Le Petit Matin
- The Political Balance Sheet
- The New Statute of the Fascist Party Has Come into Force
- At the Gare de Lyon, the Milan Express Rams 2 Cars of a Local Train
This page set a signed Paris political column beside a Milan dispatch and a Paris accident report. Marcel Huart's column argued that parties everywhere were in a latent crisis left by the war and would find their bearings only when Europe recovered its balance. He welcomed a possible metallurgical cartel as a safeguard of peace and dismissed fears about the Thoiry and Livorno meetings. The Milan dispatch set out the Fascist party's new forty-article statute, which abolished elected party posts and placed the party under hierarchies headed by Mussolini and the Grand Council he chaired. The Paris report described how a locomotive with a broken axle derailed at the entrance to the Gare de Lyon and struck a local train carrying many workers, leaving one dead and 25 injured.
Translation
The Political Balance Sheet
by Marcel HUART
PARIS, 12 October 1926.
We are in a period of waiting, of expectancy, abroad as at home; before the Parliaments resume their work, the political parties are taking their own pulse. Some are worried by diagnoses that reveal in them a state of latent crisis; the reason is that everywhere, and in every latitude, the same causes produce the same effects. The war so thoroughly upended all human affairs that people are at a loss, and their ethnic, professional, philosophical or social groupings are heading confusedly and, one would say, without a compass, toward the better future to which all of them nonetheless aspire. The parties will recover the direction of their ideal, together with their moral balance, only when Europe itself has regained a sense of its own balance in the accord and good harmony of the great national communities that make up the patchwork of its Harlequin's cloak.
What indeed is one to say of the events which … on the point of reaching agreement with the industries of the other countries of Europe for the formation of a metallurgical cartel that may tomorrow be a new safeguard of peace.
Elsewhere, Sir Austen Chamberlain, who has just returned to London, has declared himself delighted with both the Thoiry talks and those at Livorno. That shows how misplaced the pessimism would be of those who may have taken umbrage at the confidences recently exchanged between the British Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister of Italy, for example. It is not because the great augurs of European politics meet privately, as chance brings them together on their summer holidays, that one should infer the worst forecasts, when the chancelleries today follow settled diplomatic directives that are today a secret to no one. It is only regrettable that among some of our friends, and elsewhere too, economic crises are developing whose
The New Statute of the Fascist Party Has Come into Force
MILAN, 12 October. – The new statute of the Fascist party comes into force today. It comprises forty articles. Its principal feature is the abolition of all elective offices in the party; the party will be governed by the hierarchies headed by Mr. Mussolini. The party's organs remain: the Grand Council, the National Directorate and the National Council. It is the Grand Council, chaired by Mr. Mussolini, that draws up the programme and directs the party's action; it is the Grand Council that will appoint the Directorate, which will consist of ten members and whose executive will be represented by the secretary general. Under the latter will come the administrative secretariat, the trade-union organizations, the press office, the propaganda office and the party's various organizations. The political secretary must, moreover, keep in constant contact with the high command of the militia, as well as with the organization of the "fasci" abroad. All local "fasci" will have a directorate of five members; their secretary will have to know the background and the means of livelihood of every member.
Italy fears the possible formation of a coal trust
MILAN, 12 October. – Following the challenge –
At the Gare de Lyon, the Milan Express Rams 2 Cars of a Local Train
1 dead – 25 injured
PARIS, 12 October. – This morning, at the entrance to the Gare de Lyon, the Milan express, following the breaking of a locomotive axle, ran into the last two cars of a local train travelling on a parallel track. There is one dead and 25 injured.
* * *
PARIS, 12 October. – This morning at 7:15 two trains were preparing to enter the Gare de Lyon on parallel lines: they were the fast train 520, coming from Vallorbe, and the local train 320, coming from Brunoy, bringing many early-morning workers into Paris. The two trains were running side by side at reduced speed (about 20 kilometres an hour) when, on coming level with the signal box past the outbound parcels office, some 200 metres from the arrivals hall, the driver Gaudeau, the fireman Crappoy and the chief driver Dufraisse, who were on the locomotive of fast train 520, felt the heavy engine tilt to the right: the front right wheel had just come off the axle, which had broken, it is said, as a result of excessive heating. At that moment the locomotive, passing over a switch, left the rails and, like an irresistible battering ram, hurled itself onto the cars of the 320. Under the impact, two third-class carriages overturned onto the ballast.
The impact had been hard. Cries of pain and fright rang out at once, but very fortunately, because of the low speed of the two trains, the number of victims was not large. Rescue work, quickly organized by the staff and the station's first-aid attendants, who were joined by the firemen from the Chaligny barracks, made it possible to free three injured people: Mrs. Jeanne Davry, 14 rue Elisabeth, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, injured in the left knee; Miss Suzanne Poirier, 11 rue de Madrid, Alfortville, with a dislocated left elbow; and Miss Paule Parunti, residing at [?], Hyères, with a fractured left arm and a wound to the right temple. The three women were taken to the Pitié Hospital; their lives are not in danger.
A few minutes later the firemen freed the crushed body of Mr. Louis Padoux, 56, a retired employee of the Company, living at Crosne, 24 rue de la Comédie.
Context
Who led the Radical Party in 1926
Marcel Huart opens his column with political parties taking their own pulse before Parliament resumed, and he speaks of a latent crisis without naming any party. According to the French Senate's biographical record, the Radical and Radical-Socialist party was presided over in 1926 by the senator Maurice Sarraut. Sarraut was a newspaperman before he was a parliamentarian: he was tied to La Dépêche de Toulouse while still training as a lawyer, and the Senate biography describes him as the real political master of south-western France. The same record lists Locarno among the subjects he took up in the Senate in 1926, alongside taxation and industrial alcohol, so the European diplomacy Huart writes about was also on the agenda of a Radical leader. The column itself does not mention Sarraut or the party's autumn congress; it treats the unease of French parties as one part of a Europe-wide disorder left by the war.
What the Fascist Grand Council was and what became of it
The Milan dispatch makes the Grand Council, chaired by Mussolini, the body that draws up the party programme and appoints the ten-member Directorate once elective offices are abolished. The Grand Council was not new in October 1926: it had been created as an organ of the National Fascist Party in 1922, and its powers included nominating the Party Secretary and other party leaders and approving the party statutes. The statute reported here therefore concentrated appointment power in a body that Mussolini already chaired. Two years later the council's standing rose further, when it became a state body on 9 December 1928. The same institution later turned against its creator: on the night of 24–25 July 1943 it passed a motion against Mussolini by 19 votes to 8 with one abstention, after which he was removed from power. The 1926 dispatch reports only the party's internal rules, but it shows the council at an early stage of the role it would hold for the rest of the regime.
Who ran the Fascist party secretariat under the new statute
The dispatch places the secretary general at the head of the Directorate's executive, with the administrative secretariat, the trade-union organizations, the press and propaganda offices and the party's other bodies under him. The man who held that office when the statute came into force was Augusto Turati, a journalist who had worked on newspapers in Brescia and who served as secretary of the National Fascist Party from 1926 to 1930 and, according to his biography, helped consolidate Mussolini's rule. The statute described in the article, which replaced elections with appointments from above and required local secretaries to know the background and livelihood of every member, gave the secretariat the means to supervise the membership closely. The paper reports these rules as written; how strictly they were applied in practice is not something the dispatch itself can show.
The PLM company behind the Gare de Lyon trains
Both trains in the collision were approaching the Gare de Lyon, the Paris terminus of the Compagnie des Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, known as the PLM. The PLM was a private French railway company of the period before the SNCF was created, so the article's mention of Louis Padoux as a retired employee of "the Company" points to the operator of this station. In 1926 the company was still recovering from the war: it ordered new rolling stock in the early 1920s, but its traffic regained pre-war levels only in 1928. The report itself attributes the accident to a front wheel coming off a locomotive axle that had broken, "it is said", from excessive heating; that explanation is the paper's provisional account on the day of the crash, not an established finding.
Original
Le Bilan Politique
Le Bilan Politique par Marcel HUART PARIS, 12 octobre 1926. Nous sommes dans une période d'attente, d'expectative à l'extérieur comme chez nous, devant que les Parlements repennent leurs travaux, les partis politiques se tâtent le pouls. D'aucuns s'inquiètent des diagnostics qui révèlent chez eux un état de crise latente; c'est que partout et sous toutes les latitudes les mêmes causes produisent les mêmes effets. La guerre a tellement bouleversé toutes les choses humaines que les hommes sont désemparés et que leurs groupements ethniques professionnels philosophiques ou sociaux s'orientent confusément et sans boussole, dirait-on, vers le meilleur devenir auquel cependant tous aspirent. Les partis ne retrouveront la direction de leur idéal avec leur équilibre moral que lorsque l'Europe elle-même aura repris le sens de son propre équilibre dans l'accord et la bonne harmonie des grandes collectivités nationales qui figurent dans l'assemblage de son manteau d'Arlequin. Que dire en effet des évènements qui point de se mettre d'accord avec les industries des autres pays d'Europe pour la constitution d'un cartel métallurgique qui peut être demain une nouvelle sauvegarde de paix. Par ailleurs, Sir Austen Chamberlain qui vient de rentrer à Londres s'est déclaré enchanté tout à la fois des entretiens de Thoiry et de ceux de Livourne. C'est dire combien serait déplacé le pessimisme de ceux auxquels auraient porté ombrage les confidences récemment échangées entre le chancelier de l'Echiquier britannique et le Premier Ministre d'Italie par exemple. Ce n'est pas parce que les grands augures de la politique européenne se rencontrent dans le privé au hasard de leur villégiatures estivales qu'il faut en déduire les pires pronostics alors que les chancelleries obéissent aujourd'hui à des directives diplomatiques déterminées qui ne sont aujourd'hui un secret pour personne. Il est fâcheux seulement que chez certains de nos amis et ailleurs encore des crises économiques se développent dont
Le nouveau statut du Parti fasciste est entré en vigueur
Le nouveau statut du Parti fasciste est entré en vigueur MILAN, 12 octobre. - Le nouveau statut du parti fasciste entre en vigueur aujourd'hui. Il comprend quarante articles. La caractéristique principale est l'abolition de toutes les charges électives du parti; celui-ci sera régi par les hiérarchies à la tête desquelles se trouve M. Mussolini. Les organes du parti restent: le Grand Conseil, le Directoire national et le Conseil national. C'est le Grand Conseil, présidé par M. Mussolini, qui élabore le programme et dirige l'action du parti; c'est lui qui nommera le Directoire qui sera composé de dix membres, dont l'exécutif sera représenté par le secrétaire général. De ce dernier dépendront le secrétariat administratif, les organisations syndicales, le bureau de la presse, le bureau de propagande et les différentes organisations du parti Le secrétaire politique doit en outre se tenir en contact constant avec le haut-commandement de la milice, ainsi qu'avec l'organisation des «fasci» à l'étranger. Tous les «fasci» locaux auront un directoire de cinq membres; leur secrétaire devra connaître les antécédents et les moyens d'existence de chaque adhérent. L'Italie craint la constitution possible d'un trust du charbon MILAN, 12 octobre. - A la suite du défi -
En gare de Lyon l’express de Milan tamponne 2 wagons d’un train omnibus
1 mort - 25 blessés PARIS, 12 octobre. - Ce matin, à l'entrée de la gare de Lyon, l'express de Milan, par suite de la rupture d'un essieu de la locomotive, a tamponné les deux derniers wagons d'un train omnibus suivant une voie parallèle. Il y a un mort et 25 blessés. * * * PARIS, 12 octobre. - Ce matin à 7 h. 15 deux trains s'apprêtaient à entrer en gare de Lyon en suivant des lignes parallèles: c'étaient le rapide 520, venant de Vallorbes, et le train omnibus 320, venant de Brunoy, amenant à Paris de nombreux travailleurs nationaux. Les deux convois roulaient côte à côte à une vitesse réduite (20 kilomètres à l'heure environ) lorsqu'en arrivant à hauteur du poste après les messageries de départ, à environ 200 mètres du hall d'arrivée, le mécanicien Gaudeau, le chauffeur Crappoy et le chef mécanicien Dufraisse, qui se trouvaient sur la locomotive du rapide 520, sentirent la lourde machine s'incliner sur la droite: la roue droite avant venait de se détacher de l'essieu, rompu par suite, dit-on, d'un chauffage excessif. A ce moment la locomotive passant sur un aiguillage sortit des rails et, bélier irrésistible, vint se jeter sur les wagons du 320. Sous le choc, deux voitures de troisième classe se renversèrent sur le ballast. Le choc avait été rude. Des cris de douleur, d'effroi, retentirent aussitôt, mais fort heureusement, en raison de la petite vitesse des deux trains, le nombre des victimes ne fut pas grand. Les secours rapidement organisés par le personnel et les infirmiers de la gare, auxquels vinrent se joindre les pompiers de la caserne de Chaligny, permirent de dégager trois blessés: Mme Jeanne Davry, 14, rue Elisabeth, à Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, atteinte au genou gauche; Mlle Suzanne Poirier, 11, rue de Madrid, à Alfortville, coude gauche luxé, et Mlle Paule Parunti demeurant à [?], à Hyères, le bras gauche fracturé et une plaie à la tempe droite. Les trois femmes ont été transportées à l'Hôpital de la Pitié; leur vie n'est pas en danger. uelques minutes après les pompiers dégageaient le cadavre broyé de M. Louis Padoux, 56 ans, retraité de la Compagnie, demeurant à Crosne, 24, rue de la Comédie.