March on Rome

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the incident in 1922. For the film by Dino Risi, see March on Rome (film). For earlier incidents during the late Roman Republic, see March on Rome (88 BC) and Caesar's civil war.
March on Rome
Part of Civil unrest in Italy

Benito Mussolini and his Blackshirts during the March
Date28–31 October 1922
Location
Rome, Italy
ActionMussolini's Blackshirts conquered strategic points across the country and gathered outside Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare a state of emergency and transferred power to the Fascists.
Result
  • Fascist
    coup d'état successful
  • new government
    • Belligerents

    Italian Government

    • Royal Guards

    National Fascist Party

    Commanders and leaders
    Kingdom of Italy Luigi Facta
    Kingdom of Italy Antonio Salandra
    Kingdom of Italy Paolino Taddei
    Kingdom of Italy Marcello Soleri
    Kingdom of Italy Giovanni Giolitti    		 Benito Mussolini
    Emilio De Bono
    Italo Balbo
    C. M. De Vecchi
    Michele Bianchi
    Political support
    Communists
    		 Fascists
    Nationalists

    The March on Rome (

    King Victor Emmanuel III, who, fearing bloodshed, persuaded Facta to resign by threatening to abdicate. On 30 October 1922, the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. On 31 October the fascist Blackshirts paraded in Rome, while Mussolini formed his coalition government.[1][2]

    Background

    In March 1919, Benito Mussolini founded the first

    Italian Fasces of Combat (FIC) at the beginning of the so-called Red Biennium, a two-year long social conflict between the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the liberal and conservative ruling class. Mussolini suffered a defeat in the election of November 1919.[3][further explanation needed
    ]

    During the "two red years", there were numerous strikes, protests against rises in the cost of living, occupations of factories and land by industrial workers or agricultural laborers, and other types of clashes between socialists on one side and landowners and business owners on the other side.[4] The government tried to play the role of neutral mediator, which dissatisfied both sides.[5] Local elites felt themselves vulnerable and began to establish an alliance with the small Fascist movement, which contained many veterans of World War I and had a reputation for violence, in the hope of using Fascist paramilitary squads to destroy socialist organizations.[6]

    Since 1919, Fascist militias, known as

    anarcho-syndicalist component, especially in the Po Valley
    .

    Local elections in 1920 were won by the socialists in many towns, cities and villages across Italy, and in response Fascist militias attacked union organizers and municipal administrators, making it difficult for local governments to function.[7] A local deputy from the town of Budrio sent a telegram to the prime minister in October 1921 to report that the Fascists had effectively taken over, that "unions and socialist clubs [were] ordered to dissolve themselves within 48 hours or face physical destruction" and that the "life of the town is paralysed, authorities impotent".[8] Similar situations also occurred in other towns across Northern and Central Italy from 1920 to 1922.[9] The police repeatedly failed to intervene against Fascist violence, and in some cases police officers openly supported the Fascists and supplied them with weapons.[10]

    In the

    anti-socialist
    coalition of liberals, conservatives and fascists. The Fascists won 35 seats and Mussolini was elected in the Parliament for the first time.

    After a few weeks, Mussolini withdrew his support for Giolitti and his

    nationalist program and renamed his movement National Fascist Party (PNF), which enrolled 320,000 members by late 1921.[11]

    In August 1922, an anti-fascist general strike was organized throughout the country by the socialists. Mussolini declared that the Fascists would suppress the strike themselves if the government did not immediately intervene to stop it, which enabled him to position the Fascist Party as a defender of law and order.[12] On 2 August, in Ancona, Fascist squads moved in from the countryside and razed all buildings occupied by socialists.[12] This was then repeated in Genoa and other cities.[12]

    In Milan, on 3 and 4 August, there was street fighting between socialists and fascists; the fascists destroyed the printing presses of the socialist newspaper Avanti! and burned its buildings.[12] Then, with the support of local business owners, they took over local government and expelled the elected socialist administration from the town hall.[12]

    The Italian national government in Rome did nothing to react to these developments, and its inaction prompted Mussolini to begin planning a march on Rome.[12] From their new power base in Milan, the Fascists gathered the financial support of large companies who were determined to fight against "strikes, bolshevism and nationalization".[13] A delegation from the General Confederation of Italian Industry met with Mussolini two days before the March on Rome.[14] Also a few days before the march, Mussolini consulted with the U.S. Ambassador Richard Washburn Child about whether the U.S. government would object to Fascist participation in a future Italian government and Child gave him American support. When Mussolini learned that Prime Minister Luigi Facta had given Gabriele D'Annunzio the mission to organize a large demonstration on 4 November 1922 to celebrate the national victory during the war, he decided to immediately implement the March.[15]

    March

    Emilio De Bono, Benito Mussolini, Italo Balbo and Cesare Maria De Vecchi.

    On 24 October 1922, Mussolini declared in front of 60,000 militants at a Fascist rally in

    Cesare Maria de Vecchi, were appointed by Mussolini at the head of the march, while he went to Milan. He did not participate in the march, though he allowed pictures to be taken of him marching along with the Fascist marchers, and he went to Rome the next day.[17] Generals Gustavo Fara and Sante Ceccherini assisted with the preparations of the March of 18 October. Other organizers of the march included the Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni
    and Ulisse Igliori.

    On 26 October, the former Prime Minister

    King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign the military order.[19]

    On the morning of 28 October, in Milan, Mussolini received a delegation of supportive industrialists at the Il Popolo d'Italia headquarters who urgently requested him to find a compromise with Antonio Salandra. Mussolini was then proposed to rule alongside Salandra, however he refused.[20][21] Following an analysis of the footage of the time with the facial recognition technique, the presence alongside Mussolini of Raoul Vittorio Palermi, Grand Master of the Gran Loggia d'Italia, was also ascertained.[22][23]

    On 30 October, the King handed power to Mussolini, who was supported by the military, the business class, and the right wing.[24]

    Fascists moving towards Rome.

    The march itself was composed of fewer than 30,000 men, but the King in part feared a

    banking crisis.[27] By 1934, the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (Institute for Industrial Reconstruction) had been created to rescue, restructure and finance banks and private companies that went bankrupt during the Great Depression, and by 1937 this Institute had become a major shareholder in Italian industry, controlling all the capital of the military steel sector, 40% of nonmilitary steel, and 30% of the electrical industry.[28]

    Back in 1922, in the aftermath of the March on Rome, Mussolini pretended to be willing to take a junior ministry in a Giolitti or Salandra cabinet, but then demanded the presidency of the Council of Ministers.[29] Fearing a conflict with the fascists, the ruling class thus handed power to Mussolini, who went on to install the dictatorship after the 10 June 1924 assassination of Giacomo Matteotti – who had finished writing The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination – executed by Amerigo Dumini, accused of being the leader of the "Italian Ceka", though there is no evidence for such an organization existing.

    Other participants

    Commemorative medal

    The ribbon of the Commemorative Medal of the March on Rome.

    At the end of 1923, participants in the march received authorization to wear the Commemorative Medal of the March on Rome (Italian: Medaglia commemorativa della Marcia su Roma). In a series of royal decrees between 1926 and 1938, the Kingdom of Italy expanded eligibility for the medal until by mid-1938 all members of the Blackshirts and the Italian Armed Forces were authorized to wear it.[30][31][32]

    See also

    References

    • Carsten, Francis Ludwig (1982). The Rise of Fascism. University of California Press.
    • Cassells, Alan. Fascist Italy. Arlington Heights, IL: H. Davidson, 1985.
    • Gallo, Max. Mussolini's Italy: Twenty Years of the Fascist Era. New York:
      Macmillan
      , 1973.
    • Leeds, Christpher. Italy under Mussolini. Hove, East Sussex: Wayland, 1988 (1972).
    • Chiapello, Duccio. Marcia e contromarcia su Roma. Marcello Soleri e la resa dello Stato liberale. Rome: Aracne, 2012.
    • Gentile, Emilio. E fu subito regime. Il fascismo italiano e la marcia su Roma. Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2012.

    Notes

    1. ISBN 978-0-415-55394-0
      .
    2. ^ "March on Rome | Italian history". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
    3. ^ Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, University of Michigan Press (1997) p. 297
    4. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, p. 29
    5. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, p. 30
    6. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, p. 31
    7. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 31–33
    8. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, p. 33
    9. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 33–34
    10. ^ John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy, London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 41–42
    11. ^ Charles F. Delzell, edit., Mediterranean Fascism 1919–1945, New York: Walker and Company, 1971, p. 26
    12. ^ a b c d e f Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, University of Michigan Press (1997) p. 308
    13. ^ Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, University of Michigan Press (1997) p. 313
    14. ^ Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, University of Michigan Press (1997) p. 314
    15. ^ "I "duci rivali": Mussolini e D'Annunzio a confronto" (in Italian). 30 June 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
    16. ^ Carsten (1982), p.62
    17. ISBN 0-333-53779-3
      .
    18. ^ Chiapello (2012), p.123
    19. ^ Carsten (1982), p.64
    20. ^ "La Marcia su Roma e l'avvio del Regime".
    21. OCLC 469368426
      .
    22. ^ "The direction of Freemasonry behind the march on Rome and the rise of fascism" (in Italian). Agenzia Giornalistica Italia. October 28, 2022.
    23. ^ "The direction of Freemasonry behind the march on Rome and the rise of fascism. Thanks to a facial recognition". Wired. October 28, 2022.
    24. OCLC 254666529
      .
    25. ^ "28 ottobre 1922: è marcia su Roma" (in Italian). 25 October 2013. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
    26. ^ Carsten (1982), p.76
    27. ^ T Gianni Toniolo, editor, The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 58.
    28. ^ T Gianni Toniolo, editor, The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 59.
    29. ISBN 978-0-415-55394-0
      .
    30. ^ Royal Decree Number 273 of 31 January 1926, Uso delle decorazioni per il personale militare ("Use of decorations for military personnel"), published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia ("Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Italy") Number 49 of 1 March 1926 (in Italian).
    31. ^ Royal Decree Number 2485 of 1 November 1928 (in Italian).
    32. ^ Royal Decree No. 1179 of 15 July 1938 (in Italian).

    External links

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