Journal de Genève
- France and Italy
- Two Dignities
- General Pilsudski's Policy
This front page of the Journal de Genève, dated 4 November 1926, carried three pieces on European politics. An editorial signed W. M. said Italian alarm at the repeated attempts on Mussolini was understandable, and called him, despite his imperial rhetoric, a rampart of European peace and order. It then asked why every attack turned Italian crowds against France. A column signed R. P. argued that the Swiss public would never accept Robert Grimm, a revolutionary leader of 1918, as President of the National Council, and cited his party's recent manifesto on undemocratic means. A correspondent's dispatch from Poland read Marshal Pilsudski's visit to the Radziwill tomb at Nieswicz as a sign that monarchist aristocrats supported him, and quoted the worldwide rumours that he wanted a crown.
Translation
France and Italy
One understands, to a large extent, the nervousness that is seizing the Italian people and the press in the face of the repeated attempts on the life of M. Mussolini. Whatever judgment one may pass on the policy of Fascism, no one can ignore that the violent death of the Italian prime minister would be a catastrophe, first for his country, then for Europe. For M. Mussolini is, despite his imperial rhetoric, one of the ramparts of European peace and order. What one understands less is that with each attempt, the anger of the crowds turns against France.
Two Dignities
The campaign launched against the candidacy of Robert Grimm for the presidency of the National Council has found an immediate echo among the public. Demonstrations have multiplied, and one would hardly be mistaken in saying that the people would never elect Grimm to the highest legislative office in the country. They would not understand, indeed, how anyone could choose a man who would make his colleagues swear to respect a Constitution for which he himself cared so little in 1918. They would not accept that a revolutionary leader be placed at the head of the Chamber, all the more so since Grimm declared, in the recent manifesto of his party's executive committee, that the proletariat might, depending on circumstances, resort to scarcely democratic means to seize power. That is what people think among the population.
General Pilsudski's Policy
While the right-wing parliamentary parties remain hostile to Marshal Pilsudski, the visit the latter has just made to Nieswicz, where he laid a wreath on the tomb of his former aide-de-camp, Prince Radziwill, has clearly shown that the aristocracy of monarchist tradition thinks differently from the representatives of that idea in the Diet. "Pilsudski is preparing the crown for one of the Radziwill princes; Pilsudski is under the influence of the former Archduchess Jérome; Pilsudski wants to be proclaimed King of Poland": such was the news spread throughout the world after the meeting at Nieswicz, where the most brilliant representatives of the Polish aristocracy paid homage to the first marshal and where Marshal Pilsudski acknowledged the undeniable merits of the members of the great noble families, who had contributed as best they could to the glory of old Poland.
Context
The attacks on Mussolini in 1926
The editorial's "repeated attempts" refers to a series of assaults within a single year. On 7 April 1926 Violet Gibson fired a pistol at Mussolini, and the bullet grazed his nose. On 11 September the anarchist marble worker Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at Mussolini's car at Porta Pia in Rome, injuring four other people. On 31 October, only four days before this issue appeared, a shot was fired at Mussolini as he rode through Bologna in an open car, and a 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni, was lynched. The terrorism specialist J. Bowyer Bell later judged that the boy was probably innocent, and the Bologna attempt led to laws creating Mussolini's secret police. The Geneva editorial treats Mussolini's possible death as a danger to European order. The passage translated here does not discuss how the regime used these attacks to tighten repression.
Why Italian anger fell on France
The editorial finds it hard to understand why each attack turned Italian crowds against France. The British weekly The Spectator, writing on 13 November 1926, gave the explanation current at the time: Italy felt that France, with a mistaken tolerance and even negligence, harboured too many Italian refugees plotting against their own country. The Spectator reported that during the previous fortnight the French flag had been insulted and French officials assaulted in border towns, the kind of incidents the Geneva paper had in mind. It also relayed allegations in the French press that Colonel Ricciotti Garibaldi, who professed to be an anti-Fascist, was really an agent of the Italian police, which French commentators took as a sign of deliberate provocation. These were claims traded by the two countries' newspapers, not settled findings. They show that W. M. wrote in the middle of an open Franco-Italian quarrel over the anti-Fascist exiles in France.
Robert Grimm and the general strike of 1918
R. P.'s reference to a Constitution that Grimm "cared so little" about in 1918 points to the Swiss general strike of November 1918, which Grimm led. In April 1919 a military tribunal sentenced him to six months in prison for calling on soldiers to refuse orders to open fire on the strikers. That record is the core of the column's objection: the President of the National Council administers the oath to fellow members, and R. P. found it intolerable that a man convicted after the strike should do so. The column's statement that the people would never elect Grimm is the writer's reading of public feeling, not the result of a vote. Grimm did reach the office in the end: he became President of the National Council in 1946, two decades after this campaign.
Pilsudski at Nieswiez and the rumours of a crown
TIME, in its issue of 15 November 1926, described Pilsudski as "at present Dictator, Premier and War Minister of the Polish Republic." The magazine reported that Polish monarchists gathered near Nieswiez on the estate of Prince Albrecht Radziwill had assured him that Poland needs a monarch, and that he surprised everyone by returning to Warsaw without taking any steps toward a crown. The American report is an example of the rumours the Journal's correspondent says spread around the world; the correspondent quotes them while presenting the visit as a gesture of mutual respect between Pilsudski and the old aristocracy. Later accounts record that during the May Coup of 1926 there was brief optimism in monarchist circles that Piłsudski might restore the monarchy. Instead he built the Sanation regime, which harshly cracked down on the monarchists.
Original
La France et l'Italie
On comprend, dans une large mesure, la nervosité qui s'empare du peuple italien et de la presse en présence des attentats répétés dont M. Mussolini est l'objet. Quelque jugement que l'on porte sur la politique du fascisme, personne ne peut ignorer que la mort violente du premier ministre italien serait une catastrophe pour son pays d'abord, pour l'Europe ensuite. Car M. Mussolini est, en dépit de sa rhétorique impériale, l'un des remparts de la paix et de l'ordre européens. Ce que l'on comprend moins, c'est qu'à chaque attentat, la colère des foules se tourne contre la France.
Deux dignités
La campagne entreprise contre la candidature de Robert Grimm à la présidence du Conseil national a trouvé un écho immédiat dans le public. Les manifestations se sont multipliées, et l'on ne se tromperait guère en disant que jamais le peuple n'élirait Grimm à la plus haute charge législative du pays. Il ne comprendrait pas, en effet, comment on pût choisir un homme qui ferait jurer à ses collègues de respecter une Constitution dont lui s'est si peu soucié en 1918. Il n'admettrait pas qu'on mit un chef révolutionnaire à la tête de la Chambre, d'autant plus que Grimm a déclaré dans le récent manifeste du comité directeur de son parti que le prolétariat pourrait, selon les circonstances, recourir à des moyens peu démocratiques pour s'emparer du pouvoir. Voilà ce que l'on pense dans la population.
La politique du général Pilsudski
Alors que les partis parlementaires de la droite se montrent toujours hostiles au maréchal Pilsudski, la visite que ce dernier vient de faire à Nieswicz, où il a déposé une couronne sur le tombeau de son ancien aide de camp, le prince Radziwill, ' a clairement démontré que l'aristocratie de tradition monarchiste pense autrement que les représentants de cette idée à la Diète. «Pilsudski prépare la couronne pour l'un des princes Radziwill; Pilsudski subit l'influence de l'ancienne archi-duchesse Jérome; Pilsudski veut être proclamé roi de Pologne»; telles furent les nouvelles répandues dans le monde entier à la suite de l'entrevue de Nieswicz, où les plus brillants représentants de l'aristocratie polonaise ont rendu hommage au premier maréchal et où le maréchal Pilsudski a reconnu les mérites incontestables des membres des grandes familles nobles, qui ont contribué de leur mieux à la gloire de l'ancienne Pologne.