Italian Fascism in Britain

1 Italian Fascism in Britain The Fasci Italiani alVEstero , the Italian Communities, and Fascist Sympathisers during Grandi Era (1932-1939) Claudia Baldoli London School of Economics and Political Science PhD in International History UMI Number: U173786 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U173786 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TueseS r 3 si3 Library British Library of Political and Economic Science 2 Abstract The activity of the Italian Fasci Abroad provides a new perspective on the nature of both Italian and European fascism, as well as on Italy’s foreign policy during the 1930s. This thesis focuses on the means employed by the Fasci in the transformation of Italian communities in Great Britain into Tittle Fascist Italies’. It argues that fascistisation of Italian emigrants became effective from 1932 and seemed to succeed in creating a corporativist and totalitarian community from 1935-36, until the international crisis of 1938-39 brought that Fascist dream to an end. The Ethiopian war and Italy’s alliance with Germany were the most crucial events in the development of the Fasci in their relationship with both the Italian communities and the British government. The thesis also concentrates on the relationship between Italian and British fascism. Until the end of 1934 both the Fasci and the embassy established regular contacts with the British Union of Fascists; in the same period, BUF propaganda reflected the belief that British fascism was part of universal fascism, and that Rome was its origin. BUF’s shift from Italophilia to admiration for National Socialism in 1935, and the contemporary unleashing of an aggressive anti-British propaganda in Italy coincided with a worsening in Anglo-Italian fascist relations. Consequently, the Italian Ambassador to London Dino Grandi strengthened his collaboration with British Conservative Italophiles, who worked with the Italian embassy in an attempt to support the cause of Italy and to improve Anglo-Italian relations. The divergence between Grandi’s and the Italophiles’ beliefs on the one hand and Italy’s anti-British propaganda and foreign policy on the other were evident especially from 1938. The attitude of the Fasci Abroad reflected this divergence. Despite the increased centralisation of the Fasci under the control of the foreign ministry from 1938 onward, the Fasci in Britain continued to share Grandi’s views on Italian foreign policy. The Fascist press in Britain, strongly anti-British during the Ethiopian war, became pro-British at the beginning of 1938. Grandi saw himself as the man who could prevent war, until Mussolini declared his mission in London at an end in July 1939. 3 Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. The ‘Education of the Italians’ in Britain, 1932-1934 2. Anglo-Italian Fascist Solidarity? Italy and the BUF, 1932-1934 3. Toward a Corporativist Community. The Fasci Italiani alVEstero in Britain, 1935- 1937 4. A ‘Wonderful Colonisation’. Italian Fascism and the British Italophiles during the Ethiopian War 5. Resistance and Decline. The Fasci Italiani alVEstero in Britain, 1938-1939 6. The End of an Era. Grandi between London and the Axis, 1938-1939 Conclusion Bibliography 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor MacGregor Knox, for his indispensable advice and guidance throughout the thesis. I would also like to thank Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, Mario Isnenghi, Richard Overy and Lucio Sponza for important suggestions at different stages of the research. The scholarships offered by the University of Venice and by the London School of Economics have made this research possible. I am likewise grateful to the History Department at King’s College London for offering a one-year fellowship which enabled me to conclude the thesis. Finally, a special thank to Monika Baar, Pietro Dipaola and Peter Eade, and to my family in Italy, Maria, Mario and Giaime. List of Abbreviations ASMAE---------- Archivio Storico Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome AP---------------------------------------------------------------Affari Politici GB-------------------------------------------------------------- Gran Bretagna AL-------------------------------------------------------Ambasciata di Londra Gab---------------------------------------Archivio di Gabinetto del Ministro AS--------------------------------------------------------------Archivio Scuole DeF-------------------------------------------------------- Archivio De Felice CG-----------------------------------------------------------Carte Dino Grandi b.---------------------------------------------------------------------------- busta f.------------------------------------------------------------------------ fascicolo sf.---------------------------------------------------------------- sottofascicolo ins.------------------------------------------------------------------------- inserto ACS---------------------------------- Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome SPD-----------------------------------------Segreteria Particolare del Duce Cart. Ris. Carteggio Riservato Cart. Ord. Carteggio Ordinario MinCulPop------------------------------ Ministero della Cultura Popolare NuPIE ------------------------- Nuclei di Propaganda in Italia e all’Estero CPC----------------------------------------------Casellario Politico Centrale CP----------------------------------------------------- Carteggi di personality APr-------------------------------------------------------------- Archivi privati DDI----------------------------------------- Documenti Diplomatici Italiani PRO-------------------------------------------Public Record Office, London FO--------------------------------------------------------------- Foreign Office HO------------------------------------------ Home Office SUL-------------------------------------------- Sheffield University Library BU----------------------------------------------------------------British Union BLPES---------------British Library of Political and Economic Science HLRO House of Lords Record Office BL British Library 7 Introduction This research investigates the relationship between Italian Fascism and Britain during the period of Dino Grandi’s ambassadorship in London. It begins with an examination of the activities of the Italian Fasci Abroad in Britain as a case study in the regime’s attempts to fascistise Italian communities abroad. Education of the Italians, from the first achievements of 1932 to the apparent realisation of the dream of a Fascist community in 1935-36, to the major crisis at the outbreak of the Second World War, is discussed in chapters 1, 3, and 5. A second element, also organised chronologically, covers the expansion of Fascism in Britain, Italy’s links with British Fascism and with right-wing Conservatives, and the effects of those links on wider Anglo-Italian relations. These issues are discussed in chapters 2,4, and 6. In 1931 about 29,000 Italians lived in Britain, 20,000 of whom had been bom in Italy. London constituted the largest community, hosting about 15,000 Italians, mostly concentrated in Clerkenwell and Soho. Since the nineteenth century, the Italians were mostly employed in peddling and catering. However, during the 1930s the number of Italians who worked as peddlers diminished, while the number of those who started their own business increased. Second generation immigrants tended to achieve social promotion, especially those who acquired British citizenship and could enter the liberal professions. Yet those employed in catering and shopkeeping continued to be the vast majority. The Soho community, where most Italians worked in restaurants and hotels, hosted mainly emigrants from the valleys of Piedmont and Lombardy, while those in Clerkenwell mostly came from Emilia, Tuscany and Campania and worked as shopkeepers and ice cream sellers.1 Efforts by Fascist institutions to create miniature Fascist Italies took place in London and in other British towns, as well as in other countries. News from the British ‘Little Italies’ appeared weekly in the newspaper of theFasci in Great Britain, 1 See Umberto Marin, Italiani in GranBretagna (Rome: Centro Studi Emigrazione, 1975); Terri Colpi, The Italian Factor: The Italian Community in Great Britain (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1991); Vittorio Briani, II lavoro italiano all'estero negli ultimi 100 anni (Rome: Italiani nel mondo, 1970); Lucio Sponza, Italian Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Realities and Images (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988). The autobiography of Charles Forte,Forte. Autobiography of Charles Forte (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986), provides information on relatively integrated and professionally successful Italians in Britain in the 1930s. s L'Italia Nostra, which was published from 1928 to 1940. In cities such as Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester, where Italian communities were relatively large, the Fasci founded organisations along the same lines of those instituted in London.

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