May 18, 1940
I am responding to the message which you sent me at noon on the 14th day. I understand perfectly the motives by which it was inspired and I consider it worthy of much respect and of the greatest consideration, but there are two fundamental motives which cannot escape your spirit of political realism and those are that Italy is and intends to remain allied with Germany and that Italy cannot remain absent at a moment in which the future of Europe is at stake.
Therefore I can only reconfirm the substance of my first message.
MUSSOLINI
