852.2221/1222: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Phillips) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 13—12:50 p.m.]
297. After the announcement of the withdrawal of approximately 10,000 volunteers from Spain, see my 291, October 8, 6 p.m.,98 it now appears that the Anglo-Italian negotiations to bring the April agreement into effect have been suspended pending discussion in the British Parliament. The Embassy has learned that the Italian Government was informed that Chamberlain was desirous of bringing the pact into operation as early as possible but was bound by his pledge to Parliament to give it a prior opportunity for a full discussion of the situation. The British Embassy is of the opinion that the withdrawal already announced is “substantial” and will permit the pact to go into operation although Great Britain would have preferred to have seen more troops and material removed. According to the British Ambassador, Ciano has confidentially informed the British Ambassador that after the announced withdrawal 9 Italian infantry battalions of approximately 700 men each will remain in Spain. This, of course, does not include the services or supply troops required to keep this body of men in the line. It is difficult to obtain an accurate estimate of the latter as without doubt some of the services are being performed by Spanish troops.
From Italian official sources it has been confidentially learned that, in addition to the 10,000 troops who will be withdrawn according to the Salamanca announcement of October 9th, 2,500 have already been repatriated on account of illness or wounds and it is expected that an additional 600 men including wounded and dissatisfied men will also be brought back, giving the total estimate of withdrawals over 18,000. This approximates a withdrawal of about half of the Italian forces in Spain which was mentioned by Ciano in his conversation with me on October 5, see my 283, October 5, 1 p.m.
Although an official communiqué published this morning announces that Italian casualties in Spain from the beginning of operations to October 10 total 12,000 killed and wounded it is not believed that this [Page 248] number represents the entire casualty list. In fact it has been confidentially asserted that Mussolini admitted to Chamberlain at Munich that his total losses amounted to 50,000 and that he had evidenced a desire to get out of Spain completely. For the present, however, it is believed that Italian aviation, artillery, land and other specialists will remain.
Although it is claimed that the aspirations of the Duce to eliminate Bolshevism from Spain are on their way to fulfillment it must be remembered that Italian intervention has not succeeded in bringing about a victory for Franco and from that point of view has been a failure. It would therefore appear that a desire to cover up this failure has been the controlling factor in the Italian drive to put the Anglo-Italian Pact into immediate effect in order that the simultaneous withdrawal could seem part of the same operation. The fact that this has not been possible in view of the aforesaid British attitude is doubtless responsible for the stiff tone recently adopted by the Italian press in criticism of elements in England and France and the demands of certain editorial writers that the Italian-German terms of peace be accepted. Up to the present there has been no specification of the nature of these terms.
- Not printed.↩