Speculation has been rife in many countries about whether Signor Mussolini will carry Italy into a world war on the German side. Most people think that after what has happened in the last fortnight this question has already been decided. The Anglo-Italian Agreement has been violated in the most barefaced manner. There is not one single point upon which faith has been kept.
Italy promised to reduce her army in Libya by 30,000 men. She has taken them away and then sent them back. Italy promised to withdraw her troops from Spain, at any rate when the civil war was over. The war is over and the troops are still there. She promised not to change the status quo in the Mediterranean, which included, and was understood to include, the Adriatic. She has now laid violent hands upon Albanian Independence. She promised that all major troop movements would be notified beforehand to the other high contracting party. All this has been contemptuously torn in pieces. As an additional piece of deceit, precise assurances were given by Count Ciano to the British Ambassador that no movement upon Albania was in contemplation. At that very moment the ships and troops were about to move upon their victim.
It is not possible to have a more complete instance of bad faith than has been shown. One may well ask whether a Government who have thus flouted and spurned a solemn agreement, newly contracted with a friendly Power, have not already made up their mind to carry their hostility to that Power to all lengths as occasion may require. Nevertheless, though faith may be broken interest remains. It was a maxim of the eighteenth century, mentioned by the great Duke of Marlborough-'Interest never lies.' And certainly Italian interests would be grievously injured in a war against Great Britain and France in the Mediterranean. There never was a country more completely sprawled than Italy at the present moment. Four separate Italian armies have left her shores and would be hopelessly cut off if the Italian Navy were beaten by the Anglo-French fleets. These fleets are incomparably more powerful than the Italian navy. Even if the Italian warships were all manned by Mussolinis, it is difficult to believe that they could keep the sea against the very heavy odds to which they would be exposed. Nothing that happened in the war and nothing we have learned since leads us to believe that man for man the Italian sailors are twice or three times as good as the British and French. Modesty compels resort to understatements of this character.
If a world war should be forced upon us all this year it might well be that the earliest decisions would be reached in the Mediterranean, and these decisions would bring consequential disasters upon the Italian armies in Abyssinia, Libya, Spain and Albania. There is a school of British strategists who hold that in a world struggle with Nazidom it would be a positive advantage to have Italy as an enemy. In this long vulnerable peninsula, with its lack of raw materials, they observe a theatre in which important victories could be gained. German troops-above all, German aviation-would become involved in the defence of Italy and so far as possible of Italy's overseas ventures.
This prospect cannot be at all pleasing to the Italian people. If the Nazi domination were successful in beating down the resistance of France and the British Empire, possibly assisted by the United States, there would, of course, be much loot to share. But Germany would be the tiger and Italy the minor attendant who had gone hunting with her. The Germans have a way, when they get into countries, of throwing their weight about. Even if the brightest hopes of the Berlin-Rome Axis were realised, Italy would be in fact, if not in name, a dependency of the Nazi power. But the fortunes of war might not take this course. The great nations of the West, whose existence would be at stake and whose allies in the East might gather under the pressure of events, might after all be successful. In that event Italy would not only have suffered and borne the brunt at the beginning, but at the end she would be upon the defeated side. Either way the Italian prospect does not seem inviting to any dispassionate eye.
There is every reason to believe that this is the view of the Italian people. The mass of them are not allowed to take any part in the shaping of their destinies. They are told only what it is thought good for them to hear. All free expression of opinion is sedulously prevented. But we are told that even in the Fascist Grand Council stern words have been used against the policy of dragging Italy into a Mediterranean war with Great Britain and France. One important leader is said to have declared that Italy must not be drawn into a war 'against the wish of the Church, of the King and of the people.' So far as we can tell, from the innumerable contacts which exist between British and Italian individuals, these sentiments are almost universal throughout Italy. It would be with genuine grief that the industrious and agreeable Italian population would find themselves condemned to a mortal struggle with the two democracies of the West. No doubt they are assured that the French and British are effete and decadent; that they are rotted with Bolshevism; that they are incapable of manly action. But this propaganda has not carried conviction with it, and to this moment it remains doubtful whether Signor Mussolini, if he had the will, would have the power to force the Italian people to this terrible plunge.
The breaking of agreements with Great Britain, which many people felt were not worth the paper on which they were written, is not necessarily a final test. The outrage upon Albania presents itself, like so many other episodes at these times, in an ambiguous guise. It may be that it is the first move in a German-Italian drive upon the Balkans, which must lead inevitably to general war. Certainly the movement of troops and munitions to Albania, far beyond what local needs require, would seem to support this sombre view. On the other hand, one can imagine Mussolini explaining that his Albanian excursion is a mere local incident. He made, he might say, demands upon France which he considered just, but which were bluntly refused. No Tunis, no Corsica, no Nice, without war with the Western Powers! 'Where else,' he might exclaim, 'could I go but to this Albania, which gives me something to show my people, after all their hardships, without bringing them into direct conflict with England and France?' It would indeed be rash to pronounce. All that is contended for in these pages is that no answer to it is yet forthcoming from the head of the Italian Government. But all must very soon become clear. The British and French Governments are believed to be about to give a guarantee to Greece and Turkey. Any attack upon the integrity or independence of Greece, which is nearest to danger, would precipitate the Mediterranean war and would no doubt be the signal for a far graver conflict in the north.
Although it is dangerous to prophesy in a positive sense, we may at least feel at the time of writing that the Berlin-Rome Axis stands upon a no more sacred foundation than does the Anglo-Italian Pact.
On April 16, President Roosevelt addressed a solemn inquiry to the two Dictators and Powers, about their intention towards the States on their borders. The answers received were not encouraging.
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