The only thing the Fascist Party in Italy can so far congratulate itself upon is Signor Benito Mussolini's sense of timing. As a result of the Nazi victory in France, the Italians, though they themselves have suffered nothing but a series of reverses since Mussolini's entry into the war, have considerably benefitted, without having contributed anything but a strategic threat to the Allied armies, In Abyssinia they have been beaten by small patrols of African troops, and their principal aerodromes have been severely bombed, with very little loss to the attackers. In Eritrea a British column routed a much stronger Italian force. In Libya an Italian fort was captured and another surrendered, while the Allies are holding something like 3,500 square miles of territory—useless to either side, it must be admitted, but nevertheless part of the resurgent "Roman empire" about which there has been so much boasting. Italian naval bases in Africa have been bombed, and at least one large warship seriously damaged. The chief Italian aeroplane factories have been damaged by air raiders, while munition factories have been sent up in sheets of flame. In actual combat with British planes, the Italians, though it is admitted that their workmanship is good, have been dismal failures. And to top a sorry list of engagements is the surrender to a British trawler in the Gulf of Aden of a large and powerfully armed Italian submarine, which vessel has been taken to Aden as a prize of war and will doubtless be examined with the greatest interest by British experts, In return, what have the Italians done? On the southern French front they appear to have launched a few half-hearted and unsuccessful attacks. They have repeatedly bombed Malta, doubtless doing a lot of damage but affecting the ultimate outcome of the struggle not a whit. There was news of an attack on French Somaliland, towards Djibouti, but this, after meriting brief mention in the cables, has disappeared from the news files. What has become of it? Surely the answer can be found in the bold stand taken by the French in Djibouti in refusing to consider laying down their arms. The whole does not make a pretty pictury.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.