Few Of "First Hour" Remain

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1940, Page 10

Few Of "First Hour" Remain

CIGNOR Mussolini himself has taken over a . large number of the most important portfolios. He is at present: head of the Government,- leader of the Fascist Party, presideht of the Fascist Grand Council, Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Marine and Air, and head of the Government of Italian Africa. A very frequent "changing of the guard" constantly alters the aspect of the Government and of the Fascist High Council. A deep-rooted mistrust ever and again drives Signor Mussolini to remove his trusted colleagues as far as possible fronv Rome by "promoting" them, with the result that there are but few of the "Fascists of. the first hour" still around him. The Duce probably favours most his son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano. The Count, who is 38, is glib and oily, a smiling, ruthless "go-getter," with a self-assurance that nothing can shake. Before the Abyssinian war he had. as Propaganda Minister, not much opportunity to push himself forward. But during the war his name, as the daring leader of the La Desperata air squadron, was so often in the headlines that his father-in-law grew sick of seeing his picture on the front pages of the papers. Like his wife, Edda. Count Ciano was already an admirer of Hitler and Nazism, at a time when the Duce was so far from harbouring such sympathics as to give Schuschnigg his word that hc would always protect Austria from Herr Hitler. Ciano is the real author of the RomeBerlin Axis. He was appointcd Foreign Minister in 1936, and four months later paid Herr Hitler a visit at Berchtesgaden, where he pointed out to his idol that their two countries were "linked together by fat.e. Count Ciano. is an untiring traveller for Axis policy. He hates the French and tries, as far as possible, to avoid using ^

their language in his diplomatic work. At the end of 1938, Count Ciano unleashed in the Chgmber the great campaign against France with its rowdy demonstrations in the streets for the cession of Savoy, Corsica, Tunis and Jibuti.. For this agitation he was violently attacked in the Fascist Grand Council. The late Marshall Balbo, GovernorGeneral of Libya. was the most dynamic personality in Fascism after Signor Mussolini, until his mysterious death this year. Along with Signores Mussolini, Farinacci, Starace and others he was a passionate advocate of Italian entry into the Great War on the side of the Entente. He was a "Fascist of the first hour" and one of the Young Captains. Marshall Balbo, who is supposed to have invented the method of treating political opponents with castor oil, plunged savagely into the struggle against the Socialists. As one of the four members of the revolutionary executive in 1922, Marshall Balbo was the actual organiser of the march on Rome, and after the seizure of power he was made the organiser of the-ltalian air force. As Air Minister, he led a squadron of bombers to Odessa, across the Southern Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro. and across the North Atlantic to Chicago. On his return Signor Mussolini made him Marshall, and immediately transferred him to Libya, where he was kept busy as "architect to the Empire." He supervised personally the transport to Africa of 18.000 peasants, for whom he had erected settlements of the most modern typc. Marshall Balbo was not very keen on Ital.y's alliance with Germany. Wlicn he was informcd of General von Brauchitsch's visit to Libya, he told everyone: "They are sending the inspector!" Of the original quadrumvirs (Fascist ieaders appointed by Mussolini). Michele Bianchi is also dead. Of the two still most often mentioned is Marshall Emilio de Bono. This 73-year-old army chief was also

one of the "Fascists of the first hour." At the end of the war he was in command of an army corps, and was one of the small groups of generals who gathered at Florence in the critical hours before the march on Rome. He telegraphed to Signor Mussolini: "Come! The meal is ready. The dinner is served. You only need to take your place at table!" In the march on Rome, General de Bono, tall, bareheaded, his chest covered with niedals, and with well-trimmed white moustache and a black shirt, attracted great attention as he strode at the head of thousands of young men. Signor Mussolini gave him high posts. making him Director-General of Public Safety, General Commander of the Fascist Militia. As Governor of Tripolitania and Minister for Colonies, he played the leading part in the secr.et prepa'rations for the war against Abyssin'a. When the war started, he took over the high command in Massava, and'eaptured Axum, Adowa and Adigra.t. . But the delay occasioned by tiie necessity for building roads to secure communication with the rear before moving forward led Signor Mussolini to think that. he was not getting on nearly fast enough. He was recalled. Quadrumvir Cesare de Vecchi, who is 56. lawyer, painter, and: poet, is the author of a little voiume of tender lyrics called "Spring Poems." In 1920 he headed the . party which brutally wrecked the Rome office of the Socialist paper Avanti, of which Mussolini had been chief editor a few years before. Signor De Vecchi's monarchic sympathies remained proof against the republican tendencies artiong some of the Fascists. During the march on Rome he and Count Grandi sent a messagc to the Pope, assuring him that thc Catholic Church had nothing to fear from the approaching horde. As Under-Secretary of State for the Interior, he shouldered the responsibility for the blood "purge" of Turin (which cost at least 20 people their lives) with a laconic: "The reaction was necessary!" After Church and State had recorde# their reconciliation in the Lateran Treat-

ies, he was Italy's first Ambassador to the Holy See. Later he became Minister of' Education, after which Mussolini "prompted" him to Governor-General of the Dodecanese. Roberf.o Farinacci, who is 48, is popularly known as the. Italian S.treicher, and has, indeed. . ties of friendship and collaboration . with ■ his German Jewbaifing colleague. Originally a warker on the railways and, as such, a militant Socialist, he beeame, j after the Great War, the leadei of the anti-Communist movement. He turned journalist and founded the extreme paper Regima Fascista. Signor Farinacci particillaiTy distinguished himself as a, terrorist, and his "punitive expeditions" against his political opponents made him feared throughout the whole of Northern Italy. When secretary of the Fascist' Party during 1925 and 1926, he eradicated Freemasonry, whose adherents he called "green snakes" and "democratic ' conspirators," and Was the moving spirit behind a bloody drive against. the Freemasons- of Florence, -in which 18 weie killed and 40 seriously wounded. Then Signor Farinacci's star suclclenly waned, and for years he led a noisy shadow existence in Cremona. - . He was rescued from this obscurity by the bitter . struggle which, inspired bv the spirit of Streicher and the Nuremberg laws, he had been preparmg since the end of 1936. for an "Italian solution" of the racial question. This question was officially nonexistent until the middle of 1938, when, yielding to pressure from Berlin, Italy brought herself into line with Geimanj in this respect and made the discovery that Ihere .was. after all, an "Italian race," the existence of which had been, up till then, categorically denied by the official Encyclopaedia Italiana. As surprising as this discovery was Signor Farinacci's appointment as Minister of State. We seldom henr of "Italy's Himmler, thc small, corpulent head of the Italian Gestapo, the O.V.R.A. (Organisnzionc Vigilan/.a Rcpressione Antifascismo), which he has built into a huge and powcrful machine. Arturo Bocchini's double chin can be seen every morning in the Palazzo Venezia, whither he comes to retail to Signor Mussolini the titbits gathered by the secret news service of the O.V.R.A. There are no secrets for Sigrior Bocchini, either in Italy or abroad He has his spies in every class of society, in

ev£ry ) profession, and • in every organisation; It - is said that he has gi-eater influence with Signor Mussolini than most of the Ministers and generals, that his advice was responsible for the Duce s intervention in Abyssinia, and. for his silent acceptance of Herr Hitler s policy of conquest in Czechdslovakia. Signor Bocchini is responsible for Signor Mussolini's safety, and is as ruthless as' Herr Himmler in following up any suspicious trace of anti-'Fascist activIn -1926. after . a series of unsuccessful attempts had been made on Signor Mussolini's life.: Signor Bocchini undertook the reorganisation of. the Italian police. Since then the desire to ha\e a try at the Duce seems H have coo'led astonishingly. ■ . Signor Bocchini also purged the Fascist Party itself. . . , The names of a number of , K ascist luminaries disappeared from the entourage of the Duce, to . reappear later m prison flies, the registers of lunatic asylums,. or among the lists. of those in banishment. on the Lipari Isla ids. Signor Bocchini had had^ a look at their dossiers and "informed Mussolini,