Il Piccolo
- The Message to the Blackshirts
- The Celebration in the Capital and the Duce's Two Speeches
- The Speech to the Avanguardisti
Il Piccolo's front page of 29 October 1926 marked the fourth anniversary of the March on Rome. In his message to the Blackshirts, Mussolini reviewed a year of foreign policy: after the debt settlements with the United States and Britain, Italy had signed a commerce and navigation treaty with Germany, an agreement with Britain on Abyssinia, and treaties with Siam, Spain and Romania. A report from Rome described Fascist columns assembling at 16 points before marching to Piazza Colonna, while avanguardisti from central Italy massed near Piazza dell'Esedra. In a speech at the Colosseum, Mussolini hailed the young avanguardisti as the hope of the Fatherland and the army of tomorrow.
This edition translates three excerpts from the front page. The OCR of the opening columns of the message under the top-left banner is badly corrupted, and the curved left page edge distorts the beginnings of lines in the left-hand tiles. Fragments that could not be read reliably, including names, numbers and some words in the Milan and Colosseum reports, are not reconstructed. The legible text of the message breaks off in the middle of its list of treaties. In the speech to the avanguardisti, words split at the start of lines were read as the evident complete words.
Translation
The Message to the Blackshirts
In its relations with other states, the Fascist regime has displayed, over the course of this year, ceaseless and fruitful activity. After settling the debts with the United States and with England, Italy has concluded a treaty of commerce and navigation with Germany, an agreement with England concerning common interests in Abyssinia, a treaty of commerce with Siam, a political treaty of friendship and neutrality with Spain, another political treaty with Romania, a…
The Celebration in the Capital and the Duce's Two Speeches
The bustle in the streets began to grow intense from the earliest hours of the morning. At 7 o'clock the assembly of the Fascists belonging to the Rome Federation began, an assembly carried out at 16 gathering points and in various district zones, from which the Fascist columns set off to make their way later to Piazza Colonna. Likewise the delegations of avanguardisti from central Italy, who had poured into Rome during yesterday and overnight, massed between Piazza dell'Esedra and Via di Castro Pretorio, also filling the neighbouring streets.
The Speech to the Avanguardisti
Avanguardisti! It is not without reason that I wished to summon you to Rome on the fourth anniversary of the glorious March. It is not without reason that, among all the places laden with glory that Rome boasts before the world as her incomparable privilege, I chose the Colosseum, this immense monument, this everlasting testimony of Rome. You are the dawn of victory, you are the hope of the Fatherland, you are above all the army of tomorrow. (Applause
Context
The avanguardisti and the Opera Nazionale Balilla
The avanguardisti whom Mussolini summoned to Rome belonged to the Opera Nazionale Balilla, the Fascist paramilitary youth organization that functioned from 1926 until 1937. The ONB enrolled boys of 8 to 14 as Balilla and youths of 14 to 18 as avanguardisti, and the two were sections of a single body rather than separate organizations. Beyond its role alongside the schools, the ONB served as paramilitary preparation for later service in the Italian Army and carried out indoctrination in Italian-ness and Fascism, training its members as "the fascists of tomorrow." The front page shows how this programme was staged in October 1926. Delegations of avanguardisti from central Italy were brought to Rome and massed apart from the adult Fascist columns, and Mussolini addressed them at the Colosseum, calling them "the army of tomorrow." His phrase restates in public oratory the military purpose built into the organization itself. Created in the same year, the new youth body was presented at the anniversary as the generation that would carry the Fascist movement forward.
The syndical law of April 1926 and the monopoly of labour representation
The year Mussolini was reviewing also remade Italian labour relations, although the passage of his message read here concerns only foreign affairs. The Fascist trade unions led by Edmondo Rossoni had tried in 1925 to win workers through militancy: Rossoni and Roberto Farinacci initially backed the metalworkers' strikes in Brescia in March 1925 for higher wages and union recognition, at a time when workers still had the right to select their union representation. Such tactics often failed, and the Fascist syndicalists came to depend more and more on state authority to secure a monopoly of labour representation. Alfredo Rocco's syndical law of 3 April 1926 institutionalized that monopoly, making the Fascist syndicates the sole representatives of labour. For workers, the choice among rival unions that had existed in 1925 was gone. The arrangement did not preserve the independence of Rossoni's own movement either: in November 1928 his national confederation was dismantled and reorganized into six smaller syndicates arranged by economic sector.
The 1926 treaty with Yemen and the Red Sea
One of the treaties Italy concluded in 1926 was with the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, although the legible text of the message breaks off in its list after Romania. Imam Yahya and the Italian governor of Eritrea, Jacopo Gasparini, signed it in Sanaa on 2 September 1926. Framed as a friendship treaty, it made Italy the first country formally to recognize Yemen's independence; it recognized Imam Yahya as king and acknowledged his claims to Aden. Those claims pointed directly at Britain, whose Colony of Aden and Aden Protectorate lay south of Yemen, and the Imam needed Italian support in his conflict with the British. Italy, for its part, held the low-profit colonies of Eritrea and Somaliland across the water and expected closer ties with Yemen to increase their trade and bring the region into the Italian sphere of influence. Britain regarded the Red Sea as strategically vital for trade and as a naval route to India. Set beside the message's boast of an agreement with Britain on common interests in Abyssinia, the Yemen treaty suggests that Italian diplomacy in 1926 combined cooperation with Britain in East Africa with rivalry across the Red Sea.
Original
Il messaggio alle Camicie nere
Nelle relazioni cogli altri Stati, il regime fascieta ha spiegato, durante questo anno, una attività incessante e feconda. Dopo avere sistemato i debiti cogli Stati Uniti e con l'Inghilterra, l'Italia ha concluso un trattato di commercio e navigazione colla Germania, un accordo con l'Inghilterra concernente i comuni interessi in Abissinia, un trattato di commercio col Siam, un trattato politico di amicizia e neutralità con la Spagna, un altro trattato politico colla Romenia, un
La celebrazione nella Capitale e i due discorsi del Duce
L'animazione nelle vie è cominciata ad essere intensa fin dalle prime ore del mattino. Alle 7 ha avuto inizio l'adunata dei fascisti appartenenti alla Federazione dell'Urbe, adunata che si è effettuata in 16 concentramenti e in diverse zone rionali, dalle quali le colonne fasciste si sono mosse per recarsi più tardi a Piazza Colonna. Parimenti le rappresentanze avanguardiste dell'Italia centrale affluite a Roma nella giornata di ieri e stanotte si sono ammassate tra Piazza dell'Esedra e via di Castro Pretorio, occupando anche le vie limitrofe.
Il discorso agli avanguardisti
Avanguardisti! Non è senza una r gione che io ho voluto convocarvi a Ro nel quarto anniversario della marcia g riosa. Non è senza una ragione che f tutti i luoghi onusti di gloria che Ro vanta come suo incomparabile privileg dinanzi al mondo, io ho scelto il Colosse questo immenso monumento, questa tes monianza imperitura di Roma. Voi sie l'aurora della vittoria, voi siete la spera za della Patria, voi siete soprattutto l ' sercito di domani. (Applausi
Source: Source: Internet Archive