NEWS OF THE WEEK
THOUGH the part that Italy has taken in Axis successes can scarcely be apparent even to the members of the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations whom he addressed on Tuesday, Musso- lini did his best to claim credit for his country for successes won by Germany. " Our " aim, he said, is to expel the British from the Eastern Mediterranean," ignoring the fact that nothing but German aid prevented his own expulsion. He accounts for the preliminary successes of Greece in " resisting " Italian arms by dwelling on the help she had from Britain, and opines that her fall in April even without German action was a " mathematical certainty." But at least some of the fruits of victory accrue to Italy however little she has done to win them. He announced that the whole of Greece, including Athens, would be occupied by Italian troops, and that by agreement with Germany Greece re-enters the Italian sphere of influence in the Mediterranean—not adding that this is presum- ably conditioned by the fact that Italy herself has come within the German sphere of influence. He did not omit to pay compliments to Spain and Turkey. Probably in his recent talk with Hitler it was understood that it would be part of his duty to make appeals to Spain that might come more suitably from him than from Germany. In saying that the Falange revolu- tion cannot side with the forces of plutocrats, Jews and free- masons, he can at least speak, as Hitler cannot, as one who has not sought agreements with Communist Russia.
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