(5 of 5)
Checkmate! In Rome the terrific pressure being brought by Britain with her war boats and through the League gave the Dictator pause. He canceled the sailing of 10,000 Italian troops to Libya, Italy's colony on the Mediterranean, because their dispatch might be considered a remote threat to British control of adjoining Egypt. After loudspeakers had been set up in every Italian square so that the Dictator could address 10,000,000 Italians who were to be called out last week in a great "practice mobilization" (TIME, Sept. 30), this show was postponed. Uncensored from Rome came a news cable that Marshal Emilio de Bono, commander of Italy's expeditionary forces, had been about to advance into Ethiopia during the first week of September and again last week, but was halted each time by orders which Il Duce personally telephoned from Rome.
On the other hand, Italian troops continued to pour through the Suez Canal under British guns toward Africa last week. The Dictator announced that he had spent nearly two billion lire ($160,000,000) thus far on the expeditionary forces, called for a billion and a half more. The Italian Government closed the week by announcing: "Italy will not quit the League of Nations until the day when the League itself fully assumes responsibility for measures which strike at Italy. . . . The Italian Government has communicated to the British Government its willingness to negotiate for further accords which would harmonize with legitimate British interests in East Africa. . . . The Italian people, tempered by 13 years of this regime, is wholly solidified around the ensigns of Fascism. This they will soon demonstrate to the world by a civil mobilization without precedent in history."
Such grandiloquence was Dictator Mussolini's way in a tight corner of saying nothing. At Geneva, while much was made of the fact that the Assembly and the Council adjourned subject to recall on 24 hours notice. League bigwigs who should have been vitally interested in drafting the Committee of Thirteen's report under Article XV set out for their home capitals. With Premier Pierre Laval back in Paris, Captain Eden home in London, Baron Aloisi speeding to Rome, the game of international negotiation began again through the regular diplomatic channels. Though the deadlock remained total, Might had checkmated last week lesser Might.
*For example, the seemingly innocent words, "on Sept. 4 last Article XV became applicable," uttered last week by the Council's Argentine president, Dr. Enrique Ruiz Guinazu, had the effect of depriving Ethiopia of her previous right to demand that the dispute be transferred from the Council to the Assembly of the League in which minor nations especially friendly to Ethiopia predominate. Such a demand, to be valid, must be made within a fortnight after the Covenant becomes applicable, and by setting this date retroactively back to Sept. 4 last week the Great Powers, which alone have permanent seats on the League Council, kept everything in their own hands.
*Ancestor of Mr. Churchill. In London's smash-hit farce 1066 and Ah That, the actor playing the Duke of Marlborough constantly refers to ''my illustrious descendant, Winston Churchill."