Crítica
- Ricciotti Garibaldi's Conduct in France May Disturb the Cordial Italo-French Friendship
- General Graziani Will Take Over the Trials for the Attempts on the Duce
- THE PARACHUTE BECAME TANGLED DURING THE JUMP
Crítica's front page of 8 November 1926 led with two Associated Press cables about Fascist Italy. From Paris came word that French investigators had established links between Colonel Ricciotti Garibaldi and two Italian police officials, Commendatore Lapolla and Commissioner Sala, that his questioning had resumed, and that the affair threatened Franco-Italian goodwill. From Rome, the paper reported decrees taking effect on 15 November that made any new attempt on Mussolini punishable by death before a military firing squad, along with a semi-official plan for just three military tribunals, one under General Graziani that would try Zaniboni, Mrs. Gibson and Lucetti. A shorter item described an airman in a second plane risking his life to cut the tangled cord of Miss Chase's parachute.
Translation
Ricciotti Garibaldi's Conduct in France May Disturb the Cordial Italo-French Friendship
PARIS, 8. — The investigations under way into the activities of Colonel Ricciotti Garibaldi are taking on a more serious character in view of the possible effect they will have on Franco-Italian relations. Those in charge of the inquiry have definitively established that Garibaldi had maintained relations with Commendatore Lapolla and his chief assistant, Commissioner Sala, both of the Italian police. Garibaldi's questioning was resumed today in order to discover the true nature of these relations. (Associated Press)
General Graziani Will Take Over the Trials for the Attempts on the Duce
ROME, 8. — Under the decrees that will come into force on the 15th of this month, any new attempt against Mussolini will be punished with the death penalty, the perpetrator being shot by a military firing squad. It is known semi-officially that only three military tribunals will be created, which will have jurisdiction over political crimes. One of these, which will be presided over by General Graziani, commander of the Fascist militia in the Verona zone, will be in charge of the trials of Zaniboni, Mrs. Gibson and Lucetti. (Associated Press)
THE PARACHUTE BECAME TANGLED DURING THE JUMP
Moments later, the occupant of a second airplane drew near, risking his own life and that of Miss Chase, and succeeded in cutting the parachute cord that was preventing her descent.
Context
Ricciotti Garibaldi and the failed Prats de Molló invasion
The Paris cable concerns Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr., a grandson of the hero of Italian unification, who had just been caught up in the collapse of the Prats de Molló plot. In that scheme, Francesc Macià and the leadership of the Catalan party Estat Català planned an armed invasion of Catalonia from France to win its independence. In Paris, Macià had come into contact with a group of Italian exiles that included Garibaldi. The invasion failed because the French police had been warned, apparently through a leak from Garibaldi's group, and Macià was arrested on 4 November. Later historical accounts describe Garibaldi as a double agent serving Mussolini's political police, not a genuine anti-fascist. A week after this page appeared, Time reported that French police had found documents that seemed to brand him an agent provocateur of the Italian secret service. The magazine also quoted him admitting to his brother Sante that he had taken "Fascist gold" while insisting he had not betrayed the cause.
Why the Garibaldi case threatened Franco-Italian relations
The cable's worry about Franco-Italian friendship reflects how the case looked in Paris: it suggested that Mussolini's police had run an agent among exiles on French soil. According to Time, semi-official Paris newspapers denounced Mussolini for having, in their view, deliberately made his agents egg on a plot that might have embroiled France and Spain had it gone further. The same week, the French press also blamed him for attacks by Fascist mobs on the French consulates at Tripoli and Benghazi in Italian Tripolitania, and Fascist rhetoric presented France as fertile republican ground where plots against Fascism were hatched. That charge had some basis: an anarchist account of Gino Lucetti's bomb attack of September 1926 says the plot was hatched in Italian exile circles in the south of France. Garibaldi himself was put on trial in France. He was one of two Italians among the eighteen accused tried in Paris, in a trial that began on 21 January 1927.
Who were Zaniboni, Gibson and Lucetti?
The three defendants named in the Rome cable were the would-be assassins of 1925 and 1926. Tito Zaniboni, a former Socialist deputy, was arrested on 4 November 1925 for attempting to assassinate Mussolini. Historians believe that this plot was engineered by Mussolini's own administration as a pretext to consolidate power. Violet Gibson, the daughter of the Irish Lord Chancellor, fired a pistol at Mussolini on 7 April 1926, and the bullet grazed his nose. Gino Lucetti, an anarchist marble worker, threw a bomb at Mussolini's car at Porta Pia in Rome on 11 September 1926, injuring four other people. Grouping the three cases before a single military court, as the cable describes, would have placed a probable set-up, a lone shooting and an anarchist bombing under the same new regime of political justice.
The November 1926 decrees and how the three cases ended
The decrees announced from Rome came days after a fourth attempt. On 31 October 1926, a shot was fired at Mussolini as he rode in an open car through Bologna, and a 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni, was lynched. That attempt resulted in laws creating Mussolini's secret police. The cable reports a semi-official plan for three military tribunals, one led by General Graziani; the body that history records for such cases is the Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State, a special department of the Fascist government used to judge crimes against the regime and implemented through Mussolini's so-called leggi fascistissime. The available sources record long periods of confinement for the three named defendants. Lucetti was tried in 1927 and sentenced to 30 years. Zaniboni also received a 30-year sentence and was released in 1943 after the King dismissed Mussolini as prime minister. Gibson, after being jailed, spent the rest of her life in a British asylum.
Original
La Actuación de Ricciotti Garibaldi en Francia Puede Alterar la Cordial Amistad Italofrancesa
PARIS, 8. - Las investigaciones que se vienen realizando acerca de las actividades del coronel Ricciotti Garibaldi, asumen un carácter de mayor gravedad, en vista del posible efecto que tendrán sobre las relaciones francoitalianas. Las personas encargadas de la investigación, han dejado definitivamente establecido que Garibaldi había mantenido relaciones con el comendador Lapolla y su principal ayudante, el comisario Sala, ambos de la policía italiana. Hoy ha sido reanudado el interrogatorio de Garibaldi, al objeto de descubrir el verdadero carácter de estas relaciones.
El General Graziani se Avocará los Procesos por Atentados Contra el Duce
ROMA, 8. - De acuerdo con los decretos que se pondrán en vigor el 15 de este mes, todo nuevo atentado contra Mussolini será castigado con la pena de muerte, siendo el autor fusilado por un escuadrón militar. Se sabe semioficialmente que se crearán solamente tres tribunales militares, que tendrán jurisdicción sobre los crímenes políticos. Uno de estos, que será presidido por el general Graziani, comandante de la milicia fascista en la zona de Verona, tendrá a su cargo los procesos de Zaniboni, Mrs. Gibson y Lucetti.
AL LANZARSE SE ENREDO EL PARACAIDAS
Instantes después, el ocupante de un segundo aeroplano, se acercó arriesgando su propia vida y la de Miss Chase, y consiguió cortar la cuerda del paracaídas que impedía su descenso.
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina