Mussolini's 'march' on Rome 80 years on

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Marcus
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Mussolini's 'march' on Rome 80 years on

#1

Post by Marcus » 29 Oct 2002, 22:10

More than 57 years after his execution by members of the Italian resistance, the dictator Benito Mussolini and his legacy remain a difficult issue for Italians.
Most Italians just try to forget about it but they have just had to face up to this tricky subject again, as 28 October was the 80th anniversary of the event which brought him to power.
On 28 October 1922, Mussolini led his "March on Rome", which brought the Fascist leader to power and enabled him to stay there for 23 years.
For many years after the fall of fascism, Italians turned their backs on their recent history. The fascist party was banned, the history curriculum in Italian schools even stopped at World War I.
...
The ironic fact about Mussolini's march on Rome in 1922 was that he and most of his black-shirted followers travelled to Rome from Milan by train, first class.
There was no march.
But to satisfy his inordinate vanity, Mussolini, a master of propaganda, later created the myth of the march on Rome.
He inflated the figures from the reality of a few hundred black-shirts to a mythical army of 300,000 fascists led by him in person on horseback.
...
Apart from a few thousand fascist diehards who visited Mussolini's tomb in his native town of Predappio near Bologna this weekend to commemorate the largely fictitious march, few contemporary Italians are even aware of the anniversary.
But the prospect of guided tours to a newly discovered relic of fascist times, one of Mussolini's wartime anti-air raid bunkers, has aroused interest here.
The air raid shelter is under the headquarters of Mussolini's great exhibition in Rome.
This is about 30 feet under ground and it was built between 1937 and 1939 and they were obviously expecting quite severe air raids.
The bunker has got airtight doors like those in a submarine.
The bunker has been abandoned for more than 60 years, but now the private owners of the exhibition site are thinking of bringing guided tours down here.
...
The exhibition on the site was planned by Mussolini for 1942, bit it never took place because of the outbreak of World War II.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2371229.stm

/Marcus

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SM79Sparviero
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March on Rome

#2

Post by SM79Sparviero » 30 Oct 2002, 01:00

You are right, someone travelled in first class.But Most of the people who partecipated travelled by truck or by bicycle. It was the revolution of those self-made men who didn't accept the established power of the liberal class and of the great industrial groups, as Agnelli family. Italian Government in those years needed someone who faced the enormous economical and social post-war problems . Mussolini alone accepted this job , in change he asked full power over the nation . These conditions were accepted by Parlament ( except Comunists and Socialists, in minority) and by the King Vittorio Emanuele III. The latter was such a "referee" about Institutional and Legislative matters , at the same time the King was the supreme chief of Italian armed forces. The March on Rome could be seen as a soft, very soft "Putsch" or "Golpe", the King had the power to stop the fascists before they reached Rome, but he didn't because he NEEDED the new revolutionary power. He himself proposed to the Parlament the new premier , Mussolini , and the parlament, in that year ( 1922) still a DEMOCRATIC institution, accepted ( Socialists and Comunists didn't but, again, they were in MINORITY and they couldn' t find the right motivations to explain the future developments of a dictatorship to Liberals and catholics-sorry, these are the rules for a democratical regimen).
In 1923 Mussolini proposed a new electoral system (" sistema maggioritario")that would have multiplied his large consensus among Italians.And, again, a STILL DEMOCRATICAL Parlament accepted.
Since 1922 to 1924 in Parlament all political areas were still rapresented.Communists and Socialists could speak.
Mussolini won the elections of 1924 , and in 1925 and 1926 he gradually imposed a dictatorship.
Remember, since 1919 to 1922 Italy was a democratic country where 3 liberal governments failed to face the enormous post-war economical and social problems ( Giolitti, Bonomi and Facta) ,the Liberals together with the King thought to use for their purposes Mussolini but Mussolini used them for his purposes!In two years ( 1922-1924) Parlament and the King Vittorio Emanuele III "sciaboletta"(=little sword-he was 153 cm tall-) would have been allowed to create a new alternative government program without Mussolini but they weren' t able, or maybe they didn't want......
Mussolini ( and, together, the march on Rome) was accepted and democratically elected by most Italian people, by a democratic Parlament and by the King.
The Fascist party was banned by people who had been fascist in 1935 and turned their back in 1943!

Greetings


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tigre
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Re: Mussolini's 'march' on Rome 80 years on

#3

Post by tigre » 31 Aug 2019, 20:40

Hello to all :D; an interesting article about it ................................

October 28, 1922, the march on Rome: what happened in those days?

The march on Rome for the Loyalists of the Duce has always represented a myth: it is the zero day of the fascist calendar and the moment that sanctioned the overcoming of parliamentary democracy in the name of what they called a vigorous fascist revolution. But what really happened that October 28, 1922?

Today, historians, instead of marching on Rome, speak of a great (and successful) bluff played by Mussolini, who did not march on Rome in person, but witnessed the evolution of the situation in Milan (reaching the capital about days after). In addition, the march did not last one day, but several days: from October 26 to 30.

The background.

The march took place after months of squadrist violence against the headquarters and members of left-wing parties and unions, and in a democratic context compromised by the succession of weak governments. In that rainy October 1922, the head of government was Luigi Facta, who for Mussolini was an irrelevant character: "When I see him I want to tear his mustache," he said.

The objective of the future Duce was to expel him and obtain the leadership of the country by forcing the hand of the king, Vittorio Emanuele III, who should have decided, during the course of that subversive event, whether to yield to the pressure of the fascists and instruct Mussolini to form a new government or declare a state of siege, risking a civil war.

To the capital!

The march began on October 26, with Perugia as the headquarters of the initiative. Hence the quadrumviri (among which Italo Balbo) appointed a few days earlier by Mussolini will coordinate the operations. On October 27, some twenty thousand black shirts left Santa Marinella, Tivoli, Monterotondo and Volturno and, traveling by train, headed to the capital, defended by 28,400 soldiers.

Mussolini was not with them: he wove the threads of his rise to power from Milan, where he directed the newspaper Il popolo d'Italia. Every hour as the weather went by it became increasingly incandescent: from different regions of Italy, the squadre di combattimento tried to reach Rome by requesting the trains (but they often discovered that the rails had been torn off by the military determined to boycott the march) .

The longest day.

At 06:00 a.m. on October 28, the government declared the state of siege, but the king (at 08:30) refused to endorse it and Luigi Facta resigned: the country was without government (and outside of control). While the black shirts entered the capital, threatening to occupy the ministries, Mussolini was summoned by the king. He will arrive in Rome on October 30 (traveling by train, in a cabin): only then will the king officially confer the task of forming a new coalition government.

Mussolini had succeeded in his plan: to scare the institutions and take command of the country by force. During his inauguration speech in front of the Chamber of Deputies (November 16) he will present with the now famous bivouac speech: "I could have made this deaf and gray room a bivouac of manipules. It could block Parliament and constitute a Government exclusively of fascists. I could: but I didn't want to, at least this first time. "

Fascism had officially begun.

Sources: https://www.focus.it/cultura/storia/28- ... e-successo
https://pictures.abebooks.com/WILLIBOOK ... 7206_3.jpg

Cheers. Raúl M 8-).
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Mussolini and his black shirts in the mythical "March on Rome".............
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