Word: il
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Viva Il Re! If Italy loses her fight to remain neutral, what side will she join in war? The Fascist regime's prestige was staked on the German alliance, and every doubt about that alliance indicates that the regime is slipping. Those with ears to the ground in Italy (and Signor Mussolini is one of them) know that the Italian people have always disliked the German alliance. There are more than 1,000,000 Italian World War veterans who fought against Germany. Throughout Italy there are monuments to the Italian dead of World War I. After more than...
Last week Benito Mussolini had a long talk with 77-year-old Marshal Enrico Caviglia, one of the few Italian heroes of World War I. Marshal Caviglia had recently inspected the fortifications on the Italo-French frontier and it was presumed that he and Il Duce did not discuss the weather. After this meeting all good Italians still waited anxiously for Mussolini to say something very definite about which way Italy would jump, as they had waited for three weeks since war began...
World War II may make Il Duce's everlasting reputation as a statesman. Few statesmen have ever been caught in such a hole. If he stuck his head out in one direction, it would be chopped off by Britain and France-on paper at least, their Mediterranean fleets could blow his to bits and their armies might overrun northern Italy. If he stuck it out in the other direction, he would have his other transalpine neighbor, Adolf Hitler, to deal with. And so, while the Italian press explained that Italy would remain neutral indefinitely, Mussolini...
Plea for peace, and a slight rap at the Allies, though it was, it did not sound as if Il Duce expected peace. He praised the wisdom of Britain and France in not declaring war on Russia (but wondered, in that case, why they were still fighting Germany). Then he announced Italy's stand: "My policy was fixed in the declaration of September 1, and there is no reason to change it." In other words, Italy would stay neutral unless attacked...
Goings-on in Italy backed up the belief that Il Duce would continue to play ball with both sides. While he was speaking in Bologna, it was announced in Rome that Italian garrisons were being withdrawn from the Dodecanese Islands off Greece, a gesture in the Allies' favor. A few days earlier Italy and Greece had both moved back from the Greco-Albanian frontier. Italy sent an Ambassador, Giuseppe Bastianini, to the Court of St. James's, where she has had none since June. Italy made no protest last week when the British stopped an Italian ship...