Rebirth of the Italian Nation

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 16

Rebirth of the Italian Nation

State Welded Under Mussolini’s Iron Rule A VIVID PEN-PICTURE Italy's rebirth is reviewed in a recent issue of the Melbourne ; • Herald” by Brigadier-General Bud- I Jcin, friend of Mussolini, who has seen from a front seat the extraordinary process by which that nation has been welded. It- in a vivid pen picture of Italy’s state before and since the coining of the Duce.

One of the finest of Kiplting’s patriotic poems reiterates the line, “England’s being hammered—hammered—hammered into shape.” It is the only way of welding a disunited land. The edges must be pounded down till they unite. The man who wrote, “Happy the country that has no history,” looked only at one side of the matter, if he wished it to be understood that by “happy” he meant “fortunate.” Hardship is the spiritual exercise countries, like individuals, need to harden them. Throughout its history Italy has exemplified the truth that softness and heedlessly used prosperity are weakening factors. Through these she lost the overlording of the world, splitting into fragments before the foes that attacked her. You cannot hammer a country brittled by Capuan slumber and the fleshpots of indulgence. Once Italy was broken, the patriotism of her greatest men revived, and her history for the last hundred, years has been the story of brave men who have tried to unify the country by helping her citizens to find national soul. The names of Cavour and Garibaldi, though they failed in their endeavours, should be written in gold. They made possible the fineil achievement of Mussolini, who saved Italy from almost certain dissister at the hands of the Bolshevists.

It may be ,asked here in this pleasant land, whose worst trouble is the difficult settlement of a strike, “What in the name of fortune does Italy matter to us, or us %o Italy?” That question, naturally enough, would betray the insularity from which wars are born. Every problem a nation solves matters to all other nations. Would a cancer cure discovered in Italy not affect you? The world to-clay is no longer able to afford to air prejudice. It must set about discovering affinities. To understand Italy may have a tremendous result. It may even help us to understand ourselves. From the foot of Hercules we may toe able to know the complete man. Italy first felt a definite hope of union when Napoleon 111. ascended the throne of France. It is not generally known that Napoleon in those salad days before his elevation was sure joined an Italian society, of the sort which fiction has made us familiar. He vowed that, should toe ever come to power, he would lend his influence and his military strength to helping Italy. Napoleon forgot, i:n the excitement of trying on a crown, and it was necessary to remind him of his promise. Count Cavour, Italy’s patriotic Prime Minister, whose burning preoccupation was the freedom of his country from the surrounding enemies who had helped to parcel it out diplomatically, reminded the French Emperor of his promise. Cavour’s voice was drowned by the shouts and the music with which Napoleon's Court resounded. A. biggei* noise was needed, and an Italian, Orsini. remembering that in Italian secret societies the breaking of a vow was punishable by death, resolved to teach Napoleon a lesson. Everyone remembers how he blew up the Royal carriar v on the way to the opera, and how narrow an escape from death the Emperor had. Men on the brink of the grave think fast, and Napoleon, his ears still ringing with the bomb explosion, recalled his promise. He led an army into Italy, and the process of gathering Tip the pieces began. The victories of Magenta and Solferino flattered the hopes of the Italians, and it was with terrible dismay that they learnt that the peace of Villafranca had been made and Italy was still bound. Garibaldi’s Victories At this juncture the great Garibaldi, a patriot-peasant, but a military genius of high order, emerged from obscurity and took up the work of liberation. Victory after victory was won in the face of the greatest odds, until it was thought by the friends .of Victor Emmanuel that the King could carr v on and get kudos for Garibaldi’s work. The two met by arrangement, on the one hand the monarch and his glittering, grinning staff, on the other the warstained peasant, who, when he swept his broad hat off to the King, disclosed his head wrapped in a red kerchief,, another round his neck. The King thanked the peasant for his services, but intimated that he would now carry on for himself. Heart-broken at this ingratitude, refusing the empty rewards of a palace, a dukedom and money. back went the peasant-general to his moun-

tains, and Italy stopped once more on the brink of real freedom. Years went by before events cried aloud for another Garibaldi, and Mussolini made history repeat itself. It is in the condition of Italy immediately after the war, when her soldiers were coming back to re-enter civil life, that other countries may see an object-lesson and take what followed -to heart.

Bolshevism had raised its ugly head. The Communists found in the weak Government of the day an opportunity to make impudent demands, backed by the force of lawless scoundrels to whom Italy was not a country but a paymaster. In the army these men saw their only real enemy. They began to belittle the soldier by every means in their power, knowing that the weakling Nitti, tfie Prime Minister, was afraid to bring things to a show-down to oppose them seriously. Weakness always avoids an issue as long as temporising will keep it in its job. This applies to countries other than Italy Oflicers were attack'd throughout Italy; their decorations were torn oil their tunics, tlieir faces spat upon, their uniforms defiled. What could be done? There was a constitutional Government, and Italians are lawabiding. The anger of the soldiers grew deeper; a subterranean muttering took place which boded ill for the Communists, but so far the matter of bringing the rascals to boon was left to Nitti. Birth of Fascism Here Italy was afforded an ignominious spectacle. To the complaints of officers of these outrages, the Prime Minister could return no graver reply than to advise them not to wear their decorations, and to wear mufti except when on actual military duty. Could cowardice have boon more sublime 0 The reply redoubled the outrages, and forced the soldiers to think for themselves. It was the necessity for selfhelp that caused the birth of Fascismo. Before the war. a young Socialist had read books from which lie had derived the yeasty, generous opinions that Socialism alone could save the world. Most thinking young men pass through rlie phase. The better the brain, the faster the passing through. rt took the war to show Mussolini that lie had not found the panacea for the world s troubles, and he returned wounded from the front to use his pen for Italy, and net the millenium. In the columns of the

“Popolo Italia” he began to interpret the growing dismay of real Italians at the mess that was being made of their country. Day after day things grew worse. Communist workmen murdered without ceasing, and put their victims’ heads into quicklime to strip them of flesh, thereafter throwing the skulls into the streets to terrorise the imaginative populace with these horrible “memento rnori.” Mussolini saw the remedy. His office became a bureau of inquiry for those who wished Italy well. Men began to murmur that Italy would only be really free and great when purged of the ruffians and the weaklings. What a master mind it was that from a newspaper office in a city, organised an army of a quarter of a million

“black shirts,” whose oath of loyalty was not to an individual, but to a country. Mussolini was not working for himself, not even for his county alone, but for Europe, on which the poison of self-seeking Bolshevism was working. Italy was saved when voung Mussolini left the Socialist paper “Avanti” and declared himself against the doctrine. “They have lost the one man who might have made us succeed in Italy,” said Lenin when he heard of it. So far Mussolini had a rabble, but not an army. His army began to be made when one of the greatest generals organised it for drill. It was armed from the arsenals of the regular army. “We are the King’s servants,” said the officers in charge, when asked to assist the Flack Shirts with arms. “We cannot give you what you want. To-night, however,” they added, “there will be no sentry on duty, and if the arms are taken by force there can be no resistance.” A People’s Movement

was a people’s movement to clean oat a nest of hornets the Government was too cowardly to handle. Th 4 time came when this was so clearly demonstrated that the Ministry sought to placate Mussolini with the offer cf a Minister without portfolio. His reply was scornful. “Shall I take responsibility without power?” he asked. will wait, and make my own Ministry.” Nitti had been succeeded by this time, but the change was not an improvement. Then, one night. far from Rome, the revolution began ahead of time. Mussolini was in the theatre when he was informed of It. He withdrew with the whispered word: "it has begun.” Half an hour later he was invited by* the King to form a government, and with extraordinary rapidity he found his Cabinet that night. Everyone knows of that remarkable review of a quarter of & million men that filed by Mussolini, flanked by his Secretaries for IV.;: and the Nnvv, saluting the flag tha: the- young Prime Minister had caused to be respected for the first time binr the* war. The last man filed by, and Mussolini turned to his staff with tb. historic words: “Come, it is time w went to work.” What is Italy to-day under the r.isn wl.om some will persist in calling a mountebank? Kurd- working, prosperous. self-respecting, world sported, united. All that Cavour agonised for, all that Garibaldi fo3S»>i for, all that the friends of Italy huve prayed for, has come to pass. Internal industry is run without strikes, rather through contentment than by Government regulation. Government departments are run economically and successfully. Graft, chicanery, n^ u vanished from Parliament. Po!uucians who formerly represented only themselves now represent happy people, determined to keep happyHas a mountebank done thie?’Tlj® let every country advertf# mountebanks, for it is proven tfca they surpass the professional po'incian. What Italy was I saw with W eyes; what she is now I have B through. lam an Englishman. * has had to overcome insular * dice to come at this statement of truth, but I declare that it i 8 MU lini who has saved Italy, ana _ given an example to the ,j courage, of sagacity, of lxitrlatisnwas with a full sense <.f what it r.«" ; that I echoed the wish of .1 ifieat**. lish statesman: “Oh. for a in England!”