Third Front

The hour had come when the truth was more useful than propaganda. With his back to the Alps, Benito Mussolini last week ladled out the truth. He did it sparingly, and he mixed it with apologies and name-calling.* But one of the greatest strutters on the world's stage at last came down to earth.

"This is not a speech," Mussolini told the National Council of Corporations in a voice that wheezed but did not falter. "I am going to review the first 30 months of war with statistics. . . . We are the only country which gives exact figures of losses in communiques."

If this were a matter of pride to Mussolini, then the statistics he gave of war losses for a nation of 44,000,000 were not: Army deaths, 40,588; Navy deaths, 33,500; Air Force deaths, 20,124; Italians taken prisoner, 232,778; Army wounded, 80,772; missing in action, 37,000.

Other bits of truth:

> "Let us admit that we stabbed France in the back. ..."

> "People say Italians are not now so enthusiastic for war."

> "We do not like to forecast the future; today the question is: 'To be or not to be' in this most formidable struggle in human history."

Less candid was Mussolini when he quoted, and then answered, Winston Churchill's threat (TIME, Dec. 7) of "prolonged, scientific and systematic" bombing of southern Italy. Said Mussolini: "We have . . . shelters that can resist the biggest bombs." Other omissions:

>Blockbuster bombs on northern industrial cities have been followed by looting and civilian terror, a run on banks, wild Brambles for safety in the countryside. R.A.F. reconnaissance planes photographed the bomb damage. One-third of the war plants in Italy's concentrated industrial area have been damaged.

>"Germany," said Mussolini, "will give powerful assistance in the form of antiaircraft artillery to insure Italian defenses." He did not mention an estimated 250,000 German troops now in Italy to resist invasion--or to shoot Italians who do not fight. The arrival of Reich Marshal Hermann Goring and of Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler last week was expected to mean complete German control of military and civilian defenses. Germans realize that successful completion of the Allied invasion of North Africa (see p. 34), if followed by an invasion of Italy, would allow bombers to blast German war plants now out of reach of Britain-based planes. The arc of the Alps could be bypassed by land troops without danger of an Italian flank attack along the historic Balkan route to Germany's back door. Along part of that route Yugoslav partisans last week had a new fighting front.

>Spindrift was Mussolini's claim that "there has never been any act of sabotage or protest against the war." He conveniently forgot his purge of 160,000 faltering Fascist Party members and the close watch the Gestapo and the Ovra are keeping on suspected revolutionaries and possible Darlanites. He made no mention of reports that near Foggia 40,000 peasants had joined with local militia in a spontaneous uprising which was put down after four days by troops from Rome; or that at Genoa on Oct. 23 air-raid wardens staged an anti-war demonstration.

In London last week Italian Socialists issued a manifesto headed Il Terzo Fronte (The Third Front) for underground distribution. It called for the "end of Fascism, the end of war." But it sounded a warning:

"Our liberation can only be achieved by us. Miracles do not happen. . . . The end of Fascism will not be illusory and we will avoid the dangers of passing from one dictatorship to another . . . only in that measure in which we ourselves fight and sacrifice for common liberty. Liberty imposed by foreign arms is not liberty."

The manifesto showed a realistic awareness of the power of German machine guns and the numerical strength of the Italian Army, which has so far remained loyal despite its beatings. Estimates give Mussolini control of 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 men in 20 to 25 divisions in Italy and the Riviera; over 30 in the Balkans; ten in Russia; six in Libya. In addition there are 750,000 local inhabitants and oldsters in coastal defense units resembling Britain's Home Guard.

Mussolini has been guilty in Latin minds of violating the code of sacro egoismo (self-interest). He chose the wrong side in the war. But, having suffered his leadership for 20 years, Italians listened to him again last week. The soldier in Mussolini said: "We must hate. You cannot fight without hating." The Italian in Mussolini said: "the Italian people never have been happy. Nobody has ever really understood Italy. Italy never really had enough bread. Every time we asked for something we found obstacles put in our path."

*To Churchill's latest description of him as a "hyena" (TIME, Dec. 7) Mussolini replied: "I, Mussolini, when I read these insults rate myself a thousand times more a gentleman than this man Churchill--intoxicated with alcohol and tobacco." Later, forgetting his gentlemanliness, Mussolini attacked "that hyena Roosevelt," declared Britain's history for 300 years has been "one long list of acts worthy of hyenas."

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