Geekhis Khan
May 6th, 2009, 01:57 PM
They descended slowly over the city, seeming to hover like alien space ships. Twenty four flying in Vees of three. These were the legendary Savoia-Marchetti SM.55X flying boats. Their design was at once unique and iconoclastic: boomerang-like wings, twin catamaran hulls, push-pull engines in a single raised nacelle atop the wing centerline. A Norman Bel Geddes dream made solid.
It was the evening of July 15th, 1933. The place was Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. The event was the Century of Progress fair. The origin of this otherworldly air armada was not Venus, but Rome. The lead plane, I-BALB, was at the point of the first Vee. Its pilot, the armada commander, was Air Minister of Fascist Italy Italo Balbo.
They flew first over the fairgrounds and navy pier and then turned into the wind. Their forty three American fighter escorts flew overhead in formation spelling out the letters "ITALY". The dirigible Macon floated slowly overhead; other planes flew in acrobatic loops and dives. The Vees of SM.55X's landed one after the other on the glass-smooth waters. It was a grand entrance, one that showed the world the might and majesty of the up-and-coming Italian nation. While other nations wallowed in depression Italy's economy was vibrant and growing. While other nations wrestled with civil strife Italy had (apparently) attained order. While other nations fought for their identity Italy basked in Neo-Roman glory.
Balbo was welcomed as a hero, honored with the key to the city and a ticker tape parade. He and his fellow atlantici were showered with gifts, parties, and accolades. Cheers of "Viva Italia! Viva Balbo!" erupted from the throats of the city's adoring Italian-American population, along with, to the consternation of many, a few Fascist salutes. "I was profoundly moved and waves of emotion swept over the room," he said of the adulations. A street in Chicago still bears Balbo's name. Balbo was even honored by the Sioux nation with a headdress and the name "Chief Flying Eagle". Additional accolades awaited in New York. He even accepted an invitation to lunch with President Franklin Roosevelt, whose policies Balbo compared favorably to Mussolini's. Eventually, a full Roman Triumph awaited him back in the Italian Patria.
"In the end, it is always Chicago," Balbo wrote in the last few chapters of his final autobiography, "That day, that culmination, was the day that stands above all others as greatest in my life." He has a point. Despite all the great achievements of his life: Blackshirt Quadrumvir, Air Minister, Libyan Governor, and finally Il Duce of the Fascist state, no other event was so grand and glorious, so daring and dashing, so utterly Balbo as the Century of Progress flight.
Flight in 1933 was a new and dangerous affair. Transoceanic flight was the stuff of legends catapulting those who achieved such into instant deification in the public eye (witness Charles Lindbergh). Balbo did one better: he lead a wing of two dozen aircraft not once but twice across the treacherous North Atlantic. Only two aircraft of the original 25 were lost, one in Amsterdam on the way to America and one in the Azores on the way back. Two men were killed; that such a relatively "small" price was paid for such an audacious risk is a testament to the skill and planning that went into the venture.
The second transatlantic flight almost serves as preview for Balbo as Duce and world leader. The audacity and bravado of the flights masked the months of careful planning and preparations that went into them. The vanity and pomp of Balbo's public appearances conceal the cooperation with and delegation of duty to his fellow atlantici, upon whose expertise Balbo as an average pilot and navigator relied. His bombastic presence overshadows the careful, calculating mind of a natural organizer with an attention for detail. The audacity, organization, and sheer presence that made the transatlantic journeys a reality, skills which served him and the party well in the organization of the Blackshirts and the March on Rome, would continue to serve him well as Air Marshal, Colonial Governor, and Duce. The daring that led him through ice storm and fog would lead his nation through the war. The organizational aptitude that planned out and executed the complicated armada would help forge a modern nation out of a struggling monarchy. The cult of personality that graced the newsreel screens of the thirties would grace the icons of the post-war Fascist state.
Meanwhile the personality flaws that dogged the flight would haunt the later Empire. The vanity and bravado that drove the flights would, much like his predecessor's policies, continue to put public facade before practical accomplishment. The sometimes foolhardy daring that nearly lost the entire flight in the icy fogs over the North Atlantic nearly led the nation to disastrous war with his Soviet enemies. The fickle moodiness and select blindness that led him to conflict with his friends and rivals nearly cost him everything in the coup.
To study Balbo is to study Fascist Italy. From a boy who dreamed of adventure sprang a pioneering aviator whose audacious Mediterranean and Atlantic flights brought international attention to Italy. From Mazzinnian Republican roots sprang a Fascist revolutionary without whose organizational aptitude the March on Rome may never have succeeded. The brutal Blackshirt who helped organize the March on Rome would build the ailing Regio Aeronautica into a marvel of Fascist achievement, the violent and inhospitable Libyan desert into a model colony, and the nation of Italy itself into a regional and economic power in its own right. The republican who became a dictator who set the stage for the Italian Republic of today. The radical revolutionary who courted the reactionary powers-that-be. The organizer who ran the nation like a well-oiled but overbuilt machine, yet couldn't prevent the eventual breakdown of the Fascist order. He was a man whose strengths, persona, life, and achievements embodied the grand principles and overlooked shortcomings of Italian Fascism.
In the following chapters I will explore this mythic and controversial figure, his strengths and weaknesses, his achievements and failures and through him cast light on the mysterious and often contradictory nature of Italian Fascism itself. I will explore how a nation that inspired Hitler could end up opposing him. I will explore how a nation that created the New Colonialism could end up so central to contemporary decolonization efforts. I will explore how a nation founded on achievement and organization and unity of purpose could end up harboring so many diverse socio-political viewpoints. From its tumultuous rise to its quiet, almost nonchalant fall, through the torrents of the war, the controversies of Abyssinia and Nai Yisroyel, and the laissez faire authoritarianism, we will explore the theories and realities of Fascist Italy through one of its principle and most colorful of personalities, the second Il Duce Italo Balbo.
Introduction to Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Guiseppi Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
================================================== ==
Above is the fictional introduction to a principle counterfactual "source" on Italo Balbo. The book itself and Professor Bosco are fictional, as are the events after 1936. The transatlantic flight and the details associated with it, including the accolades, honors, "Chief Flying Eagle", and Balbo avenue in Chicago, are OTL. The meeting with FDR is OTL as is the "favorable" comparison to Mussolini.
This thread serves as a preview and sounding board for my upcoming Viva Balbo TL. This ATL will have the assassination of Mussolini and Ciano via anarchist bomb set up Balbo's rise to power and chronicle the Balbo reign as Il Duce. I've seen a lot of speculation, even a couple of TLs, on a "smarter Fascist Italy" that doesn't tie itself to Hitler or commit the more egregious OTL blunders. Interestingly, Balbo offers one such scenario. He was an incredibly skilled organizer. OTL he built up the Blackshirts from armed mobs into a powerful paramilitary organization. The March on Rome may have been impossible without him. He built up the RA to one of the world's largest air forces despite the industrial limitations of his nation, only to hand it off to far less competent people after his promotion/exile to the colonial governorship of Libya by a jealous and frightened Mussolini. Balbo quickly turned Libya from a filthy backwater into a model colony and, given another ten years, might have successfully forged it into the planned "fourth shore" of Italy.
A passionate Germanophobe and open friend of the Jews of Italy, he angrily and publicly opposed the alliance with Hitler, whom he considered a threat to world order. He presciently foretold that the "Axis" would prove the doom of Fascist Italy. He advocated partnership with the UK and US. He was a vocal critic of Mussolini, though never wavered in his duty to the "Chief" even after their falling-out. While Mussolini ran on self-doubt, fear, and paranoia, Balbo ran on a burning self-confidence, vanity, and an almost juvenile love for adventure and daring.
However, he was not without weaknesses of his own. His vanity made him crave the public limelight that insecure Mussolini abhorred. His boldness got the better of him and led directly to his OTL friendly fire death over Tobruk at the outbreak of the war (to this day conspiracy theories abound as to Mussolini's involvement). His love for show helped feed the great "bluff" that was the Italian military and many of his strategic plans were more adventurous than strategically sound.
In all, a Balbo Italy offers some truly interesting counterfactual what ifs. Many of the OTL mistakes will be avoided, but new, different ones will be made. I have a general outline in mind subject to edits as time goes on and more information appears.
Currently my primary sources include Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life (http://www.amazon.com/Italo-Balbo-Claudio-G-Segre/dp/0520071999/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616919&sr=8-11) by Claudio G. Segre (a detailed an balanced account; the definitive English text on Balbo from what I can find - there's a good preview on Google Books for those interested), Fascist Eagle: Italy's Air Marshal Italo Balbo (http://www.amazon.com/Fascist-Eagle-Italys-Marshal-Italo/dp/1575100126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616722&sr=8-1) by Blaine Taylor (a good primer with some great pictures, though a little too laudatory), Mussolini and his Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940 (Cambridge Military Histories) (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-his-Generals-1922-1940-Cambridge/dp/0521856027/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616980&sr=8-1) by John Gooch (good overview of the Italian War Machine), Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905/ref=sr_1_27?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241617192&sr=8-27) by A. James Gregor (for politics and philosophy), and Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945 (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Italy-Fascist-Dictatorship-1915-1945/dp/0143038567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616856&sr=8-1) by R. J. B. Bosworth (for "life under the regime" flavor info). I appreciate any additional recommendations you can give.
Please feel free to ask questions, comment, or offer suggestions. All constructive comments are welcome.
Geekhis...
It was the evening of July 15th, 1933. The place was Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. The event was the Century of Progress fair. The origin of this otherworldly air armada was not Venus, but Rome. The lead plane, I-BALB, was at the point of the first Vee. Its pilot, the armada commander, was Air Minister of Fascist Italy Italo Balbo.
They flew first over the fairgrounds and navy pier and then turned into the wind. Their forty three American fighter escorts flew overhead in formation spelling out the letters "ITALY". The dirigible Macon floated slowly overhead; other planes flew in acrobatic loops and dives. The Vees of SM.55X's landed one after the other on the glass-smooth waters. It was a grand entrance, one that showed the world the might and majesty of the up-and-coming Italian nation. While other nations wallowed in depression Italy's economy was vibrant and growing. While other nations wrestled with civil strife Italy had (apparently) attained order. While other nations fought for their identity Italy basked in Neo-Roman glory.
Balbo was welcomed as a hero, honored with the key to the city and a ticker tape parade. He and his fellow atlantici were showered with gifts, parties, and accolades. Cheers of "Viva Italia! Viva Balbo!" erupted from the throats of the city's adoring Italian-American population, along with, to the consternation of many, a few Fascist salutes. "I was profoundly moved and waves of emotion swept over the room," he said of the adulations. A street in Chicago still bears Balbo's name. Balbo was even honored by the Sioux nation with a headdress and the name "Chief Flying Eagle". Additional accolades awaited in New York. He even accepted an invitation to lunch with President Franklin Roosevelt, whose policies Balbo compared favorably to Mussolini's. Eventually, a full Roman Triumph awaited him back in the Italian Patria.
"In the end, it is always Chicago," Balbo wrote in the last few chapters of his final autobiography, "That day, that culmination, was the day that stands above all others as greatest in my life." He has a point. Despite all the great achievements of his life: Blackshirt Quadrumvir, Air Minister, Libyan Governor, and finally Il Duce of the Fascist state, no other event was so grand and glorious, so daring and dashing, so utterly Balbo as the Century of Progress flight.
Flight in 1933 was a new and dangerous affair. Transoceanic flight was the stuff of legends catapulting those who achieved such into instant deification in the public eye (witness Charles Lindbergh). Balbo did one better: he lead a wing of two dozen aircraft not once but twice across the treacherous North Atlantic. Only two aircraft of the original 25 were lost, one in Amsterdam on the way to America and one in the Azores on the way back. Two men were killed; that such a relatively "small" price was paid for such an audacious risk is a testament to the skill and planning that went into the venture.
The second transatlantic flight almost serves as preview for Balbo as Duce and world leader. The audacity and bravado of the flights masked the months of careful planning and preparations that went into them. The vanity and pomp of Balbo's public appearances conceal the cooperation with and delegation of duty to his fellow atlantici, upon whose expertise Balbo as an average pilot and navigator relied. His bombastic presence overshadows the careful, calculating mind of a natural organizer with an attention for detail. The audacity, organization, and sheer presence that made the transatlantic journeys a reality, skills which served him and the party well in the organization of the Blackshirts and the March on Rome, would continue to serve him well as Air Marshal, Colonial Governor, and Duce. The daring that led him through ice storm and fog would lead his nation through the war. The organizational aptitude that planned out and executed the complicated armada would help forge a modern nation out of a struggling monarchy. The cult of personality that graced the newsreel screens of the thirties would grace the icons of the post-war Fascist state.
Meanwhile the personality flaws that dogged the flight would haunt the later Empire. The vanity and bravado that drove the flights would, much like his predecessor's policies, continue to put public facade before practical accomplishment. The sometimes foolhardy daring that nearly lost the entire flight in the icy fogs over the North Atlantic nearly led the nation to disastrous war with his Soviet enemies. The fickle moodiness and select blindness that led him to conflict with his friends and rivals nearly cost him everything in the coup.
To study Balbo is to study Fascist Italy. From a boy who dreamed of adventure sprang a pioneering aviator whose audacious Mediterranean and Atlantic flights brought international attention to Italy. From Mazzinnian Republican roots sprang a Fascist revolutionary without whose organizational aptitude the March on Rome may never have succeeded. The brutal Blackshirt who helped organize the March on Rome would build the ailing Regio Aeronautica into a marvel of Fascist achievement, the violent and inhospitable Libyan desert into a model colony, and the nation of Italy itself into a regional and economic power in its own right. The republican who became a dictator who set the stage for the Italian Republic of today. The radical revolutionary who courted the reactionary powers-that-be. The organizer who ran the nation like a well-oiled but overbuilt machine, yet couldn't prevent the eventual breakdown of the Fascist order. He was a man whose strengths, persona, life, and achievements embodied the grand principles and overlooked shortcomings of Italian Fascism.
In the following chapters I will explore this mythic and controversial figure, his strengths and weaknesses, his achievements and failures and through him cast light on the mysterious and often contradictory nature of Italian Fascism itself. I will explore how a nation that inspired Hitler could end up opposing him. I will explore how a nation that created the New Colonialism could end up so central to contemporary decolonization efforts. I will explore how a nation founded on achievement and organization and unity of purpose could end up harboring so many diverse socio-political viewpoints. From its tumultuous rise to its quiet, almost nonchalant fall, through the torrents of the war, the controversies of Abyssinia and Nai Yisroyel, and the laissez faire authoritarianism, we will explore the theories and realities of Fascist Italy through one of its principle and most colorful of personalities, the second Il Duce Italo Balbo.
Introduction to Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Guiseppi Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
================================================== ==
Above is the fictional introduction to a principle counterfactual "source" on Italo Balbo. The book itself and Professor Bosco are fictional, as are the events after 1936. The transatlantic flight and the details associated with it, including the accolades, honors, "Chief Flying Eagle", and Balbo avenue in Chicago, are OTL. The meeting with FDR is OTL as is the "favorable" comparison to Mussolini.
This thread serves as a preview and sounding board for my upcoming Viva Balbo TL. This ATL will have the assassination of Mussolini and Ciano via anarchist bomb set up Balbo's rise to power and chronicle the Balbo reign as Il Duce. I've seen a lot of speculation, even a couple of TLs, on a "smarter Fascist Italy" that doesn't tie itself to Hitler or commit the more egregious OTL blunders. Interestingly, Balbo offers one such scenario. He was an incredibly skilled organizer. OTL he built up the Blackshirts from armed mobs into a powerful paramilitary organization. The March on Rome may have been impossible without him. He built up the RA to one of the world's largest air forces despite the industrial limitations of his nation, only to hand it off to far less competent people after his promotion/exile to the colonial governorship of Libya by a jealous and frightened Mussolini. Balbo quickly turned Libya from a filthy backwater into a model colony and, given another ten years, might have successfully forged it into the planned "fourth shore" of Italy.
A passionate Germanophobe and open friend of the Jews of Italy, he angrily and publicly opposed the alliance with Hitler, whom he considered a threat to world order. He presciently foretold that the "Axis" would prove the doom of Fascist Italy. He advocated partnership with the UK and US. He was a vocal critic of Mussolini, though never wavered in his duty to the "Chief" even after their falling-out. While Mussolini ran on self-doubt, fear, and paranoia, Balbo ran on a burning self-confidence, vanity, and an almost juvenile love for adventure and daring.
However, he was not without weaknesses of his own. His vanity made him crave the public limelight that insecure Mussolini abhorred. His boldness got the better of him and led directly to his OTL friendly fire death over Tobruk at the outbreak of the war (to this day conspiracy theories abound as to Mussolini's involvement). His love for show helped feed the great "bluff" that was the Italian military and many of his strategic plans were more adventurous than strategically sound.
In all, a Balbo Italy offers some truly interesting counterfactual what ifs. Many of the OTL mistakes will be avoided, but new, different ones will be made. I have a general outline in mind subject to edits as time goes on and more information appears.
Currently my primary sources include Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life (http://www.amazon.com/Italo-Balbo-Claudio-G-Segre/dp/0520071999/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616919&sr=8-11) by Claudio G. Segre (a detailed an balanced account; the definitive English text on Balbo from what I can find - there's a good preview on Google Books for those interested), Fascist Eagle: Italy's Air Marshal Italo Balbo (http://www.amazon.com/Fascist-Eagle-Italys-Marshal-Italo/dp/1575100126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616722&sr=8-1) by Blaine Taylor (a good primer with some great pictures, though a little too laudatory), Mussolini and his Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940 (Cambridge Military Histories) (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-his-Generals-1922-1940-Cambridge/dp/0521856027/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616980&sr=8-1) by John Gooch (good overview of the Italian War Machine), Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Intellectuals-Fascist-Political-Thought/dp/0691127905/ref=sr_1_27?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241617192&sr=8-27) by A. James Gregor (for politics and philosophy), and Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945 (http://www.amazon.com/Mussolinis-Italy-Fascist-Dictatorship-1915-1945/dp/0143038567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241616856&sr=8-1) by R. J. B. Bosworth (for "life under the regime" flavor info). I appreciate any additional recommendations you can give.
Please feel free to ask questions, comment, or offer suggestions. All constructive comments are welcome.
Geekhis...