Vossische Zeitung
- Briand's Refusal to Mussolini
- Löbe's Parliamentary Reform
- Four Years Since the March on Rome
The Vossische Zeitung of 28 October 1926 reported from Paris that, after the Italian ambassador's visit to Briand, the Quai d'Orsay had ruled out a direct Briand–Mussolini meeting for the time being. French officials called a settlement with Italy premature and insisted that any revision of the Tangier Statute be negotiated among the signatory powers, though they left the door open to talks later. In Berlin, Reichstag President Paul Löbe, back from a round of political events, briefed the paper's parliamentary correspondent on preparations for the session opening the following week. From Rome, the paper described Fascist newspapers filled with retrospectives for the fourth anniversary of the March on Rome, and reported Mussolini's order that the day be marked with parades but no speeches, only the reading of a message addressed to Fascists.
Translation
Briand's Refusal to Mussolini
At the Quai d'Orsay it is stated, in connection with the conversation that the Italian ambassador in Paris, Baron d'Avezzana, had with Briand yesterday, and which has been widely commented on in political circles, that a direct meeting between Briand and Mussolini is out of the question for the time being. The question of a definitive settlement of relations between France and Italy cannot yet be regarded here as ripe for the moment. In particular, the revision of the Tangier Statute desired by the Italian side is a matter that must be settled solely through direct negotiations among the three signatory powers, France, Italy and England. Once the situation has later been clarified, Briand will by no means reject the idea of a direct discussion with Mussolini.
Löbe's Parliamentary Reform
Reichstag President Löbe, who in recent weeks took part in a number of significant political events, has been back in Berlin since the beginning of this week. In a conversation with a parliamentary correspondent of the "Vossische Zeitung", he gave the following information about the preparations for the new Reichstag session that begins next week:
Four Years Since the March on Rome
The space available to the Fascist papers is today devoted to tomorrow's fourth anniversary of the March on Rome. Extensive retrospectives on the past years describe the glorious deeds that Fascism claims for itself. Tomorrow will be celebrated throughout Italy with parades and festivities, but the Duce has ordered that no speeches be given; instead, everywhere only the message, which is addressed to the Fascists alone, is to be read out.
Context
Why Italy pressed for a revision of the Tangier Statute
The Tangier regime that the Quai d'Orsay wanted kept to "direct negotiations" was less than a year and a half old. France, Spain and Britain signed the Paris Convention on 18 December 1923, ignoring Italy's stated wish to take part, and the international zone began operating on 1 June 1925. Fascist Italy refused to ratify the convention, insisting on equal status as a "great Mediterranean power". The question was live in the late summer of 1926. In August the Spectator wrote that the Marquis de Estella had startled the world with a demand for a Spanish protectorate of Tangier, less by the demand itself than by its timing. It assumed that Spain had discussed Tangier with Italy while drawing up their Treaty of Friendship and Arbitration, and it called the exclusion of Italy in 1923 an act of "unwisdom" by Britain, France and Spain. Spain backed Italy's demand for parity from 1926, and a protocol signed in Paris on 25 July 1928 eventually amended the 1923 convention. Set against this record, the French statement as the Vossische Zeitung printed it contains a discrepancy. It names France, Italy and England as the three signatory powers, but the 1923 convention was signed by France, Spain and Britain, and Italy was the power that had been left out.
Where Briand's caution stood after Thoiry
The refusal was reported barely six weeks after the high point of Briand's policy toward Germany. Germany was admitted to the League of Nations on 10 September 1926, and on 17 September Briand and Stresemann met in the French village of Thoiry. There Briand agreed to return the Saar Basin to Germany early and to bring an early end to the military control and occupation of the Rhineland. The scope of the Thoiry resolutions was soon reduced after objections from both the German and the French governments. The paper reports only the official reasons for the refusal: a settlement with Italy was not yet "ripe", and Tangier belonged to the signatory powers. The dates place this cool answer to Rome in the weeks when the bargain struck with Germany at Thoiry was still unsettled.
Who Paul Löbe was and what his office involved
Paul Löbe was a Social Democratic politician who served as a member and president of the Weimar Reichstag. He held the presidency from 1925 to 1932, an office responsible for maintaining and organising the Reichstag's self-government. After Friedrich Ebert's death in 1925 he declined his party's offer to run as its candidate for the Reich presidency. When he spoke to the Vossische Zeitung about a parliamentary reform before the autumn 1926 session, he therefore spoke as the official directly responsible for how the chamber ran its own business. The problem of order in the chamber became far more acute later. Especially after October 1930, Löbe faced increasingly frequent disturbances during sittings, most of them from Nazi and Communist deputies, and he answered them with a mixture of patience and severity in enforcing order against individual members.
The March on Rome anniversary and the regime's new youth organisation
The paper describes an anniversary directed from the top: the Fascist press turned over to retrospectives, parades across Italy, and a ban on speeches in favour of a single message from the Duce addressed only to Fascists. In the same year the regime gave itself a permanent channel to the young. The Opera Nazionale Balilla was established by law in 1926. Membership was voluntary at first but was later made compulsory for boys aged 6 to 18, and the regime banned all other youth movements, including scouting and the Catholic youth group. The Balilla creed wrote the regime's founding moment into a quasi-religious story, declaring that Italy had "ascended into heaven in her glory in 1918 and 1922". The 1926 celebrations thus fell in the year when the regime was building organisations designed to keep the memory of 1922 alive among the young.
Original
Absage Briands an Mussolini
Am Quai d'Orsay erklärt man im Zusammenhang mit der in politischen Kreisen stark kommentierten Unterredung, die der italienische Botschafter in Paris, Baron d'Avezzana, gestern mit Briand gehabt hatte, daß von einer direkten Begegnung zwischen diesem und Mussolini vorerst nicht die Rede sein könne. Die Frage einer endgültigen Bereinigung der Beziehungen zwischen Frankreich und Italien könne hier vorläufig noch nicht als reif angesehen werden. Insbesondere die Revision des Statuts von Tanger, die von italienischer Seite gewünscht werde, sei eine Angelegenheit, die lediglich durch direkte Verhandlungen zwischen den drei Signatarmächten Frankreich, Italien und England geregelt werden müsse. Wenn später die Situation geklärt sei, so werde Briand den Gedanken einer direkten Aussprache mit Mussolini keineswegs zurückweisen.
Löbes Parlamentsreform
Reichstagspräsident Löbe, der in den letzten Wochen sich an einer Reihe bedeutsamer politischer Veranstaltungen beteiligte, ist seit Anfang dieser Woche wieder nach Berlin zurückgekehrt. Im Gespräch mit einem parlamentarischen Mitarbeiter der " Vossischen Zeitung " machte er die folgenden Mitteilungen über die Vorbereitungen für die in der kommenden Woche einsetzende neue Reichstagssession:
Vier Jahre Marsch auf Rom
Der den fascistischen Blättern zur Verfügung stehende Raum ist heute der morgigen vierten Jahreswiederkehr des Marsches auf Rom gewidmet. Ausführliche Rückblicke auf die abgelaufenen Jahre schildern, was der Fascismus für sich an Ruhmestaten in Anspruch nimmt. Der morgige Tag wird in ganz Italien durch Paraden und Festlichkeiten begangen werden, aber der Duce hat verfügt, daß keine Reden gehalten, sondern überall nur die Botschaft zur Verlesung gebracht werden soll, die sich nur an die Fascisten richtet.