Journal de Genève
- Germany, Italy and the Mandates
- The Fascist Police and France
- The Monopoly
The Journal de Genève of 10 November 1926 combined European diplomacy, Fascist police intrigue and a Swiss domestic dispute on its front page. An editorial signed W. M. passed on a rumour that Italy's ambassador, Baron Romano Avezzana, had told Briand that Italy would gladly take over the Syrian mandate if France tired of it; the writer could not confirm the remark but said it matched what the Italian press had long been writing. A correspondent reported as established fact that Ricciotti Garibaldi, recently arrested, had been in the pay of the Fascist police since summer 1925, and that most plots against Mussolini had been hatched with that police's connivance. A third article, on the grain monopoly, recalled the wartime emergency of 1917, when the Federal Council ordered farmers to expand wheat sowing and the area rose from 78,500 to 116,000 hectares in one year.
Translation
Germany, Italy and the Mandates
It is said that during his recent visit to the Quai d'Orsay, which caused such a stir, the Italian ambassador, Baron Romano Avezzana, surprised M. Briand by suddenly speaking to him about Syria: "If ever France should grow tired of its mandate," the ambassador is said to have told him, "Italy would be ready to take it over..." We do not know whether these remarks were really made. But they correspond fairly exactly to what the Italian press has been writing for a very long time.
The Fascist Police and France
The facts uncovered following the arrest of Ricciotti Garibaldi are so astounding that at first people refused to believe them. But today doubt is no longer possible. It is established that, since the beginning of the summer of 1925, the degenerate grandson of the great Italian patriot was in the pay of the Fascist police; it is likewise established that most of the plots hatched against the "Duce" were hatched with the connivance of that police.
The Monopoly
During the war, when it was necessary to act quickly, the monopoly chose the first. In 1917, the Federal Council ordered the farmers to sow 50,000 ha more wheat than in the previous year. This figure could not be reached completely. Nevertheless, the area sown increased very sharply in a single year, from 78,500 to 116,000 ha.
Context
The Catalan border plot behind Garibaldi's arrest
The arrest that the correspondent treats as common knowledge grew out of what Catalan historiography calls the events of Prats de Molló. Francesc Macià and the leadership of Estat Català had planned an armed invasion of Catalonia from French territory in order to win its independence. Macià wanted the military experience his own volunteers lacked, so he turned to Italian exiles in Paris. Between 50 and 100 of the Italians who joined the operation had fought in the Garibaldine Legion during the First World War, and through that milieu Ricciotti Garibaldi, grandson of the hero of Italian unification, came into the scheme. The French police arrested most of the participants near the Spanish border, 111 people in all, and Macià himself was arrested on 4 November 1926 in the country house he was occupying. The affair was therefore only days old when this issue went to press, which explains why the correspondent could assume readers already knew about Garibaldi's arrest.
Garibaldi as a double agent
The paper presents two claims as proven: that Garibaldi had been in the pay of the Fascist police since the beginning of summer 1925, and that most plots against Mussolini had been hatched with that police's connivance. Later accounts of the Prats de Molló affair support the core of the first claim. They describe Garibaldi as no genuine anti-fascist fighter but a double agent serving Mussolini's political police, and say that this channel let Primo de Rivera learn of the planned invasion. The same accounts attribute the plot's collapse to French police who had been forewarned, apparently through a leak from Garibaldi's group. The broader charge that the Fascist police had a hand in most plots against the Duce rests on the correspondent's report and is not addressed in these accounts of the affair. Garibaldi himself was among the accused: with Arturo Rizzoli, he was one of the two Italians brought to trial in Paris, and that trial opened on 21 January 1927.
The grain monopoly debate and the December 1926 referendum
The article on the monopoly used the wartime emergency to make its case: in 1917, it says, the Federal Council ordered farmers to sow 50,000 more hectares of wheat, and although that target was not fully met, the area under wheat rose from 78,500 to 116,000 hectares in a year. These figures are the paper's own. The argument was part of a debate that voters settled less than four weeks later. On 5 December 1926 Switzerland held a referendum on a federal decree to add a new Article 23bis to the Federal Constitution on the state's grain supply. Because the vote was a mandatory constitutional referendum, the proposal needed a double majority of both the popular vote and the cantons. A majority of voters and of cantons rejected it. The front-page article therefore belongs to the last weeks of a campaign whose outcome was a defeat for the constitutional amendment.
Original
L'Allemagne, l'Italie et les mandats
On assure qu'au cours de sa visite récente au quai d'Orsay qui a fait tant de bruit, l'ambassadeur d'Italie, baron Romano Avezzana, aurait surpris M. Briand en lui parlant soudain de la Syrie: «Si jamais la France venait à se fatiguer de son mandat, aurait dit l'ambassadeur, l'Italie serait prête à le recueillir...» Nous ignorons la réalité de ces propos. Mais ils correspondent assez exactement à ce qu'écrit, depuis fort longtemps, la presse italienne.
La police fasciste et la France
Les faits découverts à la suite de l'arrestation de Ricciotti Garibaldi sont si stupéfiants qu'au premier moment on ne voulait pas y croire. Mais aujourd'hui le doute n'est plus permis. Il est avéré que, depuis le commencement de l'été 1925, le petit-fils dégénéré du grand patriote italien était à la solde de la police fasciste; il l'est également que la plupart des complots tramés contre le «Duce» étaient tramés avec la connivence de cette dernière.
Le monopole
Pendant la guerre, alors qu'il fallait agir rapidement, le monopole choisit la première. En 1917, le Conseil fédéral ordonna aux paysans d'ensemencer 50. 000 ha de blé de plus que l'année précédente. Ce chiffre ne put être atteint complètement. Cependant, les emblavures augmentèrent en une année dans une mesure très forte, soit de 78. 500 à 116. 000 ha.