in the face of repeated Italian reverses in Albania, Il Duce's newspaper asserted that Italy would defeat Greece without help from Germany. As December wore on, however, it became increasingly clear that German help was not only needed but was actually being received in the form of both men and matériel. Presumably to facilitate cooperation with the Germans, Mussolini, on Dec. 6, replaced Marshal Badoglio as Chief of Staff with General Ugo Cavallero, known to be very pro-German. The following two days also saw the 'resignations' of the Quadrumvir De Vecchi as Governor of the Dodecanese Islands and of Admiral Cavagnari as Chief of the Naval Staff. On Dec. 23 Prime Minister Churchill made a surprise broadcast calling upon the Italian people to overthrow Mussolini, whom he described as a 'criminal,' alone responsible for his country being at war. On the same day, casualty figures were published in Rome covering the first six months of Italy's war: 4,531 killed, 10,055 wounded, 4,238 missing. Foreign observers were inclined to regard these figures as gross underestimates, in view of the heavy losses inflicted on the Italian forces in Africa and Albania. (See also EUROPEAN WAR; GREECE.)
Summary of the Year.
As the year closed, then, the situation in the Mediterranean may be summarized as follows: The Greeks were in possession of more than a quarter of Albania and were steadily pressing ahead there, though the tempo of their advance had slowed down. In North Africa the threat of an Italian invasion of Egypt had been turned into a British invasion of Libya. In Italy the Government was threatening those who spread discontent and defeatism with drastic penalties—a clear sign that dissatisfaction with the war and the government was rising. Perhaps most serious of all was the accumulation of evidence that Italy was already on the road to becoming a Nazi satrapy—economically, politically and militarily.
Italy and the Western World.
Italy's entry into the war caught many of her ships in Western Hemisphere waters. Some 250,000 tons of shipping—or one twelfth of her merchant marine—were reported to have tied up in North and South American ports rather than risk capture by the British Navy. The Italian airline—Ala Littoria—continued to operate its services to Brazil throughout the year, although with considerable irregularity. With the collapse of the French line to Brazil and Argentina, Ala Littoria became the only direct aerial connection between Europe and South America.
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
Italy and the Vatican.
The outbreak of a general European war was bound to test the degree of freedom possessed by the Vatican as a supposedly independent state. Completely surrounded by Italian territory and able to communicate freely with the outside world only by means of the radio, Vatican City had seemed to many observers not to be endowed with the necessary means for insuring its freedom and neutrality in case Italy should participate in a major war. Others pointed out that the Pope, the majority of the Cardinals and a large part of the Vatican staff, being Italians, could not hope completely to dissociate their emotions from the outcome of the conflict.
The year 1939 had closed with an exchange of visits between the Pope and the King and Queen of Italy. This led some to believe that the Vatican and the House of Savoy were concerting efforts to keep Italy at peace. In late January and early February the Vatican City radio broadcast several condemnatory reports on the behavior of the Nazis in Poland, and this aroused the ire of the more violent pro-German Fascists like Roberto Farinacci, former Party Secretary. Relations between the Fascist and Papal Governments became increasingly strained as the latter's rift with Germany widened. The conflict came to a head in April and May when the Italian Government put pressure on the Osservatore Romano, the daily organ of the Vatican, to force it to cease publishing views and editorials unfriendly to the Axis. The circulation of this paper had grown by leaps and bounds throughout Italy because it alone among journals published in Italian tried to give impartial reports on world politics and the war. Its sale was therefore banned by the Fascist Government. In the end, the Vatican officials had to confine the contents of their newspaper to non-political topics. (See also RELIGION: Roman Catholic Church.)
Economic Situation.
The transition from non-belligerency to belligerency was far less abrupt in Italy than it had been in the democratic countries, since the life of the Italian people had for many years been regimented in every aspect. This was particularly true of economic life under the 'corporative' system. On Jan. 13, in an article in the Popolo d'Italia which was generally believed to be from the pen of Mussolini, the Fascist principles of 'corporatism, anti-democracy and anti-bourgeoisie' were vehemently reaffirmed. At the end of February the government took charge of the production of mercury and forbade its export except under license. The Popolo d'Italia described this as a step towards a state monopoly over all raw materials, which was coming 'gradually but surely.'
One of the objectives of the corporative economy has been to make Italy as self-sufficient as possible in foodstuffs, raw materials and fuel. It is hardly necessary to point out that in certain key commodities such as iron, coal, coffee, cotton and oil Italy is hopelessly dependent on foreign sources of supply. Only in a few of the important items is it possible to increase production materially either in Italy or in her colonies. For this reason, as already pointed out, she has been particularly vulnerable to the British blockade.
On Jan. 20 it was announced that after Feb. 1 sugar would, like coffee, be rationed. The following day Mussolini expressed the hope that the wheat harvest for 1940 would approach the point of national self-sufficiency. The goal, he said, was now 90,000,000 quintals—an increase of 5,000,000 over his previous objective. Almost simultaneously Virginio Gayda announced that under no circumstances would Italy, now or later, join a European customs union or engage in any sort of free commercial exchange, for Mussolini had reiterated 'very clearly that Italian autarchy is not to be touched.'
During the winter, which happened to be especially cold, there was a serious coal shortage in Italy, felt by both industrial and private consumers. Schools were closed, office schedules curtailed, trains cancelled and many other means adopted for husbanding the supply of coal. Italy's own production of coal in 1939 was reported as: 1,058,000 tons of lignite, 1,925,000 of soft coal (from Sardinia and Istria) and 100,000 of hard coal. There was some dispute as to the accuracy of these figures, but in any case they showed that Italy still had to obtain at least four-fifths of her coal supply from abroad—which for practical purposes meant Greater Germany. What was true of coal was also true in varying degrees of iron, copper, oil, etc. For all of these Italy was almost wholly dependent on German or German-controlled areas in eastern Europe. The shortage of oil was especially disastrous: Albania produced only about 300,000 of the 2,500,000 tons normally consumed—and even this source was cut off when the Greek campaign began. The relative inactivity of the Fascist navy and air force was ascribed, in part at least, to the desire of the government to conserve its small oil stocks.
On July 25, a letter from the Ministry of Agriculture to Il Duce was published in which it was stated that the current harvest was expected to fall almost 10 per cent short of the average for the three previous years. A report released by the United States Department of Agriculture on Nov. 29 stated that the blockade had entirely cut off Italy's imports of coffee, meats, rubber and jute, and that those of oils, fats, raw cotton and wool had been reduced by 95 per cent, and those of cereals by 70 per cent. (See also WORLD ECONOMICS.)
Italian Commerce.
One great instrument—the blockade—gave the Western Powers a strangle-hold on Italy's foreign trade. In times of peace some 85 per cent of Italy's foreign commerce is seaborne; and of this maritime traffic nearly 90 per cent is from outside the Mediterranean Sea. In its communiqué of December 8, 1939, the Grand Council declared that Italy intended to safeguard her maritime traffic 'in the most explicit manner, both for her prestige and for the indisputable necessities of life.' At the outbreak of the war the British had imposed contraband control on Italian trade at such places as Gibraltar, Aden and Haifa. The consequent delays slowed up the commercial offensive which the Italians had hoped would give them a large slice of the markets lost by the warring Powers. In order to avoid some of these inconveniences British control officers were being allowed, according to reliable reports in January and February, to inspect cargoes at Italian ports.
The Italian Government sought to take advantage of its non-belligerent status by importing large quantities of key commodities. To do this it had in many cases to promise the Western Powers to return a considerable portion of them in the form of manufactured goods. By letting Mussolini make money out of orders for war goods, France and Britain hoped to stave off his active participation in the conflict. In January and February numerous reports from Italy told of industries working at top speed on French and British contracts. In late January, for instance, the Carnegie Endowment divulged confidential information to the effect that since the beginning of the war Italy had 'traded machines against raw materials up to $250,000,000,' and that Britain had ordered materiel worth 4 billion lire, a sum almost equalled by French orders. The Italians were said, however, to be slow both in paying for their imports and in making deliveries to the Western Powers.
This situation was in fact responsible for the crisis which took place in Anglo-Italian commercial relations in the middle of February. This crisis led first to a breakdown in negotiations for a trade agreement, and second, early in March, to the enforcement of the blockade against Italian ships carrying German coal from Rotterdam to Italy. Britain had announced that such a blockade would begin in December, but had postponed its application until March 1. The gravity of the seizure is evident from the fact that Italy normally imports 12,000,000 tons of coal a year, at least three-fourths of which come by sea from Germany. Within ten days, however, the British released the coal ships on condition that henceforth Italy make no further attempts to run the blockade. German coal bound for Italy thus had to go overland and this naturally put a serious strain on the trans-Alpine rail lines at a time when Germany's railways were already seriously overstrained by her war effort. (See also WORLD ECONOMICS.)
Finances.
The country's financial situation reflected its growing economic straits. On Feb. 1 new taxes went into effect on business transactions (2 per cent) and net capital (0.5 per cent). During February the lira was reduced in order to give Italian exports a chance to compete with the depreciated currencies of Britain and France. On May 17 Finance Minister Thaon di Revel presented a 'war budget.' His report on the fiscal year 1939-40 showed a deficit of 26,400,000,000 lire. In the 'ordinary' budget, expenditures were 35,975,000,000 lire and income 29,740,000,000 lire, leaving a deficit of 6,235,000,000. It was the 'extraordinary' budget which accounted for the other twenty billion of the total deficit. The figures for the proposed ordinary budget for 1940-41 were slightly under those for the previous year. Altogether, the deficits from 1934 to 1940 came to a grand total of 74,345,000,000 lire. The amount of the national debt probably stood in the vicinity of 250 billion lire.
Clearly, as the year closed, Italy's economic situation was rapidly deteriorating and would soon constitute a tremendous burden on the resources of her Nazi partner if the latter were to keep her from social and political disintegration. See also INTERNATIONAL BANKING AND FINANCE; TAXATION.
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