Replies

2 posted on 12/31/2009 4:40:15 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))

The day after Christmas the Duce was expressing a “desire for a German Defeat” and instructing Ciano to secretly inform Belgium and Holland that they were about to be attacked.* But by New Year’s Eve he was talking again of jumping into the war on Hitler’s side.

* Ciano conveyed the warning to the Belgian ambassador in Rome on January 2, noting the action in his diary. According to Weizsaecker the Germans intercepted two coded telegrams from the ambassador to Brussels containing the Italian warning and deciphered them.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

3 posted on 12/31/2009 4:43:13 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson ("Every nation has the government that it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821))