HITLER CALLS FOR A FINISH FIGHT. Hitler gave a radio speech from a suburban Berlin munitions plant Tuesday, and he laid it on the line -- the world isn’t big enough for the Nazis and the democracies. Or, as C. Brooks Peters put it in his New York Times account Wednesday, "when the Fuehrer had finished, the inescapable conclusion was that in his opinion the only possible terminus to the present conflict between democratic capitalism and totalitarian ‘socialism’ could from the very nature of the struggle be found in the vanquishment of one of the contending systems." Significantly, in discussing "democracy" Hitler equated the United States with Britain, and according to the Associated Press translation, he didn’t leave much room for neutrality -- "we will defeat the entire world."
The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, cites a different cabled translation which rendered Hitler’s incendiary phrase in relatively milder terms -- "I can beat any other power in the world." Who’s to say whether this is an honest difference in transcription, or another example of the isolationists’ late habit of putting the words and deeds of fascist dictators in a kindlier light. But Sigrid Schultz’s coverage of the speech in Wednesday’s Tribune grasps the main point well -- "To an American listener the striking feature of Hitler’s speech was that for the first time he mentioned England and America in the same breath....He ridiculed America, which despite her wealth, he said, has 10,000,000 to 13,000,000 unemployed year after year."
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (II). Can it get worse for Mussolini? Definitely, yes. Not so much in Greece, although an Associated Press dispatch from Tuesday reports that "the entire Italian right wing behind the Greek-occupied port of Porto Edda has been put to flight." But the big news this week is in Egypt, where an Italian invasion army that marched seventy miles eastward from Libya earlier this fall has languished after taking the port of Sidi Barrani. The Fascists were said to be making elaborate preparations to continue their drive, with Alexandria the goal. Now they are cut off from troops and supplies in their rear -- by a line of British troops which, according to an A.P. story Wednesday, marched 75 miles northwestward from positions in the interior of Egypt and fought their way through surprised Italian troops to the Mediterranean, between Sidi Barrani and Buqbuq.
The A.P. describes the British army in Egypt as "applying in the desert wastes the very tactics of extraordinary speed and shock used by the Germans in the blitzkrieg of the west." The Italian press doesn’t describe it at all -- according to Herbert L. Matthews in Wednesday’s New York Times, Italian war communiques haven’t yet uttered an official peep on the subject. However, newspapers in Italy are talking about the need to administer "beatings" to ordinary Italians who read Swiss newspapers to find out just what’s going on, says the Times.
ITALY’S SOLUTION – QUIT THE AXIS. In his New York Herald Tribune column Tuesday, Walter Lippmann argues that the Mussolini regime has one chance of saving Italy. It is to withdraw from the tripartite pact --
"The Italians are the chief example in this war of a people who have more to fear from their nominal partners than from their avowed enemies. For the defeat of Italy by Great Britain and her allies would leave Italy intact, would preserve Italy as an independent power in the Mediterranean, as an influence in the Balkans and Central Europe, and with some kind of colonial empire in Africa. But the victory of Germany would certainly put an end to Italian independence and would surely mean the loss to Germany of the territory which Italy won from Austria in the other war....They will be absolutely defenseless against anything Hitler chooses to ask of them, and they know quite well that the Tyrol is Germany territory, Trieste is a German city, and the dominion of the Balkans and Turkey and the Middle East is an essential part of the ancient pan-German ambition."
Thus, Mr. Lippmann writes, Italy must hope for the defeat of her own ally -- "The dilemma of Italy is that the Fascist regime and her internal economy will be ruined if Germany loses the war, whereas Italian independence, the territorial integrity of Italy and her empire, will be destroyed if Germany wins the war. There is no way out of this dilemma unless Italy is able to leave the Axis before there is a decision – that is to say, before Hitler wins or loses the war against Great Britain. But as long as Hitler has an immense unemployed army, Italy cannot leave the Axis. The time to leave it will have arrived only when, with Britain in firm control of the sea and with a growing air power, the Hiterlian empire begins to disintegrate as Napoleon’s did and a continental coalition comes into being against him."
BRITAIN’S OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA. So far, the British attacks on Italian positions in Egypt are officially characterized as a "great raid," not the start of an offensive. But the attacks are large enough to have bagged 4,000 Italian prisoners, and Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover writes that it might lead to a much bigger victory for the British --
"The next days and weeks will reveal the nature and effectiveness of the British drive in western Egypt. If it is at all successful it may bear results way out of proportion to the numbers of troops involved. By forcing an indefinite postponement of the Fascist drive toward Suez it would enable the British to increase their assistance to Greece, and thus make it more difficult for Italy to recoup her losses in that theater of war. Mussolini must now realize, as he could never have done when he so lightheartedly ordered his legions into Greece, the full magnitude of the risk he took by creating a second front for the Italians, particularly since the more distant front was at the mercy of sea power. He undoubtedly calculated that Greek resistance would be speedily overcome and the consequent victory would make it possible for him to turn his full attention toward the British in Egypt. That calculation proved disastrously wrong. His failures in Greece now imperil the Italian position in East Africa. The increased pressure which the British now appear to be putting on the Fascist forces in that area may, in turn, make the Italian task in the Balkans more difficult. Between them the Greeks and the British are now in a position to put through a squeeze play which, if it succeeds, will greatly increase the cup of misery which the Duce is now being forced to drink."
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