March 11.
That there is something seriously wrong with the state of Italy is fully indicated by the activities of Italian propaganda, and notably of Signor Gayda, editor of "Giornale d'Italia" commonly spoken of as Mussolint's mouthpiece, and consequently the vehicle of those communiques which he avers are "mirrors of. truth." Two striking examples of the lengths to which the Italian leaders will-go to mislead their people occurred re~ cently. Last week the German news agency carried 'a story appearing in Signor Gayda's organ to the effect that the following losses were inflicted upon British naval, air and mercantile strengths by Italian' military operations:—800 aeroplanes shot down with certainty; 213 destroyed on the ground, 99 presumably shot down; 20 British war vessels sunk; 87 damaged; 14 torpedoed; 23 submarines sunk and three damaged; 58 mer~ chant ships sunk; 41 damaged, and seven tankers sunk and two torpedoed. Expressed in totals 1,112 aeroplanes are alleged to have been accounted for, 121 war vessels sunk or damaged, 39 submarines similarly treated, 99 mercantile vessels and nine tankers.. The figures are of course preposterous, and are obviously published for home consumption, after admission of reverses in north Africa that the British successes were obtained at a cost out of all proportion to the: dimensions of the victories achieved.
Contrasted with this it is known that the British navy took part in repeated bombardments of the Libyan coast, without let or hindrance on the part of the Italians, and certainly without damage, proceeding in time With the British advance all the way! until the army was able to announce' the capture of Benghazi. The loss of 1,100 aeroplanes would indeed be a severe one to Great Britain but it is known to be.com~ pletely untrue because so many Italian machines failed to leave the ground that the supremacy of the RAF. in the alr over [Ttalian positions was not even seriously challenged Jet alone damaged to the extent Suggested. Further it may be pointed out that Great Britain entered the war with about 50 submarines, not all of which were stationed in European waters, so that, if the Italian claims are added to the equally fan-taste German, the British submarine force must by now have been wiped out many times. British war vessels including submarines totalling 150 are claimed to have been sunk or damaged by Tialian action, which judging from the dispositions of the British Navy throughout the world, suggests that the British naval forces in the Mediterranean have been practically wiped out, thus establishing the well known claim of the Italians to command of that stretch of water, That, as Euclid remarked, is absurd.
Then yesterday Rome issued casualty lists, giving 78 dead, 98 wounded, and 12,230 miss~ ing in North Africa, and on the Albanian fronts 2,386 dead, 4,841 wounded and 5,500 missing. The British, it will be remembered have made up big claims concerning casualties inflicted upon the Italians in Libya since the occupation of Benghazi, and, if these Italian admissions represent the results of mopping up operations around certain outposts in the interior, the damage inflicted upon the Italians is still severe, and adds considerably to the total of 166,000 prisoners already taken. The claims concerning the Albanian front are equally misleading, for it is known that the Greeks have inflicted far more damage upon the Italians than Rome prepared to admit, which has resulted in the application of German pressure upon Greece in order to relieve Mussolini from the embarrassments he has brought upon himself.
There can only be one reason for the pub-Jication of information which 1s so manifestly untrue. It is for home consumption, for the purpose of secking to convince the Ttalian Lake people that things are not quite so bad at first they seemed to appear, and is a belated attempt to restore a moral which rapidly diminishing. That such endeavours will doubtless fail of their purpose is to be expected as the Italians ask themselves why, things are so good, it has been necessary for the Germans to take over control of the country, why Marshal Graziani has been recalled to the command of the Italian forces after having been obliged to resign, and why there are no other generals who could have been chosen in his place. The answer' {is apparent abroad, and will sooner or later, be borne in upon the Italian masses that! they have in fact already lost this war, and that Germany has occupied Ttaly to make sure that Mussolin{ shall not make a separate! peace. The latter would probably be reluetant to consider anything of the sort at the present juncture, for that would mean the end of his ascendancy. but that he might do so is the German fear against which Filer has already made his preparations.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.