Il Piccolo
- The Duce's Words
- The Wedding of the Pope's Niece
- A Mock Battle in the Channel
Il Piccolo's front page of 31 October 1926 carried Mussolini's address to Blackshirts in a city where he had spent part of his youth. He said he had come to open the regime's fifth year by inaugurating public works, and declared that Fascism would pass into history through concrete works and physical transformations of the country, not through resolutions or speeches. From the Vatican came a short report that Pius XI had personally married his niece Maria Luisa Ratti to the Marquis Edoardo Persichetti-Ugolini in the Sala Matilde, following an austere programme. From Britain the paper described Imperial Conference delegates boarding a flagship at Portland to watch a naval review and a mock battle with submarines in the Channel, and noted that ladies were sailing in a British battleship for the first time since Nelson.
Translation
The Duce's Words
Then, greeted by a fresh frenzy of ovations and cheers, His Excellency Mussolini speaks, saying: Blackshirts! I have come to your city for several reasons. First of all, I wanted to pass once more through the places where I spent some time in my youth. Secondly, I wanted to give a token of sympathy to the Fascism of your city and your province, a Fascism that is square, solid and faithful. Finally, I was pleased to begin the fifth year of the Fascist regime by inaugurating works that do honour to the regime. The Fascist regime does not commend itself to history through more or less elaborate resolutions and more or less eloquent speeches. The Fascist regime is passing, and will pass, into history through its concrete works, through the things it will have created, through the real, physical, profound transformations of the face of the Fatherland! (Acclamations.)
The Wedding of the Pope's Niece
, 30 — Following the austere programme rigorously laid down in advance, this morning in the Sala Matilde in the Vatican Pope Pius XI celebrated the marriage rite between his niece, Signorina Maria Luisa Ratti, and the Marquis Edoardo Persichetti-Ugolini. At 8.30 the wedding procession formed in the sacristy, and shortly afterwards it entered the hall, which had been transformed into a chapel.
A Mock Battle in the Channel
Last Saturday the Premiers of the Dominions had attended the great air review at Croydon. Today the participants in the Imperial Conference were present at the naval review and at a mock battle in the Channel. Today's event was highly distinctive in several respects. The members of the British Government and the delegates of the Dominions arrived by special train at Portland, and there they embarked on the flagship battleship «Reweng». The party included the ladies of the highest authorities of the British Admiralty and of the Premiers. It is the first time since the days of Nelson that ladies have sailed aboard a British battleship. Combat exercises with submarines and other naval operations were carried out.
Context
Year V of the Fascist calendar
When Mussolini speaks of beginning 'the fifth year of the Fascist regime', he is counting from his own arrival in power. Under the Era Fascista, day 1 of Year I was 29 October 1922, the day Mussolini became prime minister after the March on Rome, so Year V began at the end of October 1926, only days before this issue appeared. The count was itself new: it was introduced in 1926, during Year IV, and made official in 1927, in Year V. The speech fits this politics of dates. Mussolini tells the Blackshirts he chose to open the new year by inaugurating public works, and claims the regime will enter history through 'concrete works' and the physical transformation of the country, dismissing resolutions and eloquent speeches. That is the regime describing itself, as reported by the paper. The excerpt does not name the city or say which works were inaugurated.
The shot in Bologna on 31 October 1926
On the very day this issue is dated, 31 October 1926, a shot was fired at Mussolini as he rode in an open car through Bologna, and the crowd lynched a 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni. The terrorism specialist J. Bowyer Bell later wrote that the boy was probably innocent and that the affair was either a put-up job or a plot among Fascists. The attempt was followed by laws creating Mussolini's secret police. It was the latest in a series that year: on 7 April Violet Gibson fired a pistol shot that grazed Mussolini's nose, and on 11 September the anarchist marble worker Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at his car at Porta Pia in Rome. The cheering, ovations and 'delirium' the paper describes therefore belong to a season of repeated attacks on the Duce and of tightening repression.
A papal family wedding inside the Vatican before the Lateran Pacts
The bride's surname, Ratti, is the Pope's own: Pius XI was born Achille Ratti in Desio, in the province of Milan, in 1857, the son of a silk-factory owner. The paper stresses that he married his niece inside the Vatican, in the Sala Matilde fitted out as a chapel, under an austere programme. In 1926 the papacy still stood in open dispute with the Italian state. Italy had occupied and annexed Rome and Latium in 1870; the Holy See refused the settlement Italy then offered, arguing that the pope's spiritual jurisdiction required clear independence from any political power, and each pope thereafter regarded himself as a 'prisoner in the Vatican'. Negotiations to settle this Roman Question between the Holy See and Mussolini's government began in 1926, the year of this wedding. They ended with the pacts signed at the Lateran Palace on 11 February 1929, which recognised Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See. The particulars of the ceremony itself come only from the paper's account.
The 1926 Imperial Conference and the Balfour Declaration
The Imperial Conference whose participants watched the Channel exercise was the fifth gathering of the prime ministers of the Dominions of the British Empire, held in London from 19 October to 23 November 1926, so the naval review took place while the talks were in progress. The conference is remembered for the Balfour Declaration, which set out the principle that the Dominions were all equal in status. Against that constitutional agenda, the Croydon air review and the Portland embarkation put British air and sea power on show for the Dominion leaders. The paper's statement that ladies had not sailed in a British battleship since Nelson's day is its own claim; the sources used here neither confirm nor refute it.
Original
La parola del Duce
Quindi, accolto da un nuovo delirio di ovazione e di evviva, parla S. E. Mussolini il quale dice: Camicie nere! Sono venuto nella vostra città per diversi motivi: prima di tutto volevo ripassare per quei luoghi dove ho trascorso qualche tempo della mia giovinezza; in secondo luogo volevo dare un attestato di simpatia al Fascismo della vostra città e della vostra provincia; Fascismo quadrato, solido, fedele. Infine mi piaceva di cominciare il quinto anno del regime fascita con la inaugurazione di opere che onorano il regime. Il regime fascista non si raccomanda alla storia attraverso ordini del giorno più o meno elaborati e discorsi più o meno eloquenti; il regime fascista passa e passerà alla storia attraverso alle sue opere concrete, attraverso alle cose che avrà creato, attraverso alle trasformazioni effettive, fisiche, profonde del volto della Patria! (Acclamazioni).
Le nozze della nipote del Papa
, 30 Secondo l'austero programma rigorosamente predisposto, stamane nella sala Matilde in Vaticano, il Papa Pio XI ha celebrato il rito matrimoniale fra la nipote sua, signorina Maria Luisa Ratti ed il marchese Edoardo Persichetti-Ugolini. Alle 8. 30 il corteo nuziale si è ordinato nella sacrestia e poco dopo entrava nella sala trasformata in cappella.
Una finta battaglia nella Manica
Sabato scorso i Premiers dei Dominions avevano assistito alla grande rivista aerea di Croydon. Oggi i partecipanti alla Conferenza imperiale furono presenti alla rivista navale e ad una finta battaglia nella Manica. La manifestazione di oggi fu quanto mai caratteristica sotto differenti ' aspetti. I membri del Governo inglese ed i delegati dei Dominions sono giunti con treno speciale a Portland e là si sono imbarcati sulla corazzata ammiraglia «Reweng». Alla comitiva partecipavano le signore delle più alte autorità dell'Ammiragliato inglese e dei Premiers. E ' la prima volta, dopo i tempi di Nelson, che delle signore navigano su una corazzata inglese. Furono eseguite esercitazioni di combattimento con sottomarini ed altre operazioni navali.
Source: Source: Internet Archive