01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page iii Mussolini in the First World War The Journalist, the Soldier, the Fascist Paul O’Brien Oxford • New York 01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page iv First published in 2005 by Berg Editorial offices: 1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA © Paul O’Brien 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Berg. Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data O’Brien, Paul, 1962- Mussolini in the First World War : the journalist, the soldier, the fascist / Paul O’Brien.— 1st. ed. p. cm. Includes Mussolini’s writings, translated into English. Originally presented as the author’s thesis (doctoral)—Trinity College, Dublin. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-84520-051-9 (cloth) — ISBN 1-84520-052-7 (pbk.) 1. Mussolini, Benito, 1883-1945—Political and social views. 2. Press and politics— Italy—History—20th century—Sources. 3. World War, 1914-1918—Sources. 4. Fascism—Italy. 5. Italy—Politics and government—1914-1922. I. Title. DG575.M8O26 2005 945.091’092—dc22 2004020618 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1 84520 051 9 (Cloth) 1 84520 052 7 (Paper) Typeset by Avocet Typeset, Chilton, Aylesbury, Bucks Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn www.bergpublishers.com 01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page v Contents List of Figures vii Abbreviations ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 1 Stating the Programme 11 November 1918–June 1919 2 Man of Straw July 1914–May 1915 31 3 Mind and Matter May-November 1915 59 4 Digging In November 1915–June 1916 87 5 Disenchanted Warrior July 1916–February 1917 107 6 War and Revolution March-October 1917 123 7 Victory Imagined October 1917–November 1918 141 8 Envisioning Fascism October 1917–November 1918 163 Conclusion 183 Bibliography 189 Index 201 01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page vii List of Figures 3.1 Italo-Austrian front June 1915 60 4.1 Strafexpedition May 1916 99 7.1 Austro-German offensive on Isonzo-Carso front October 1917 143 7.2 The final year November 1917 – November 1918 155 01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page ix Abbreviations ACS Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome) ANC Associazione Nazionale Combattenti ANMIG Associazione Nazionale fra Mutilati e Invalidi di Guerra AUSSME Archivio dell’Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito (Rome) A5G An ACS reference to distinguish documents related to the First World War from those related to the Second World War b. Busta (archive folder), bb. is buste (plural) fasc. Fascicolo (file inside archive folder) ins. Inserto (subcategory of fasc. and s.fasc.) Min. Int. Dir. Gen. Ministero degli Interni. Direzione Generale di Pubblica Ps, Div. AA. GG. RR. Sicurezza. Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati MRF Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista OO Opera Omnia of Benito Mussolini PCM Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri prot. Protocollo PSI Partito Socialista Italiano s.fasc. Sottofascicolo (subcategory of fasc.) SPDCR Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato (1922–43) UIL Unione Italiana del Lavoro 01 Mussolini & WW1 28/9/04 5:45 pm Page xi Acknowledgements Many are the people to whom I shall be eternally grateful for their assistance in seeing this book through to completion both during its previous incarnation as a Ph.D. thesis and in the transition from the Ph.D. to the book. In particular these include my parents, Nora and Paul, my late and beloved uncle Jack, my by now numerous brothers and sisters, my friend Jim Larragy and my ‘old mate’ Andy ‘I have taken the liberty’ Pickering. I am also indebted to Paul Corner of the University of Siena and Alan Kramer of Trinity College Dublin for their detailed advice on how to prepare the manuscript for publication. Special thanks to Tom Gray and to Michael Rosen for their guidance and encouragement during the book-proposal/publisher-seeking process, and to Berg Publishers for their decision to take the project on. The maps contained herein were designed by Professor Giorgio Rochat of the University of Turin, to whom many thanks are due for the kind permission to adapt and use them from his and Mario Isnenghi’s recent volume on the Great War (Isnenghi and Rochat, 2000). Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Mussolini’s writings are mine. Finally, there are two people who tower over this book and who lend most weight to the theory according to which there is no such thing as an individual author. The first is Professor John Horne of Trinity College Dublin, who remained a firm, imperturbable, humane and profes- sional term of reference during the many years of uncertainty and despair which have accompanied this work through its various phases. The second is my wife, Giusi Dossena. This endeavour began at the same time as our life together and is virtually synonymous with it. Why, despite everything, she has chosen to believe in both me and this project is the main unresolved mystery of the project itself, and it is to her, therefore, that I dedicate this book. 02 Mussolini & WW1 14/10/04 1:25 pm Page 1 Introduction Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership in a spiritual society. Whoever has seen in the religious politics of the Fascist regime nothing but mere opportunism has not understood that Fascism, besides being a system of government, is also, and above all, a system of thought . Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people . Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syn- dicates, classes) . For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of deca- dence . But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose the sponta- neous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century. Mussolini, Dottrina del fascismo, 1932 In 1925 Giovanni Gentile, philosopher, former Minister for Education, and fascist ideologue, argued that fascism had emerged as the expression of a search for a renewal of Italian political and spiritual life. He contrasted this project with the failure of the liberal State to realize the nation-building project of the small group of idealists who had led the struggle to unite Italy. Recalling the religious-style language of ‘sacrifice’ and national ‘mission’ of Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy movement, Gentile went on to aver that this was directly comparable to the youthful ideals, romanticism and heroism of the fascist squads. These in turn were wearing black shirts reminiscent of the élitist arditi founded as special shock troop units during the Great War. The actions of these men were thus informed by refer- ence to the memory of the experience of that conflict, now mythologized as the great founding event of fascism but nonetheless rooted, via Mazzini, in the very origins of Italian unity (G. Gentile, 1975). How justified were these fascist claims to Italy’s past? In his analysis of the means by which the regime sought consensus and consolidation through a cosmos 1 02 Mussolini & WW1 14/10/04 1:25 pm Page 2 2 • Introduction of cultural representations, Pier Giorgio Zunino argues that the themes of the Great War and Mazzini were components of a discourse to which fascism itself was essentially extraneous. But Zunino also concedes that while fascism sometimes stretched the heritage of Mazzini to suit itself, many aspects of that tradition, such as the nation seen as an organic whole, were ‘anything but outlandish’ in their applicability to the regime (Zunino, 1985: 90, 99–107). Might it not also be true, therefore, that fascism’s claim to the cultural legacy of the Great War – codified in the subcategories of Intervention, Victory and the Cult of the Fallen Soldier (E. Gentile, 1993) – was not altogether unfounded? It is with this and related issues – in particular the historical question concerning the role played by the Great War in the transition from the liberal to the fascist State (Procacci, Giu., 1966; Rochat, 1976: 82–6; Vivarelli, 1981; 1995; Fava, 1982; Procacci, Gv., 1989), and the crucial problem of ‘continuity’ and ‘fracture’ between the liberal and fascist periods in general (E. Gentile, 1986: 195ff) – that the present study will engage. The approach adopted follows those which seek to reassess the significance of the First World War from the point of view of political and cultural mobilization. By this is meant both a commitment to political action and the means for trans- lating this commitment into action. Symbols and cultural representations are called upon in order to communicate the values and goals of the mobilization to those who are to be mobilized into achieving them.