SECRET ARMIES
40
to meet Commendatore Boccalaro, Mussolini s personal
representative in charge of smuggling arms into foreign countries.
The preparations by the Rome-Berlin axis point to plans for a
went
fight to
a
finish
between
fascist
and
non-fascist countries.
A
feeble or disrupted democracy will obviously strengthen the
fascist powers in any coming struggle with anti-fascist powers.
Italy, faced on their own borders with a demo
France allied with the Soviet Union in a military defense
pact, would face a powerful enemy in the event of war. But if
France were torn by a bloody civil war, she would be virtually
unable even to defend her borders. Consequently, it is essential
for Germany and Italy to weaken and if possible destroy France s
Germany and
cratic
democracy.
France and Germany have been traditional enemies in their
struggle for land containing raw materials needed by their in
compete in the world markets. But the growth of the
French labor movement and the power of the Popular Front
which threatened the control and the profits of French industrial
ists and financiers, made them find more in common with fascist
and Nazi industrialists than with French workers who menaced
their economic and political control. The result was that leading
French industrialists were willing to cooperate with Nazi and
fascist agents to destroy the Popular Front and establish fascism
in France. About half of the 200,000,000 francs, which it is es
timated the fortresses and arms cost, was contributed by French
industrialists. The other half came from the German and Italian
dustries to
Governments.
Germany and Italy sent swarms of secret agents into France to
supervise the building of the underground military machine
and to carry on intensive espion age with the assistance of the
French
Army and Government
Hooded Ones. The
de
Potters,
officials
who were members
of the
was organized by Baron
an old international spy who travels with two or more
espionage service