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Italy. First defense of the Italian raid came from the Marchese di Manchi di Bilici, Italian Minister to Stockholm, who cried from behind his police barricade: "Members of the Swedish ambulance unit in Ethiopia cannot expect to be as safe as if they were walking the streets of Stockholm."
In Rome the exuberant Giornale d'ltalia crowed:
"We would like to know whether it is really expected that Italy should order her soldiers to put corks on the points of their bayonets and her aviators to fill their bombs with cologne water. . . . Stockholm should say whether it desires our aviators before proceeding with a bombardment to release a couple of comrades in a parachute to ascertain whether there is a Swedish physician in the neighborhood."
Fascist officials were far less cocky. Scenting the raid's disastrous effect on foreign opinion, Under-Secretary of State Fulvio Suvich sent a guarded apology to Stockholm. The Press was ordered to make no further reference to the affair but to whoop it up for Sub-Lieut. Tito Minniti, the captured aviator whose decapitation supposedly started the trouble. At Reggio Calabria, the grimy southern town where Minniti was born, flags were half-masted and houses draped in black. Proudly his old Calabrian father cried:
"I have given a son to the fatherland in the World War and I do not regret giving the fatherland another. For the greatness of Italy I am ready to offer the lives of my other four!"
This sentiment was cheered throughout Italy, but as far as European public opinion was concerned, the beans were spilled.
Finland, which normally wastes little sympathy on her neighbor Sweden, did not recall last week the Red Cross unit now on its way to Ethiopia.
The Netherlands had already sent a unit to Ethiopia. Wrote the Nieuwe Rotterdamschie Courant:
"This bombing may prove to have the same political effect as the torpedoing of the Lusitania, particularly in regard to the United States, whose attitude on an oil embargo may be decisive for the Italians."
France also thought of the Lusitania. The Commission on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies sent a message of sympathy to the Swedish Ambassador that mentioned specifically "the unforgettable precedent of the Lusitania."
Britain authorized Sir Sidney Barton, His Majesty's Minister at Addis Ababa, to act on behalf of the Swedish Government (which has no representative in Ethiopia) and demand an official report from the Emperor.
Geneva saw prospects that all 62 nations that comprise the International Red Cross would unite in an official protest. "If this keeps up," cried one League official, "the Red Cross will no longer be an emblem of mercy but an emblem of Death!"
Five days later the Italians were at it again, bombing the U. S. Red Cross Hospital at Daggah Bur where Dr. Robert Hockman was killed a month ago when he toyed with a dud bomb. Italian marksmanship was, as usual, poor; there were no casualties.