14 JUNE 1940, Page 5

This seems a suitable moment to recall—though I think I

must have mentioned it here some time or other—a statement which General von Blomberg, the former German War Minister, made to a friend of mine a few years ago. " One thing," he said, " is certain. Whoever has Italy for an ally in the next war is going to lose it." It may have been a slander, but its authorship gives it pertinence. JANUS.