Italy in fascist control: swift surrender of the government
30 October 1922
At the moment when Mussolini, the leader of the Italian fascisti, was seizing control of the country by force, the government’s authority has been placed in his hands by the king, who yesterday asked him to form a cabinet.
On Saturday, while Mussolini ordered a general mobilisation of his more or less armed force of nearly half a million men, the cabinet decided upon measures of resistance – with certain reservations. The military were ordered to hold Rome against attack, but to give some latitude to the revolutionaries in the provinces.
Martial law was ordered to be proclaimed throughout the country from midday on Saturday, but before the day was out the order was rescinded. The situation had become too bad for remedy, and the king, recognising this, refused to sign the decree.
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Editorial: The fascist triumph
30 October 1922
Signor Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader, has been invited to form a government. If an English political leader of any party organised armed followers throughout the country and on the occasion of a cabinet crisis ordered a “general mobilisation” and seized government offices in the important towns, so that Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands were under his control, and if under threat of war the King were to invite him to form a government of his own, we might congratulate ourselves, as they appear to be doing in Italy, that this military occupation had been achieved “without disorder,” and we might call the “solution of the crisis” by any names we chose, but we should in reality have submitted to revolution.
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Foreign
31 October 1922
Signor Mussolini, the leader of the Italian fascists, after an interview with King Victor at the Quirinal yesterday, assumed the premiership and formed a cabinet. He himself has taken over the ministries of the interior and foreign affairs, while appointing seven other fascists to office.
Editorial: a bloodless revolution
31 October 1922
The part of an English observer of the Italian crisis is at the moment to study it in a spirit of sympathy for Italy, for the nation as a whole, not for a section of it. If the triumph of Signor Mussolini, the fascist leader, is confirmed, it will have reactions of an unknown extent on international affairs and, therefore, on British interests and policy. But that may wait. At present we are concerned rather to understand what has been happening and why it is that the fascists, who at the Armistice did not exist, have now overthrown constitutional government by threat of force, impelled the King to reject the advice of his ministers, and established themselves in power.
We may congratulate Italy that she has so far escaped bloodshed. The discipline of the fascists has been good, their success in the occupation of important towns was immediate, and the action of the King perhaps averted what chance there was of civil war. Office and responsibility are apt to exercise a sobering influence on un-sober minds, and some utterances are already attributed to the new Premier which suggest that he may pursue a policy more moderate than the speeches he has sometimes made. That remains to be seen. Meanwhile we may as well begin by recognising what has happened in Italy. Signor Mussolini has been victorious by a coup d’état, by the exercise of unconstitutional violence. A London newspaper, referring to the failure of the communists since their seizure of the factories last year, remarks that “the policy of Direct Action has been utterly discomfited.” It has, of course, been completely successful. The quality of Direct Action does not depend on whether one likes either the methods or the noses of one particular section of Direct Actionists. Signor Mussolini has used extra-legal means to impose his government on the country. He is as good a constitutionalist as Lenin, and no more.
Of Mussolini’s policy the little that is known is not encouraging. At home the mainspring of the movement has been anti-socialism, which has taken the form of destroying the property of socialist institutions and ejecting socialist officials from the posts to which they had been legally elected. If this method should be elevated into a principle of government by a ministry founded upon a threat of war, “force begets force” will be its epitaph. Abroad they proclaim a flamboyant nationalist policy of the sort for which no other people has had much stomach since the war.
This is an edited extract. Read the article in full.
Anxiety in Paris
From our own correspondent
31 October 1922
Paris, Monday
News of the fascist coup d’état has been received here with mistrust and alarm. Those conservatives who admired fascism and attempted to preach the necessity of such an institution for France as a defence against the bugbear of socialism are ill at ease. The Liberté which only a few months ago published a series of laudatory articles on Signor Mussolini’s society, to-day says:- “Benito Mussolini, an ex-socialist turned patriot, an avowed republican and a politician ambitious for Caesar’s laurels, has commenced an era of great adventures which will forge the future history of Italy. With sincere friendship for our Roman sister, let us hope that he may not prove the Lafayette of the great revolution that is beginning.”
The Temps, which is more discreet, grieves over the lack of respect for constitutional methods. “Wreckage may churn up foam, but it is wind itself that moves the sea,” it adds. Diplomats in Paris are dismayed at this “new woe”, while Italians in Paris are depressed. It seems to be generally held that Mussolini has no real programme, and it is feared he may resort to war or threaten war against Jugo-Slavia to keep his followers together. Criticisms are levelled against the King of Italy for his action in yielding to the fascists and refusing to support the ministry.
Naturally socialists and communists here have exhausted their vocabulary of abuse against Mussolini “and his band of turbulent schoolboys and blackleg workmen”. A new and incalculable factor in the already fearfully difficult European situation has appeared.
