Rome was the Empire.
Rome was and is in a sense the Catholic Church, and Rome was the
capital of a United Italy. Later, unfortunately, a quarter of a
century ago, Rome became the seat of Fascism--one of the three
capitals of the Axis.
For this quarter century the Italian people were enslaved. They
were degraded by the rule of Mussolini from Rome. They will mark
its liberation with deep emotion. In the north of Italy, the people
are still dominated and threatened by the Nazi overlords and their
Fascist puppets.
Our victory comes at an excellent time, while our Allied forces are
poised for another strike at western Europe--and while the armies
of other Nazi soldiers nervously await our assault. And in the
meantime our gallant Russian Allies continue to make their power
felt more and more.
From a strictly military standpoint, we had long ago accomplished
certain of the main objectives of our Italian campaign--the control
of the islands--the major islands--the control of the sea lanes of
the Mediterranean to shorten our combat and supply lines, and the
capture of the airports, such as the great airports of Foggia,
south of Rome, from which we have struck telling blows on the
continent--the whole of the continent all the way up to the Russian
front.
It would be unwise to inflate in our own minds the military
importance of the capture of Rome.
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