MR. NICOLSON AND THE SOLDIERS
Sia,—In your edition of November 3rd there was an article under the title of " Marginal Comment " by Mr. Harold Nicolson in which the author makes the following remarks: " The general public . • . do not realise what terrible penalties the Italian peoples are paying and will have to pay for their complicity in Mussolini's adventure. Their Empire has been torn from them; their towns and villages have been shattered; their prisoners are made to- work in foreigh% lands; their prestige and power have been destroyed. They are enduring at this moment both the penalties of a defeated nation and the ordeals of a belligerent." What of it? If Mr. Nicolson's feelings are those expressed in his last sentence—i.e., it is surely., right to show the Italian people that the
democracies can be both strong and just—then I feel sorry for him. Sorry because he is as far as man can be out of touch with the temper of those in the Forces.
The opinion of practice}, all soldiers is that it serves the Italians right, and the only regret is that they are not getting rougher treatment. Those. who fought against the Italians and the Germans on land have no illusions about the treatment which should be meted out to them after defeat. There is a very real fear that those who do the administer- ing after the fighting is over will undo all the good that has been done, and that articles like this one contribute towards the undoing.
After Salerno, the Italians wanted to be friends. They had made a mistake. The war was not quite to their liking •and they got out of it. They went to war because they thought it a means of getting rich quick, and it is only because we got to grips with them and lost precious lives in all Services by so doing, that they are not enriching themselves out of our possessions at this moment. But when they found the state of war was over their memories were very short ; with a pathetic desire to be friendly, they loved to cu'tivate the Inglesi who had only too recently been the intended victim but was a trifle tougher than at first thought. They made the soldiers sick- Those soldiers who are going to be alive at the end of hostilities must beware of acquiescing in the muddle-headedness which can produce this sort of thinking about the defeated nations, and be prepared to say that a gullible, cowardly, mendacious, and rather squalid nation must be punished, not pampered.—Yours sincerely, HARRY H. BLISSETT.
rr Salisbury Road, Maesteg, Glamorgan.
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