Crítica
- Close Union Between Maciá and R. Garibaldi Confirmed
- Ricciotti Garibaldi Confesses He Was a Spy for Mussolini
- Don't Shake Hands!
Crítica's front page of 6 November 1926 carried, near the top, the collapse of Francesc Macià's Catalan conspiracy on the French border. An Associated Press cable from Paris reported that the French interior minister was personally directing the inquiry into the plot prepared at Perpignan and had declared that the evidence showed a close link between Colonel Maciá's conspiracy and Ricciotti Garibaldi. A second item, from Agencia Austral, reported Garibaldi's confession that he had spent eight months heading Italian minister Federzoni's secret service in France and had received 400,000 francs, and noted that he remained in the hands of the secret police. Lower on the page, an illustrated notice urged readers to give up the 'absurd custom' of shaking hands and pointed them to an article on page 6.
Translation
Close Union Between Maciá and R. Garibaldi Confirmed
PARIS, 6. — The Minister of the Interior himself, M. Paul Sarranlt, is directing the investigation into the ramifications of the plot that was being prepared in Perpignan, and has already declared that the evidence gathered sufficiently justifies the belief that a close relationship exists between the Catalan conspiracy prepared by Colonel Maciá and the activities of Ricciotti Garibaldi. (Associated Press)
Ricciotti Garibaldi Confesses He Was a Spy for Mussolini
… that for eight months he had acted as head of Mr. Federzoni's secret service in France, and that he had received 400,000 francs from the minister. Garibaldi remains the "guest" of the secret police … (Agencia Austral)
Don't Shake Hands!
A greeting like this one is enough. See on page 6 the drawbacks of the absurd custom of greeting by shaking hands.
Context
The Prats de Molló plot behind the Perpignan cable
The conspiracy the Associated Press placed at Perpignan is remembered in Catalan historiography as the events of Prats de Molló, an attempted military invasion of Catalonia from France planned by Francesc Macià and the Estat Català leadership to win independence. Macià, the 'Colonel Maciá' of the cable, was a former Spanish Army officer who had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, and he took refuge in Perpignan in September 1923, right after Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup. His plan sent armed columns across the Pyrenees to converge on Olot, occupy it and proclaim a Catalan Republic there. The French police had been forewarned, apparently through a leak from Garibaldi's group, and the operation was a complete failure; Macià himself was arrested on 4 November in the country house he was occupying. The cable dated the 6th therefore described an inquiry into a plot already broken up, with the minister now tracing its ramifications.
Garibaldi's double role and the Federzoni connection
Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr. was a grandson of the hero of unification. Macià turned to Italian exiles in Paris because he wanted the military experience his own escamots lacked, yet historians describe Garibaldi as no real anti-fascist fighter but a double agent serving Mussolini's political police. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana states that he, a secret agent of Mussolini's government, denounced the conspiracy to the French police, and the English-language account adds that Primo de Rivera learned of the planned invasion this way. The Agencia Austral item gave the confession a precise shape: eight months as head of Federzoni's secret service in France and 400,000 francs from the minister. Luigi Federzoni was Mussolini's minister of the interior from 1924 to 1926, so the reported confession pointed straight at a member of the Fascist cabinet. The reference works consulted confirm Garibaldi's role as informer but do not give the length of service or the sum. Read with that later knowledge, the first headline's 'close union' between Macià and Garibaldi reflects the fact that Garibaldi had been inside the conspiracy while reporting on it.
How the French prosecution ended
The inquiry the cable described led to a trial in Paris that began on 21 January 1927. The accused leaders included two Italians, Arturo Rizzoli and Garibaldi himself, so the informer stood trial alongside the men whose plot he had exposed. The penalties came down to expulsion and fines: Macià was sentenced to two months in prison, which he had already served, and fined 100 francs. The case mattered far more than its sentences. The trial filled the pages of newspapers in Europe and America and made the Catalan question and Macià known across Europe. Crítica's front page shows that interest already reaching Buenos Aires two days after the arrests.
Macià's Catalan supporters in the Americas
For a Buenos Aires paper the story had a local dimension. Estat Català built ties with Catalan separatist centres in the Americas, the first of which had been founded in Havana in March 1922, and from exile Macià kept in contact with nationalist Catalan groups in the Americas who were willing to help finance his enterprise. To pay for the operation a loan, the Pau Claris loan, was issued for nearly nine million pesetas; that figure is the loan's nominal size, and the sources consulted give no amount for what Argentine Catalans actually contributed. The link became personal after the trial. Macià arrived in Uruguay in the first days of 1928 and then lived in Argentina for more than half a year, touring the Catalan centres of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba, La Plata and Mendoza.
Original
SE COMPRUEBA QUE HAY ESTRECHA UNION ENTRE MACIA Y R. GARIBALDI
PARIS, 6. - El propio ministro del Interior M. Paul Sarranlt, dirige las investigaciones acerca de las ramificaciones del complot que se preparaba en Perpiñán, habiendo ya declarado que las pruebas reunidas justifican suficientemente la creencia de que existe una estrecha relación entre la conspiración catalana, preparado por el coronel Maciá y las actividades de Ricciotti Garibaldi.
RICCIOTTI GARIBALDI CONFIESA HABER SIDO ESPIA DE MUSSOLINI
que, durante ocho meses, había actuado como jefe del servicio secreto del señor Federzoni en Francia, y que había recibido 400. 000 francos del ministro. Garibaldi continúa siendo el " huésped " de la policía secreta
¡No dé usted la mano!
Un saludo como éste es suficiente. Vea en página 6. los mconvenientes de la absurda costumbre de saludar dando la mano
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina