But it will be tough and it will be costly, as I have told you many, many times. That distance will be covered in due time - have no fear of that. Therefore, the victory still lies some distance ahead. Germany has not yet been driven to the point where she will be unable to recommence world conquest a generation hence.
Germany has not yet been driven to surrender. They have suffered heavy losses, but not great enough yet to cause collapse. The Germans have retreated thousands of miles, all the way from the gates of Cairo, through Libya and Tunisia and Sicily and Southern Italy. We shall have to push through a long period of greater effort and fiercer fighting before we get into Germany itself. It would be unwise to inflate in our own minds the military importance of the capture of Rome. And in the meantime our gallant Russian Allies continue to make their power felt more and more.įrom 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. 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. Somehow, in the back of my head, I still remember a name - Mussolini. In the north of Italy, the people are still dominated and threatened by the Nazi overlords and their Fascist puppets. They will mark its liberation with deep emotion. They were (and) degraded by the rule of Mussolini from Rome. Later, unfortunately, a quarter of a century ago, Rome became the seat of Fascism - one of the three capitals of the Axis.įor this (a) quarter century the Italian people were enslaved. Rome was and is in a sense the Catholic Church, and Rome was the capital of a United Italy. The Allied Generals maneuvered so skillfully that the Nazis could only have stayed long enough to damage Rome at the risk of losing their armies.īut Rome is of course more than a military objective.Įver since before the days of the Caesars, Rome has stood as a symbol of authority. No thanks are due to them if Rome was spared the devastation which the Germans wreaked on Naples and other Italian cities. The prospect of the liberation of Rome meant enough to Hitler and his generals to induce them to fight desperately at great cost of men and materials and with great sacrifice to their crumbling Eastern line and to their Western front. The Italians, too, forswearing a partnership in the Axis which they never desired, have sent their troops to join us in our battles against the German trespassers on their soil. The fighting New Zealanders from the far South Pacific, the courageous French and the French Moroccans, the South Africans, the Poles and the East Indians - all of them fought with us on the bloody approaches to the city of Rome. The American and British armies - who bore the chief burdens of battle - found at their sides our own North American neighbors, the gallant Canadians. It is also significant that Rome has been liberated by the armed forces of many nations. And tonight (now) it will be a source of deep satisfaction that the freedom of the Pope and the (of) Vatican City is assured by the armies of the United Nations.
There are other shrines and other churches in many places, but the churches and shrines of Rome are visible symbols of the faith and determination of the early saints and martyrs that Christianity should live and become universal.
In addition to the monuments of the older times, we also see in Rome the great symbol of Christianity, which has reached into almost every part of the world. That, too, is significant, for the United Nations are determined that in the future no one city and no one race will be able to control the whole of the world.
We can still see there monuments of the time when Rome and the Romans controlled the whole of the then known world. The story of Rome goes back to the time of the foundations of our civilization. It is perhaps significant that the first of these capitals to fall should have the longest history of all of them. The first of the Axis capitals is now in our hands. Yesterday, on June fourth, 1944, Rome fell to American and Allied troops.
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