Called "Effort to Discredit Correspondents"
Belgrade, Mar. 30.
A rumour launched here yesterday morning that Benito Mussolini had been killed and revolution had broken out in Italy, with either Crown Prince Umberto or Marshal Pietro Badoglio (former: Chief of the High Command) as the new chief, is thought possibly to have been' a clumsy attempt at discrediting British and American journalists here.
The story spread so rapidly that the telephone system in Belgrade was temporarily disorganized. No confirmation has reached any responsible quarter.—Reuter.
Many rumours were flying about Shanghai yesterday, but none of them could be verified, Among them were that a revolt had broken out in Piso against Fascist rule, and another that Mussolini was seriously ill through worry over the condition of his favourite daughter, the Countess Ciano, who was reported to be suffering from pneumonia as result of having been immersed in the Adriatic after a ship she was travelling on was torpedoed. Other stories were even more fantastic)
"Yesterday's incidents and more recent developments, too, would indicate that these tendencies are designed to put strom on German-Yugoslav relations. It is certain that problems of interna] policy have reacted on the question of foreign policy."
Evacuation of Germans Prepared Meanwhile, German officials in Belgrade yesterday were busy registering the names of German nationals who are to be evacuated to Vienna, says a Belgrade message received here. The angina] order, which had been confined to Belgrade, has now been extended to the whole of Serbia. 300 to 400 Germans sailing by a Danube steamer tomorrow will be most of the German journalists now in the Yugoslav capital.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.