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situation of Italy.
The only effect of that creation had been that an international settlement
for Fiume contrary to the principle of the self-determination of peoples had been
frustrated. That was D Annunzio s great achievement, but it was also the cause
of his weakness in the internal revolutionary struggle in Italy. Through the
creation of the State of Fiume he had come to be a basic element in the foreign
policy of Italy, but he had dropped out of internal politics, at all events as a direct
influence. The role assigned by D Annunzio through his legionary army fell
naturally to the Black Shirts. While D Annunzio kept State at Fiume as Prince of
an independent realm with its constitutional government, army, finances and
ambassadors, Mussolini spread his revolutionary organization ever wider
throughout Italy. People used to say that D Annunzio was The Prince and
Mussolini his Machiavelli. But for the youth of Italy D Annunzio was only a
symbol, a kind of national Jupiter and the Fiume question was simply a pretext
for Mussolini to attack the Government s foreign policy.
Mussolini might profit b y the position in Fiume through the elimination
of a dangerous rival from the revolutionary struggle, yet he had also reason to be
disturbed b y it. The effect of his rivalry with D Annunzio I was considerable
upon the rank and file of hi: s followers. Those who had originated in the p arties
of the Right were disturbingly attached to D Annunzio. Those who came from
the party of the Left, Republicans, Socialists, and Communists, in fact the better
part of the Fascisi : shock-troops were undisguisedly hostile towards ; the
resuscitator of the Fifteenth Century.
In Giolitti s hands this rivalry was a card with which repeatedly but
unsuccessfully he tried to falsify the game. He thought at first that he could
provoke an open struggle between D Annunzio and Mussolini, but sc ion
realized that he was losing his time on such a project. But the question of Fiume
had to be settled quickly, and he made up his mind to capture D Annunzio s
State by force of arms. On Christrnas Eve 1920 he profited by a coincidence of
favorable circumstances to send several regiments to attack Fiume.
The pained protests of D Annunzio s legionaries were echoed in an
indignant chorus throughout Italy. The Fascists were not yet ready for a general
insurrection. The struggle was to be severe. In the countryside and at the
outskirts of the cities Black flags and Red flags were already waving, emblems of
civil war, in the cold wind of that anxious winter of forebodings. Mussolini s task
was not simply to avenge the dead legionaries of Fiume. He had to defend
himself against the reactionaries who would have stifled Fascism amid the ruins
of D Annunzio s state. The Government and the workers organizations were
already in the field with police persecutions on the one side and provocation to
bloodshed on the other side: for the workers had now become the aggressors.
Giolitti planned to seize the opportunity afforded by the internal struggle within
the Fascist Party after the tragic Christmastide of Fiume, and to outlaw
Mussolini. The trade union leaders opened their campaign with a series of
strikes. Whole towns, provinces and even great regions would be suddenly put
out of action through some disturbance in any little village. As soon as the first
shot was fired the workers came out on strike. At the alarm signal of the factory
hooters the men would troop out of the works, house doors and windows would
be bolted, traffic stopped, and the deserted road took on the grim appearance of
a man-of-war cleared for action.
In the factories the workers were getting ready for the struggle. Arms
were being piled up on every side, behind the chimneys, among the looms, the
dynamos and the boilers. In among heaped-up coal could be espied masses of
rifles and cartridges. In among the arrested machinery, amid the pistons, the
presses, the anvils, the cranes, men passed with oil-smeared faces, calmly intent.
They climbed the iron steps of factory chimneys, the swinging bridges, the
peaked glass roofs . Their task was to convert every factory into a fortress. High
on the chimneys were perched red flags. In the areas the workmen thronged
together, organized companies, sections and squads. Chosen leaders marked out
by red arm-badges gave orders, and patrols were sent out to spy the land. On
their return the workmen would leave the factory and move silently under .the
cover of the walls towards the strategic points of the town. Squads specially
trained for street warfare were drafted to the labor exchanges, 1 to defend the
headquarters of the trade unions against Black Shirt assaults. Machine-guns were
posted at every exit, at the angle of the stairways, at the end of passages and on
the roofs. Hand grenades were heaped up in the offices near the windows.
Engine drivers disconnected their engines, dropped the trains in the middle of
the country and steamed at high speed into the stations. In the villages farmers
wagons were piled up across the roads to prevent transport of Black Shirts from
one town to another. The peasants of the Red Guard were in ambush behind the
hedges armed with sporting guns, pitchforks, spades and sickles to spy out the
passage of the Fascist lorries. Along the roads of the railways from village to
village shots rang out at intervals, right up to the suburbs of the cities, with their
profusion of red bunting. As soon as the strike as announced by the hoot of
factory whistle , carabineers, royal guards and police retired to their barracks.
Giolitti was too much of a Libera1 to interfere in the struggle which the workers
were conducting so admirably all by themselves against the enemies of the State. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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