The Difference

What happened to the Army of the Po? Fortnight ago this superbly mechanized force of eleven divisions began its maneuvers by dashing from the Venetian plains across northern Italy to resist an attack of imaginary Red invaders theoretically pouring through passes in the Alps (TIME, Aug. 14). But after repairing bridges theoretically destroyed by Red bombs, plunging 230 real miles in 60 hours, the Army of the Po unexpectedly halted, went home two days ahead of schedule. Explanations:

Italy. The mock battle ended in a great victory. The 50,000 troops reviewed at Turin were rhapsodized as "the steel vanguard of a nation in arms which intends to pluck victory in the light of the sun."

France. Experts guessed that Italian generals had discovered that the German theories of Blitzkrieg (lightning war) were untenable, that a high-speed onslaught such as the Army of the Po was practicing would result in another Guadalajara traffic jam.

Badoglio. Paris gossip also had it that Chief of General Staff Marshal Pietro Badoglio, Italy's most gifted strategist (who was surprisingly absent from the maneuvers), had won another victory. The tough-minded Marshal, who salvaged the Ethiopian campaign after it had bogged down, and who talks back to Il Duce, was reported to think no more of Blitzkrieg than of many another red-hot Fascist notion.

London. Other reports were that the Italian masses were growing restless under continued war strain, that the Army of the Po, like many a careless motorist, had just run out of gas. London heard that Il Duce, after piloting his own plane over the troops, had suffered a heart attack. The hard-driving dictator, now 56, did not show up for the concluding review, same night ostentatiously appeared at an open-air opera. But the rumors persisted. For answering a query about them, Herbert-Roslyn ("Bud") Ekins, United Press man in Rome, got the most drastic punishment ever dealt a foreign correspondent, was expelled from the country on 24 hours' notice. The corrected story ran that Benito Mussolini, long suffering from stomach ulcers and farsightedness, had finally swallowed his vanity and been fitted for spectacles.

Whatever had really happened to the Army of the Po, its fate reminded all Europe that the difference between maneuvers and real war is that maneuvers can be called off if the troops get stalled, the tanks run out of gas, the weather gets bad, the people get restless, the boss gets sick, the theories prove wrong, and the generals begin to quarrel.

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