If Reich Stays Out, French Will Keep Tunis, Gaetano Salvemini Declares

Internationally famed as an arch foe of Fascism, Gaetano Salvemini, who is to lecture on Medieval Italian History here next term, declared in an interview yesterday that Germany holds the key position in the Italo-French dispute over Tunis.

Nazi intervention in Africa is not very likely at present, Salvemini believes, but will become a reality on the day Hitler has rid himself of the "Russian menace." As soon as Germany can afford to remove its forces from the eastern frontier, "France-Italian relations will reach a critical point."

With reference to the outcome of the friction in North Africa, Salvemini declared. "For the time being I don't think the situation will grow dangerous. I suspect that all these outcries which are being made about Tunis, the Suez Canal, and Djibouti is meant not as much to disturb the French as to please Mr. Chamberlain!"

Salvemini sees a definite cooperation in the policies of Mussolini and the British Prime Minister. "Chamberlain needs to appear to the British electorate under the garb of the angel of peace . . . Mussolini, by raising a row with the French allows Chamberlain to intervene as a peacemaker."

Nothing is simpler to understand than II Duce's colonial policy, Salvemini claims, "since the Italian dictator has to do something to keep his subjects in a constant state of expectation. . . Ethiopia is just the opposite of an asset to Italy."

A visiting lecturer at the University since 1934, Salvemini taught in Italy before Mussolini's rise to power forced the outspoken critic of Fascism to flee his native land