Neue Freie Presse
- A Garibaldi as Traitor.
- The Technical Union's Ultimatum Deadline Extended.
- From Athens to Constantinople.
The Neue Freie Presse of 9 November 1926 opened with a scathing editorial on Ricciotti Garibaldi, portrayed as a descendant who had inherited nothing from his illustrious forebear but a taste for conspiracy, and who had now been exposed as taking money from the Fascist government he claimed to oppose. A news report described three hours of talks at the Finance Ministry, where Finance Minister Kienböck, flanked by the heads of all the federal enterprises, received the Technische Union, whose ultimatum deadline was extended. In a signed feuilleton, Alice Schalek argued, in her account of a journey from Athens to Constantinople, that the Greek–Turkish population "exchange" had sounded like a simple cure for national quarrels while hiding bitter misery.
Translation
A Garibaldi as Traitor.
Ricciotti Garibaldi inherited the taste for conspiracy, but only that. In him the noble past of his forebear has turned into treachery and into a malicious police-spy's trade. He has now been proven to have taken money from the Fascist government he pretended to fight.
The Technical Union's Ultimatum Deadline Extended.
The representatives of the Technical Union appeared yesterday afternoon at the Ministry of Finance, where Finance Minister Dr. Kienböck conducted the negotiations in the presence of Director General Hoheisel, the director of the salt works, Backhaus, and the directors of all the federal enterprises. The talks lasted three hours.
From Athens to Constantinople.
Like many a resounding word of war that in truth held bitter misery within it, the word "exchange" — of the Turkish Greeks for the Greek Turks — sounded temptingly good. It seemed a very simple undertaking to end the national quarrels of the two countries by having Turkey push its Greek inhabitants out to Greece, and Greece its Turkish inhabitants out to Turkey.
Context
Garibaldi's double role in Macià's Catalan invasion plot
The conspiracy behind this editorial was the plot of Prats de Molló, the attempt by Francesc Macià and his separatist party Estat Català to invade Catalonia from French territory in early November 1926 and proclaim a Catalan Republic at Olot. Because few of his Catalan volunteers had military training, Macià turned to exiled Italian anti-fascists who had fought in the war and could serve as instructors. According to the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana, one of them, Ricciotti Garibaldi, was a secret agent of Mussolini's government and denounced the conspiracy to the French police. The English Wikipedia account likewise describes Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr, grandson of the hero of Italian unification, as a double agent in the service of Mussolini's political police rather than a genuine anti-fascist, and VilaWeb's retrospective names "colonel Ricciotti Garibaldi" as the volunteer who betrayed the plan. This is the background to the editorial's charge that the family's noble conspiratorial tradition had turned, in him, into a police spy's trade: by these later accounts, the man who presented himself as a fighter against Fascism inside an anti-dictatorial exile organization was working for the Fascist state.
From the arrests of 4 November to the Paris trial
French police arrested Macià on 4 November in the country house near Prats de Molló where he had set up his headquarters, and detained most of the volunteers near the Spanish border. The press reacted within days: VilaWeb notes that La Vanguardia of 7 November 1926 already insinuated that this grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi had turned out to be a secret agent of Mussolini. When the Neue Freie Presse wrote on 9 November that Garibaldi had been "überführt" of taking Fascist money, it was stating as settled what police revelations and press reports were then circulating; no court had yet ruled. The judicial reckoning came later. Garibaldi was one of two Italians among the eighteen accused brought to trial in Paris, in proceedings that opened in January 1927. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana records that the penalties were reduced to expulsion and fines, while the trial made the Catalan question and Macià known across Europe.
Viktor Kienböck, the finance minister at the table
The minister who conducted the three-hour talks with the Technische Union was Viktor Kienböck, a Christian Social lawyer who first became finance minister in 1922, held the post until 1924 and returned to it from 1926 to 1929. He is credited with a decisive part in restoring the Austrian state budget through the League of Nations loan introduced in 1922. The report shows him leading the negotiations in person, flanked by the directors of all the federal enterprises, including the state salt works. That line-up suggests the dispute concerned employees of state-run undertakings whose pay fell on the federal budget Kienböck had been charged with keeping in balance. The headline's news was that the union's ultimatum had been extended, which kept the dispute open for further negotiation rather than settling it.
The 1923 exchange and the refugee towns around Athens
Alice Schalek's feuilleton turns to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey that followed the Greco-Turkish War, arguing that the word "exchange" sounded like a tidy solution while concealing misery. The new settlements around Athens show what the exchange meant on the ground. Nea Ionia, today a northern suburb of Athens, was built after the war of 1919–22 and the exchange of 1923. Refugees, mainly from Pisidia in Asia Minor, settled there that year; the place was first called Nea Pisidia and was later renamed after Ionia as refugees from other regions arrived. The suburb grew quickly on carpet-making, a craft the refugees brought with them to Athens, and carpets remained the residents' main source of income for many years. When Schalek wrote in 1926, such towns were only about three years old.
Original
Ein Garibaldi als Verräter.
Ricciotti Garibaldi hat das Verschwörertum geerbt, aber nur dieses. Die edle Vergangenheit des Ahnen, sie hat sich bei ihm zur Tücke gewandelt und zum bösartigen Sbirrentum. Er ist jetzt überführt worden, daß er Geld genommen habe von der fascistischen Regierung, die er zu bekämpfen vorgab.
Die Ultimativfrist der Technischen Union verlängert.
Die Vertreter der Technischen Union erschienen gestern nachmittag im Finanzministerium, wo Finanzminister Doktor Kienböck im Beisein des Generaldirektors Hoheisel und des Direktors der Salinen Backhaus sowie der Direktoren sämtlicher Bundesbetriebe die Verhandlungen führte. Diese dauerten drei Stunden.
Von Athen nach Konstantinopel.
Wie manch ein tönendes Kriegswort, das in Wahrheit bitteres Elend in sich schoß, hörte sich auch das Wort " Austausch " - der türkischen Griechen gegen die griechischen Türken - verlockend gut an. Es schien ein sehr einfaches Beginnen, die nationalen Streitigkeiten der beiden Länder dadurch zu beenden, daß die Türkei ihre griechischen Einwohner nach Griechenland und dieses seine türkischen in die Türkei abschob.