Evening star., 1941-02-02
Italian Woes

w W.
Military operations in Africa and
Albania continue to comprise a
cumulative tale of woe for italian
arms. The British have captured
Derna, the Libyan port on the Medi-
terranean hump" and have prompt
ly set themselves, as their next OBJ
jective, Apollonia, forty miles to the
west. Meantime, General Wavell's
advance patrols and accommodating
air forces are stretching out feelers
far to the west, in the direction. of
Bengasi, city of fifty thousand,
important both as a naval base and
the capital of Eastern Libya.
British headquarters at Cairo ex-
pect that the Italians, who have
been rolled back across $50 miles of
desert terrain during the course of
something more than fifty days, will
make a determined stand to save
BengaSi. The FaScists gave some
evidence of revived fighting spirit at
Derna, which fell after four days of
the Stiffest resistance the North AT
rican campaign has thus far wit
messed. Marshal Graziani must hold
the British at Bengasi, or face the
alternative of a disastrous retreat
along the Gulf of Sirte reaching all
the way to Tripolitania He under
takes his task with an army which is
a mere skeleton of its original pro-
portions.
Whatever betides for the British in
the Libyan operations that still lie
ahead, their North African campaign
has definitely achieved its basic pur-
pose of smashing, almost beyond re-
demption. 1.-THE Italian menace to
Egypt and the Suez Canal, which was
Mussolinrs glittering objective. The
Imperial Army of the Nile, too. has
made a brilliant start in the direc-
ton of tearing the Italian empire
into shreds and tatterS," as predicted
by Mr.. Churchill a month ago. New
and substantial progress along that
line has just been achieved in East
Africa, where British forces are
steadily advancing into Eritrea,
Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland.
Coincident with these tidings of
Italian reverSes in both African thea
terS Of war comes news of fresh
Greek successes in Albania. Yugo-
slavian reports are to the effect that
Fascist troops have withdrawn from
Tepeleni, on the central battlefront,
key point in the Greek drive toward
Valona. southernmost Albanian port
on the Adriatic. With Klisura already
in their possession, adjacent to
Tepeleni on the northeast, the Hell
lenes should shortly be in position
for an irresistible advance against
Valona. The Italians have launched
counterattacks, but these appear to
have been repulsed, with consider
able numbers of prisoners remaining
in Greek hands.
Despite Hitler's attempts, in his
Berlin address on Thursday, to mini
mize the Importance of Italian de-
feats and to ridicule the possibility
of the axis partners falling away" "
there is incessant evidence that do
mestic morale and war spirit in Italy
are far from being all that Mussolini
must desire. The droves in which
Graziani's soldiers surrendered in
North Africa, the comparatively in
significant losses they have inflicted
upon the British, the successive fall
ures the Italian Army has suffered
in contact with the Greeks-all these
things add up to the inescapable
conclusion that without far more
substantial aid by land or air than
II Duce to date has received from the
Germans, he must continue to reckon
with the possibility that Italy may
be knocked out of the war before the
axis contrives to impose that long
heralded fate upon the intrepid
archfoe in the British Isles.