Word: walls
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Fact was, B. Mussolini's reasons for staying neutral were not all happy ones. Whereas A. Hitler behind his West Wall was comparatively safe for the time being from the wrath of Great Britain & France, B. Mussolini was in just about the world's hottest spot. One martial move by him, he well knew, and Italy would suffer the full fury of the French Army and two navies. She would probably lose Ethiopia, have to fight hard to hold Libya and not starve. And the Turks would make life unbearable by driving behind the Greeks at Albania...
...strong as these sorry reasons were, two splendid ways of looking at his neutrality remained to Il Duce. In the military situation created by the West Wall-Maginot Line stalemate, a neutral Italy, blocking access to Germany via the Tyrolean passes, had tremendous nuisance value. It would force Britain & France to go clear around through the Dardanelles, Black Sea and Rumania to assist Poland and establish the Salonika front (see p. 22). It was nuisance so great that it might bring B. Mussolini a fancy price if he chose to sell...
Week after week through the strain of last summer, observers have totted up the figures on Europe's arms. Week after week they have speculated on strength and strategy: how strong is France's Maginot Line, Germany's West Wall? How long can Poland hold out? How menacing to Britain are Germany's submarines? How strong are Britain's air defenses? Last week each move of each division, each flight of each bomber, the torpedoes that found their marks, the four-inch, six-inch, ten-inch, 14-inch, 16-inch shells that screamed overhead, added...
Smashing this barbed-wire entanglement of reactions came headlines like an artillery barrage-planes over Warsaw, French soldiers assaulting the West Wall, the Athenia torpedoed...
...gates of the Foreign Office just off Marshal Pilsudski Square, a tall man dressed in black stooped to read one of the posters pasted low on the wall. Passersby began to notice him. By the time he straightened up a crowd was around him. "Beck! Beck!" they cried, cheering and clapping. Colonel Josef Beck, Foreign Minister of Poland, smiled, touched his hat, and disappeared into the Foreign Office...