Viva Balbo! – An Alternate Duce, an Alternate Italy

[Geekhis Khan]

Viva Balbo! – An Alternate Duce, an Alternate Italy


Prologue: a Controversial Legend Reborn

“My eyes wander over this land for which I had pined with such longing, and pick out the familiar spots, houses, streets, clumps of trees, the long curves of the Sacred Isle…suffused with the golden glow of the setting-sun. It is the hour of nostalgia which is the theme of so many poets, the hour when a feeling of loneliness broods over the sailor, the hour that recalls gold-tinted landscapes that were the background of our dreams. After all our wanderings over strange lands and seas, we are gazing on holy Italy, the most beautiful country in the whole world… Slipping on my tunic and cap, I step from the pilot’s cabin on to the left wing. I see the Duce in his black shirt, his face aglow. I give the Roman salute. Then I leap ashore.” – Italo Balbo, My Air Armada, 1934


http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4619/95762818.jpg


Today as of the posting of this text, June 28th, 2009, marks the 69th anniversary of a fateful day in OTL history. On this day in 1940, at the dawn of Italy’s involvement in the Second World War, a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 three-engine bomber, identification I-MANU, was shot down by friendly fire while attempting a landing at the Tobruk airbase in Italian Libya. There were no survivors. The bomber had taken off on what was to be a routine combat reconnaissance mission, scouting for British raiders out of Egypt. However, the overloaded crew of VIPs and friends of the pilot brings up real questions as to how much of the mission was recreational in nature…or pointless adventurism. The pilot was Governor of Italian Libya and Air Marshal Italo Balbo.

Marshal Balbo was a legend in his own time, a contradiction and an enigma. A Mazzinian Republican and former Mason, he proved critical in the rise of Fascist dictatorship in Italy. A modern-day adventurer, his exploits as a pilot brought him world fame – and the suspicion of his leader and comrade Benito Mussolini. Balbo flew boldly to his death in the opening phase of a war he opposed. He proved eerily prescient when, upon Italy’s entry into the war on Nazi Germany’s behalf, he warned that there “won’t be enough lamp posts to hang us all!”

He was an incredibly skilled organizer. 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 Regia Aeronautica 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 desolate 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 to the Jews of Italy, he angrily and publicly opposed the alliance with Hitler, whom he considered a threat to world order, and likewise opposed the Anti-Semitic Laws of the late 30’s, which conflicted with his very nature. He 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 many of Mussolini’s policies, though he 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 (to this day conspiracy theories abound as to Mussolini's involvement, though no supporting evidence has appeared and a great deal of opposing evidence has been found). 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. 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. Many of the OTL mistakes will be avoided in this TL, but new, different ones will be made.

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 and 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 and neutral scholarly overview of the Italian War Machine and strategic/diplomatic concerns), 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 the politics and philosophy of Italian Fascism), 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 (a good, if rather hostile and damning account of life under the regime). I have also managed to obtain via inter-library loan a rare vintage copy of Balbo’s own My Air Armada (http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Air-Armada-Italo-Balbo/dp/B001OZZNP2/ref=sr_1_5/278-8484135-4763366?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246036012&sr=1-5), translated by Gerald Griffin, which covers his transatlantic armada flight from Rome to Chicago and back in 1933. It’s a wonderfully poetic and adventurous insight into the thoughts and self-image of the man himself. I also appreciate any additional recommendations anyone can give.

Balbo was a larger-than-life character. Nothing I write here could be more unbelievable than his OTL experiences. His fame and charisma were such that, after his death, he was praised openly by friend and foe alike. The British honored him post-mortem even while formally at war with his nation. America, who greeted him as a hero after the Chicago flight, celebrated him in life and death. To this day a street in Chicago bears his name – to continued controversy.

I should make note, however, that this ATL is not intended to be an “Italo-wank”, nor is it intended to be apologist or revisionist. While the sins Fascist Italy may have paled in comparison to those of their Nazi allies or Stalinist enemies, it remains a regime of totalitarianism, secret police, anti-democratic philosophy, unabashed imperialism, and ethnic superiority.

Dr. Segre, in his definitive English language biography of Balbo, sums my feelings up nicely: “As his contemporaries found, and as my sources, written and oral, testified, he was a likable man blessed with intelligence, charm, courage, enthusiasm, and humanity. He was also a pillar of a corrupt and cynical regime, a friend and collaborator of a demagogue who led his nation to catastrophe…the reader may at times succumb to Balbo’s charm and fascination as I did. Nevertheless, I have not forgotten the real nature of the regime that Balbo promoted and served so well – and I hope the reader does not either.”

[Sergio Van Lukenstein]

Ooo! Your first "serious" TL. This looks like it's going to be good!

[Jimbrock]

I hope that Balbo's Italy will be better than Mussolini's. Even though Mussie's Italy was not AS bad as you may portray it, I think Balbo could lead to a stronger, if still undermocratic, Italy.

On the other hand, is it possible not to have Ciano killed too? He was a *relative* moderate compared to Mussie and would be a useful character. Also, I assume from some comments that you have read Italy 1936 and An Empire Reborn? I'm looking forward to it. Viva Balbo!

Jim

[Dr. Strangelove]

This can only be good. I'm eagerly looking forward to it! :)

[Geekhis Khan]

Ooo! Your first "serious" TL. This looks like it's going to be good!

This can only be good. I'm eagerly looking forward to it! :)

Thanks! I'm looking forward to making it.

I hope that Balbo's Italy will be better than Mussolini's. Even though Mussie's Italy was not AS bad as you may portray it, I think Balbo could lead to a stronger, if still undermocratic, Italy.

On the other hand, is it possible not to have Ciano killed too? He was a *relative* moderate compared to Mussie and would be a useful character. Also, I assume from some comments that you have read Italy 1936 and An Empire Reborn? I'm looking forward to it. Viva Balbo!

Jim

Thanks for the interest!

To address your questions, this Italy will certainly be "better" than Mussie's, for one because Balbo won't chain himself to Hitler and two because Balbo wasn't the paranoid power-fiend with an inferiority complex that Mussie was. While not exactly democratic, this Fascist party will be more hands-off as Balbo's OTL behavior was to work more with existing power structures (in Ferarra he allied himself with the land-owners and industry barons). Balbo also hated bureaucracy, which will create some difficulties with the entrenched corporative state Mussie put in. While Balbo came from a Republican background OTL he really seemed to enjoy being in charge.

And yes, I'm very well aware that Fascist Italy was nowhere near as bad as Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR, but it was still an oligarchic dictatorship with secret police and political prisons. ATL there will be many repercussions from some of the party's more egregious political, enthic, and imperial actions (pre- and post-POD) which will remain controversial into the "present day". I jokingly considered subtitling this TL "a kinder, gentler machinegun hand", but decided against the anachronism stew approach. :p

As for Ciano, while certainly more moderate than his father-in-law, he also absolutely hated Balbo, saw him as a bitter threat and rival, and was probably more cunning in playing politics (as witnessed by his politically shrewd marriage to the boss' daughter!). His journal was full of venomous attacks on Balbo and his policies, and was only once semi-appreciative...the day of Balbo's death. There's a reason most of the (frankly groundless) conspiracy theories surrounding Balbo's death name Ciano as well as Mussolini. Ciano and Balbo would end up in a bitter power struggle which, at the moment of the POD (late 30's), might very well lead to the collapse of civil order at a critical time. Instead, Balbo will end up relying more on the likes of Grandi and de Bono. Besides, the nature of the assassination will be a plot point in its own right, and unfortunately it won't just be political demagogues who fall victim to the attack.

That said, I'll give it more thought. Ciano was an interesting character in his own right and conflict is drama...assuming said conflict doesn't derail the TL, which is my fear in this case.

I've read 1936 I believe (is that the one now on the Timelines board?) and enjoyed it, but missed Empire Reborn. Got a link? I'm always curious.

[Herr Frage]

Empire Reborn is the post Mussolini continuation of 1936. It is posted on Longvin's writing den, there is a link in my signature. Also the Extras secvtion has some IU pieces, visuals, and maps(some by the author other by forum members with author approval).

[DValdron]

Interesting. Balbo sounds altogether more focused and competent than Mussolini. So it will be interesting to see which way things go.

[statichaos]

This looks awesome. I trust you to avoid fascistwank, and to show the good/bad balance that you promised.

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks, all. And thanks for the link, Herr Frange.

I'm on vacation starting Tuesday, so the next post will be in a week or so. Subject: the Balbo Legacy!

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

This looks to be marvelous. I am eager to see what you have to offer. I'm among those who have always felt that Balbo would have been 10x the Duce Mussolini was. At the very least, he would have avoided yoking Italy to That Austrian Freak.

[lothaw]

Italy during this time period has been something of a hobby of mine lately, so this timeline looks to be interesting.

Mussolini himself was popular in America before he started cozing up to Hitler(albeit some of that was reflected glory from Balbo's hero status). This very well could be a timeline where Fascist doesn't equate to bad guys. As you said, Italy's sins did pale compared to Germany's, even if Hitler did use Mussolini's rise to power as a rolemodel.

When did you plan on having the assassination? Certainly would make a difference. 1939 would almost seem to be too late to derail Italy from being aligned with Germany along with Balbo's diminishing influence as he was opposing the increasing relations between the two nations.

Around 1937 would work pretty well I'd think. As for Ciano I'd say keep him around. His contempt for Balbo doesn't mean the two can't work together, and if they do butt heads, as you said, more drama.

Of course I see this going two ways. Either Italy remains neutral, or jumps in on the allies side once the war's going down hill. I could actually see a Five power agreement with Italy occuping Austria and eventually setting up another Fascist state there.

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

Saayyy....wouldn''t it be nice if oil was discovered in Libya soon after Balbo takes power rather than in the 1950's as IOTL? It certainly wouldn't hurt to have the new Duce preside over a booming oil economy.

[lothaw]

Saayyy....wouldn''t it be nice if oil was discovered in Libya soon after Balbo takes power rather than in the 1950's as IOTL? It certainly wouldn't hurt to have the new Duce preside over a booming oil economy.

We've been over this before... they knew it was there, they just didn't have the heavy machinery or the technology to build said machinery, to get to it.

Only power in the world who did was the US. Even the popular Balbo, who is still by definition a dictator, landing cutting edge equipment from the US is skeptical to say the least.

[Geekhis Khan]

This looks to be marvelous. I am eager to see what you have to offer. I'm among those who have always felt that Balbo would have been 10x the Duce Mussolini was. At the very least, he would have avoided yoking Italy to That Austrian Freak.

Thanks! Hope you enjoy it.

Italy during this time period has been something of a hobby of mine lately, so this timeline looks to be interesting.

Mussolini himself was popular in America before he started cozing up to Hitler(albeit some of that was reflected glory from Balbo's hero status). This very well could be a timeline where Fascist doesn't equate to bad guys. As you said, Italy's sins did pale compared to Germany's, even if Hitler did use Mussolini's rise to power as a rolemodel.

When did you plan on having the assassination? Certainly would make a difference. 1939 would almost seem to be too late to derail Italy from being aligned with Germany along with Balbo's diminishing influence as he was opposing the increasing relations between the two nations.

Around 1937 would work pretty well I'd think. As for Ciano I'd say keep him around. His contempt for Balbo doesn't mean the two can't work together, and if they do butt heads, as you said, more drama.

Of course I see this going two ways. Either Italy remains neutral, or jumps in on the allies side once the war's going down hill. I could actually see a Five power agreement with Italy occuping Austria and eventually setting up another Fascist state there.

The plan is 36-37. I actually have a specific OTL assassin picked out. I'm reevaluating Ciano's fate. Any other opinions on Ciano?

As for Fascism's fate post-war...well, that's a whole plotline in and of itself. ;)

Saayyy....wouldn''t it be nice if oil was discovered in Libya soon after Balbo takes power rather than in the 1950's as IOTL? It certainly wouldn't hurt to have the new Duce preside over a booming oil economy.

We've been over this before... they knew it was there, they just didn't have the heavy machinery or the technology to build said machinery, to get to it.

Only power in the world who did was the US. Even the popular Balbo, who is still by definition a dictator, landing cutting edge equipment from the US is skeptical to say the least.

I have a plan for the Libyan oil, and no, it won't be discovered pre-war. OTL they never seriously looked for oil until the late 30s (under Balbo, actually), and by the time exploitation could possibly have begun even best-case the war put an end to that. As for hesitation by the US to support a dictator...well, it happened plenty of times OTL. Particularly with Ike on if said dictator was anti-commie. That oil will play a BIG role eventually.

[Herr Frage]

I am in agreement on the oil, there is much money to be made; however it will be decades before the technology and funding are right to properly exploit it. In the meantime they should focus on implementing the Demographicas.

The Yankees despite a sanctimonious front have never really been shy about supporting dictators if it served their interests. That really makes them nio different than any other powerful nation, they just act like they are different.

Ciano dying seems to convenient for Marshal Balbo. Rather I say he sghould survibe but be incapacitated having been injured in the assassination. Limit his ability to prevent Balbo from taking power, but keep him alive to be a rival that Balbo has to tolerate, at least for a while.

My hope is that the Savoy monarchy survives. It would be awesome for that dynasty to be able to boast a millenium of rule in the 21st Century.

[Germaniac]

Thanks! Hope you enjoy it.



The plan is 36-37. I actually have a specific OTL assassin picked out. I'm reevaluating Ciano's fate. Any other opinions on Ciano?

As for Fascism's fate post-war...well, that's a whole plotline in and of itself. ;)





I have a plan for the Libyan oil, and no, it won't be discovered pre-war. OTL they never seriously looked for oil until the late 30s (under Balbo, actually), and by the time exploitation could possibly have begun even best-case the war put an end to that. As for hesitation by the US to support a dictator...well, it happened plenty of times OTL. Particularly with Ike on if said dictator was anti-commie. That oil will play a BIG role eventually.

Balbo was also EXTREMELY popular in the United States. He was vastly important to the large Italian communites in the United States. He was also slightly favored by Roosevelt

[Geekhis Khan]

I am in agreement on the oil, there is much money to be made; however it will be decades before the technology and funding are right to properly exploit it. In the meantime they should focus on implementing the Demographicas.

Ciano dying seems to convenient for Marshal Balbo. Rather I say he sghould survibe but be incapacitated having been injured in the assassination. Limit his ability to prevent Balbo from taking power, but keep him alive to be a rival that Balbo has to tolerate, at least for a while.

My hope is that the Savoy monarchy survives. It would be awesome for that dynasty to be able to boast a millenium of rule in the 21st Century.

The oil will be exploited sooner than OTL, but not much sooner. Mostly the result of earlier organized exploration without the post-war chaos and revolution.

On Ciano, I was considering exactly that as an option. The nature of the attack was part of the reason why his fate was sealed in my original plans, but severe injury is an option that allows for intrigue without derailment.

Oh, and the Monarchy is safe ITTL. Young, revolutionary Balbo would have killed it, no doubt about it. However, older Balbo the Politician was very close to the Monarchy and he became a close friend of the King OTL.

Balbo was also EXTREMELY popular in the United States. He was vastly important to the large Italian communites in the United States. He was also slightly favored by Roosevelt

Very much so! Still a street in Chicago named after him. In '33 after the Transatlantic flight he met with FDR and complimented him on the "Fascist" nature of his New Deal policies.



By he way, thanks to insomnia you are all blessed with the next chapter a week early! :D

[Geekhis Khan]

Introduction: the Balbo Legacy

“I am the first to step on the square at dawn…It is a Mediterranean dawn welling against an azure sky, and stabbing it with sharp spears of light. Then the east assumes a bright indigo hue which dissolves into bleeding tints of aquamarine, emerald green and deep crimson. It is the mystic hour of matins when from remote and lonely cloisters angelic voices greet our Lady, the Star of the Sea—the hour of heavenly dreams—the hour when little children in their sleep converse with the angels. It is a dawn which inspires us with visions of the distant land of promise towards which we are about to fly—a land from the spires of whose cities festive carillons greet us.” – Italo Balbo, My Air Armada, 1934.

http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/salutano1.jpg

The Air Armada leaves for Chicago


They descended slowly over the city, seeming to hover like alien space ships. Twenty four aircraft 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 then 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 to 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," Balbo 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 one of 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 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 led 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.


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/Balmo-stormo.jpg

The Route and Aircraft of the Second Atlantic Flight


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 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 his armada 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 Mazzinian 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 corporative state. He was a man whose strengths, persona, life, and achievements embodied the grand principles and hidden 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 Fascist Italy 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 a laissez faire approach to 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 Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.



http://www.finn.it/regia/immagini/savoia/s55_chicago.jpg

The Armada in Chicago


Protests, Counter-protests Rock Balbo Celebration

Patria Square, Rome, June 6, 2009 (AP News) - opposing groups of protesters disrupted this year's Balbo Day celebration, an annual and controversial ceremony sponsored by the Italian Fascist Party and celebrating the observed birthday of Italo Balbo, second "Duce" of the Italian Fascist state. Socialist political groups, Ethiopian and Rastafarian groups, Pan-Slavic organizations, anti-Balbian Jewish groups, and various ethnic minorities were among those who marched against the quasi-official celebration. Such groups have protested the event for the last few years with protests gaining size and momentum with each New Year. This year the protests reached the largest size yet and were met with an almost equally large counter-protest from Fascists, Fasci organization, nationalists, veterans' groups, pro-Balbian Jews, and conservative political groups.

"It was terrible," said Fascist party official Mussolini Ferrara, "while we understand that there are those revisionist elements who dislike our national hero, it is utterly abhorrent the way they disturb such a solemn event. While I and the Fascist party remain instruments of peace, brotherhood and order such anarchic behavior makes one sympathetic to the heavy-handed tactics of the past."

The protestors themselves called the event "a celebration of violence, hatred and imperialist aggression." Said one protestor who identified herself as a Libertarian Socialist, "He was a thug. A blackshirted thug who used the cudgel and the boot to oppress the worker. Yes, he fought Hitler, but so what? A thug is a thug, even one not quite blind enough to overlook the machinations of a bigger thug." Said Slovenian National Bojan Jakovljevic, "I was born Bonito Giordano. That was the name the Fascist occupiers forced upon me. My very blood they tried to take away from me!" Said Shlomo Klein of the Hebrew Youth Front, "I don't care what the Elder [Jews] say, Balbo was no friend of the Jew! You can call those camps a 'rescue' all you want. Babylon is Babylon. If anything, he was complicit in the Nazi genocide. Without Balbo there would have been no 'Final Solution'!"

Counter-protestors held opposite views. "Yes, regrettably Marshal Balbo and his compatriots had to resort to some...strong means to save the nation from Marxism and Anarchism," said Fascist Minister Italo Cabrini, "but to ignore the great deeds he did for our nation in war and in peace is to deny the very soul of the Patria!"

"Complicit in the Holocaust?" said Rabbi Israel Samet of the Zion Defense Council, there by invite of the Fascist party, "What is wrong with these kids? Balbo saved the Jewish people from utter annihilation! Have they not read Hitler's book? Read the Nazi files? Hitler would have killed us all like he killed so many were it not for Niew Yisroyel!" He then revealed a number tattooed on his inner wrist, adding: "Babylon? These kids have no concept of what Babylon truly is!"

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was more reticent: "Yes, Marshal Balbo had some regrettable past actions, but in total we the Italian people cannot forget his courage and fortitude in the face of the great threats to this nation. He was a product of his times but also ahead of his times. He and the Fascist Party not only rescued our nation from disunity and poverty but elevated us to international power status and brought our nation the recognition and honor it now holds. In the end Balbo Day is about the heroics and honor and pride of the Commonwealth's people, and any Italian, Libyan, Jew, Somali, or indeed Berber should take pride in that."



http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/LookingBack6.JPG

The Air Armada on their way to Cartwright, Labrador, from Reykjavik, during the longest (1500 mi) leg of the 1933 flight to Chicago.


Thread Title: WI Mussolini Survives?

redmon43: I read once how that guy that killed Mussolini nearly got caught at the airport, or something. WI Mussolini survived assassination? I heard he wanted to form an alliance with Hitler.

Ednaht: Great, this again! :rolleyes:

BalboBoyBlue: Actually quite possible. There were elements even after Mussolini’s death that favored siding with the Germans, Farinacci in particular.

Benito333: Easy: Mussolini joins the war. While Hitler’s panzers swoop out of the Ardennes the Italian army sweeps across southern France all the way to Bordeaux. Balbo, whose still governor of Libya, sweeps across Egypt and takes the Suez. Since they outnumber the UK forces like ten to one at that point it’s a swirlie. After Dunkirk and Suez Englands forced to sue for peace. Eventually Russia gets invaded, but maybe with the extra manpower from Italy they take Moscow. This could change the whole war!

redmon 43: so, Hitler-splooj?

Quadrumvir: To Ben333: um, no. Sorry, but that won’t happen. First Italy doesn’t have the tanks or logistics for that. They’ll get bogged down in the mountains of Savoy and run out of fuel and water before they reach Alexandria, none the less Suez. Don’t confuse the RE of 1940 with that of 1944.

Benito333: Compadre, seriously! Ten to frugin one! Besides, Balbo knew desert logistics. He set up the Via Balbia, right?

Quadrumvir: That was a relatively small group of workers who never moved more than a few miles a day. In an invasion you’re talking thousands of men, hundreds of vehicles, all coordinated, all needing to use a handful of inadequate roads. Sure, they’d cause some problems for the Brits until reinforcements could arrive, but in the end the Brits overrun Libya. Besides, once the RN secures the Med it’s game-over supply-wise.

kriegsmariniac: what about the italien navy? they were like bigger then frances and they would be able to hold back the RN long enough right?

Torah Torah Torah: What, a few out-of-date Battleships? They’d be a pain, but send the Ark Royal and it’s kaput-time for the RM. And no, they were never as big as France’s navy.

Corvette454: I herd once that the RN planned to sink the Italien fleet in port at Taranto. Could they have done that?

kreigsmariniac: no way the italiens would see that coming. their not gonna be asleep at the wheel like the americans were.

Benito333: To Quad: look, I think you underestimate Balbo. We’re talking a major advantage in numbers. And I agree with Krieg: the RM would hold the sealanes long enough. While the Italian Tanks were fewer and smaller than the Matildas and all, there were enough of them. Remember, the Yanks did well enough with shitloads of Shermans.

TankGrrl: guys, we’re forgetting the post-Balbo build-up. Maybe Mussolini builds up the RN and the Libyan forces the same way, but if we follow the same patter pre-37 there might be even fewer tanks and men in Libya. They might also be mostly the old Tankettes. Remember: the general feeling was that Will triumphed over Equipment in the end. The IJA thought the same way and see where it got them.

BalboBoyBlue: Good point TankGrrl. The IJN comment brings up another point. What if Italy does join on the German side? How does this affect the Pacific? Would the UK pull a bunch of ships and troops from Malaysia? If so, what happens in 41 when the Japanese attack?

Torah Torah Torah: Either way, it can’t be good for us Jews. Seriously, does a pro-Hitler Italy do squat for us?

Benito333: Maybe in that case you’d see the Madagascar plan.

Torah Torah Torah: Or the gas chambers three years earlier!

kriegsmariniac: please that was a desperation move caused by the war was going bad. never happens otherwise.

Adminiac: Alright people, don’t start the Final Solution arguments again or I’ll shut this one down too. Stay on topic. Watch it, Torah, Krieg. That’s Warning 1 and 2, respectively.

BalboBoyBlue: Seriously, what about Southeast Asia? Do the Japanese take Singapore?

VOC: Sure, right after they invade Maui, CAQL!

Corvette454: Oh hell, there goes this thread.

Endaht: Danger! Danger! Pinnipeds in the Channel! Pinnipeds in the Channel!

JAGOFFicer: FAYLE!!

redmon43: Hey, no! I liked my thread. :(

JAGOFFicer: welcome to the boards, virg, caql.

From the [I]ContraHistoricus.com message boards


Explosions Rock Tripoli

Tripoli, Libya, Italy April 14, 2007 (New York Times) – The streets of Tripoli, capital of the Italian province of Libya, were shaken today by a series of coordinated terrorist attacks. 14 were killed and at least dozens more injured when at least four attacks by car bombs and suicide bombers shook the city during the lunch hour. No group has yet claimed responsibility, though Italian authorities have blamed Arab-Berber terrorist group Ikhwān al-Aghlabid, who have been responsible for several such bombings over the past decades. Past attacks have targeted Italian police and military personnel, the oil pipeline and the civilian population.



http://www.finn.it/regia/immagini/savoia/s55_in_volo.jpg

The Armada in Flight


Certainly was born at the wrong time and yet at the exact right time. He was a man of the past, a knight errant, a wild hussar, a Columbus, a Garibaldi, and yet it was always to the future he looked. For my uncle life was always to be an adventure, ever forward, damn the torpedoes, boldly into the unknown! Of course he made mistakes, dreadful mistakes, ones that nearly cost us both our lives. But if fortune favors the bold then it was certainly Her wings that carried him through life.

He loved life, loved his family, and loved his people. Perhaps most, he loved Italy. Not merely the land and the culture, but the people, the very idea of Italy. And that was what kept him going forth.

There are those who will call him a tyrant, an imperialist, an oppressor, but they do not know him as I knew him! They know not how he fretted over the fate of the lowliest farmer or factory worker. They do not know the sacrifices he made for Italy and the world. Would the world be a better place without Italo Balbo? I think not!

From The Last Duce [B]by Nello Quilici, 1984

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

Thanks! Hope you enjoy it.

I have a plan for the Libyan oil, and no, it won't be discovered pre-war. OTL they never seriously looked for oil until the late 30s (under Balbo, actually), and by the time exploitation could possibly have begun even best-case the war put an end to that. As for hesitation by the US to support a dictator...well, it happened plenty of times OTL. Particularly with Ike on if said dictator was anti-commie. That oil will play a BIG role eventually.

Nice. Ooh, looks like the next part has been posted already! *readreadread*

[Tobit]

Those are really great pictures! I also like the alternate version of alternatehistory.com.

The question is will anyone take a barnstormer seriously?

[Cornelius]

Finally! I've been expecting you to start this timeline for a while, but your work has well been worth the wait.
Your preparatiy work far exceed what I was expecting for a first timeline.

What to say more? Viva Balbo! A NOI!

[Geekhis Khan]

Those are really great pictures! I also like the alternate version of alternatehistory.com.

The question is will anyone take a barnstormer seriously?

Thanks. I stole the idea for the alt boards from Dr. Strangelove. :D Not sure if he stole the idea from someone else first.

As to the question, they took him very seriously OTL. After all he was more than just a "barnstormer", by the time of that flight he'd turned the Blackshirts into a serious national paramilitary organization out of scattered groups. He'd also been Italy's Air Minister. He was already known as a skilled organizer and politician befoe the flights. And yes, the flights themselves, long-distance mass flights in a time without much experience there at all, took the type of organization that demanded attention.

Finally! I've been expecting you to start this timeline for a while, but your work has well been worth the wait.
Your preparatiy work far exceed what I was expecting for a first timeline.

What to say more? Viva Balbo! A NOI!

Thanks! It took a while to squeeze this through RL, so I hope it was worth the wait. Took me longer than I'd hoped as well. Hope you like the rest!

[The Red]

Consider me subscribed.

[Amartus]

'Torah Torah Torah' - that is brilliant! :)

[Germaniac]

Subscribed, Im so excited for this TL

[Geekhis Khan]

Consider me subscribed.

Subscribed, Im so excited for this TL

Thanks, glad to have you on board.

'Torah Torah Torah' - that is brilliant! :)

Totally ripped it off from Christopher Moore. :o But yea, so brilliant I had to steal it fair-and-square.

[Goldstein]

This thread smells like awesome. I can't wait for more.

Only a minor nitpick... how in a TL with such a potential for divergence, Silvio Berlusconi ends up being the Italian PM?

[statichaos]

One of only three threads I'm subscribed to (the others being Era of Limits and Tailgunner In The Driver's Seat).

[Herr Frage]

It would seem you had a typo or were giving a calculated answer. Upthread you reponded to my query that the Savoy Throne was safe ITTL, yet in the post an Italian Republic is referenced as the current state.

So it would seem Fascism will fall in Italy in a manner similar to Francoist Spain. So Balbo will be the second and last Duce?

It is promising that Balbo is so controversial, it means that one can make a legitimate case in his favor.

The Jewish situation seems interesting. I am guessing Hitkler carried out mass deoprtation. Still a genocide of Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and the like though it would seem. While elders are not always right it is irritating to see youth not accord them respect. An elder should have to work to lose the respect due their station, I have seen it in my clan.

[The Professor]

Very interesting GK.
Surprised that Silvio B is around in this TL but sometimes we need a figure we can all recognise.

And I certainly liked the ContraHistoricus.com board with its completely made-up members ;) Is there a Nerdoleon member perhaps? :D

[Jimbrock]

I like the update, but is the whole TL going to be present day lookig back at Balbo, or that time itself?

And, il Duce? That was Mussie's personal title and I doubt that anyone trying to continue his legacy (im sure Balbo will at least claim to do that) will take it.
I see that Libya is going to play quite a role (im sure some of that model colony stuff could be borrowed from an Empire Reborn) and that some coup is in order.

It would seem you had a typo or were giving a calculated answer. Upthread you reponded to my query that the Savoy Throne was safe ITTL, yet in the post an Italian Republic is referenced as the current state.


Seconded. Please don't kill the monarchy, there could be a cool Franco Spain scenario with Italy instead. (also, I dont want any of that New Rome stuff, Italy is fine for now ;) )

Love it, keep it up.
Jim

[Dungeon Dwelling Dragon]

Nice to see you are at both paradox forums and here.

[Geekhis Khan]

This thread smells like awesome. I can't wait for more.

Only a minor nitpick... how in a TL with such a potential for divergence, Silvio Berlusconi ends up being the Italian PM?

Thanks! As for Berlusconi...couldn't resist. The guy's pure chutzpah. He's like Ted Turner, Bill Clinton, and Dubya all wrapped up in one. Besides, I really get the feeling a man like him would find a real place in ATL politics as well. I totally see him as a "Balbian".

One of only three threads I'm subscribed to (the others being Era of Limits and Tailgunner In The Driver's Seat).

Thanks, I'm honored.

It would seem you had a typo or were giving a calculated answer. Upthread you reponded to my query that the Savoy Throne was safe ITTL, yet in the post an Italian Republic is referenced as the current state.

So it would seem Fascism will fall in Italy in a manner similar to Francoist Spain. So Balbo will be the second and last Duce?

It is promising that Balbo is so controversial, it means that one can make a legitimate case in his favor.

The Jewish situation seems interesting. I am guessing Hitkler carried out mass deoprtation. Still a genocide of Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and the like though it would seem. While elders are not always right it is irritating to see youth not accord them respect. An elder should have to work to lose the respect due their station, I have seen it in my clan.

Using the term "Republic" was unintentional, but yes, Fascism will "fall" Francoesque - but note the continued existence of the Fascist Party! There will still be an Italian King...just as there's a British Queen OTL.

As for the Jews, the situation will be...complicated. Complicated and extremely controversial up to ATL "present day". You're on the right track. And yes, the divide between Youth and Elders is supposed to be noteworthy.

Very interesting GK.
Surprised that Silvio B is around in this TL but sometimes we need a figure we can all recognise.

And I certainly liked the ContraHistoricus.com board with its completely made-up members ;) Is there a Nerdoleon member perhaps? :D

Thanks, Professor. Heh...I'm not sure if "Nerdoleon" (or should it be Nerdicus? "I am Nerdicus!") will appear. ;)

[lothaw]

A great introduction, provides the divergence and leaves you wanting more.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the next installment. Can't wait to see how things play out in this timeline.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Thanks. I stole the idea for the alt boards from Dr. Strangelove. :D Not sure if he stole the idea from someone else first.

I am fairly sure I took the idea from somewhere else, but I can't for my life remember exactly where. Maybe it was inspired by DBWI threads in general. Btw, you are doing it far better than me.

[Geekhis Khan]

A great introduction, provides the divergence and leaves you wanting more.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the next installment. Can't wait to see how things play out in this timeline.

Thanks! Hope the rest of the TL lives up to the expectations.

I am fairly sure I took the idea from somewhere else, but I can't for my life remember exactly where. Maybe it was inspired by DBWI threads in general. Btw, you are doing it far better than me.

No surprise. Either way I liked the way you did it. Thanks for the complement, but yours is fine.

PS: congrats on the Turtledove for NSCW. Well deserved!

[Rakhasa]

Only a minor nitpick... how in a TL with such a potential for divergence, Silvio Berlusconi ends up being the Italian PM?

The day after the nuclear holocaust, the only things living in Italy will be cocroaches and Berlusconi.
And they will probably vote him as president, too.

[Onkel Willie]

lol :p. Seriously, this is good and I'd like to see more. Write now:D.

Oh and Berlusconi was born before the PoD so he might still go into politics.

[Hashasheen]

I am fairly sure I took the idea from somewhere else, but I can't for my life remember exactly where. Maybe it was inspired by DBWI threads in general. Btw, you are doing it far better than me.
Lol. Maybe my TL? I did screw over Balbo in mine. :D

[lounge60]

Thanks! I'm looking forward to making it.



Thanks for the interest!

While not exactly democratic, this Fascist party will be more hands-off as Balbo's OTL behavior was to work more with existing power structures
I have read that Balbo thought at a two parties system in long term.
Substantially the fascist party split in two:
conservatives and fascist-socialist,
and united to cristian democrat,liberals ( that in Italy are the equivalent of the Repubblican left center-wing),socialists not marxist.
This two parties system was in any case a bit authoritarian and elitist,but not an
dictatorship.

[Kara Iskandar]

Wonderful beginning.
Eargerly waiting for the next part.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Lol. Maybe my TL? I did screw over Balbo in mine. :D

I am afraid I didn't read your TL. :p

[Jape]

People keep mentioning a Francoist Italy, but it sounds more like Peronist Argentina, ie the Fascist Party is still a mainstream if controversial force in a modern democracy, depsite its past authoritarianism.

I am curious how the ex-liberal Balbo will do in place of the ex-socialist Mussolini

[Germaniac]

I want to know the repercussions of a European Majority nation on the African continent. The likelihood of the fourth shore program to succeed is very good, considering the Balbo was leading the charge AND the fact that Italy is not going to fight on the side of the Axis. Depending on when the Italians enter the war the soldiers coming home will come home and begin making babies. Not to mention Italy lost a million and a half people. This will lead to more overpopulation, leading to more immigration to Libya.

Once The Italians gain over 50%, again shouldn't be hard with the low Libyan native population, it will become as Italian as Italy and will be difficult to be broken off. A situation like French Algeria, or South Africa wont happen because the Italians outnumber the Natives... im excited to see what happens

[Geekhis Khan]

I have read that Balbo thought at a two parties system in long term.
Substantially the fascist party split in two:
conservatives and fascist-socialist,
and united to cristian democrat,liberals ( that in Italy are the equivalent of the Repubblican left center-wing),socialists not marxist.
This two parties system was in any case a bit authoritarian and elitist,but not an
dictatorship.


Didn't know that one. Thanks again, lounge, you're a fountain of knowledge. Where did you find that? I'm curious to read more.

I keep reading about both his "residual Republican leanings", but also of his love of being in charge once he was, so finding where to steer this politically has been a lot of guesswork thanks to the serious lack of data on him in English. If you could steer me to any good Italian sites I could at least give babelfish a try at them...

Wonderful beginning.
Eargerly waiting for the next part.

Thanks! And welcome to the boards.

People keep mentioning a Francoist Italy, but it sounds more like Peronist Argentina, ie the Fascist Party is still a mainstream if controversial force in a modern democracy, depsite its past authoritarianism.

I am curious how the ex-liberal Balbo will do in place of the ex-socialist Mussolini

That's a really good point. My current knowledge of Peronist Argentina is polluted by US popular entertainment (and elevator music show tunes), so I'll have to make it a point to research Peron's regime before I start the post-war stuff. And no, there will not be any "Donna Manu" musicals. :p

I want to know the repercussions of a European Majority nation on the African continent. The likelihood of the fourth shore program to succeed is very good, considering the Balbo was leading the charge AND the fact that Italy is not going to fight on the side of the Axis. Depending on when the Italians enter the war the soldiers coming home will come home and begin making babies. Not to mention Italy lost a million and a half people. This will lead to more overpopulation, leading to more immigration to Libya.

Once The Italians gain over 50%, again shouldn't be hard with the low Libyan native population, it will become as Italian as Italy and will be difficult to be broken off. A situation like French Algeria, or South Africa wont happen because the Italians outnumber the Natives... im excited to see what happens

What you describe is very much in the plan. "Fourth Shore Italy" will remain to present day, with...interesting repercussions. Some of these have been hinted at in the last update. What it hasn't been hinted at but will appear eventually is the flip-side: the impact of a large Arab-Berber minority on Italian culture!

[The Red]

When are we getting an update?

[Kara Iskandar]

Thanks! And welcome to the boards.

Grazie mille! but we need an update :D!

[Geekhis Khan]

I just got back from vacation and need time to get back into the swing of things, so it'll be a few, I'm afraid.

I'd prefer, frankly, to give a good update next week rather than a crappy one today. :D

[The Red]

I just got back from vacation and need time to get back into the swing of things, so it'll be a few, I'm afraid.

I'd prefer, frankly, to give a good update next week rather than a crappy one today. :D

Indeed.

How was your holiday?

[Geekhis Khan]

Good, thank you. :)

[lounge60]

Didn't know that one. Thanks again, lounge, you're a fountain of knowledge. Where did you find that? I'm curious to read more.


The reference is on "Italo Balbo"-Giordano Bruno Guerri,on an article of History magazine "Historia" ,and in an interview to Dino Grandi.
The original source is in private conversations of Balbo with friends and others fascist personalities.
Grandi said that him thinks the same.
The idea was intended not like "anti-fascist",but like an evolution, a manner to consolidate the
achievements
of fascism and move from a system still to another more dynamic without return to the old many parties system,and involving other fresh forces not strongly anti-fascist (some cattolic-democratics,Liberals and socialist moderates) in the political life.
In late 30s the fascist party was a swamp,slow,heavy,bureaucratic.
Balbo was a dynamic,modern type and hated this.
One time one young air force officer asked to him to enter in the fascist party.
Balbo tell to him "You are crazy? you are one Royal air force officer ,forget that crap!
For these ideas Mussolini called him "that democratic pig".

[Geekhis Khan]

Excellent stuff, thank you again, lounge. :)

[lounge60]

Attention, the "two parties system" in the beginning should have been internal to fascist party.
You imagine an election in USA in which are only the Democratic or the Repubblican party.
For example:candidates are conservative-moderate Repubblicans and moderate-liberal Repubblicans.
at the Conservative joint the right wing of the Democratics,and others conservative movements ,
and centrist dems,and others progressive movements joint to the left wing Rep.
The citzen vote for one or for the other faction of the (apparently) same party.
The system that Balbo had in mind,in the beginning was this.
Is clear that in the years had evolved in a true two parties system.

[Jape]

Sounds like the system that started in post-Nasser Egypt under Sadr(?). The Arab Socialist Party, the only legal party, was divided internally into three factions, the Worker's (left) Moderates (centre) and Liberal Socialist (right) and elections were held as ever (people tend to forget most dictatorships including the USSR and Fascist Italy, did hold elections, just with a 'limited' choice). Over time the factions became more distinct with Sadr in the centre faction still dominating as Egypt moved towards a semblence of democracy.

Such a system would make sense in Balboite Italy, particularly if Balbo/Party leaders are keen to retain control through slow democratisation, rather than sudden reform. Still even if that was the path to democracy, one look at post-Communist Eastern Europe to see plenty of 'revised' Soviet era parties will thriving. I can't imagine Fascist Italy having many more skeleton's in its closet than Communist Poland or East Germany.

EDIT: Interesting possibility, does a functioning Fascist Italy keep fascism alive as an ideology. Without its alliance, Nazi Germany will viewed as a seperate entity, far more extremist and far from the technocratic ideas of Mussolini. Will things like the BUF, Parti Social etc. still remain in politics?

[lounge60]

Sounds like the system that started in post-Nasser Egypt under Sadr(?). The Arab Socialist Party, the only legal party, was divided internally into three factions, the Worker's (left) Moderates (centre) and Liberal Socialist (right) and elections were held as ever (people tend to forget most dictatorships including the USSR and Fascist Italy, did hold elections, just with a 'limited' choice). Over time the factions became more distinct with Sadr in the centre faction still dominating as Egypt moved towards a semblence of democracy.



Yes,more or less is the same.
But Italy is not Egypt,and neither Spain.
I think that in 50s the Balbo system would necessarily evolved in bipartisan democracy.
In the post war world a country like Italy could not remain out of the games like Spain.
I think that men like Balbo or Grandi would understand this and would have driven the process.

[Shadow Knight]

Interesting premise, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. :cool:

[maverick]

That's a really good point. My current knowledge of Peronist Argentina is polluted by US popular entertainment (and elevator music show tunes), so I'll have to make it a point to research Peron's regime before I start the post-war stuff. And no, there will not be any "Donna Manu" musicals. :p

If you're serious, check the TL at my sig, about a peronist argentina:p

BTW, I still find this a very excellent project

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

What you describe is very much in the plan. "Fourth Shore Italy" will remain to present day, with...interesting repercussions. Some of these have been hinted at in the last update. What it hasn't been hinted at but will appear eventually is the flip-side: the impact of a large Arab-Berber minority on Italian culture!

Hmmmm. All this could make the Decolonization era rather interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. Great work thus far.

[LordKalvan]

Attention, the "two parties system" in the beginning should have been internal to fascist party.
You imagine an election in USA in which are only the Democratic or the Repubblican party.
For example:candidates are conservative-moderate Repubblicans and moderate-liberal Repubblicans.
at the Conservative joint the right wing of the Democratics,and others conservative movements ,
and centrist dems,and others progressive movements joint to the left wing Rep.
The citzen vote for one or for the other faction of the (apparently) same party.
The system that Balbo had in mind,in the beginning was this.
Is clear that in the years had evolved in a true two parties system.

It would be quite easy to split the Fascist party into two (or more?) wings: there was always a clear divide between the "progressive" and the "reactionary" sides of the movement, and the fascist ideology was - to say the least - very muddled. The difficulty would be in keeping under control the beginning of this liberalisation, in order to avoid an excessive factionalism.

Yes,more or less is the same.
But Italy is not Egypt,and neither Spain.
I think that in 50s the Balbo system would necessarily evolved in bipartisan democracy.
In the post war world a country like Italy could not remain out of the games like Spain.
I think that men like Balbo or Grandi would understand this and would have driven the process.

I do agree with this: the economic boom of the 50s and the increased consumerism will force a deeper and more real democratisation of the political landscape in Italy. I am also in agreement that it cannot take too long: no way a prosperous Italy could be kept still the same way Francoist Spain was.

This said, democratisation is a funny process, and there has not been many cases where the timetable and the specifics of it where kept. Balbo might be surprised by the acceleration that moderate reforms can take :D

[Geekhis Khan]

Attention, the "two parties system" in the beginning should have been internal to fascist party.
You imagine an election in USA in which are only the Democratic or the Repubblican party.
For example:candidates are conservative-moderate Repubblicans and moderate-liberal Repubblicans.
at the Conservative joint the right wing of the Democratics,and others conservative movements ,
and centrist dems,and others progressive movements joint to the left wing Rep.
The citzen vote for one or for the other faction of the (apparently) same party.
The system that Balbo had in mind,in the beginning was this.
Is clear that in the years had evolved in a true two parties system.

That sounds about right. I can really see Balbo and Grandi setting up such a system. Thanks for the insight.

Sounds like the system that started in post-Nasser Egypt under Sadr(?). The Arab Socialist Party, the only legal party, was divided internally into three factions, the Worker's (left) Moderates (centre) and Liberal Socialist (right) and elections were held as ever (people tend to forget most dictatorships including the USSR and Fascist Italy, did hold elections, just with a 'limited' choice). Over time the factions became more distinct with Sadr in the centre faction still dominating as Egypt moved towards a semblence of democracy.

Such a system would make sense in Balboite Italy, particularly if Balbo/Party leaders are keen to retain control through slow democratisation, rather than sudden reform. Still even if that was the path to democracy, one look at post-Communist Eastern Europe to see plenty of 'revised' Soviet era parties will thriving. I can't imagine Fascist Italy having many more skeleton's in its closet than Communist Poland or East Germany.

EDIT: Interesting possibility, does a functioning Fascist Italy keep fascism alive as an ideology. Without its alliance, Nazi Germany will viewed as a seperate entity, far more extremist and far from the technocratic ideas of Mussolini. Will things like the BUF, Parti Social etc. still remain in politics?

Yes,more or less is the same.
But Italy is not Egypt,and neither Spain.
I think that in 50s the Balbo system would necessarily evolved in bipartisan democracy.
In the post war world a country like Italy could not remain out of the games like Spain.
I think that men like Balbo or Grandi would understand this and would have driven the process.

Great points; Egypt, Spain, Argentina, former Soviet Bloc...Balboan Italy could have similarities and differences to all. I'll have to research these more, but the post-war politics is shaping up already. Thanks, lounge & Jape.

And Jape: Fascism and Nazism will indeed be seen as separate ideologies. I can promise the continued life of some pre-war Fascist-like groups like the BUF, and can promise the post-war birth of others. The specifics may change from nation to nation, though. Developing nations in particular will find inspiration in Fascist Italy's fast industrialization.

As for the eventual slow democratization, it will be the longest time before truly "Socialist" parties and Anarchist/Libertarian parties, particularly Marxian anti-statist "internationalist" ones, find a place, since Fascism in general and Balbo in particular found them immediate enemies. That said, the Socialist and Syndicalist parts of Fascism may certainly become (a) sub-party(ies) when we see the post-war split.

Interesting premise, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. :cool:

Thanks! Hope to live up to the promise.

If you're serious, check the TL at my sig, about a peronist argentina:p

BTW, I still find this a very excellent project

I'll check that one out, and thanks.

Hmmmm. All this could make the Decolonization era rather interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word. Great work thus far.

Yes, the effects of Libya on Decolonization certainly shall indeed prove...interesting. :cool: Thanks!

It would be quite easy to split the Fascist party into two (or more?) wings: there was always a clear divide between the "progressive" and the "reactionary" sides of the movement, and the fascist ideology was - to say the least - very muddled. The difficulty would be in keeping under control the beginning of this liberalisation, in order to avoid an excessive factionalism.

I do agree with this: the economic boom of the 50s and the increased consumerism will force a deeper and more real democratisation of the political landscape in Italy. I am also in agreement that it cannot take too long: no way a prosperous Italy could be kept still the same way Francoist Spain was.

This said, democratisation is a funny process, and there has not been many cases where the timetable and the specifics of it where kept. Balbo might be surprised by the acceleration that moderate reforms can take :D

There are a variety of factions within Fascism to "balkanize" into sub-parties. Most notably, the party originally formed from a union between, of all crazy things, Nationalism and Radical Revolutionary Syndicalism. :eek: There will most certainly be divisions between these two factions, not to mention divisions from Futurists/Traditionalists, Industrialists/Labor, Catholic/Anti-Catholic, Republican/Monarchist, Agrari landholders/Peasantry, Nobility/Bourgeois/Proletariat, and Nationalist/Regionalist (not to mention North/South/Colonial).

[LordKalvan]

There are a variety of factions within Fascism to "balkanize" into sub-parties. Most notably, the party originally formed from a union between, of all crazy things, Nationalism and Radical Revolutionary Syndicalism. :eek: There will most certainly be divisions between these two factions, not to mention divisions from Futurists/Traditionalists, Industrialists/Labor, Catholic/Anti-Catholic, Republican/Monarchist, Agrari landholders/Peasantry, Nobility/Bourgeois/Proletariat, and Nationalist/Regionalist (not to mention North/South/Colonial).

Well, Benito in more than a way looked with favor on the existence of factions, since it made more easy for him to control the party. And obviously the PNF was born out of many different (and very often contrasting) political groups, even if one might argue that the seed was in the anger and malaise of the soldiers coming back home after 42 months of very hard war and finding nothing for them; even worse, finding that what they had gained on the battlefield was not recognised at the peace table (la Vittoria Tradita - the Betrayed Victory) and that the country was in a political chaos. Agrarians, industrialists, reactionaries (but also simple bourgeoisie and middle class) were more shy at the beginning of the adventure, and mostly contented themselves with financing the fascists and using them to break strikes. One should not forget the most reactionary portion of the nobility (headed by Aimone of Savoia, duke of Spoleto), who supported Mussolini in the belief that he would be the cat's paw to deal with the red unrest, but who were more and more put aside after the March on Rome.

[Geekhis Khan]

Well, Benito in more than a way looked with favor on the existence of factions, since it made more easy for him to control the party. And obviously the PNF was born out of many different (and very often contrasting) political groups, even if one might argue that the seed was in the anger and malaise of the soldiers coming back home after 42 months of very hard war and finding nothing for them; even worse, finding that what they had gained on the battlefield was not recognised at the peace table (la Vittoria Tradita - the Betrayed Victory) and that the country was in a political chaos. Agrarians, industrialists, reactionaries (but also simple bourgeoisie and middle class) were more shy at the beginning of the adventure, and mostly contented themselves with financing the fascists and using them to break strikes. One should not forget the most reactionary portion of the nobility (headed by Aimone of Savoia, duke of Spoleto), who supported Mussolini in the belief that he would be the cat's paw to deal with the red unrest, but who were more and more put aside after the March on Rome.

Very much on the mark. Good summary, LK. Thanks!

[lounge60]

It would be quite easy to split the Fascist party into two (or more?) wings: there was always a clear divide between the "progressive" and the "reactionary" sides of the movement



Well,the real problem was avoid that the fascist party share in five or six (at least)
"Fascism" was an label under which was all:
Nationalists,socialists,conservatives,progressives ,nazists,moderates,monarchists,repubblicans,
corporativists,capitalists,philo-american,anti-american...All !
Fascism was Mussolini.
Without Mussolini,i think that very few could hold togheter all this.
One (maybe "The One")is Balbo.
I dont'think that Balbo would be call "Duce".
"Duce" was not a political office,Duce was Mussolini.
I think that we had "Prime minister Balbo" or "Marshal Balbo",not "Duce II".
For sure the two souls of party were Dino Grandi for conservative-moderate,and Giuseppe Bottai for progressive-corporative-socialist.
And not forgett the "villain" of this scenario: Roberto Farinacci,chief of the small,but dangerous fascist-philo nazi faction.
But i don'think that Farinacci was a really problem:too small and fair form the soul of Italian peoples (and not appreciated from the King).
Farinacci could be the needle of the balance between conservatives and progressives,or he was too much extremist?
And would be gone Ciano? I dont'think with progressives..but he dont'like Grandi and Balbo.
Interesting questions...

[LordKalvan]

Well,the real problem was avoid that the fascist party share in five or six (at least)
"Fascism" was an label under which was all:
Nationalists,socialists,conservatives,progressives ,nazists,moderates,monarchists,repubblicans,
corporativists,capitalists,philo-american,anti-american...All !
Fascism was Mussolini.
Without Mussolini,i think that very few could hold togheter all this.
One (maybe "The One")is Balbo.
I dont'think that Balbo would be call "Duce".
"Duce" was not a political office,Duce was Mussolini.
I think that we had "Prime minister Balbo" or "Marshal Balbo",not "Duce II".
For sure the two souls of party were Dino Grandi for conservative-moderate,and Giuseppe Bottai for progressive-corporative-socialist.

You forget the catholics, and I believe that in the '30s noone was really too much focussed on the USA. Too far away, and too isolationist.

I do agree that keeping together the different factions of the party was an exercise in lion taming :D and Mussolini managed it pretty well until the late thirties; then he lost his touch... Balbo might be up to the task, but certainly he needs to learn a bit more suasion. I am also inclined to believe he was a sort of micro-manager, too much eager to get involved in the details. But then old Benito too sinned in the same way...

The title that Balbo will assume depends a lot how Mussolini exits the scene: if he dies, no problem and Balbo can take the mantle. If Benito is ousted in a coup, it would be a bit more difficult.
In any case, Balbo has already a title which places him in the second highest rank of the PNF: Quadrumvir. You know what would be the problem? It is very easy to chant "Duce, duce!". Chanting "Quadrumvir, quadrumvir!" is a pain in the back and quite ridiculous :eek:

Re Giuseppe Bottai, you forget his main characteristic: very much pro-Nazi, and under Hitler's spell (he was the propounder of racial laws in Italy). In the end, the two main factions would be pro-British (Grandi) versus pro-German (Bottai), and Balbo could play one against the other, same as Benito was used to do (prior to 1938).

[lounge60]

You forget the catholics, and I believe that in the '30s noone was really too much focussed on the USA. Too far away, and too isolationist. Politically you have right,but in Italy, in 30s, was a great debate on the American society.
Many dont'liked America because they said that was a society without spirituality too much concentrate on money,
many (maybe the mayority) loved the USA,his musics,his movies (for example the Mussolini's sons),the literature,the theater (Thornton Wilder was beloved) comics, the architecture,the organization.
New deal was a form of fascism?
Ciano thought that in future Italy and USA should have been closely friends (for balance the power of Germany).


The title that Balbo will assume depends a lot how Mussolini exits the scene: if he dies, no problem and Balbo can take the mantle. If Benito is ousted in a coup, it would be a bit more difficult.
You have right.
In any case, Balbo has already a title which places him in the second highest rank of the PNF: Quadrumvir. You know what would be the problem? It is very easy to chant "Duce, duce!". Chanting "Quadrumvir, quadrumvir!" is a pain in the back and quite ridiculous :eek:
Yes,indeed i think that would call it "Marshal Balbo" or "Air Marshal",but not "Duce".

Giuseppe Bottai, you forget his main characteristic: very much pro-Nazi, and under Hitler's spell (he was the propounder of racial laws in Italy). In the end, the two main factions would be pro-British (Grandi) versus pro-German (Bottai), and Balbo could play one against the other, same as Benito was used to do (prior to 1938).Well is not true.
Bottai was shamefully weak on the laws aganist the jews,and for a brief moment was convinced that nazis could be the future,but he was never a pro-nazi or a fanatic.
Bottai protected many intellectuals anti-fascists,and personally he was a left wing-progressive fascist.
Bottai in 1939-40 fought with Ciano,Grandi,Balbo for keep Italy out of the war.
During the war had terribles feelings of guilt,voted aganist Mussolini in the Great council night and was condemned to death from the fascists of Repubblica Sociale.
After the war,for expiate joint to the French foreign legion.
Back in Italy at the end of 40s approached to socialism moderate.

[Manfr]

Bottai was far from being a pro-nazi, as lounge noted he even joined the Foreign Legion !

Meanwhile his "School Charter" and his works on corporatism and socialization are among the most interesting (and progressive) ideas born out of Fascism. He was a modernist and a "hierarchic socialist" who even proposed to Mussolini "free" elections in the mid thirthies, when the regime was at enormous heights of popularity due to the War in Ethiopia.

Speaking of fascist factions, we have :

-Industrial and Agrarian fascists, who support God, Family, the King, laissez faire economics and protectionism, tendentially pro-British: Dino Grandi, Galeazzo Ciano and colleagues.

- Balbo-types, and former futurists, who are still pro-British and pro-laissez faire, but also modernists, technologists, quite fond of America and of republican and anti-clergy leanings. Think technocrats with a soft spot for war heroes.

-Revolutionary Sindicalists and Nationalist Socialists, like Rossoni and Bottai, who support the Motherland and Socialism at the same time, are generally pro-Soviet, anti-clergy (but with a strong sense of "human spiritualism") and economically socialist, as well as republicans.

-Clericofascists, a growing group led by the likes of Don Agostino Gemelli: third-way corporatists, both against capitalism and communism, might get later in touch with francoist Opus Dei.

-Traditionalists, fringe groups led by guys like Evola, supporting Fascism as a way of restoring Rome's greatness ad traditional Pagan values.

-Nationalsocialists: growing group led by Farinacci, your Quisling guys.

-Pavolini's nationalsocialists: similar to Farinacci, but with a stronger sense of italian indipendence.

[lounge60]

Bottai was far from being a pro-nazi, as lounge noted he even joined the Foreign Legion !


I know that many nazis joined to foreign legion after the war,but not is this the point.:D
Bottai is a figure very well know in Italy; many Italian intellectuals and artists ( and many of them communists,like Guttuso for exemple) are grown in his circle.
I have read his diaries,we have many articles and books on him.
Is a complex figure,but he not was pro-nazi.
He was ever on the left wing of the party.

-Industrial and Agrarian fascists, who support God, Family, the King, laissez faire economics and protectionism, tendentially pro-British: Dino Grandi, Galeazzo Ciano and colleagues.

- Balbo-types, and former futurists, who are still pro-British and pro-laissez faire, but also modernists, technologists, quite fond of America and of republican and anti-clergy leanings. Think technocrats with a soft spot for war heroes.

-Revolutionary Sindicalists and Nationalist Socialists, like Rossoni and Bottai, who support the Motherland and Socialism at the same time, are generally pro-Soviet, anti-clergy (but with a strong sense of "human spiritualism") and economically socialist, as well as republicans.

-Clericofascists, a growing group led by the likes of Don Agostino Gemelli: third-way corporatists, both against capitalism and communism, might get later in touch with francoist Opus Dei.

-Traditionalists, fringe groups led by guys like Evola, supporting Fascism as a way of restoring Rome's greatness ad traditional Pagan values.

-Nationalsocialists: growing group led by Farinacci, your Quisling guys.

-Pavolini's nationalsocialists: similar to Farinacci, but with a stronger sense of italian indipendence.
Is a good reconstruction.
But:
1- In Italy no one has ever been for a true "laissez faire".
The intervention of the government has always been welcome (and Italy is a less competitive society).
So in this case is better said "pro-private buisness" with a little (very little) of "laissez faire".

2-The 1930s Pavolini was on the side of moderates.
His fanatic choise in 1943 was a surprise.
In any case in 30s he was a second plan figure.

[Geekhis Khan]

Great stuff, all! Keep talking! :D

A note on laissez faire: from my reading I noted that one of early proto-Fascism's big complaints was with "free market" economies, which they felt simply opened up economically and industrially weak Italy to foreign exploitation by her larger and more developed neighbors. As such protectionism was, from what I can tell, built in to the base philosophy of the system.

[Emperor Norton I]

Is a good reconstruction.
But:
1- In Italy no one has ever been for a true "laissez faire".
The intervention of the government has always been welcome (and Italy is a less competitive society).
So in this case is better said "pro-private buisness" with a little (very little) of "laissez faire".


Actually, Fascism generally contains an element of Laissez Faire ("survival of the fittest", after all; all that which isn't nationalized is often left to itself and there exists very little if any worker and labor protection and rights).

[Geekhis Khan]

Actually, Fascism generally contains an element of Laissez Faire ("survival of the fittest", after all; all that which isn't nationalized is often left to itself and there exists very little if any worker and labor protection and rights).

And part of that pseudo-Darwinian attitude was that they acknowledged that Italy was far from "the fittest" in international trade, hence the establishment of autarchic and protectionist policies to keep them from being eaten alive by the rest.

[Manfr]

Actually, Fascism generally contains an element of Laissez Faire ("survival of the fittest", after all; all that which isn't nationalized is often left to itself and there exists very little if any worker and labor protection and rights).

This is not completely true, however: "pure" Fascism (as in authoritharian nationalism) is not against the concept of workers' rights, it is against the concept of class struggle.
It's the ultimate "command" ideology: both workers and industrialists are simply tools of the State, of the Community, and thus they must cooperate for the Common Good.

Of course, theory and reality are somewhat far from each other :D however we must also consider that Fascists were consummate populists, and they employed a good number of social measures while they were in power. We can argue wether this was a gain, in comparison with the total loss of trade unions' rights ...

[Manfr]

I know that many nazis joined to foreign legion after the war,but not is this the point.:D
Bottai is a figure very well know in Italy; many Italian intellectuals and artists ( and many of them communists,like Guttuso for exemple) are grown in his circle.
I have read his diaries,we have many articles and books on him.
Is a complex figure,but he not was pro-nazi.
He was ever on the left wing of the party.

Yes, I fully agree with you :D
I know, I'm Italian too !

Is a good reconstruction.
But:
1- In Italy no one has ever been for a true "laissez faire".
The intervention of the government has always been welcome (and Italy is a less competitive society).
So in this case is better said "pro-private buisness" with a little (very little) of "laissez faire".

You're right, even in its most scandalously pro-business years (those up to 1924-1926), Mussolini never was a "pro-laissez faire" guy (to be fair, not even the liberals were that pro-laissez faire, except for the right-wing obsessed with balanced budgets). However, some Classical-Marginalist economists who once favored socialists, radicals and republicans embraced fascism as a way to regenerate liberalism (like Pantaleoni and Pareto): others, instead, were among its staunchest opponents, like Einaudi, Rossi and Salvemini.

[LordKalvan]

Well is not true.
Bottai was shamefully weak on the laws aganist the jews,and for a brief moment was convinced that nazis could be the future,but he was never a pro-nazi or a fanatic.
Bottai protected many intellectuals anti-fascists,and personally he was a left wing-progressive fascist.
Bottai in 1939-40 fought with Ciano,Grandi,Balbo for keep Italy out of the war.
During the war had terribles feelings of guilt,voted aganist Mussolini in the Great council night and was condemned to death from the fascists of Repubblica Sociale.
After the war,for expiate joint to the French foreign legion.
Back in Italy at the end of 40s approached to socialism moderate.

My mistake in mixing up Bottai and Farinacci. Your portrait of Bottai is fair, my only doubt is if he might become a credible leader for the "progressive" faction. Maybe he might co-opt the catholics in his movement.

[LordKalvan]

Great stuff, all! Keep talking! :D

A note on laissez faire: from my reading I noted that one of early proto-Fascism's big complaints was with "free market" economies, which they felt simply opened up economically and industrially weak Italy to foreign exploitation by her larger and more developed neighbors. As such protectionism was, from what I can tell, built in to the base philosophy of the system.

Mussolini rationalised the economic approach of the party as a kind of third way: no laissez fair and wild capitalism; no domination of labor. The (obvious :D) solution was corporativism, interpreted as a cooperation of all the parts of Italian society together for the common good, under the firm and at the same time gentle guide of the fascist party.

There was social progress, it cannot be denied. At the same time the big capitalists (mostly in the North) and the largest landowners (in the South) were "animals more equal than other animals".

The management of the 1929 crisis was not too bad: in many ways was similar to the New Deal (but much more directionist); a large number of private companies were saved from bankrupcy and became state owned (shadow of Obama?? :D:D). The regime strived to keep a social consensus, and mostly succeeded.

Autarchy came later, mostly as an answer to the League sanctions after Ethiopia, and also because the foreign reserves were almost depleted.
Protectionism and tariffs was part and parcel of life in Europe in the 1930s: the national industries had to be protected, and everyone did that.

One of the bigger mistakes was trying to keep stable the exchange rate against the pound, a loosing proposition which helped a lot in depleting foreign reserves and was completely unjustified (except by pride).

[Geekhis Khan]

Good stuff, thanks, LK.

[lounge60]

Corporativism can work either (and better) without a fascist dictature?
Can the Balbian-semi democratic Italy be corporativist?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Corporativism can work either (and better) without a fascist dictature?
Can the Balbian-semi democratic Italy be corporativist?

Well, Salazar's Portugal was very corporativist and technically non-fascist. In fact, Salazar was opposed to many fascist policies that he saw as too progressive. The end result was that Portugal had 40 years of near 0% GNP growth.

btw, thanks for all this info that will be useful in my own post-WWII fascist Italy under Ciano. :D

[Manfr]

Corporativism can work either (and better) without a fascist dictature?
Can the Balbian-semi democratic Italy be corporativist?

In the future, as trade unions are legalized again, it might evolve in a "Swedish" way (neo-corporatist model of collective bargaining, centralized under the triple direction of the State, the Industry and the Trade Unions), or, if progressive fascists take power, even in a "Meidner-like" or "Social Market Economy-like" scenery.

Salazar's clericofascist State allowed some (tiny) opposition representation in Parliament, as non-partisans elected in hellishly difficult confrontations ... I have an article about it, I'll check it out.

It appears that, at the end of the conflict, even Mussolini had some plans about democratization, to save his crumbling republican regime. He tried a gambit by passing the functions of the Republican Fascist Party to Italian Socialists, also in order to divide the antifascist front between pro-Soviets and pro-Allies, but he failed.

Another possibility of organizing a semi-democratic regime could be a National / People's Front like the one built in the DDR, where side by side with the SED there were smaller "bourgeouis" parties, each with a share of seats in the joint electoral list for the puppet parliament.

[Geekhis Khan]

Corporativism can work either (and better) without a fascist dictature?
Can the Balbian-semi democratic Italy be corporativist?

Well, my reading indicates that Balbo was pretty much against Corporatism, at least in terms of the massive bureaucracy and its divided loyalties. But maybe you Italian guys have info we anglophones do not.

Well, Salazar's Portugal was very corporativist and technically non-fascist. In fact, Salazar was opposed to many fascist policies that he saw as too progressive. The end result was that Portugal had 40 years of near 0% GNP growth.

btw, thanks for all this info that will be useful in my own post-WWII fascist Italy under Ciano. :D

Good stuff, Dr. Also glad this helps NSCW. One of my subscriptions! This site in general is great for collaborative info exchange.

In the future, as trade unions are legalized again, it might evolve in a "Swedish" way (neo-corporatist model of collective bargaining, centralized under the triple direction of the State, the Industry and the Trade Unions), or, if progressive fascists take power, even in a "Meidner-like" or "Social Market Economy-like" scenery.

Salazar's clericofascist State allowed some (tiny) opposition representation in Parliament, as non-partisans elected in hellishly difficult confrontations ... I have an article about it, I'll check it out.

It appears that, at the end of the conflict, even Mussolini had some plans about democratization, to save his crumbling republican regime. He tried a gambit by passing the functions of the Republican Fascist Party to Italian Socialists, also in order to divide the antifascist front between pro-Soviets and pro-Allies, but he failed.

Another possibility of organizing a semi-democratic regime could be a National / People's Front like the one built in the DDR, where side by side with the SED there were smaller "bourgeouis" parties, each with a share of seats in the joint electoral list for the puppet parliament.

Didn't know that about Mussie, but it sounds like him. Divide to Rule was his modus operandi. Also didn't know that about the DDR. I'd always assumes standard Communist one-party system, but then again they were all "dirty commies" here in the States back in the Cold War days. ;)

[Constantinople]

So when are you actually going to start the timeline?

[lounge60]

Well, my reading indicates that Balbo was pretty much against Corporatism, at least in terms of the massive bureaucracy and its divided loyalties. But maybe you Italian guys have info we anglophones do not.




Yes,Balbo was not enthusiast about the heavy cavavan of corporativism;he hated the bureacracy.
But i dont'think that was aganist corporativism at all.
I think that thought at mixed system more slim and fast.
The problem is that "corporativism" in fascist Italy was a magic formula,but in reality nothing know true what was corporativism.
Was like the "paradise of workers" promised in USSR; a thing that
was carried out tomorrow (but "tomorrow" was not ever).
Balbo was a pragmatic type,so i think that took the few things that worked,and thrown away the others.
But one thing is important to know:
In Italy nothing (or very,very few),neither Balbo were for a free,competitive market ( or worse for "laissez faire") in anglosaxon way.

[Geekhis Khan]

So when are you actually going to start the timeline?

It IS started. Look back at pg 1: two posts are already up.

I hope to post the next installment this weekend, but a lot depends on how nice time is to me.

[Readman]

Cool stuff GK I am definately looking forward to seeing more!

[Manfr]

Well, my reading indicates that Balbo was pretty much against Corporatism, at least in terms of the massive bureaucracy and its divided loyalties. But maybe you Italian guys have info we anglophones do not.

Maybe he could get oriented towards "liberal paternalism", ala Singapore ...


Didn't know that about Mussie, but it sounds like him. Divide to Rule was his modus operandi. Also didn't know that about the DDR. I'd always assumes standard Communist one-party system, but then again they were all "dirty commies" here in the States back in the Cold War days. ;)

He even created a somewhat serious opposition party to his rule in the Salò Republic, called the National Republican and Socialist Rally !

In some eastern countries, where local parties where strong but collaborative, or otherwise non influent, the Soviets allowed them to survive, in order to better control their constituencies : Eastern Germany had a Liberal Democratic Party (members where former manager and small industrials), a Christian Democratic Union (local protestant believers), a National Democratic Party (petit-bourgeouis and soldiers) and an Agrarian Party ! Bulgaria and Poland both conserved their agrarian parties, while Czechoslovakia had a five-party system.

[Geekhis Khan]

Great stuff, Manfr, thanks! Can you tell me more about Singapore's "liberal paternalism"?

[Archangel]

Well, Salazar's Portugal was very corporativist and technically non-fascist. In fact, Salazar was opposed to many fascist policies that he saw as too progressive. The end result was that Portugal had 40 years of near 0% GNP growth.

btw, thanks for all this info that will be useful in my own post-WWII fascist Italy under Ciano. :D
A good example of his bad economic policies is that it was necessary to have Caetano replacing him from 1968 on to have a more industrialising policy, and the beginning of modern social policies.
I believe Salazar had a pre-industrial economic thought.


Salazar's clericofascist State allowed some (tiny) opposition representation in Parliament, as non-partisans elected in hellishly difficult confrontations ... I have an article about it, I'll check it out.

I'm sorry, Manfr, but it was a defacto one-party-state and parliament. The short lived opposition movements created for scheduled elections, and usually banned shortly after, never elected anyone to the Parliament, even though they are believed to have won every contested election in the II Republic. The elections of 34, 38 and 42 only had the National Union running for the Parliamentary seats. Even the liberal wing during the Marcellist Spring, was elected in National Union lists.
A good link about this subject is this one, but it is Portuguese: http://www.iscsp.utl.pt/cepp/eleicoes_portuguesas/1934.htm
Edit, the link has some limitations, so this would be easier (http://www.iscsp.utl.pt/cepp/front800.php3), coupled with the dates for the election years (1934 - 1938 - 1942 - 1945 - 1949 - 1953 - 1957 - 1961 - 1965 - 1969 - 1973).

[Readman]

Also, sorry I'm probably getting far too far ahead of myself if I am I apologize but wondering if Italy is going to be like Franco Spain type of fascism? I also have been enjoying the tidbits of info the other posters have been and look forward to more! Cheers

[Geekhis Khan]

Archangel, great stuff and thanks for the links!

Readman, welcome aboard; there will be some parallels to Francoist Spain, but I plan a different beastie entirely.

[Archangel]

Archangel, great stuff and thanks for the links!

You're welcome, Geekhis!:)
I'll add the years of the Presidential elections in the Portuguese II Republic, in case they prove useful to you (1928-1935-1942-1949-1951-1958).

[Germaniac]

nervously awaiting an update...

[Geekhis Khan]

RL has been a beast lately, but next week I'll be on work-related travel with nothing to do after work. I hope to get out a couple of updates that week. Again, my appologies everyone for the delays, but I want to get things right and not just half-arse it.

[Geekhis Khan]

FINALLY! An update. My apologies for the delay. That accursed RL has thrown everything at me from a blown transmission to a MRSA infection. Ironically all that time on the gurney with an IV in the arm lends one plenty of reading time. Not exactly the reading break I wanted, mind you, but still.


Note that the first 3-4 "chapters" will be before the POD as necessary background, as few people outside of Fascists Studies know very much about Balbo. Keep reading, though: many hidden "hints" about the coming ATL are in there. ;)


--------------------------------------------------------------------




Chapter 1: From Mazzini to Alpini

“ a child of the century which has made us all democratic anticlericals and republican sympathizers; anti-Austrians and irredentists who hated the bigoted and reactionary Hapsburg tyrant.” – Italo Balbo, Diario, 1922 [1]

“Dress Balbo in sixteenth century armor, put him at the head of a band of daredevil horsemen, and he would look as if he had been taken live from Del Cossa’s paintings in the Schifanoia Palace.” – R. Forti and G. Ghendi, L’avvento del fascism: Cronache ferraresi (Ferrara, 1923) [1]

“ A reincarnation of the militant and magnificent Italian princes of medieval days.” – G. Ward Price, [I]I Know These Dictators, 1937 [1]



http://www.liceoalberti.it/~magic/FASCISMO/FOTO/balbo1.jpg
Young Balbo during the Great War, 1915-18


Italo was born to be Duce. Even as a child in short pants he was a little aspiring dictator; of the [ancient Republican] Roman type, I mean. In school he blatantly asked his teachers why did they not address the beggars with riverisco (respects)…ha! ‘When I’m grown up, I’ll support you all!’ he would say to his classmates, rich and poor. Even then the demagogue! (laughs)

Had he studied as he incited rebellion he could have been a teacher, like the rest of us. Father and mother, our sisters and myself, all teachers. Italo? Adventurer and later dictator. I blame those damned fantasy books. Salgari [author of pulp pirate romances] and Verne were his favorites, but also Robinson Crusoe and even American cowboy Buffalo Bill! No wonder he fancied himself a corsair.

That is really why he followed Mazzini: the adventure, the rebellion. He even to this day swears he is still a Republican at heart, but no, it was the adventure. He was made for Fascism. Well, also Fausto. Father [Camillo] was a Monarchist, Fausto a Mazzinian [Republican], and I, of course, a Revolutionary Syndicalist. Ha, leave it to Fascism to unite all three views. Always the arguments over dinner! Father’s one rule was, of course, no hitting your fist on the table. Italo, of course, worshipped Fausto. Fausto protected him from father’s wrath. When Fausto died Italo took it hard. He and [sister] Egle tried to support each other. He was and I guess still is close to Egle and mother [Malvina Zuffi].”

[I][B]Edmondo Balbo, Italo’s older brother, from a taped interview in 1962.


Italo Balbo was born on the 5th of June, 1896, though he always celebrated his birthday on the 6th. He was born in Quartesana, a suburb of the city of Ferrara…a city which had last seen glory in the Renaissance. Perhaps it was this ancient, fading glory that drew his thoughts like a magnet towards the free-spirited adventurism of the age of musketeers…

He was the youngest child of two school teachers: his stern and staunch father Camillo (1855-1931) and his devout and beloved mother Malvina Zuffi, whose ancestry included Ferrarese nobility…though Balbo might better be called petit bourgeois…

…as a schoolboy he showed a penchant for charity, raising money for the needy, a habit that lasted his entire life, even as Governor and later Duce sending money home to his sister to distribute to the poor of Ferrara [2]. The ironic contrast between this charity and the savagery of his days as a squadrista, and his policies against “enemies of the State” once Duce, has not been lost on this biographer…

…despite his parent’s occupation, which all of his siblings would also pursue, Balbo was a mediocre student, more interested in daydreams and youthful pursuits than formal education. Despite this, his thirst for knowledge was insatiable…and he spent many an hour studying his father’s collections of plants, minerals, and other specimens…eventually his self-taught pursuit of knowledge would lead to a university education and the title “Dottore”…even at a young age Balbo showed a talent for writing and journalism, editing his own small newspaper the Corriere Padano while still a teen…he counted among his associates artists, poets, philosophers, journalists, even politicians and military men…

…such an attitude and lust for life seems fitting for a man whose father is quoted as saying “it is necessary to do, to act, to move [1].”

[B]From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.


Balbo first joined the Partito Mazziniano in 1911, then the vessel of his now old friend Felice Albani. He was then already a journalist, even though only 15. [General Ricciotti] Garibaldi [3] was an admirer, which of course only fueled his [Balbo’s] drive and pride. Balbo had tried without success to join Garibaldi’s Albanian expedition in 1910, after all…

Balbo spoke eloquently of the need for revolution, for irredentism, eventually for war with the hated Hapsburgs. While neither I nor Michele [Bianchi] could steer him towards the necessity of syndicalism, he at least knew the importance of the strong national state. But the politics, the economics…that, never really mattered. For Balbo, Mazzinianism was a way of thinking, a sense of total revolt against reality, a permanent protest against the actual state of things [4].

It is no small irony that the boy who would become governor of Libya at first opposed the conquest [of Libya from Turkey in 1911]. Why? To go against the grain, against reality, against the government [4]. Of course, being Mazzinian would eventually lead him to the truth of the necessity of the Fascist state…[as a Mazzinian] he was by nature against the Marxists and anarchists and in favor of Nationalism, and he was certainly not the only gerarchi to come from Mazzinianism. And what a gerarchi!

Even then, back before the war, Balbo was a squadrista at heart. When anti-war socialists and anarchists threatened Corridoni’s speech at Porta Romana , it was Balbo that led compatriots, cudgels in hand, to protect the sacred oratory. In Ferrara he led a groups demanding war “or we’ll run you out of office”. They fought the police to protect the sacred honor of the tricolor [flag]. Finally, he and the Fascio Rivoluzionario distributed a manifesto for intervention, despite the Liberal state’s admonishments to the contrary…

…do not ask why Italo Balbo wanted, willed the war. Like so many others he did not know himself. What he knew was that intervention was necessary and that it was necessary to struggle and agitate for intervention. [4]

[I]Sergio Panunzio, Syndicalist philosopher and early Fascist intellectual in his Memoirs of Revolution.


The political scene of Italy was as charged as the international scene at this time [the 1910’s] with the Italian public growing ever more disaffected with the Liberal state. Many differing political opinions clashed and struggled for supremacy in this tumultuous environment, merged, divided, formed coalitions, dragged each other down. A short list will include all manners of opinions from left, right, and center: Royalists and Republicans, Nationalists and Internationalists, Marxists and Capitalists, Liberals and Socialists, Papists and Anti-Clericals, Authoritarians and Anarchists, Corporatists and Anti-Corporatists, Conservatives and Futurists…

…The roots of Italian Fascism grew from two startlingly different seeds. One was the Authoritarian Nationalism of Enrico Corradini. The other was the Radical Revolutionary Syndicalism of Sergio Panunzio. Add to the mix former Socialists like Alfredo Rocco and the first Duce Benito Mussolini…
…Corradini’s putsch took the Italian Nationalist movement by storm, centralizing the institutions and driving the core objectives towards the authoritarian… democratic Nationalists were alienated and many left the movement… Objectives of the party now included an authoritarian national state built on national “myths”, militarism, and anticipation for the future…all citizens were expected to sacrifice individual goals for the greater need of the national state, if necessary to die for the common good…a collectivist “proto-Corporatism” where everyone worked together for the common good of the nation rather than individually or divided by class…

…The syndicalist connection is less apparent to the casual student of Fascism. While Corradini had syndicalist sympathies, it still seems a long leap from the international Marxist roots of Radical Syndicalism to Marxism’s modern “enemy” Fascism…

…The bridge from international Marxism to National Syndicalism, the core of Fascism, lies in the specifics of Italy’s national socio-economic situation. As a proto-industrial state just emerging from agrarianism, many among the various subsets of greater Italian Marxism, such as Panunzio and Rocco and eventually Mussolini, began to question whether Italy was “ready” for proletarian revolution when she barely had a proletariat at all! This lead, interestingly enough, to a growing movement within Socialist and Syndicalist circles to bridge the gap between the emerging industrial state and the late industrial society necessary for true Marxian revolution. The contemporary failures of the young Soviet Russian economy merely fed these worries. Only through rapid industrialization and emergent capitalism, the emergent theory went, could the young nation create the proper conditions for the “inevitable” proletarian revolution! Philosophers in the Soviet Union would derisively call this “shortcut Marxism”, which is ironic considering Lenin’s and Stalin’s own attempts to do effectively the same thing through executive will with proto-Industrial Russia.

Furthermore, Italian syndicalists began to grow increasingly worried for the fate of the emerging national entity. Reactionary foreign intervention against the Russian revolution, which came alarmingly close to succeeding, foretold an equivalent fate for an emergent Marxist Italy, a nation far too vulnerable to outside involvement as the last centuries’ history had shown time and time again. In yet another astonishing turn, Radical Syndicalists began to see a need for a strong national state…a Proletarian Nation capable of both spurring the necessary industrial growth and defending the young nation from foreign intervention.

What started with radical, revolutionary, international, and even anarchic syndicalist thought began to coalesce around the writings of Panunzio and Rocco. Neo-Hegelian transcendental collectivism replaced the Kantian empiricist individualism of classical Liberalism and the class-based post-positivism of Marxism, driven by a philosophy of collective consciousness…

With war brewing on the continent and dissatisfaction with the Liberal state growing, the authoritarian Nationalists of Corradini and the Radical Sydicalists of Panunzio found natural allies in one another. While Nationalism was moving towards collective Corporatism, Radical Syndicalism was seeing merit in a strong, authoritarian national state. It was only a matter of time until the two seemingly disparate political philosophies found common cause…

…All these ideas came together in the work of Giovanni Gentile whose emergent “Actualism” envisioned a post-war rise of a revolutionary “new state” with the “fully rational and concrete” collective will which would lead Italians of all classes to work, united like the rods of the fasces, towards the common goals of the “national” Italians. Gentile’s Actualism would form the philosophical cornerstone from which nationalists and Syndicalists would bridge their philosophies, creating the National Syndicalist foundation of the emerging post-war Fascist party.

From Warriors, Diplomats, Statesmen, Dictators – the Political and Diplomatic History of Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Eric Spellman, Harvard University, 1994


Balbo attempted repeatedly to join in some sort of military adventure, first in 1910 when, lying about his age, he attempted to join Ricciotti Garibaldi’s Albanian expedition, even saving up to buy long pants so as not to suffer the ridicule of the other soldiers. His explanatory letter to his mother begged forgiveness, but in the end he had but little choice to return home, mortified, when the expedition was cancelled. He again tried in 1914, before his nation was even at war. He joined an expedition of Garibaldini volunteers hoping to join the French at Argonne. They were turned back at the border.

Five days before war was declared by Italy, belatedly joining the Entente, Balbo volunteered for duty. One anecdote, quite possibly apocryphal but accepted as fact during many decades of Fascist rule, had him advancing to the front against orders. He was accepted for duty on July 4th, 1915, but released from duty on November 8th. Though no official reason has ever been found, he always claimed it to be a result of built-in prejudice against volunteers.

Balbo finally got his chance for war late in the conflict. In September of 1916 he was drafted with the class of 1896. After five months of training at Modena he became a reserve officer in the 8th Alpine Regiment, Val Fella Battalion. It was a course that led eventually to the terror and hell that was The Grappa.

Balbo at War, by Col. Georges DeSale, École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, 1972, translated by Col. John McLaren, The Citadel Military Academy, 1986.

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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – all OTL quotes

2 – OTL…as governor of Libya he sent money home for such alms

3 – the son of national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi (1847-1924)

4 – these two sentences and this paragraph are taken from OTL quotes by Panunzio

[maverick]

Yay! It's started!:)

I love the style and the writing, it's so enjoyable...

[DuQuense]

What you describe is very much in the plan. "Fourth Shore Italy" will remain to present day, with...interesting repercussions. Some of these have been hinted at in the last update. What it hasn't been hinted at but will appear eventually is the flip-side: the impact of a large Arab-Berber minority on Italian culture!
Bridging the two will be difficult. Remember at this time it was illegal for Italians to have affectionate relations with African Natives.

The common Defense against this charge was to claim Rape.

Your Honor - I have no Affection for my Housekeeper:rolleyes: - Those 8 children are the result of My Raping her every night for the past 20 years.:eek:

[lothaw]

This is pure gold. Brilliantly researched. I can't wait for the next update.

[Geekhis Khan]

Yay! It's started!:)

I love the style and the writing, it's so enjoyable...

Thanks!

Bridging the two will be difficult. Remember at this time it was illegal for Italians to have affectionate relations with African Natives.

The common Defense against this charge was to claim Rape.

Your Honor - I have no Affection for my Housekeeper:rolleyes: - Those 8 children are the result of My Raping her every night for the past 20 years.:eek:

There's other methods of cross-culteral interaction than interbreeding.

This is pure gold. Brilliantly researched. I can't wait for the next update.

Thanks! I'll get to the next update as soon as possible.

[Jimbrock]

I like it. Especially how its all taken from textbooks, hinting a little, slowly giving us a picture of the present.

Keep it up.

[Kara Iskandar]

Impressive, Keep up the good work!

[Hashasheen]

There's other methods of cross-culteral interaction than interbreeding.
But none more enjoyable and time-efficient. ;)

[Geekhis Khan]

I like it. Especially how its all taken from textbooks, hinting a little, slowly giving us a picture of the present.

Keep it up.

Thanks. That's the goal...a little at a time, build up the big picture.

Impressive, Keep up the good work!

Thanks!

But none more enjoyable and time-efficient. ;)

LOL...

[Herr Frage]

Watching with eagerness.

Naturally I look forward to seeing a break from republicanism. How one can view Republics as romantic I will never know, though I do realize the word manner that makes that phrase humorous.

[LordKalvan]

Veri well done, Geekhis. From the attention to the details (some of which really impressed me) it is quite clear that you've done your homework and more.

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 2: The War to End All Wars

“First the water, then the fire, then the two together tortured our arduous path, all bristling with thorns. Monte Valderoa, Monte Solarolo, in those days your fateful peaks worthily represented the bloody altar of the Patria!” – Italo Balbo, “I Nostri Eroi: Franco Michelini-Tucci,” L’Alpino, October 24-November 4, 1919.


http://www.liceoalberti.it/%7Emagic/FASCISMO/FOTO/balbo3.jpg
Balbo the Alpini after being wounded in action during the Great War


He has a good general education, speaks well and possesses good common sense. He knows the military rules and regulations adequately and also shows much good will and diligence and has much influence over his subordinates. He is disciplined, eager, and displays excellent moral and social values. In his private life he behaves well.

Army evaluation of Reserve Lieutenant Italo Balbo as accounted in Ufficio Storico dell’ Aeronautica, Libretto Personale.


Liberal Italy at the dawn of the First World War was a nation in transition. The wheels of modernism and industry had barely begun to spin in this nation which in many parts was barely out of feudalism. Most of the Italian lower-classes, particularly the peasantry and regional bourgeois, lived in a parochial world that never saw much reason to look beyond local affairs. The peasantry, even those in the northwest who owned their land, tended to see the distant government in Rome as little more than hostile outsiders who only arrived when they wanted your money for taxes or your young men for wars with distant and unknowable nations.

Parochialism reigned in the cities as well. Each of the major cities saw itself as the true center of Italy, and the selection of Rome as the national capital was met with local opposition from those who saw modern Turin, wealthy Milan, or cultural Venice as a more fitting capital. Even ancient Naples, former capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, refused to give up claim to the title. Complicating things even further, prejudices remained in even the smallest cities for those “unkempt masses” that lived outside the city walls; severe divisions remained between “intellectual” urbanites and “rough” country-folk even within the same region.

The strategic and diplomatic situation was similarly convoluted. Though nominally a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, irredentist claims for Trento and Trieste (both at that time Austrian possessions) made Hapsburg Austria the young nation’s natural enemy in the minds of many Italians. Similar issues plagued Franco-Italian relations, with conflicting claims over Savoy/Savoia, Nice and Corsica being three of the more contentious. The ever-present threat of the British Royal Navy strained relations with the UK while old conflicts and antagonism with the Ottomans, particularly over the Dodecanese Islands and Libya, continued to strain relations there.

When war did break out among the Great Powers, Italy ignored its supposed role in the Alliance and opted for neutrality. The politicians of the time, most notably Prime Minister Antonio Salandra, attempted a game of diplomatic chess beyond their ability. Hoping to extract maximum diplomatic and territorial gain for their efforts, the Salandra government met with both sides. However, Salandra was attempting to play an emerging 20th Century diplomatic game using 19th Century rules, and such fence-sitting was gaining his nation animosity on all sides.

The real driving force for war, however, was domestic. Nationalists and irredentists like Enrico Corradini were leading a growing movement among the petit bourgeois towards the war, seeking irredentist gain. Many of these increasingly radicalized irredentists would form the core of the emergent post-war Fascist movement, including such notables as Mussolini and (eventually) Balbo. Yet many other factions staunchly opposed interventionism, including many of the various socialist groups and the Catholic Church, the latter of whom saw such “infighting” among Christendom a “thoughtless slaughter”.

Finally in March of 1915 Salandra assured Foreign Minister Sonnino that it “we two alone” must make the fateful decision to enter the war. Salandra entertained and then rejected an Austrian promise of the city of Trento and the surrounding Italophone regions (the southern half of what would become the Italian Province) and economic rights to Trieste in exchange for continued neutrality. Then in April of 1915 came the Treaty of London and its wild promises of all of Trento and Trieste plus Istria, Dalmatia, the islands of the upper Adriatic, and even the Albanian port of Valona, not to mention vague promises of spoils in Africa and Anatolia. Italy had chosen a side.

Now Italy was firmly on the Entente side of the conflict, though “officially” only at war with Austria for the first several months. This news was greeted with jubilation by the irredentists and interventionists. Things reached a point deemed by the government “crisis” in May of 1915. This so-called “Radiant May” showcased such ardent and organized joy among the interventionists that the government honestly began to fear that the Parliament and even the Savoia dynasty might be threatened were action in the war not taken immediately. As a result the Italian army was, by some accounts, rushed into action before proper preparations had been taken. For scholars of Fascism, Radiant May has become noteworthy as a milestone in proto-Fascist organization, Geraldini even going as far as to call it “[Fascism’s] very moment of conception [1].”

In going to war, Salandra hoped to bring glory, gain, strength, and unity to his nation. Rather than uniting and strengthening the nation, however, the war would prove a divisive and costly affair, which led directly to the death of Liberal democracy and the birth of Fascist dictatorship.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Italian_troops_at_Isonzo_river.jpg

Italian troops at Isonzo river

Italy’s entry into the [First World] War was greeted with a surge of national pride and celebration at home, and her soldiers advanced to the front amid high expectations. With a two-to-one numerical advantage over the Austrian enemy, most expected a quick and decisive victory that would make Italy one of the Great Powers of the world. The events of the war would not live up to these expectations. The first Italian offensive along the eastern coastal plains, which would become known as the First Battle of Isonzo, had the goal of quickly seizing the city of Goriza and from there driving up the Carinthian highlands to menace Vienna. Like Italy’s dynastic-minded strategic goals, the offensive showed that a 19th Century tactical doctrine was still being employed by the Italian high command. In the face of modern tactical realities (barbed wire, machine guns and indirect artillery), crippled by outdated artillery and a lack of logistical infrastructure, and facing Austria’s high ground advantage, the attacks gained the Italians little but casualties. In little time the front stalled into the trench warfare generally associated with the Western Front. The stalemate of the Isonzo would last until the autumn of 1917 with ten more costly “Battles” of Isonzo.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Italian_Front_1915-1917.jpg
Italian Front, 1915-1917, including the Battles of Isonzo and Asiago Offensive

In March of 1916 the Austrians attempted a bold offensive out of Trento towards the city of Asiago. Known to historians as the Asiago Offensive, the initial assault failed to attain strategic surprise, but gained tactical surprise thanks to the local Italian commander’s local offensive priorities. This “Strafexpedition” (punishment expedition) had the optimistic goal of advancing to the Po River plain and cutting off the Italian forces at Isonzo. The initial offensive went well and the Italian lines nearly collapsed. Only the quick transfer of reinforcements secured the lines and ended the Asiago advance.

With the Asiago front stabilized and Austrian forces further depleted following Russian advances during the Brusilov Offensive, the Italian army ordered a new major offensive in Isonzo. This became the Sixth Battle of Isonzo. This time, the offensive went fairly well, seizing the city of Goriza and temporarily boosting Italian morale. Otherwise, the back-and-forth meat grinder continued at Isonzo. Further offensives into 1917 would make temporary gains into the highlands, only to be forced to withdraw due to overextended supply lines. By this point the Italian Army was in poor shape. Casualties were high thanks to the regular and costly offensives and the dry, rocky ground that multiplied the deadliness of artillery (estimates place artillery casualties at Isonzo around 70% higher than for equivalent numbers of rounds on the Western Front). Punishment was severe for any infraction, putting even the infamous Prussian disciplinary measures to shame. Morale was low and the army vulnerable. Then came Caporetto.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Battle_of_Caporetto.jpg
The Battle of Caporetto and the Italian Retreat

Caporetto. The very name to this day evokes catastrophe for the people of Italy. With the Eastern Front turning in the Central Powers’ favor after the failure of the Kerensky Offensive, the Isonzo Front was reinforced by German units. Implementing revolutionary Hutier infiltration tactics, the offensive, launched in October of 1917, devastated the Italian lines, which soon collapsed. The Austrians and Germans advanced quickly, driving the Italian army into full retreat across the front. The offensive drove deep into the Italian plains all the way to the Piave River on the outskirts of Venice. Only rapidly extending Austrian supply lines and the arrival of reinforcements from other Entente powers stabilized the line and avoided all-out defeat.

The Caporetto Offensive so devastated the Italian army that it would be a full year before a major counteroffensive could be launched. When that counteroffensive came in October of 1918 the war was on its last legs and Austria-Hungary was at the verge of collapse. Things were made worse for the Austrians by the loss of German units redeployed west for the desperate Spring Offensive. The Battle of Vittorio Veneto, as it would become known, would cause the dissolution of the venerable Austro-Hungarian Empire with the Empire’s many ethnic minorities entering open revolt. In less than a month the superior Italian numbers, bolstered by a mass-draft of all males of 18 years (the so-called '99 Boys (Ragazzi del '99)), pushed the disintegrating Austrian army to the border. In the end the now separate nations of Austria and Hungary sued for Armistice.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Battle_of_Vittorio_Veneto.jpg
The Battle of Vittorio Veneto and the Italian Advance

Italy in the end had won a costly victory, one that would open the door to Fascist dictatorship. But the ancient Austrian Empire, last bastion of the Hapsburg dynasty, had ceased to exist.

A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Ezra R. Manheim, University of Stuttgart


Hail stalwart Italo Balbo! Hero of the Alpini! A man, a true leader, who braved the cold desolation of the Alps! Who once, hanging from a precipice by his hands after a fall, cut his own arms with his knife lest he fall asleep and then to his death! A man of such vision and intuition that he knew intuitively to move from a rock pile mere moments before it slid into the canyons below!

Hail brave Italo Balbo! Hero of the Arditi! A man who led countless dangerous raids behind Austrian lines, a man whose soldiers would follow to hell and back! A man who well deserves the Silver Medal he gained!

Hail sanguine Italo Balbo! Hero of the Grappa! A man who led his soldiers across the arid hell of the Monte Grappa offensive, the deadliest and most horrifying of the battles of Vitorrio Veneto which liberated our land from the Hapsburg invaders! He shrugged off the shells and the machine guns that claimed all but seventeen of his unit, yet never retreated from so fierce a battle—a battle which was in his own words the “Calvary of the Alpini!” For that, his second Silver Medal. Were it my decision back on that fateful day it would have been the Gold!

Hail honorable Italo Balbo! Hero of the Patria! First man into Feltre! Driving the last of the Austrian barbarians from our beloved home. Winner then of the Bronze Medal.

Hail commanding Italo Balbo, a true son of the Patria, a true heir to Garibaldi, a true Fascist!

A speech by Fascist Party Head Achille Starace during Balbo’s Swearing-In Ceremony as Prime Minister and De Facto Duce, 1939


Oh yes, Italo Balbo, Hero of the Alpini! Ha! More like Deserter of the Caporetto! In ’17 when the Hapsburg tyrants drove deep into the homeland where was Balbo? Hiding at home with his mother, that is where! His old unit, the Val Fella, decimated and surrounded by the Austrian army, and where was Balbo? Fleeing, behind the lines!

He hardly even saw the face of combat until the last months of the war…yes, his “Silver Medal” appearance at the Grappa! While his mates strode bravely forth to martyrdom he hid, shaking, in a shell crater! His Bronze? Shooting fleeing young Austrian draftees in the back as they retreated from the actions of braver men than he!

Italo Balbo, Duce of the Italian People! Ha! Such is what makes the “brave Fascist man!”

Editorial in Espatriato, a Newspaper by Italian Socialists in Exile in Sweden, 1954


Balbo’s war record remains a major source of controversy. His official Fascist biographers cite endless accolades and superhuman bravery to his actions in the Great War while his detractors and enemies label his actions everything from cowardice, to desertion, to flat-out treason. The truth is rather more mundane than either extreme.

Italo Balbo’s war record is one of honor, if not extreme distinction. In his defense it is rather difficult to gain recognition and heroic accomplishment in the quieter theaters of the war. Despite his early attempts at joining the conflict it would be spring of 1917 before he entered into a combat unit. His early experiences in Carnia were mostly ones of waiting and anticipation. Long patrols and fears of ambush marked his experiences for this first half-year. Bored with this endless routine, Balbo sought and received a transfer to pilot training. He left the front lines for training on October 22nd, 1917. Two days later the catastrophe of Caporetto began. His old unit was surrounded and devastated, most becoming POWs. While the Austrian armies advanced, Balbo was with his parents in Ferrara. While his enemies have made much of this timing, there is little evidence to back any claims of cowardice. Not only is such action completely uncharacteristic of Balbo, but knowing his father’s staunch patriotism there is little reason to believe that Balbo as a combat deserter would find himself welcome at home.

Balbo returned to the lines with the Pieve di Cadore battalion, where he was put in command of the battalion’s assault platoon. While not officially a squad of the elite Arditi storm troopers, the unit was often referred to as Arditi and conducted many of the same types of missions. Balbo eventually earned his first Silver Medal leading “very active night patrol[s] […] at a time and over terrain that was unusually dangerous” against an enemy “particularly active and emboldened by recent success.” Or so read his official records. In some cases his assaults were so bold that artillery had to be used to cover any withdraw. While this speaks well to his bravery, for his battalion to expend precious artillery on supporting such minor skirmishes was probably not the most desirable course for his commanders.

Balbo’s second Silver Medal would come very late in the war. The offensive in which his unit partook was originally intended as a side action to the greater offensive that became Vittorio Veneto. This side-offensive to secure the Monte Grappa, however, would become one of the most fearsome battles of the war, accounting for two-thirds of all Italian casualties during Vittorio Veneto. The Grappa, as it became known, is a dry and desolate mountainous plain made a virtual moonscape by the artillery. Balbo’s unit would be virtually annihilated. Balbo would lead an advance against the Austrian trenches with what amounted to the remainder; a “mutilated” unit, he would put it, making the “final effort.” The advance faced devastating artillery in stony ground that multiplied the deadliness of every ground-burst and machine guns and rifles so thick that not a “bit of earth” escaped the “Rain of lead and steel.” Balbo’s well-ordered lines advanced “as if on a parade ground…to meet glorious destiny.”

In the end only seventeen survived, Balbo among them. He spent the night taking shelter in a shell crater, feigning death “so as not to flee in humiliation before the enemy.”

In the end, for all the sacrifices Monte Grappa achieved few of its objectives. It served some purpose in diverting Austrian reserves, and the Austrian units certainly feared the Italian advance into the valley. At the end of October the Austrians made a full retreat. Balbo would earn a Bronze Medal for his efforts pursuing the enemy and reclaiming the ground lost at Caporetto.

In the end, Balbo’s war record was admirable, if not outstanding. Others, such as D’Annunzio, Battisti, Cantori, or Locatelli would have better records. Bottai would achieve higher rank. But Balbo did indeed see combat—something his predecessor Mussolini did not.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.


Meanwhile, latecomer Italy would receive far less at Versailles than the lofty promises of the Treaty of London indicated. The entirely of Trentino was gained to the Alpine water divide. This included the Alto Adige or South Tyrol region, a predominantly German-speaking region that would be subjected to strong Italianization measures under Fascism. That this flew in the face of irredentist claims based upon “liberation” of a culturally-Italian Trento suffering under German “oppression” was not lost on many. The coveted ex-Austrian port of Trieste and the surrounding Slovenophone area was claimed and occupied, but would not be formally incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy until the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920. It too would be the subject of a severe Italianization campaign, but unlike Alto Adige/South Tyrol the local Slovenians would resist with arms, including deadly terrorist bombings by the militant TIGR organization whose actions continue to this day.

Notably not among the Italian gains at Versailles was the coveted and strategically-important Dalmatian coast. President Wilson of the United States would side with the Slavic claims to the region as part of his new theories of self-determination. Also not among the spoils were the promised but amorphous “areas of Anatolia and Africa.” While Britain and France would divide Germany’s African colonies and the former Ottoman Middle East among themselves, Italy would gain neither African nor Ottoman territories.

Italy’s relatively modest war gains, acquired at such a high cost, became a major source of anger for Italian veterans and nationalists. While much of this stemmed from President Wilson’s efforts, many would blame the Liberal government or even Socialist “traitors”. This anger would, in turn, fuel the rise of Fascism.

A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Ezra R. Manheim, University of Stuttgart

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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – ATL quote from a noted ATL scholar of Fascist Studies, Dr. Emilio Geraldini

[lothaw]

Another excellent update! Seriously, your updates are some of the most indepth and realistic ones I've seen. This TL really reads like a history book.

Not to mention I'm learning a few things I didn't know about the Great War.

[Jimbrock]

An amazing update. One correction, though, is that Italo-French tensions were over not savoy and sardinia, but savoy, corsica, and nice. Also, for the betrayal in 1848/49.
Otherwise, a good update, perhaps more historical then alternate, but Im sure youre setting the scene for bigger things.

[Geekhis Khan]

An amazing update. One correction, though, is that Italo-French tensions were over not savoy and sardinia, but savoy, corsica, and nice. Also, for the betrayal in 1848/49.
Otherwise, a good update, perhaps more historical then alternate, but Im sure youre setting the scene for bigger things.

Oh, damn...I meant Corsica. I always confuse those damned islands. :o Consider that edited...

And thanks!

Thanks to you too, lothaw! :)

[Geekhis Khan]

Supplemental Post: POD-o-Rama!!


This post is not an official update for Viva Balbo, but a supplemental post of some interesting PODs that have popped up in the course of my research. Consider them free for use as a public service These are Pre-1919 PODs; more will be posted as the TL proper continues.

The War:

Neutral Italy: quite possible, actually. While there were certainly plenty of frothing-at-the-mouth interventionists to drive Italy into the war, there were also plenty of neutralists and pacifists.

Good POD(s): One great POD for this is for Giovanni Giolitti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Giolitti) to stay in power through the war. Giolitti was a neutralist and opposed entry into the war. He would quite likely have taken the Austrian "buy-out" of the Trentino (the southern Italophone half of the OTL Italian province) and rights in Trieste in exchange for neutrality. This "free gain" might help take the wind out of Irredentist sails for a while. Whether Italy joins later in the war (opportunistically?) depends on a lot.

Effects: Things are notably better for Austria-Hungary in the short term. The additional troops, arms, ammo, and supplies/logistical assets that were deployed and lost in Isonzo are available for use in the Eastern Front. This could very possibly blunt the Brusilov Offensive with some major butterflies possible in the war and beyond. Could this save the Empire? Possibly in the short term, though for how long is questionable.


Central Powers Italy: It's a possibility. They were officially part of the Triple Alliance. They backed out of any obligations since they could claim A-H was technically the aggressor against Serbia. There were also plenty enough reasons to go to war against France, including irredentist claims to Nice, Corsica, and larger parts of Savoy.

Good POD(s): A different PM, an incident that raised anger towards the French and/or diminished anger towards the Austrians, a different start to the war where the Entente was the clear aggressor (killing the OTL excuse), a better show on the Marne that made CP victory look assured (and CP alliance a good opportunity for western claims)...

Effects: Depends on the POD and when Italy joins the war, but in general all the good things for A-H in the Neutral situation plus added Italian troops on the Eastern Front and a second Western Front in Savoy. The latter front will be all the ugly of Isonzo and the OTL (North) Western Front together in one creamy chocolaty package. In general better situation for the CP and a worse situation for the Entente. CP victory in the cards?


Balbo Himself:

Not for a Fasces: Balbo (as we will see in the next update) joined the Fascists for the career opportunities. He remained a closet Republican for the rest of his life. He could have stayed a Republican and sought opportunities elsewhere. Balbo (as we shall see) was possibly instrumental in bringing Fascism to power. He's generally credited with turning the scattered militant mobs of the Blackshirt squads into an organized, disciplined paramilitary force. ITTL he follows a different path for whatever reason.

Good POD(s): 1. Balbo joins the Associazione Nazionale dei Combattenti (ANC), a more traditional soldier's group, and puts his organizational skills to use there, transforming these groups into the great anti-socialist squads of TTL. 2. Balbo runs off to Fiume with D'Annunzio or some other adventure. If D'A, maybe the crass hedonism disillusions him with such Right-Wing militarist movements. 3. Balbo's older brother Fausto dies earlier, goes socialist, or Balbo looks up to Ernesto instead - and follows a more Socialist path. 4. there is a sufficiently organized and powerful Mazzinian group to attract him, like he wanted all along.

In general: Fascism for whatever reason never catches his eye or never amounts to much.

Effects: Balbo's extraordinary organizational skills go into some other cause. Fascism may remain armed bands of thugs that never are able to march on Rome. Perhaps they go the way of the ANC or German Freikorps, subsumed by a more successful movement. Mussolini may never come into power as Duce, but maybe remains an MP. What ever movement or mercenary force claims Balbo TTL may see a much greater show than OTL.


L'Eroica Morte d' Italo Balbo: quite simply, Balbo dies in the war.

Good POD(s): Any time in the war is possible, but the best is probably The Grappa. It was dumb luck he survived it OTL.

Effects: As above, but those Balbian talents for organization don't end up elsewhere.


Young Balbo's Adventures: Balbo manages to join some combat force earlier than OTL.

Good POD(s): 1. Perhaps Garibaldi jr.'s Albanian expedition doesn't fall through. 2. Perhaps Balbo and his Garibaldini-to-be are not turned away from the French border in 1914 and he ends up on the Western Front. 3. Perhaps his early volunteer position cements.

Effects: Either he dies (as above) or finds glory elsewhere or ends up in a quiet zone and never gains recognition (though I can't see him tolerating such quiet for long).


Alternate Caporetto for Balbo: his attempt to enter flight training just saved him from the Caporetto disaster. ITTL his timing or the outcome for him is different.

Good POD(s): Either his transfer is delayed or rejected or he manages to get into flight school.

Effects: Balbo is either a) killed (see above), b) captured and spends the rest of the (inglorious for him) war as an Austrian POW (possibly dies as one), or c) he becomes a pilot during the war. If c, he could very likely die or might become an ace (and enter the RA earlier and at higher position, perhaps, or become career military and not enter politics).

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 3: Squadrista; the Ras of Ferrara

“I was nothing more in essence…than one of the many, one of the four million veterans of the trenches… To fight, to struggle, to come home to the land of Giolitti, who transformed every ideal into a business proposition? No. Better to deny everything, to destroy everything, in order to renew from the ground up.” – Italo Balbo in his Diario, 1922.


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/balbo2.jpg
Balbo the Blackshirt, 1921


Fascism: (fæʃɪzəm) An Italian Authori-Collectivist [1] political and philosophical movement created in the Interbellum Period of the Twentieth Century that dominated Italian politics from the early 1920s until the early 1980s and still maintains a modest following in contemporary Italian politics. Like most Authori-Collectivist movements, Fascism combined authoritarian political organization with collectivist bureaucratic organizational structures (here Corporatist), maintained (limited) socialistic welfare and wealth redistribution policies and justified/propagandized its rule through a cult of personality, patriotism, duty and the invocation of cultural icons (here Ancient Rome).

Sometimes Fascism is sub-categorized into the “hard” (or “Mussolinian”) and “soft” (or “Balbian”) branches, and sometimes into a third “theoretical” (or “Spiritoan”) branch. Hard Fascism is generally more centralized, corporatist, social-Darwinian and expansionistic while soft Fascism is somewhat more decentralized and liberal, much more streamlined and may allow for nominal democratic processes. Both stressed Italian nationalism and cultural supremacy. Fascist philosophers generally promoted Fascism as a “third way” between liberal Capitalism and Marxian Socialism.

Though best known through the original Italian National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista; PNF) other nations have taken the “fascist” moniker, including the British Union of Fascists (BUF), the American Fascist Party and the Partido Fascista d’Argentino.

From the Harvard Political Dictionary, 2004 edition


Post-war Italy was caught in a seething and violent political and social struggle between various groups, radical and reactionary. 1919-1922 bore witness to civil strife and violence across the Italian peninsula made all the worse by the number of war veterans among the opposing ranks…bringing tactical experience and military discipline to both sides. In this manner it shared in the greater post-war upheavals that marked the early 20th Century. While Socialist “Reds” and Fascist “black shirts” (among others) fought for supremacy in Italy, similar conflicts saw Marxist Sparticists battling reactionary Freikorps in Germany and, most notably, saw “Red” and “White” forces fighting in bloody civil war in Russia.

The “shameful” peace of Versailles that saw Italy “robbed and cheated” of her “hard fought gains” was a major source for anger and resentment, particularly towards the Liberal government. Continued class conflict between the major land owners (the agrari) and the peasantry and growing difficulty between industry barons and the small but mobilized Proletariat exacerbated this atmosphere of hostility. […] Bolstered by their successful strikes and factory occupations, the Socialist movement gained momentum…Socialist candidates won 156 seats in Parliament in 1919. […] The “Proletarian victory” of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and their continued successes in the ongoing Russian Civil War emboldened the radical left wings of the Socialist movement with full-blown Communist splinter parties forming. For Amedeo Bordiga, future head of the Italian Communist Party, the Bolshevik revolution was the “happiest and most propitious event in the history of the [world] proletariat” and the storming of the winter palace proof that “no ruling class has ever surrendered its despotic power unless forced to do so by violence” [2]. […]


http://www.1917.org/immagini2/biennio1.jpg
Socialist Factory Occupation during the Biennio Rosso

The growing momentum of the radical wing of the ever-splintering Socialist Party served to further alarm the powers-that-be and served to further radicalize anti-socialist elements. […] This would come to a head with the biennio rosso or “two red years” of 1919-20, a major and nationwide socialist “uprising” that seized government offices, private residences and private property. The red flag soon flew in dozens of cities and farming communities…visible from every building and steeple. Fears that a full Bolshevik-style Socialist Revolution was underway spread panic among the monarchy and government and further radicalized anti-socialist elements. Among these groups, the most notable was the Associazione Nazionale dei Combattenti (ANC; “National Returned Soldiers’ League”). Nominally an apolitical fraternity for combat veterans, the ANC soon became a hotbed for militarist and nationalist politics. […]

Meanwhile, a third faction was asserting itself and drawing adherents from left and right, that of the Catholic Church. This “white” movement preached church, community, and social change while calling upon an international and universal catholic movement to restore traditional values and bring peace to the greater (world) Christian community… The ever-radicalizing anti-socialist factions, particularly those anti-Clerical factions, saw yet another threat to their emerging goals for a “new Italy” and a “new politics”. […]

The anointed spiritual head of the growing nationalist and radical irredentist movement was poet and war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio. A charismatic and commanding figure with the aura of a Greco-Roman Hero, D’Annunzio led a cult of personality culminating in the formation of his “Legion” and their presumptive conquest of the disputed Dalmatian port of Fiume. […] Occupying the port city, D’Annunzio proclaimed himself the “Duce” of a new “Republic of Fiume”…in practice the assumptive rulers of this new republic were effectively warlords who lived in hedonistic luxury while the city went about its business…the Legion’s legendary parties soon devolved into cocaine-fueled orgies. […] The Fiume Republic, of course, soon became the darling of the nationalists and irredentists, earning praise from many nationalist journalists, including Mussolini and Balbo. […] While departing Prime Minister Nitti was unsure of how to deal with the problematic Fiume Republic, treating the issue as a domestic affair, newly returned Prime Minister Giolitti took a hard-line stance, opening talks with the newly formed government of Yugoslavia… [which culminated in] the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo in November of 1920, giving all of Istria, four of the Dalmatian coast islands and Zara to Italy and making Fiume an independent free state with close economic ties to Italy. […] In hindsight Giolitti’s accomplishments for Italy were admirable and executed with diplomatic aplomb… [however] the irredentists were enraged at such a “betrayal” that forfeited the majority of the Dalmatian coast to “barbaric Slavs”. […]

What is most significant about D’Annunzio’s short-lived republic is that it served as a de facto dry run for the upcoming Fascist Revolution. Many of the tactics, policies, goals and even terminology and songs of the eventual Fascist Party found their source at Fiume with D’Annunzio’s Legion. […] Fascism at this time was in its infancy, the original fasci di combattimento being first declared at the Piazza San Sepolcro on the 23rd of March, 1919…by a rising star in nationalist circles, journalist Benito Mussolini. Mussolini began his journalistic and political career as a Socialist, at one time serving as editor of the socialist paper Avanti! […] However, Mussolini’s growing pre-war interventionist stance and his championing of syndicalists with nationalist sympathies like Panunzio alienated him from the mainstream Socialist movement. Eventually he left his post at Avanti! and founded a new paper, Il Popolo d’Italia…though still a self-proclaimed Socialist, Mussolini gravitated ever more towards the emerging national syndicalist circles. […]

By this point Mussolini had burned every bridge between him and the Socialist movement and became one of their more outspoken enemies…whether ill will and bad blood led to his fanatical “conversion” and the eventual creation of Fascism is debatable, but whatever the cause, Mussolini would emerge in the post war era as a central figure in anti-Socialism. […]

At first the fasci di combattimento lacked any unifying doctrine. Formed from roughly 350 attendees (far less than the later aggrandized claims of the party), these “Fascists of the first hour” came from such varied backgrounds as nationalists, syndicalists, Futurists, irredentists, anti-clericals, anti-monarchists, republicans, former socialists, former soldiers and reactionaries. The only thing all could agree on was that they opposed the Socialists. […] In keeping with this ad hoc assembly, early Fascist doctrine was flexible and vague with the goal of attracting as many adherents as possible. […] This open doctrine was expressed at the time by Mussolini: “Fascism for the moment only has a history and not a doctrine. It will acquire one when it has time to elaborate and coordinate its ideas”.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.



[B]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/9/90/Squadristi.jpg
Fascist Squadristi


How Balbo came to Fascism is a complicated story and rather hard to pin down. After returning from the war, Balbo mainly involved himself in continuing his education and wooing his soon-to-be wife, the now famous Dona Manù [3]… The education—studied under historian Niccolò Rodolico—resulted in a law degree…his thesis was on the “economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini”. His take on Mazzini is informative…for Balbo, Mazzini’s great virtue was his idealism, as contrasted with the harsh and cold materialism of Marx. […]

Balbo’s nationalism and irredentism were hardly dampened by the war…and soon manifested in his editorship of L’Alpino, a paper for returning Alpini soldiers. Officially neutral in political matters, [L’Alpino] began moving to the right…eventually used the pages of L’Alpino to support and raise funds for D’Annunzio’s adventurism in Fiume… He also joined the ANC, working closely with [right-wing anti-socialist and future Fascist minister Francesco] Giunta… to Balbo, the Socialists of the biennio rosso were essentially the same internationalist, anti-nationalist, anti-interventionists against whom he fought in the years leading up to the war. […]

The social situation in his native Ferrara was an explosive mix of oppressive landowners and a radicalized local peasant league… Their clashes became increasingly more violent and murderous with assaults, slayings and reprisals by armed squads on both sides… Exacerbating things further, the illusory “revolution” of the biennio rosso emboldened the radical elements of the peasant league, with the union bosses targeting even the middling peasantry (small landowners, renters and sharecroppers) as agents in “maintaining and prolonging [the great landowners’] rule over the proletarian classes [4].” This hard-line all-or-nothing posture not only alienated groups who might otherwise be amenable to socialism, but further motivated the growing anti-socialist forces…Balbo among them.

Despite this growing distaste with the local Socialist movement of Ferrara, the fledgling local fasci found little support and even dissolved for a year due to internal schism. Led by Oalo Gaggioli, the small movement saw some budding support after a 20 December clash with Socialist forces in central Ferrara cost the lives of four Fascists and one Socialist… A popular story of the time, probably apocryphal, has Balbo upon first witnessing the fascio ask cynically “Chi paga” (who pays them)? […]

It would be months later, after many back-room dealings over salary and position, that Italo Balbo, Republican and Freemason, would emerge as fascio secretary. How exactly the still overtly Mazzinian Republican came to find himself a ranking Fascist remains a subject of dispute, and original sources on the event are few. For Balbo, Fascism likely offered little more than a chance to both fight the Socialist “red terror” and to advance himself politically. […]

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo [B]by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.



Thread Title: AH Challenge! Make the Biennio Rosso the “Millennio Rosso”!

Marxxx Bro #4: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. In that spirit, your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to make the Italian Reds of the biennio rosso the dominant force in Italy by Dubya-Dubya-Due! DP [“divergence point”, OTL’s POD – GK] not before 1917, no retoins, refunds or substitutions! *quack*

Ednaht: Marxxx, you’re a loony.

Marxxx Bro #4: Really? ‘Cause I’m feelin’ ducky! *quack*

Ednaht: I have a mind to join the club and beat you over the head with it.

Marxxx Bro #4: Hey! That’s my line! Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.

Quadrumvir: *Ahem* On to the OQ [“original question” – GK]: how much of 1917 are we talking? I’d posit no October Revolution, no Bolshevik Menace, less reactionary backlash, no support of Fascism, Social Democracy takes root in Parliament.

Marxxx Bro #4: Too easy, then! Jan 1918. Lenin’s dancin’ the jig with the Gremlins in the Kremlin.

Quadrumvir: Then the Whites score a quick victory! :P

Torah Torah Torah: Cheater!

Quadrumvir: You mean Me or Marxxxy?

Torah Torah Torah: Yes. Ok, to OQ, as I see it you have to eliminate the factionalism in the Socialists. You could a) constrain the more radical elements so that they don’t alienate the petty land owners and sharecroppers, b) heal the rift between the left interventionists and orthodox internationalists (that would bring, ironically, a lot of OH’s [“original history” – GK] Fascists like Mussolini and Pannunzio back into Socialism), or c) a great unifying figure. If b), then perhaps c) in Mussolini?

Benito333: Heresy!!! :mad:

BalboBoyBlue: Hey, what about Balbo? If Older brother Eddie gets him on the syndicalist track rather than Falcie getting him Mazzinian…

VOC: You and Balbo. Y don’t U marry him, caql!

Benito333: Still need to kill off Balbo’s nationalism or do T3’s #b else he’d follow Pannunzio to Fascism as OH.

RED Neck_the Chattanooga Commie: What if we have a stronger AdP that beats the fascis in the “revolution”? They take over like the fascists did OH.

Hot to Trotsky: The Arditi del Popolo was still small and divided. You need a unified front like the blackshirts had. Besides, the blackshirts had the sympathy of the king and army, otherwise they’d have been crushed during the March on Rome. As much as I’d love to see a Red Italy DH [“divergent history” – GK] they’d have been crushed by the army. :(

BalboBoyBlue: *cough* Balbo! He made the Blackshirts! Make him Red or Dead, perhaps (sorry, Italo! :()

VOC: See, I told you about BBB, caql. But since everyone else is breaking with their defined role on the board I’ll make an actual contribution (horror!). Answer: Mussolini is too embarrassed politically by the squad’s brutality, so he sides with the dissidents and insulates himself from them. Balbo’s out. Maybe he joins the blueshirts, who cares. Anyway the Pact of Pacification with the socialists holds DH and the Left Fascists and Socialists end up in coalition. Eventually Socialists and Left Syndicalist defectors come to dominate the Parliament by WW2.

Benito333: Oh hell, VOC made a worthwhile contribution! ARMAGEDDON IS NIGH! ON THY KNEES AND REPENT!!!! :eek:

Ednaht: And just when I was starting to enjoy this plane of existence.

From the ContraHistoricus.com message boards



http://www.storiain.net/arret/num7/musso2.jpg
Political Cartoon from the time; here Fascist squads crush Reason, Freedom, Law and the Monarchy


Fascism, at this point, was small but growing steadily…making noteworthy gains in the industrial north and newly conquered east but struggling in the poor, rural south. Finding membership among the many disaffected war veterans, fascis began to sprout up in every city and town. […] Unlike the intellectual and philosophical revolutionary national syndicalism of the official fasci di combattimento, the Fascism of the provinces began to forcefully oppose the Socialists and began to take on a more action-oriented and distinctly reactionary tone…working in the pay of local agrari and other property owners to break strikes and crush [Socialist] property occupations. This “agrarian Fascism” with its ties to local landowners and bourgeois, and best represented in the squadrist actions of Balbo and Farinacci, stood in utter contrast to the “urban Fascism” of Mussolini and Bianchi, which preached the overthrow of the very established powers that funded the agrarian fascis. […]

The cities and countryside of Italy were quickly degenerating into a virtual war zone as the various shades of radicalism and reaction clashed. Socialist red shirts, Fascist black shirts, Social Catholic white shirts and Nationalist blue shirts, each subdivided further among various internal factions, fought a battle of words, banners, clubs, torches, knives and guns. Incidents of violence and retaliation began to multiply in frequency and intensity [and] the government and monarchy feared Civil War was brewing. […]

Hoping to curb ideological violence and counter the growing threat of Socialism which, since the dawn of the biennio rosso appeared the greatest threat, Prime Minister Giolitti attempted to build a bloc of nationalist and anti-Socialist parties. This, he hoped, would both oppose the “red menace” and cement his own power base… [However] rather than bring about the new national bloc he desired, in the election of 15 May 1921 the Blocco Nazionale gained only 275 votes and soon split along factional lines…hardly remaining loyal to Giolitti. The ten Nationalists elected, for example, concentrated their efforts on denunciations of Protestantism and dreams of the disintegration of the British Empire. Furthermore, the hoped-for Socialist collapse didn’t happen, the PSI dropping only from 156 to 122 seats and more ominously still the new Partito Communista d’Italia (PCI) gaining 16 of those seats. Of less concern to Giolitti, but in hindsight the greater threat to his power base, was the election of 35 Fascists…including a new Deputy, “Professor” Benito Mussolini. […]

Mussolini as minister retained the outward revolutionary rhetoric yet within the hallowed chambers of Rome played a cunning game of political chess…working closely with the Liberal government on one side while further cementing his own unilateral mastery as the Duce of the Fascist movement. […] In one political gambit in the summer of 1921 that sewed division within Fascism, Mussolini extended the olive branch to the hated Socialists. The resulting Pact of Pacification threatened to tear apart the nascent movement. Agrarian Fascists like Balbo condemned the pact…and went as far as to court D’Annunzio as a replacement Duce.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.


Dashingly handsome, with a hint of the Mephistophelean about him, none too zealous in his surviving republicanism, well connected both socially and financially, Balbo presented himself as a natural leader [5]. […]

Balbo as Secretary almost immediately began to transform the Ferrara fascio, culling favor from the local agrari and local prefect Samuele Pugliese, the latter a member of the city’s wealthy and influential Jewish community. Under Balbo the Ferrara fascio began to work more closely with the agrari and the city officials, becoming the go-to squad for strike-breaking and anti-socialist actions… Ferrarese Fascism under Balbo had taken a distinctly reactionary turn, soon becoming the model for a growing “agrarian Fascism”… [which] stood juxtaposed to the more radical and cerebral “urban Fascism” of Mussolini.

Needless to say, this change in direction did not sit well with the more radical syndicalist elements within the fascio, who saw this as selling out to the very “oppressors” that Fascism in their view sought to oppose. […] Chief among the growing Ferrara “dissident” faction was Balbo’s chief rival Barbato Gattelli. Hoping to exploit the growing rift between Mussolini and the fasci over the former’s controversial “Pact of Pacification” with the Socialists, Gattelli repeatedly challenged Balbo’s authority and railed against the ever-growing numbers and influence of violent and reactionary latecomers… But Gattelli had misread the political situation in Rome, for despite the more radical and revolutionary roots of urban Fascism, Mussolini needed the growing agrarian fascis if Fascism was ever to grow beyond a small philosophical movement and enter the national stage. […]

Gattelli found himself spurned in favor of Balbo at the Fascist National Congress that November [1921], the same congress which would unite the decentralized fascio movement into the centralized Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) and secure Mussolini’s dominant position as central figure and Duce of the party. […]

Balbo was now the undisputed ras [6] of the Ferrara fascio.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.



http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/img/italobalbo1921.jpg
The Ferrara Squadristi (Balbo center top with cane), 1921

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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – ATL political classification for political movements and philosophies that support an authoritarian government and a collectivist power structure (such as Corporatism or Syndicalism) and may indulge in some socialist economic policies. Authori-Collectivist movements tend to be militaristic and typically use a cult of race, ethnicity, religion, philosophy and/or a cult of personality based on a political or historical leader in order to motivate their citizens to patriotism, duty, and loyalty to the party and government. Examples of movements classified as Authori-Collectivist include Italian Fascism, German National Socialism (Nazism), Spanish Falangism, Romanian Iron Guard, Austrian Fatherland Front, Argentine Fascism (OTL Peronism), Portuguese Estado Novo, Japanese Imperial Rule Assistance Association and (depending on the person doing the classifying) Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism, though these last three remain controversial additions.

2 – OTL quote.

3 – Balbo would marry Emanuella Florio, “Donna Manù”, on September 29th, 1924. Her family was of noble background, originally from Spalato in Dalmatia. She was a shy, retiring and refined woman, quite in contrast to the energetic, boisterous and outgoing Balbo. By all accounts their marriage was a happy one. Balbo, a serial philanderer, took great lengths to protect her from any scandal. Whether she ever knew of his affairs is not known (at least not to me). They would have three children together: Giuliana (b. 1926), Valeria (b. 1928) and Paolo (b. 1930).

4 – OTL quote from the Ferrara peasant league movement. This was a common issue throughout post-war Italy where the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia and the momentum of the “red” movement in Italy at the time energized the extreme left in the greater Socialist movement. Petty landowners and even renters and sharecroppers were singled out as enemies of the agrarian proletariat and tools of the bourgeois, similar to the charges used against the kulaks in Stalinist Russia. Not only did this short-sighted extremism alienate potential allies, but it reinforced the anti-socialist accusations that socialism in Italy would spell nothing more than the “property theft”, killings and economic ruin of contemporary Soviet Russia. This kind of extremism, when coupled with the violent squad actions by the Socialists, made many in Italy willing to look past the equivalent violence and extremism of the fascio squads and helped build public and government support for Fascism.

5 – This line is a direct quote from Bosworth in Mussolini’s Italy. It captures the Balbo of the moment so well both in its poetry and its subtle cynicism that I had to include it here.

6 – Yes, irony fans, the regional leaders of the Fascist black shirt squads took their title from Abyssinian (Ethiopian) royalty.

[maverick]

Damn, that was a fascinating read...I must say I never imagined that Fascism was such a complicated, convoluted and interesting movement...cuddos on the research, it seems like the hard work is really paying off...


Now, Argentine Fascist Party, really?

Would it have something to do with President Uriburu's attempt to create a Fascismo Criollo in Argentina during his dictatorship of 1930-1932?

Of course, the problem is that Uriburu hated populism and the people, so his version of fascism was too aristocratic, yet his pro-german and anti-british views alienated the pro-british aristocracy, so he couldn't find much support...although one should have to remember the fascinating figure of Leopoldo Lugones, the writer, poet and author of Uriburu's fascist manifesto in defense of military dictatorships...

Or would you just turn Peronism into a more honest emulation of Italian Fascism?

Either way, consider me hooked and suscribed:);)

[LordInsane]

Or would you just turn Peronism into a more honest emulation of Italian Fascism?
Well, footnote one does note that Argentine Fascism (OTL Peronism) is classified as authori-collectivist...

[Germaniac]

Good update I was just thinking this morning that it might be dead

[Geekhis Khan]

Damn, that was a fascinating read...I must say I never imagined that Fascism was such a complicated, convoluted and interesting movement...cuddos on the research, it seems like the hard work is really paying off...

Glad to have you aboard! :) And thanks for the complements. Yes, Fascism is a lot more complex than even I realized before I started studying it for this TL. Still not my cup of tea politically (I'm neither for authoritarianism nor corporatism), but still, much more than just the right-wing militarism I'd always thought. It considered itself progresive and revolutionary! :eek:

Now, Argentine Fascist Party, really?

Would it have something to do with President Uriburu's attempt to create a Fascismo Criollo in Argentina during his dictatorship of 1930-1932?

Of course, the problem is that Uriburu hated populism and the people, so his version of fascism was too aristocratic, yet his pro-german and anti-british views alienated the pro-british aristocracy, so he couldn't find much support...although one should have to remember the fascinating figure of Leopoldo Lugones, the writer, poet and author of Uriburu's fascist manifesto in defense of military dictatorships...

Or would you just turn Peronism into a more honest emulation of Italian Fascism?

Either way, consider me hooked and suscribed:);)

Well, footnote one does note that Argentine Fascism (OTL Peronism) is classified as authori-collectivist...

And yes, His Lordship caught the foreshadowing here. ;)

Keep note that "fascism" ITTL will not be the all-encompassing term for such governments (that would be "authori-collectivist" TTL) and will still have open admirers as of "present day". Hence people like Peron will be more overt about their inspiration than they were OTL where it's considered inseperable from Naziism, holocaust and anti-semitism.

I'm not familiar with Uriburu, but I'll be looking him up now that you mentioned him.

Good update I was just thinking this morning that it might be dead

Thanks. "Not dead yet." RL just takes a lot of time. The intended post date for this was last weekend, but fatherhood + job = no time for TL. Also, I had to split this post as it was getting too big. The good news there is hopefully the next one will come sooner.

[Sir John A.]

I'm so glad I voted for this TL in your poll :) (although I also would have enjoyed Fun with Cryptohistory! ;) I hope you also do that one someday). You really dug in deep with the research and it shows in the extraordinary depth and detail of this and every update you've posted. You do an excellent job of bridging the gap between history and alternate history and above all, in bringing to vivid life your subject, Italo Balbo and masterfully illustrating the divergent world you have created for him. It shows how much interest and passion you have for the historical personality of Balbo and it seems that it is only through alternate biography-timelines like these that we could point the spotlight at those amazing personalties that our own history had cast in the dark.

Can I just say though that I'm not a big fan of "ContraHistoricus.com". I think it distrupts the atmosphere of academic seriousness brought about by your alt-historical scholarly literature, but that's just what I think. :)

[Geekhis Khan]

I'm so glad I voted for this TL in your poll :) (although I also would have enjoyed Fun with Cryptohistory! ;) I hope you also do that one someday). You really dug in deep with the research and it shows in the extraordinary depth and detail of this and every update you've posted. You do an excellent job of bridging the gap between history and alternate history and above all, in bringing to vivid life your subject, Italo Balbo and masterfully illustrating the divergent world you have created for him. It shows how much interest and passion you have for the historical personality of Balbo and it seems that it is only through alternate biography-timelines like these that we could point the spotlight at those amazing personalties that our own history had cast in the dark.

Can I just say though that I'm not a big fan of "ContraHistoricus.com". I think it distrupts the atmosphere of academic seriousness brought about by your alt-historical scholarly literature, but that's just what I think. :)

Thank you, Hamburger. I'm humbled by such praise.

And I would like to do the Fun with Cryptohistory TL some day. It was one of my first TL ideas. :D

Noted on the "contrahistoricus" and sorry it's not your cup of tea. A few people liked it last time, but then again the last time was the Retrospective chapter and had alot of other non-scholarly texts to balance. I can see where in this case it clashes with the prevailing mood of the scholarlies. These "pre-POD" ones are going to be scholar-heavy until I get post-POD and can write ATL journalistic pieces, etc. I'd always intended a variety of viewpoints and media.

Anyone else have any opinions on the MB?

[Jimbrock]

Hey, loved it as usual, but cant help wondering, when is the AH going to actually start?:confused:

Keep it up.

[DuQuense]

Hey -- I like the Contra-History segments.

And I like the Background, learning a lot, and I think i will better be able to follow the Post POD thread.

[I Blame Communism]

This is jolly educating stuff, and your hint-dropping is meticulously measured. I eagerly await the real meat!

[Geekhis Khan]

Hey, loved it as usual, but cant help wondering, when is the AH going to actually start?:confused:

Keep it up.

Hey -- I like the Contra-History segments.

And I like the Background, learning a lot, and I think i will better be able to follow the Post POD thread.

This is jolly educating stuff, and your hint-dropping is meticulously measured. I eagerly await the real meat!

Thanks, all! Glad people are getting something from the pre-POD segments. I expect to have about three more pre-PODs and then the "real meat". :cool:

[Geekhis Khan]

Quick question:

Does everyone like the lump-sum Chapter installments, or would you rather see each "chapter" split up and posted in more frequent, smaller installments?

[The Red]

Quick question:

Does everyone like the lump-sum Chapter installments, or would you rather see each "chapter" split up and posted in more frequent, smaller installments?

I personally prefer the big updates.

It seems more epic that way.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quick question:

Does everyone like the lump-sum Chapter installments, or would you rather see each "chapter" split up and posted in more frequent, smaller installments?

Believe me, more frequent, small installments only lead to the quality of the writing going down. And there's a lot of quality here.

[I Blame Communism]

Quick question:

Does everyone like the lump-sum Chapter installments, or would you rather see each "chapter" split up and posted in more frequent, smaller installments?

I like bigger ones. Easier to keep track of, and more fun when you get one.

[xt828]

I like the big ones. I also am not a fan of the contrahistoricus thing, but am enjoying enormously everything else. It's written in a very approachable and easily read manner, while still passing along quite substantial amounts of informations.

[Geekhis Khan]

Well, thanks again, everyone. I appreciate the feedback.

It looks like the big entries are the favs, or at least no dissenting opinions have been posted yet.

I might do the contrahistoricus again on occasion since there's a segment of the readership that likes it, but it won't be every chapter or even every other-other chapter. In general I plan on changing it up more between journal, journalism, history, newsreel/TV news transcripts, etc. like I did in the First Chapter. The early pre-POD stuff is rather limited in that regard due to available information, so it will be mostly history books and remembrances unless I luck upon historical articles from Time, and such.

[The Sandman]

One addendum to the big updates thing: would it be possible for you to post snippets of the work-in-progress as teasers? Particularly if it's been more than a fortnight or so between updates. It would help prevent withdrawal symptoms. :)

[Geekhis Khan]

One addendum to the big updates thing: would it be possible for you to post snippets of the work-in-progress as teasers? Particularly if it's been more than a fortnight or so between updates. It would help prevent withdrawal symptoms. :)

I could do that. :)

[Sir John A.]

BUMP!!!! When's the next update coming? :)

[Geekhis Khan]

Hopefully this weekend! :)

Baby's schedule permitting. :(

[Geekhis Khan]

In the meantime...Teaser!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

They burned where they walked. Rimini, Sant’Arcangelo, Savignano, Cesena, Bertinoro, every town, every village, across Forlì and Ravenna. All fell to the torch. Locusts more than men they were; a plague. Destructive, remorseless, more the barbaric Vandals they claimed to oppose than the civilized Romans they claimed to be. Black shirts and boots, torches and cudgels, pistols and knives, these were the book and pen, the food and wine of the Fascist.

They called it the “column of fire”, and it was the Kristallnacht of the workers of Italy. The proletariat was their target, children their victims. Those who dared oppose their tyranny were beaten, shot, even hanged like dogs. A crucible of fire, it was; blood and fear that slashed across the countryside leaving bodies—martyrs to the proletariat—in its wake.

At its head was the Black General, the greatest of the Fascist thugs, Italo Balbo, current Duce of the Italian dictatorship. He himself knew the horror he was unleashing; “a terrible night. Huge columns of fire and smoke marked our passage,” he wrote in his diary, the “entire plain of the Romagna” subjected to the “exasperated reprisal of the fascists” out to crush the hopes and dreams of the workers in the stead of his land-holding masters “once and for all.”

From Reign of Terror, the Fascist Conquest by Branislav Jovanović, University of Belgrade.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/b/bc/Spedizione_pun.jpg
The Burning of a Socialist Headquarters by a Fascist Squad

[Archangel]

Did Yuguslavia followed the same political course as in OTL or did it became a democracy and is Jovanović just more inclined to socialist currents of thought?

Edit: the Fascist violence will create a strong polarisation in Italy, at least in some sectors, not to mention hostility from the public opinions in some countries, at least when these massacres are exposed.

[Jimbrock]

Epic.:) Balbo is the Antichrist!!!

[lonestarr]

really nice teaser :) looking forward for things to come!

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 4: Quadrumvir; Revolution and Rome

“Let Rome do as it likes. We are in charge here. We will take care of Rome on the day we can fall on that nest of owls and clean it out. We have only one goal: to deprecate, to reveal the absurdity of the state that governs us. […] We want to destroy it with all its venerable institutions.” – Italo Balbo, Diario, 1922.

“The motor-launches [to the flying boats] move off from the wharf in the magic silence of breaking day. All my boys are wearing their black shirts under their uniforms. They will continue to wear them all the way to Rome.” – Italo Balbo, My Air Armada.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Mussd.jpg
The March on Rome (Balbo far left, Mussolini second from left)


Video Link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_PmQRx7BgE)
Actual footage of the March on Rome and brief Mussolini bio up to that date


Italo, he loved the challenge and adventure of the squads. To this day he still says to me, “Edmondo, those were great times, great times!” To him, they were the days that Italy was freed, reborn and renewed.

I have heard them [the Socialist expatriates] talk of his bloody violence and tyranny those days, but really, they exaggerate. Yes, Italo had to take some strong measures to save the nation from those Bolsheviks, but really, streets running with blood? City blocks aflame? Bodies piles like cordwood? Hardly! Besides, it was a revolution…sometimes bad things happen in a time of war.

Well, he joined the squads, who were before he got there just bands of fighters and patriots. But Italo, he forged them into a force to reckon with! It is like how when we were children he would organize his schoolmates against a bad teacher. Some days there would be trouble with the Socialists, but many days it was just a march to show the tricolor and let all know that the fascio was there to defend the patria. Some days, when little trouble was expected, he’d bring [our sister] Egle along. How she adored those days!

Italo, he (laughs), he was so fond of his beffe…his little jokes. He used to have his men drive their trucks through the Socialist villages and rev the engines until they backfired. (laughs) The poor fools thought they were under fire and ran for cover! Then there was the stockfish clubs. A local prefect forbade his squad their clubs, so Italo, he gets together a bunch of dried stockfish and these they use as clubs! Once these were so broken and flaking from use, he puts them into the pot and they make soup for the big squadrisimo party at the beach. “Red pepper fish stew”, I think he called it…or maybe my memory plays tricks?

Then, of course, the castor oil! Ha, that one always could motivate! A few spoonfuls and even the toughest Bolshevik thug was…loosened up a bit, yes? He never, I don’t recall, claimed to have made that one up, but knowing Italo, (laughs) well, it is of the kind of thing he would come up with, yes? That one, it has become famous. It was a standard motivation technique for many years, as you know.

He also came up with the black shirt! Or, I think he did. I know for a fact the Ferrara squad was the first to wear them. Many, they think it is to follow the black shirts of the Arditi, but I know it is in reality because the shirts were like the dark shirts of the working man! That was Italo’s way, to stand up for the small ones, the hard-working over the hard hearted. Then again, it is quite likely he thought of both Arditi and workmen. He is, in the heart, still a poet.

Yes, the “discipline of the Arditi, the humanity and courtesy of the Cavalieri and the humor and rebellion of the Goliardi” he would always say at the time [1].

Edmondo Balbo, Italo’s older brother, from a taped interview in 1962.


They burned where they walked. Rimini, Sant’Arcangelo, Savignano, Cesena, Bertinoro, every town, every village, across Forlì and Ravenna. All fell to the torch. Locusts more than men they were; a plague. Destructive, remorseless, more the barbaric Vandals they claimed to oppose than the civilized Romans they claimed to be. Black shirts and boots, torches and cudgels, pistols and knives, these were the book and pen, the food and wine of the Fascist.

They called it the “column of fire”, and it was the Kristallnacht of the workers of Italy. The proletariat was their target, children their victims. Those who dared oppose their tyranny were beaten, shot, even hanged like dogs. A crucible of fire, it was; blood and fear that slashed across the countryside leaving bodies—martyrs to the proletariat—in its wake.

At its head was the Black General, the greatest of the Fascist thugs, Italo Balbo, current Duce of the Italian dictatorship. He himself knew the horror he was unleashing; “a terrible night. Huge columns of fire and smoke marked our passage,” he wrote in his diary, the “entire plain of the Romagna” subjected to the “exasperated reprisal of the fascists” out to crush the hopes and dreams of the workers in the stead of his land-holding masters “once and for all [2].”

From Reign of Terror, the Fascist Conquest by Branislav Jovanović, University of Belgrade.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/b/bc/Spedizione_pun.jpg
The Burning of a Socialist Headquarters by a Fascist Squad


It is clear why we lost. Division; division of vision, division of purpose, divided by petty squabbles and ideological difference. We were a thousand stubborn bulls plodding alone through dangerous fields. The black forces of reaction were so many packs of wolves, united and with commonality of vision. Support also we lacked. The reactionary forces of the bourgeois were well supplied by their masters in Capital and the army and the monarchy. They used that support well. We alienated the very proletariat we claimed to support by casting stones at those small land-holders who might otherwise have seen the promises of the proletarian revolution. That is why we lost…and the forces of reaction won.

It was not will we lacked. It was certainly not righteousness; of this the crimes of the Fascist regime speak clearly. Certainly it was not a lack of valor or skill, as the bravery and sacrifices of the Arditi del Popolo shows. No, the Fascists showed the power of unity we need emulate. They showed the value of leadership, which we lacked.

If only…if only the whims of fate had dealt a different hand. Had only we a uniting figure, a Lenin of our own. Some say Corridoni [3], had he survived the war, might have been that focus. Others say Gramsci [4]. Others say the revolution was just too early and doomed from the start. But such regrets and looks to the past do nothing for the future of the proletarian revolution. No, we must look forward with the spirit and valor of the biennio rosso as our guide, but with a new unity of mind and purpose as our foundation of stone.

Excerpt from a speech by Ernesto Salandro, Secretary of the reformed Italian Socialist Party, marking the 70th anniversary of the fall of the bienno rosso, 1990.



http://www.anarkismo.net/attachments/jun2005/barricade.jpg
Socialist Arditi del Popolo (AdP) members behind a Barricade


Balbo’s speeches of the time illustrate his continued verbal devotion to Mazzini and republicanism and of his nominal suspicion of a formalized Fascist party. He speaks with an almost Jeffersonian idealism of a future society of small landowners, even while continuing his financial and political ties to Ferrara’s agrari. He shows a continued admiration for action and deed over word and lauds condottieri like D’Annunzio. In contrast to the violence he would unleash on Fascism’s political enemies, Balbo speaks of the limitations of violence in achieving political aims and shows a chivalrous respect for his adversaries. […]

Ras Balbo immediately led the Ferrara squadristas into savage violence against the “red menace”. With his position secure following the defeat of the dissidents, Balbo reinforced his ties to the agrari…and to their deep pockets. Any remaining Socialist opposition in Ferrara was violently crushed. Individual Socialists were harassed, beaten, kidnapped—even killed. No suspected “Bolshevik” was safe, not even elected government officials. Ferrarese Socialist deputy Edoardo Bogiankino, for example, found his house invaded by black shirted thugs, his wife spat on, his portrait of Marx defiled and his walls painted with “Death to Bogiankino, death to Lenin, long live the fascio.” Despite the practical success of such piratical measures, Balbo sought to enforce discipline upon the squads and put an end to random violence if it served no immediate strategic purpose. […] The PNF, meanwhile, sought to control things even further, hoping not only to curb the violence that was proving an embarrassment to the elected Fascist deputies but also to curb the power of the autonomous local Ras, Balbo included. A running struggle for power developed between the party in Rome and the intransigent regional Ras. […]

Balbo’s restrained tension vis-à-vis Mussolini shows in the entries [of his 1922 Diario]…while nominally speaking well of the “Chief” as a modern-day Mazzini, these entries appear juxtaposed with his contemporary rebuking of Fascist “collusions” [with the liberal government] and his continued appeals to D’Annunzio to lead the movement… [particularly] when the original 1922 Diario manuscript is compared to the official version released a decade later. […] Throughout 1922 Balbo, upset with the apparent collusion of the elected Fascists with the Liberal government urged to Mussolini the need for a decisive step against the government. He urged a direct and forceful overthrow…which would culminate in the March on Rome. […]

With the home city “cleansed”, Balbo turned his eyes beyond the city walls in a series of violent “marches” and city occupations that would become landmarks in the Fascist ascention to power. Bologna was pacified in June, Ravenna in July, then the infamous “column of fire” across the Romagna. In August came the siege of Parma and a violent clash with Socialist militias…which proved a tougher nut to crack. […] Arguably a tactical loss, the Socialist forces proving intractable, Balbo turned the fascist withdrawal into victory march. […]

The growing impatience of the fascis [for total victory] was raising in a crescendo of unrest…Balbo at the fore. More and more calls for a march on Rome itself reached Mussolini’s ears. […] Ever vigilant to the shifting tide of politics, Mussolini soon saw potential opportunity in such a fascist march. Calling upon Balbo, Mussolini heard the early plans for the march and gave his blessing, at least for continued formal planning. They agreed on two men of military background to support the task of planning and executing a march on Rome. These other “triumvirs” were Cesare Maria De Vecchi, the Ras of Turin and Balbo’s first choice, and older distinguished general Emilio De Bono, a career officer in the army and veteran of the Italo-Turkish War and the Great War. To support, and likely to constrain Balbo, Mussolini further assigned party secretary Michele Bianchi to the triumvirate, making a quadrumvirate, the four assuming the honorific of quadrumvirs. […]




http://www.comune.buggiano.pt.it/public/UserFiles/buggiano_tra_le_due_guerre/0054.jpg
A Fascist Squad on the March


The quadrumvirate’s planning soon manifested in a coordinated three-pronged march on Rome to culminate on the 28th of October, 1922. This great Blackshirt “army” would then demand control of the government, and accept no less than six major cabinet posts. This plan was optimistic to say the least. The choice of isolated Perugia as a command post for the quadrumvirate attests to the lack of in-depth planning. […] Beginning with a general mobilization, the combined Blackshirt forces would begin with the occupation of the major cities of the north. With their “northern flank” thus secured, the Blackshirt militias would then concentrate at Santa Marinella, Monterotondo, and Tivoli for the final offensive. From there the three columns would march on Rome and demand the ascension of a Fascist government. […]

In hindsight, the March on Rome was planned and executed with exuberance and optimism (some would say hallucination) more than with actual strategic realism. Even combined, the Blackshirt militias were smaller than available army troops. Modern estimates place the Fascist numbers at about 26,000 versus at least 28,000 troops available for immediate mobilization (the King claimed after the Fascist ascension that the Fascist numbered closer to 100,000 and government forces closer to 5,000-8,000). These scattered Blackshirt forces were also far less trained or organized and far worse equipped than the army, and it is certain that a determined government mobilization would have crushed the fascist forces. Even in the thrall of the moment the quadrumvirs were realistic enough to admonish their field officers to avoid any stand-up fight against the army.

Yet Balbo was optimistic. “The army does not worry us,” he wrote in his Diario, “It is much more ours than [War Minister] Soleri’s.” De Bono and De Vecchi were less enthusiastic [and] Grandi, visiting from Rome, was incredulous, noting the ludicrousness of risking insurrection over six cabinet posts. Balbo’s response to Grandi: “I don’t recognize you anymore. Parliament has really contaminated you.” […]

The March on Rome faced difficulty right from the start. The planned city occupations in the north were stopped cold by military forces. None of the major cities fell to the Fascists. Furthermore, the government forces still controlled all the major access points and bridges into Rome. The quadrumvirs pressed on, Balbo professing that “Will power will make up for it”. […] Some columns became lost or were turned back by government forces. Many Blackshirts succumbed to drunkenness and other distractions. The isolation of Perugia began to take its toll as word from the field became ever more scattered and the intentions of the government ever more vague. Hesitations and divisions plagued the Blackshirts—and the quadrumvirs. […]

The situation grew tense. While the army had yet to intervene, the strain and tension were felt on all sides. An army garrison threatened Perugia itself. Bianchi vacillated. De Bono lost his nerve entirely and would have fled entirely had Balbo not locked the room. Balbo himself became ever more agitated and violent. Yet fear of a prolonged armed insurrection plagued the King. […] Word eventually came from the King, via his aide General Arturo Cittadini, offering Mussolini a position in the Salandra ministry in return for the Blackshirts stepping down. Balbo was incensed. “I’ll shoot!” he responded, “I’ll shoot to the last bullet. I don’t make revolutions by telephone.” […] What Balbo saw in this modest offer, and others in the Fascist party did not, was that it signaled capitulation. The army, he realized, which had yet to attack, would not. The King had given in. The Fascists had won. […]

But the situation was still one of utter chaos. The King threatened abdication if the Blackshirts didn’t demobilize. De Vecchi, who knew the King well, knew this to be a bluff. […] The Blackshirts massed and threatened Rome. The King, still fearing insurrection…asked Mussolini to form a government. “A thrill of joy courses through the fascist squads,” Balbo wrote upon hearing the news, “Radiant faces, fezes flying, songs of triumph.” The March on Rome and Fascist Revolution had ended “with the most glorious victory”. […]

The Blackshirts now entered the streets of Rome, not in assault, but by invite in a triumphant victory parade. […] When Balbo entered the city he went directly to the Hotel Savoia and met Mussolini. “In a room upstairs I find our Chief, surrounded by Bianchi, De Vecchi, De Bono and many politicians. His face is radiant. Not even a word. A hug.”

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.



http://italianhistory.info/blackshirts.jpg
Blackshirts in Rome


In truth, the “great revolutionary victory” of the March on Rome was less revolution than simply an effective change in ministry within the parliamentary government. Optimistic ministers even expressed hope that the “new blood” would even come to benefit the liberal state. Rather than seizing control through armed combat, the Blackshirts were little more than a political bargaining chip in a very old game…a great bluff by one of history’s most adept political card sharks. In many ways the March on Rome was the first of many such Fascist bluffs and gambits. […] In the end, thousands would die in clashes between fascists and anti-fascists between 1919 and 1926. This bloody and violent period would see death and destruction on a grand scale, yet when compared to the devastation wrought by similar conflicts of the time, such as the violence seen in Weimar Germany or, worse yet, the bloody Russian and Spanish Civil Wars, the Italian violence seems almost tame. […]

At first, little changed under the Fascists. Prime Minister Mussolini proclaimed his and the party’s loyalty to the state, the monarchy and the constitution… [and] made few major waves. Despite quadrumvir Balbo’s proclamations of “tearing down” the “venerable institutions” of the liberal state, little was fundamentally altered and the “nest of owls” far from “cleaned out”. […] To the relief of the major financial interests of the nation, and to the chagrin of the hardline syndicalists within the party, Mussolini continued the liberal financial policies of the state. […]

Mussolini furthermore worked within the existing structures…seeking coalition primarily with the Nationalists…eventually the Nationalist Association under Luigi Federzoni merged into the PNF. This merger brought with it high society gravitas and an apparent expertise in diplomacy…and imperialist theory. [T]hereafter the Nationalist wing, it was alleged, came to dominate Fascist foreign policy. […] Nationalist philosopher Giovani Gentile, father of the Actualist school of philosophy, assumed control of the Ministry of Education. […]

The Fascists also began their attempted cultural revolution, hoping to effectively and fundamentally change the prevailing Italian attitudes on the nation, government, and organization. They faced an uphill battle against entrenched parochialism and a general Italian disinterest in politics and nationalism. Their novel ideas of the “new Italy” and “New politics” were propped up alongside anachronistic nostalgia for the old Roman Empire (“Rome, eternal Rome”). They were only partially successful. […] The old Arditi anthem “Giovinezza” (Youth), with the lyrics altered to praise Fascist ideals and Mussolini, became the Fascist anthem and a de facto “second” national anthem after the Marcia Reale. It remains so to this day, lyrics altered once again to reflect more contemporary ideals. Official Fascist “holidays” were added, such as the Birth of Rome (21 April), the anniversary of the March on Rome (28 October) and Vittorio Veneto Day (4 Nov), some of which have survived to the present day. Other attempted Fascist cultural changes were less successful. The infamous “new calendar”, which began “Anno I” at the awkward date of the March on Rome (28 October, 1922), never managed to find popular use. Official documents bore both this year and the traditional AD year, and the overlap of the two measured years was the source of great confusion until the eventual abandonment of the new calendar in 1968. […]

Despite the great “victory” of the March on Rome, the Fascist government was far from secure. And despite Mussolini’s attempts to control the Blackshirts who helped bring him to power, the violence in the provinces continued. One attempt to control the squadrista mobs was to formalize the Blackshirts into a national militia, the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN; “voluntary militia for national security”)… [which] was placed under the official control of General De Bono, though “Generalissimo” Balbo would be the effective executive commander. The MVSN would also absorb the Nationalist Sepre Pronti Blueshirts with the formal merger between the PNF and NA. Those fascis which refused the national rule, many of which had become de facto warlords and crime syndicates in their provinces, were declared outlaw and brutally repressed. […]

Mussolini found himself in an odd three-way split, attempting to balance his shaky hold over the cabinet and parliament, his dominance of the party and its increasingly divided Grand Council, and the growing intransigent factions amid the MVSN and the regional Ras. […] The controversial détente with the Catholic Church, which culminated in the Lateran Accords of 1929, drew heavy flak from the anti-clerical right. […] Growing intransigence sparked a growing movement among the fanatical radical fascists, with calls in some circles for a “second wave” revolution and a “new” March on Rome. […]

Hoping to shore up his hold on the government, Mussolini sought control over the coming 1924 election. The “Acerbo Law” the Fascists implemented gave an automatic two-thirds majority to whichever party topped the vote. Ironically, it would not be needed. Nothing succeeds like success, and the dominant Fascists would command 66.3% of the vote. […] While Prime Minister Mussolini spoke out against any election fraud, noting that “illegality of any kind, no matter who practices it, should be suppressed,” many local Ras took matters into their own hands. Balbo, for instance, stationed Blackshirts at the Ferrara polling station and spoke of the need to make an example out of the first voter. “Let us take, therefore, this privileged elector and break his head open – even if he has voted for us, too bad for him – shouting ‘Bastard, you voted for the socialists’. [5]” Despite such instances of fraud, the election was for the most part fair and an accurate sample of the prevailing public opinion in Italy. […]

Yet the violence continued. Several high-profile kidnappings and murders began to erode popular support for Mussolini and the Fascists. For instance, Ras Balbo, future Duce himself, was plagued by the murder of anti-Fascist archpriest Don Giovanni Minzoni by local Fascists. While no direct ties have been established between Balbo and the Minzoni murder, and while Balbo officially deplored and condemned the action, accusations mounted…Balbo attempted to sue one newspaper for libel…and failed. […] Balbo would resign his post in the MVSN, and it appeared to many that this early star of Fascism had burned out.

The most notable, and as it would turn out most momentous of these acts of violence was the infamous murder of vocal anti-fascist, Socialist minister Giacomo Matteotti. Brutally beaten to death and buried in a shallow grave, Matteotti proved to be just the weapon Mussolini’s enemies had been waiting for. […] The “Matteotti affair” continued to plague Mussolini, and calls for his resignation grew louder, his enemies bolder. The “second wave” Fascists grew bolder in their intransigence and the Socialists grew more vocal in their opposition, demanding Mussolini’s immediate resignation. The Socialist opposition culminated in what became known as the “Aventine secession” where many of the opposition walked out of parliament, perhaps hoping to hamstring the body and sew a final show of “no faith” in the Mussolini government. It was a fatal error.



[I]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/Benito_Mussolini_Roman_Salute.jpg
Il Duce[I] Mussolini before the masses in Rome


With his ability and right to rule openly being questioned by left and right, Mussolini seemed to be in deep trouble. Yet once again Mussolini’s deep instinctual understanding of the flow of politics paid off. In an open denial of any involvement in the Matteotti affair, and a condemnation of the Aventine secession as unconstitutional, he made a short and fiery speech now infamous: “I declare here, before this assembly and before the whole Italian people, that I, and I alone, assume political, moral and historical responsibility for all that has happened…If all the violence in our country has been caused by a historic, political and moral climate, then I take that responsibility, too. This historic, political and moral climate I have constructed with a propaganda which has spanned the time from the moment of intervention in 1914-15 until today.” This dramatic seeming assumption of culpability was, in typical peremptory Mussolinian style, a declaration of his assumptive dictatorship.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.


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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – Or perhaps not…this quote (in actuality invented by me based on paraphrased OTL quotes) was never found in any of his writing before [ATL] 1944, when it first appeared in a speech to troops deploying to the front.

2 – From an OTL quote in Balbo’s 1922 Diario, obviously spun by this fictional ATL author. The whole quote is “It was a terrible night. Huge columns of fire and smoke marked our passage. The entire plain of Romagna all the way up to the hills was subjected to the exasperated reprisal of the fascists, who have decided to end the red terror once and for all.”

3 – Filippo Corridoni (not to be confused with the Authoritarian Nationalist scholar turned Fascist Enrico Corradini) was a Mazzinian turned Socialist labor leader who advocated direct action and “heroic” violence and was disdainful of “theoretical” intellectual socialism, including Marxism. A popular and excellent speaker, he once put up a serious challenge to Mussolini for control of the Milan labor movement. He was an interventionist, enlisted in the infantry in May of 1915 and volunteered for front-line action. He was killed in action in October of that year, according to legend shouting “Viva Italia!” as he died.

4 – Antonio Gramsci was a radical Sardinian Socialist and member of the Communist faction of the PSI, which eventually broke away and formed the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI). He was active in the Communist Third International and met with Lenin in Moscow in 1922. An outspoken critic of the Fascist government and a major opposition voice during the crisis of the Matteotti murder, he was imprisoned by the Fascists in 1926, dying of complications from the imprisonment in 1937.

5 – OTL quote; recounted by “disgruntled former collaborator” Tomaso Beltrani as reported in Italo Balbo, a Fascist Life by Dr. Claudio Segrè.

[Kara Iskandar]

Simply brilliant!

[Geekhis Khan]

Did Yuguslavia followed the same political course as in OTL or did it became a democracy and is Jovanović just more inclined to socialist currents of thought?

Edit: the Fascist violence will create a strong polarisation in Italy, at least in some sectors, not to mention hostility from the public opinions in some countries, at least when these massacres are exposed.

Yugoslavia will be...an interesting case ATL. Stay tuned. :cool:

Oh, and yes, there will be polarization re Italy ITTL, though see the above full chapter to get a more "full" story. Professor Jovanovic is not exactly unbiased in his views, though certainly not alone in them.

Epic.:) Balbo is the Antichrist!!!

really nice teaser :) looking forward for things to come!

Thanks, hope you enjoyed the full chapter as much.

Simply brilliant!

Merci.

[Jimbrock]

A great update. Balbo really is turning violent now, isnt he?
So, what/when will the actual PoD be?

[Geekhis Khan]

A great update. Balbo really is turning violent now, isnt he?
So, what/when will the actual PoD be?

Balbo's Blackshirt career was his most wantonly violent period and such an interesting juxtaposition to his charitable and humanistic side. Expect these two sides of Balbo to be a major source for future controversy.

POD will be late 30s. I have two more "chapters" pre-POD (Balbo the Aviator and Balbo the Governor of Libya) necessary to finish the "necessary background", as these will directly show Balbo as a political and military leader.

[Kara Iskandar]

Merci.

Prego!
You're welcome.

[lonestarr]

very very very nice! I am really looking forward towards the POD.

[Jimbrock]

Balbo's Blackshirt career was his most wantonly violent period and such an interesting juxtaposition to his charitable and humanistic side. Expect these two sides of Balbo to be a major source for future controversy.

POD will be late 30s. I have two more "chapters" pre-POD (Balbo the Aviator and Balbo the Governor of Libya) necessary to finish the "necessary background", as these will directly show Balbo as a political and military leader.

Ah, I see. Also, are you still going to keep the title of Duce for Balbo? It was Mussies personal title (and until recently the title of the leader of some crackpot Italian neo-Fascist Party:)) so I doubt Balbo would take it up.

[Geekhis Khan]

very very very nice! I am really looking forward towards the POD.

Thanks again.

Ah, I see. Also, are you still going to keep the title of Duce for Balbo? It was Mussies personal title (and until recently the title of the leader of some crackpot Italian neo-Fascist Party:)) so I doubt Balbo would take it up.

You'll see... ;)

[Hashasheen]

Nice update, but there's something missing. Something drawing away its glory, something that is making me wonder....
What was Balbo's OTL powerbase, and did the Nationalist Party have any OTL chance of amagalating the Fascists into their numbers instead of vice-versa ?

[Kara Iskandar]

Ah, I see. Also, are you still going to keep the title of Duce for Balbo? It was Mussies personal title (and until recently the title of the leader of some crackpot Italian neo-Fascist Party:)) so I doubt Balbo would take it up.

Gabriele d'Annunzio was also titled "Duce" (and even Garibaldi!) so I don't see any problem with that.

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Ah, I see. Also, are you still going to keep the title of Duce for Balbo? It was Mussies personal title (and until recently the title of the leader of some crackpot Italian neo-Fascist Party:)) so I doubt Balbo would take it up.
Duce indecorum est pro Balbo amori?
OK, so that's not quite '"Duce" is indecorous for beloved Balbo'... but I tried:p

[Geekhis Khan]

Nice update, but there's something missing. Something drawing away its glory, something that is making me wonder....
What was Balbo's OTL powerbase, and did the Nationalist Party have any OTL chance of amagalating the Fascists into their numbers instead of vice-versa ?

Balbo's OTL power base is pretty much what you see in the TL so far (we're still pre-POD). In Ferrara as a Ras it was the Agrari (big landowners) and the local prefect. He was also backed by his own factions in the military and party and was the de facto leader of the "loyal opposition" in the 30s, being the only one with the gravitas to stand up to Mussolini and not be totally devastated...though he did get "promoted" to exile in Libya for it.

And frankly, the Nationalists did in many ways take over the party. Afterwards many of the core sydicalist factions were pushed to the side in favor of more blatantly reactionary nationalist policies.

[Cornelius]

A really a good TL, Geekhis Khan and a very enjoyable read, too!

My only observation is that you should exalt more the revolutionary face of Fascism. While the traditional right wing dictatorships trys to suppress the popular partecipation, Fascism searched actively for the mass partecipation in all the aspect of the public life. A partecipation that was cleverly manipulated to strenghten Mussolini, of course.

[Geekhis Khan]

A really a good TL, Geekhis Khan and a very enjoyable read, too!

My only observation is that you should exalt more the revolutionary face of Fascism. While the traditional right wing dictatorships trys to suppress the popular partecipation, Fascism searched actively for the mass partecipation in all the aspect of the public life. A partecipation that was cleverly manipulated to strenghten Mussolini, of course.

Thank you! :)

Oh, the Radical wings will make an appearance, particularly once the TL proper gets going. A lot of the elements repressed OTL will see action. Its suppression/manipulation is, if you look, part of the subtext of these early chapters.

[Vince]

Agreed with everyone else. This TL is really good.

I never knew Balbo was such a ruthless bastard. I should've probably known more about this being an full blooded Italian. :eek:

[Sir John A.]

Chapter 4: Quadrumvir; Revolution and Rome

Another amazing, and very educational update! :) I'm really learning a lot about Italian and Fascist history here. And I can't wait for the post-POD's parts!


The old Arditi anthem “Giovinezza” (Youth), with the lyrics altered to praise Fascist ideals and Mussolini, became the Fascist anthem and a de facto “second” national anthem after the Marcia Reale. It remains so to this day, lyrics altered once again to reflect more contemporary ideals. Also, I'd like to share this wonderful rendition of Giovinezza (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6x9ZRlrjxw&feature) by Beniamino Gigli, that I found on YouTube. Giovinezza, Giovinezza, Primavera di bellezza!

[Geekhis Khan]

Agreed with everyone else. This TL is really good.

I never knew Balbo was such a ruthless bastard. I should've probably known more about this being an full blooded Italian. :eek:

Grazie, e benvenuto, Vincenzio. :)

And yes, Balbo could damned well be a ruthless bastard. Similarly he could be a very progressive, caring, and charitable man. He was undoubtedly brave and charismatic no mattrer who you ask.

In fact, he's so much the embodiment of the Magnificent Bastard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard) trope, both the good and bad aspects, it's scary.

Another amazing, and very educational update! :) I'm really learning a lot about Italian and Fascist history here. And I can't wait for the post-POD's parts!

Also, I'd like to share this wonderful rendition of Giovinezza (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6x9ZRlrjxw&feature) by Beniamino Gigli, that I found on YouTube. Giovinezza, Giovinezza, Primavera di bellezza!

E ringraziamenti a voi. And thanks for the link. I'd never really heard Giovinezza before. It's very uplifting and invigorating, actually. Much more so than my own nation's anthem, I'm afraid. Much less menacing than Deutschland Uber Alles. Bit of an ear worm, too. Very effective as a propoganda tool, I'd imagine.

BTW, what's really interesting to me is the discussion with the clip. It seems there's still a sizable pro-fascist/apologist population out there.

[Jimbrock]

We know giovinezza here... scarily, its the anthem of our ruling party...

[HJ Tulp]

I love Italian music from the 30s and 40s. Catchy tunes and lyrics about women :D

[lonestarr]

moar? pretty please? :) been enjoying this for some time, i hope you are working on a MASSIVE update.

[maverick]

You know, this would be one of my favorite TLs if it was an actual TL and not just history thus far, you cheater;):p

[Jimbrock]

You know, this would be one of my favorite TLs if it was an actual TL and not just history thus far, you cheater;):p
Much agreed. :)

[lothaw]

You know, this would be one of my favorite TLs if it was an actual TL and not just history thus far, you cheater;):p

Hey, I've learned a lot of 'small things' regarding Italy in this time period. :p

[Hashasheen]

You know, this would be one of my favorite TLs if it was an actual TL and not just history thus far, you cheater;):p
... Eh! Geekhis is a very busy man! And are you saying you learned nothing in all this? :p

[Geekhis Khan]

I'm sorry, folks. I really am. :( My schedule is a mess between the kid, work/commute, work related travel, and some major home maintenance issues. I really expected to be past the background and into the actual TL long before now.

I'll be on travel next week, so maybe with luck I'll get the next chapter out. And yes, it's a doozy. Balbo as Air Minister...this will cover some of his greatest OTL acheivements and be a major insight into his management/leadership style. It'll also cover the emergence of Totalitarianism in Italy, and as a philosophy.

[Herr Frage]

I do not mind. The IU sources provide a tantalizing taste of matters to come. Besides one is never to familiare with history to skip a free lesson. Particualrly one laid out in such an enjoyable fashion.

Will I eagerly await the divergence I am content to wait for you to reach it in your own time.

[lothaw]

I'm sorry, folks. I really am. :( My schedule is a mess between the kid, work/commute, work related travel, and some major home maintenance issues. I really expected to be past the background and into the actual TL long before now.

I'll be on travel next week, so maybe with luck I'll get the next chapter out. And yes, it's a doozy. Balbo as Air Minister...this will cover some of his greatest OTL acheivements and be a major insight into his management/leadership style. It'll also cover the emergence of Totalitarianism in Italy, and as a philosophy.

Greatness can't be rushed, so take your time, good sir.

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks, all. I appreciate the support. This TL won't just die or quit, I promise that. :)

[Kara Iskandar]

Take your time.
We will wait!

[Germaniac]

Anything coming up soon not to rush just would like an update on when I can expect more brilliance

[Geekhis Khan]

Sorry for the delays. RL gets more difficult every week. Here's a long teaser, and one which should give you some idea of the scale of this update. Enjoy! :)

GK...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Balbo’s legacy as Air Minister remains disputed and clouded by politics and revisionism. In the official Fascist history, compiled mostly during Balbo’s tenure as Duce, Balbo is credited not only as the father of the Aeronautica, but given credit for its emergence as a modern and world-class air force. Much of the branch’s early-war difficulties have been laid upon the lamented head of Balbo’s successor Guiseppe Valle, possibly unfairly. […] However, modern and recently declassified papers from the early Fascist years spread some doubt in some circles as to how much of the contemporary Aeronautica’s modern reputation is deserved and how much of it is a product of what has of late been dubbed the “Great Bluff”. […]

At the start of his tenure as Undersecretary of the Air Ministry , Balbo’s predecessor General Alberto Bonzani claimed the Aeronautica possessed 800 combat-ready aircraft with 800 more in reserve, making Italy the second-greatest air power in the world at the time after France (approximately 1,500 ready, 4,000 reserve) and notably ahead of Great Britain and the United States (each approximately 700 ready, 700 reserve). These numbers appear rather optimistic. Upon taking office Balbo studied records for several days and revised this figure to 405. Testing this further, he ordered a full readiness test: all planes capable of flight were to take to the air, fighters to stay aloft for two and a half hours, bombers and all others for three. Only 200 successfully completed this test. Balbo declared that Italy could probably only really count on about 300 ready aircraft. He also noted numerous discrepancies with ground facilities and logistics, including fields which lacked electricity and running water, hangars with leaky roofs, and shortages in fuel and munitions. […]



[I]http://aerobaticteams.net/images/Fiat_CR.32_Team.jpg
Fiat CR.32 Acrobatic Squadron in Flight

Balbo’s goals for the Aeronautica were grand indeed. “Now,” he wrote, “it is necessary to begin building military aviation and its weaponry has not even been studied. First of all it is necessary to build a sporting air force, then one that is disciplined, and, finally, one that is militarily efficient.” He certainly succeeded on the first measure, spending large portions of his budget on such sporting events as record chases and the Schneider Cup seaplane speed trials, Italy winning the latter in 1926 …and finally on his famous mass flights of the Mediterranean and Atlantic. He arguably succeeded on the second part of his goal, adding a measure of discipline and collective thinking among the pilots, and working hard to overcome the “prima donna” attitude common in early pilots. His mass flights were in many ways designed for this reason: an attempt to move beyond the individual daring of single pilots and prove the effectiveness of formation flight and disciplined squadrons. He always claimed the flights demonstrated the ability of any trained pilots to achieve such feats and showed that any Italian flier was capable of such flight, though this is to say the least an overstatement.

As to the third of his aims, to create a “militarily efficient” air force, there is debate on how effective his work was in this area. Official Fascist histories cite his efforts at building discipline via the mass flights and further cite his tendency to lead by example as the cornerstones of the eventual emergence of the Aeronautica as a combat-ready force. Many consider his efforts at promoting air-mindedness as the foundation of Italy’s continued contributions in aerospace. It is likely that the quality of the officer corps improved under his tenure; their quantity certainly increased. Merit-based promotions, including vastly greater promotion potential for younger officers, replaced the old Savoy traditions of seniority-based promotion. The Aeronautica was without doubt the youngest branch of the military in both age and spirit, with a reputation for aggressive daring.

His more critical biographers, however, have cast doubts as to how much his actions contributed to military readiness, and how much of the budget and energy was instead wasted on stunts of questionable military value such as his mass flights and Schneider Cup pursuits. Some have gone as far as to cast blame on him for such things as the Aeronautica’s continued reliance on biplanes long past when other nations had moved on to all-metal monoplanes. In his defense the future of monoplanes was still in doubt during his tenure, with pilots of the time requesting aircraft with maneuverability, fast rates of climb, and the ability to land on rough and often make-shift airfields—all areas where the biplane was superior. Furthermore it should be noted that the famous monoplanes of the war, like the Messerschmitt 109 and Supermarine Spitfire, were first developed years after Balbo had been removed from office and was serving his term as colonial governor in Libya. Whether Balbo would have done any better than Valle in the years leading up to the war is, of course, a matter of speculation. […]

Many critics find fault in his aircraft acquisitions, noting (with probable accuracy, the records remain rather fuzzy and often contradictory) that the Aeronautica’s growth rate never substantially increased over that of his predecessors’. In part this can be explained by a constant lack of funds. […] Others cite his continued and some claim obsessive habit of letting his personal feelings for an airframe cloud his judgment in aircraft selection. His passionate love for the outdated twin-hulled SM.55 flying boat kept the aircraft in service for decades past their expected lifespan and led to the development of the three-engine SM.66 passenger version over the probably more logical option of constructing license-built German Dornier Wal passenger flying boats. […] Most blatant was the purchase of two Dornier Do X super flying boats, mammoth twelve-engine, 150 passenger behemoths intended to compete with airships in transoceanic luxury travel. These acquisitions turned out to be massive White Elephants, soaking up a large part of the yearly budget, yet with no serious customer demand and no notable military purpose. […]


[B]http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/aeromarino/Savoia_S-66.jpg
Savoia-Marchetti SM.66 flying boat

As Undersecretary and later Air Minister during Mussolini’s short-lived experiment at delegation, Balbo lead from the front but dictated from the top. Dynamic and energetic yet demanding and domineering, traits that became world famous in later decades, Balbo succeeded in making the Aeronautica a truly independent armed force. He also succeeded in making it his armed force. Learning well from his Duce, Balbo cemented his own hold on power, played rivals off of one another, and, when his position was threatened, was not afraid to take down any potential rivals, whatever their prior contributions. Famed aviators and rivals such as record flier Francesco De Pinedo and airship pioneer Umberto Nobile were isolated, discredited, and ultimately suffered for their opposition to Balbo (De Pinedo died in a crash at the start of a record flight while Nobile ultimately ended up in exile). […]

One solid legacy of Balbo’s tenure is the Palazzo dell'Aeronautica building in Rome. The large early Littorio style building, grand yet coldly bureaucratic with its Romanesque brick pillars and concrete pilot’s wings, was a marvel of efficiency for its day. In addition to the necessary workspaces, pains were taken to enforce work over dalliance: the cafeteria, for example, boasted no chairs, a heavy-handed but ultimately effective method of counteracting the Italian tradition of long and leisurely lunches. […] Under Balbo, the Aeronautica cemented its reputation as the most “Fascist” of services, favoring youth and modernity over tradition and seniority. Yet ironically Balbo opposed overt methods by the Party to infiltrate the service…opposing methods such as free party memberships to officers [and] allowing promotions even to those who showed no party affinity. Whether this was due to any hidden personal policy or simply another attempt to maintain discrete control is a matter for speculation. […]

While Balbo’s position within the Aeronautica was being secured, his position in the greater government and military establishment was one of constant struggle. Inter-service rivalry, which Mussolini encouraged in order to secure his own position, remained bitter and contested. Balbo’s own bombastic personality, “forward thinking” and reformist ways, and his relative lack of prior military command experience all led to clashes with the Regia Esercito [Royal Army] and Regia Marina [Royal Navy] and also with then Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale [Chief of the Major General Staff], Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Culture clash between the aggressive “young” and Fascist Aeronautica, the defensive and tradition-minded Marina, and the conservative “Savoian” Esercito compounded the already hotly contested fight for the nation’s limited funds and industry. […] At first Balbo fared poorly in such budgetary duels where his lack of experience cost him. One of his early faux pas involved a lengthy and heated defense of the advantages of wooden construction in aircraft over metal construction. After that particular episode Balbo learned to rely on the expertise of his many more experienced and educated underlings. […] Occasionally his normally engaging speaking ability faltered, such as on long and droning budgetary speech in 1927 that Galeazzo Ciano compared to flying with the engines off. […] Occasionally his rivals managed to catch him in a statement that directly contradicted earlier statements, some of which cost him at budget time. […]

Later as Balbo gained experience in his position he managed a few successful bureaucratic coups, the most notable being cementing the Aeronatuca’s hard-won independence from the other services [and] found some success in opposing the use of air power by the rival services, gaining primary control of aircraft and air doctrine for the Aeronautica. He roughly “broke even” in the battle with [Army head Lieutenant General Alberto] Bonzani over air defense, being unsuccessful in his ascertion that fighter defense was superior to anti-aircraft artillery (in the end Italy, rather wisely, adopted a mix of interceptors and air defense guns). […] Balbo, like any skilled bureaucrat, continuously pressed for a greater budget and blamed any setbacks or limitations of the Aeronautica on budgetary woes. He is not without merit on this complaint: while other nations’ air force budgets increased yearly, the Aeronautica’s budget remained fixed at 700 million lire (a quarter to a third that of France, Britain, or Germany and a sixteenth that of the United States according to contemporary Italian records). […] [This drastically smaller budget] is understandable considering the limits of Italy’s domestic product. […]

Balbo followed the Douhetist line that Air power was intrinsically less expensive than ground or naval power with the greatest return of power-for-spending, a situation Italy was supposedly perfectly suited to. […] Balbo claimed that a huge industrial aircraft production rate of 30,000 aircraft-a-year was possible with the necessary funding of 3 billion lire a year and an extra 30 billion over ten years. Even he admitted to the absurdity of the sum. […] He never was successful in gaining the budget he desired. In part this is due to the limitations of his nation, in part due to inter-service rivalry, in part to his own limitations as a bureaucrat, but also undoubtedly in part due to purposeful limitations imposed by Mussolini to contain this growing rival.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2268/2265354665_32071bbd6a.jpg
The Palazzo dell'Aeronautica, Rome

See also: Front view…too large for the web page (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/MinisteroAeronautica.jpg)

Air Power in the 20’s and 30’s was a weapon in its infancy, and air theorists were greatly divided on how to best employ it. Should it be used in conjunction with land and naval units, or as an independent strategic arm in its own right? One of the most fanatical devotees of the latter was Italy’s own Giulio Douhet… [whose writings] espoused a theory of strategic bombing as the highest use of air power. He envisioned armadas of “battle plane” aircraft, large and heavily-armed aircraft capable of flying unescorted and unopposed over any ground forces to pummel the enemy into submission through city bombing…the disruption of enemy industry and communication lines… [and] the devastation of civilian morale through area bombing. In Douhet’s world, land and naval forces would exist only to impede the enemy until the air forces could crush all opposition. Douhet’s principles found many admirers around the world including England’s Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris and America’s General William “Billy” Mitchell. […] Opposing, or at least contrasting Douhet’s view was General Amedeo Mecozzi… [who] advocated use of air power at least in part in “auxiliary” roles, what would later come to be called “tactical” use (ground support, naval bombardment, etc.). While Douhet scoffed at such secondary roles as a distraction from the ultimate combat potential of “pure” air power (i.e. strategic bombing), Mecozzi argued that such adjunct roles not only increased the fighting ability of the other forces, but supported the strategic primary bomber force…what we might call a “unified arms” approach today.

Balbo attempted to bridge the difference, stating “Neither of these theories [Douhet’s or Mecozzi’s] can be altogether discarded…I think there is virtue in both.” […] Balbo was less than confident in the infallibility of Douhet’s battle planes and still saw fit to acquire defensive aircraft, fighters, ground attack, and torpedo bomber aircraft (his beloved SM.55 filling the latter role). He also saw the logistical advantages of aircraft for communications and transport. […] When it came time to argue budgets, however, Balbo was more than happy to wear a Douhetist hat [where] the theorist’s doctrine of a well-funded independent air force served as a useful political lever in the often heated Italian inter-service budget skirmishes. He similarly used Douhetist arguments to limit or eliminate the air arms of the competing services [and] opposed the development of aircraft carriers as unnecessary, as Italy was by his reckoning itself an unsinkable aircraft carrier capable of covering the Mediterranean. He similarly opposed the development of airships as limited, vulnerable, and expensive. […] Balbo constantly argued for increased budgets to support a large offensive strategic bomber arm despite the industrial limitations of his nation that made such a force forever an elusive dream. […] In hindsight the Aeronautica may have been served better by pursuing a single air doctrine. It certainly would have been served better by a greater sense of collaboration between the three services, and Balbo bears a part of the blame for this crippling rivalry. Though in Balbo’s defense his Duce’s paranoia led the latter to encourage such conflict among his subordinates as a useful distraction from potential power plays and conspiracies. […]



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/SM79_193.jpg
Savoia Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero bombers – one of Italy’s less-than-successful attempts at a Douhetist strategic bomber

If it was Balbo’s Squadrist actions which brought him recognition in Fascist Italy, it was his aerial spectacles that brought him world fame. Beginning in 1928, Balbo led his best pilots through a series of mass flights around the Mediterranean and ultimately across the Atlantic. […] The first mass flight…led sixty-one seaplanes in a loop around the western Mediterranean. [From the main base at] Orbetello the flight progressed to Elmas Sardinia, then on to Los Alcazares and Puerto Alfaques in Spain, to Berre in France, and finally back to Orbetello. […] Other than some storm damage to aircraft while moored in port, the flight went smoothly. […] The next Mediterranean flight (35 aircraft) followed the northern shore of the eastern Med [travelling through Athens, Istanbul, and Varna, Bulgaria] ultimately to an initially chilly but soon enthusiastic reception at Odessa in the Soviet Union. This last stop reflects a curious diplomatic development as the ostensible enemies – Fascism and Communism – showed the beginnings of the off-and-on détente of their long co-history. […]

The most audacious of the mass flights were the two trans-Atlantic journeys; the first was across the South Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro and the second and most famous journey was across the North Atlantic to Chicago and then ultimately back to Rome. This first flight of thirteen aircraft, all Balbo’s beloved SM.55 flying boats, traced the coast of North Africa down to Bolama (south of Dakar) before making the dangerous 3000 km leap across the Atlantic to Natal in Brazil [and then] traced the coastline south to Rio. This journey, though intricately planned, met near disaster almost immediately when a cyclone almost destroyed the armada in flight…a result of Balbo’s impatience to take off spurred by the eager press at Orbetello. The armada was less lucky in the later legs of the flight: I-BOER and I-RECA both crashed on takeoff from Bolama, the former exploded with all crew lost, the latter suffered a smashed float from a rogue wave or floating object, killing the mechanic. During the long leg I-BAIS and I-DONA had to ditch in the ocean, I-BAIS being lost to the waves though fortunately all crew of both aircraft were rescued. In all, the flight was considered a roaring success despite the losses. Considering how dangerous Transoceanic travel was in that age before reliable navigation and weather reporting or even pressurized cabins, the loss of life was relatively small. Still, though, the losses of the flight made an indelible impact on Balbo, who would be much more careful in planning his next even greater flight.



http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/salutano1.jpg
The Armada takes off in formation

The second Transatlantic flight was even more audacious than the first [CC]. Not only would they be tackling the finicky weather of the North Atlantic, but unlike the one-way Brazilian venture Balbo planned for the entire flight to return the way they came—a double-crossing! Furthermore the scale of the venture was increased to 25 aircraft (again the venerable SM.55X) and the political stakes were increased with the visit to the wealthy up-and-coming world power the United States…coinciding with Chicago’s World’s Fair (the theme: “A Century of Progress”). […] Carefully and intricately planned to the finest detail, enlisting international cooperation on travel, resources, and weather monitoring, the Second Armada attempted to leave nothing to chance. The crew trained for over a year at Orbetello [and] despite the official stance to the contrary encompassed the absolute best of the nation’s airmen. […] The journey began with a perilous flight over the Swiss Alps, flying at the limit of the SM.55s’ ceiling (a political necessity as France was hesitant to allow a potential recon flight over their southern fortifications). From there it stopped in Amsterdam [where] the aircraft I-DINI hit a dyke on landing and was destroyed, killing one of the crewmen. The journey then took the Armada to a hero’s welcome at Londonderry, Northern Ireland…and [then on to] Reykjavik, Iceland. […] After the many days of weather delays, the Armada finally took off on the long 2400 km Transatlantic leg to Labrador…encountering a near-constant fog and icing conditions. Balbo’s accounts in his memoir of the trip, My Air Armada, recount his constant worries over the shifting weather and the fate of his aircraft. […] All aircraft made it safely… [and the] rest of the journey [via Nova Scotia and Montreal] was uneventful. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/ItaloFlight.jpg http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1933/1101330626_400.jpg
Italian poster of the Armada flight and Time magazine cover featuring Balbo

Video Link (http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/bpNYH5wl4E8-sottofasciasemplice-idrovolante.aspx)
Modern compilation video of the flight with rare footage and audio

The arrival of the Armada in Chicago on July 15th [1933] was by all accounts a breathtaking affair, the otherworldly and “futuristic” Savoia flying boats descending in vees among the city’s fabled skyscrapers. Those who witnessed the events never forgot them… As with every other port of call, the Armada was greeted as conquering heroes and given VIP treatment…cries of “Viva Italia! Viva Balbo!” erupted from the ecstatic Italian-American population. […] The day was named “Balbo Day” by the mayor and Balbo was handed the keys to the city. To this day Balbo (formerly 7th) Avenue commemorates the event, as does a riverside monument made from a Roman column given to the city by Balbo. Even the Sioux Nation joined in the celebration, treating Balbo to a feathered headdress and proclaiming him “Chief Flying Eagle”. […] For that moment Italy was the center of the world.


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/rditalianusaarrivalpinfrtsm.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2351/1636164851_4abd669e2b_m.jpg
Commemorative pin for Balbo's transatlantic armada visit and Roman Column given to the city by Balbo

The return flight took the Armada to New York City and a tickertape parade. Greeted always by adoring crowds, he was led to send his Duce a telegram from New York stating: “I am convinced now that there is no truth in the reports about anti-Fascism in America. We have not found the faintest trace of anti-Fascism here. During the ovations that have been accorded to us by thousands of our fellow-countrymen and by immense crowds of Americans there has never been the slightest discordant note. If some negligible anti-Fascist minority exists, it is definitely swamped by the passion for Italian nationalism and by the new sense of pride which our fellow-countrymen feel in the glory of your Excellency.” […]


http://www.military-art.com/mall/images/stk0181.jpg
The Armada over New York City (Balbo’s Amazing Flight (http://www.military-art.com/mall/more.php?ProdID=12648) by artist Stan Stokes)

Balbo, though weary from the flight and the constant celebrations, made the journey to Washington, D.C., where he dined with President Franklin Roosevelt. The meal made an indelible impression on both men. As Balbo recounts in My Air Armada: “Like all Americans the President is a man of extraordinary courtesy and genial and easy demeanor. He is a very charming conversationalist. Throughout the meal he talks of Italy. He has a great appreciation for the Duce, whose tremendous performance during a space of ten years for the regeneration of Italy at home and the restoration of her prestige abroad he very warmly appreciates. I intent to incorporate into my telegraphic report to Mussolini the President’s tribute to him, and his warm approval of his views about relieving congestion of the cities. The President speaks very enthusiastically to me for his own scheme of putting the surplus populations of the cities on the land. I cannot say whether he is veering towards Fascism or not. Decidedly, he too is a dictator. Not for one moment during luncheon does the President fail to rivet my earnest attention and that of his guests with his animated conversational power. I feel all the time that I am in the presence of a statesman of tremendous breadth of vision and tireless energy.” […]


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/artlug1.jpg
New York parade in honor of Balbo during his 2nd transatlantic flight, 1933

Balbo had found in America in that moment a common link that would last throughout the former’s life and career. Balbo’s fame spanned the world, but nowhere, even in his home country, did it burn with such ardor as in America…he went on to endorse aviation fuel, was the subject of flattering cartoons and articles, and even found himself lovingly lampooned by the Marx Brothers in Night at the Opera. He proclaimed to Mussolini that he’d been given “everything but sleep”.

Video Link (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7q0lg_marx-bros_shortfilms)
Scene from Night at the Opera: Chico Marx assumes the role of a bearded Italian aviation hero

But not everyone was pleased with Balbo’s reception. Anti-fascists, socialists, and others who deplored his nation’s government and his own thuggish past decried the event. The Italian Socialist League and the Italian League for the Rights of Man distributed “flaming circulars” and air-dropped leaflets attacking Balbo and Fascism. Anti-Fascist organizations demanded that Mayor Kelly refuse a public reception for Balbo. Some journalists reminded their readers of Balbo’s Squadrist past, including his supposed involvement in the Don Minzoni murder. George Seldes wrote of Minzoni and Balbo, “while millions cheer, a few remember.” IWW leader Carlo Tresca went as far as to send Balbo a telegram signed “Don Minzoni” stating, simply and menacingly, “I am watching you.” Even many of the more laudatory papers made a point of differentiating between their admiration for the achievement of Balbo and the Atlantici, their appreciation for continued Italo-American friendship, and their suspicions or dislike of the authoritarian regime itself. Furthermore, Balbo’s perceptions on the American view of Fascism were a bit distorted as he’d only really witnessed Chicago and New York, both places with large Italian-American populations. Had he taken up the offer to crisscross the country he would undoubtedly have encountered many more dissenting opinions. […]

Weather continued to plague the expedition on the return voyage [and] the fateful decision was made to make the return journey across the Mid-Atlantic to the Azores… [where] I-RANI flipped on landing, causing a second fatality. That only two aircraft…and only two lives…were lost on such a bold and dangerous expedition is a testament to the rigorous planning and diligent caution that went into the flight. […] When the Armada finally arrived back in Rome…Balbo was greeted with a Roman Triumph under the Arch of Constantine (the first such event since Imperial Roman times) and a much-desired Baton as Maresciallo dell’Aria (Air Marshal) – a promotion he’d desired since 1931. He was also greeted with a “promotion” – and exile – to the colonial governorship of the poor and failing Italian colony of Libya.

Balbo’s growing fame – and growing ambition – had become a direct threat to Mussolini’s position. Mussolini was not unfounded in these fears. Balbo was certainly ambitious, revealing a desire to become Minister of Defense or else replace Badoglio as Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale—a promotion which would have effectively singled Balbo out as Mussolini’s successor, a position which Mussolini went to great lengths to keep ambiguous. Farinacci appeared to be backing Balbo, publicly supporting Balbo’s claims that his presence on the Transatlantic flights increased their value 70% and going as far as to say at the Chamber of Deputies “Balbo has created a Fascist air force while Gazzera has created an anti-Fascist army.” Whatever the full extent of Balbo’s plans, his aims on the reorganization of the Italian military were revolutionary, and controversial. His plan involved scaling the army back to 20 divisions (five armored, ten motorized, and five alpini) increasing the navy and air force budgets 3 billion lire a year, and adding another 60 billion lire in extraordinary allocations over ten years, half going to the air force. This plan would have culminated in 1942—notably later than Mussolini’s expectations for a European war. This plan was also a direct threat to the army’s power base. Had Mussolini gone along with such a plan Gazzera and a major segment of the traditional “Piedmontese” army staff would certainly have resigned. Mussolini could have lost the loyalty of the army…a prerequisite for his continued power.

Balbo’s plot may have gone deeper as well: a rare non-expunged copy of Grandi’s diary (Feb. 10, 1923 entry) reveals the Foreign Minister’s astonishment when Balbo revealed to him that he and the other Quadrumvirs regarded Mussolini as finished, that the party was no longer behind him, and that they intended to go to the king who would make “that old imbecile” De Bono head of the government. This planned coup of “efficiency” was supported by Farinacci and Giuriati, and possibly also by General Grazioli and Marshal Caviglia, snd planned to make Mussolini a figurehead Minister of Defense with Balbo as Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale. Whether Balbo was sincere in this planned Party coup, or whether this was simply a power-play or testing Grandi’s goals for some less drastic internal maneuvers, remains a source of debate and controversy. […]

But the case against Balbo may be more than merely political. While the Aeronautica had proven an effective propaganda arm it did not appear to be making as much progress as the other two forces. Like his army and navy rivals and his air force predecessors and successors, Balbo regularly made exaggerated claims as to his force’s strength, growth, and readiness. Balbo’s grand claims to the numbers and quality of the aircraft he delivered were debated. A week after Balbo’s removal from the Air Ministry Mussolini wrote to Balbo stating that of the 3,125 aircraft Balbo had claimed to be handing over to Valle only 911 were ready for war, adding that he considered this “satisfactory”. An irate Balbo replied that he’d always included planes still in production and that the 1,824 war planes in the inventory were ready “relative to the potential of the adversary”. […]

Regardless of the overall success of Balbo’s tenure with the Aeronautica, his contributions to promoting and organizing the Aeronautica should not be dismissed. It is certain that his efforts gave the Aeronautica a worldwide reputation for skill and bravery during his tenure. Many of the limitations were imposed by forces beyond his control, including budgetary limitations, inter-service rivalries encouraged by Mussolini, and most notably his nation’s severe lack of production capacity. While the military value of his mass flights is debatable, they brought international recognition to the Aeronautica and Fascist Italy…and personal fame and glory to Balbo himself. With a beer budget he succeeded in giving the Aeronautica a Champaign reputation. […]

In the end, Balbo and the Aeronautica are inseparable. The Italian Regia Aeronautica was, is, and likely will ever be the Branch of Balbo.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

[lothaw]

Awesome! Just awesome. Seriously, if you get to the end with this TL, this is of proper quality, you could very well consider publishing I should think. Actually an AH encylopedia like book would be neat on any level or TL.

Regardless, your quality updates by far make up for the quantity of them.

[xt828]

Sweet.

Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, eh? I wonder how he went, and if his baronetcy was delayed as IOTL.

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks! :)

With luck (a lot of luck the way things have been going) I'll be able to get out the full update soon.

[Dr. Strangelove]

A teaser that was twice as long as a regular update? :eek:

I have to tip my hat to the depth of research that has gone there. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about italian politics in the early 30's to comment further.

Btw, I think that someone as "futuristic" as Balbo would prefer a modernistic style such as Giuseppe Terragni's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Terragni) instead of the most classic one that was finally favored by Mussolini. Check some of Terragni's unbuilt projects such as the Danteum, they're breathtaking.

The Danteum was a monument to Dante's Commedia that included a large hall whose ceiling was supported by dozens of huge glass pillars.

[Geekhis Khan]

A teaser that was twice as long as a regular update? :eek:

I have to tip my hat to the depth of research that has gone there. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about italian politics in the early 30's to comment further.

Thanks! I appreciate the compliments as your NSCW TL was one of the TLs that originally brought me to this site.

Yea, this update is a doozy. Everything I write spawns three more things I "have" to get down. It's an addiction. I need help. :(

Btw, I think that someone as "futuristic" as Balbo would prefer a modernistic style such as Giuseppe Terragni's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Terragni) instead of the most classic one that was finally favored by Mussolini. Check some of Terragni's unbuilt projects such as the Danteum, they're breathtaking.

The Danteum was a monument to Dante's Commedia that included a large hall whose ceiling was supported by dozens of huge glass pillars. Sweet! The Paradiso looks awesome. I'm afraid to find out what he had planned for the Inferno! :eek:

And yes, the developing Futurist "Littorio" style of architecture will make more appearances later. Balbo will sponsor many such projects, so I can see the Danteum happening ATL. The Palazzo was OTL before the POD, but shows some at the time modern elements. Future projects will be more like the one you reference and the Fiat Tagliero Building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Tagliero_Building) in Asmara, Eritrea.

[Hashasheen]

Dude.....:D


.....


Dude...

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Dude....

AWESOME!

[ferrosol]

Finally caught up on this one. I am really enjoying the story and it is an education on inter-war Italy a topic I don't know very much about, Keep up the good work and I can't wait till the Alternate History starts.

[The Red]

In my opinion the Sparviero gets a hard time, it was fast and it did it's job as a naval bomber.

Keep up the good work though. :)

[Dr. Strangelove]

In my opinion the Sparviero gets a hard time, it was fast and it did it's job as a naval bomber.


I have to concur there. While not a very good strategic bomber, it was one of the best naval bombers in the war.

[Geekhis Khan]

Dude.....:D


.....


Dude...

...


Dude....

AWESOME!

Finally caught up on this one. I am really enjoying the story and it is an education on inter-war Italy a topic I don't know very much about, Keep up the good work and I can't wait till the Alternate History starts.

Thanks! And welcome, ferrosol! I promise the POD is coming soon. Not in this coming update, but in the following one! ;)

In my opinion the Sparviero gets a hard time, it was fast and it did it's job as a naval bomber.

Keep up the good work though. :)

I have to concur there. While not a very good strategic bomber, it was one of the best naval bombers in the war.

Yes, the Sparviero was a good airframe when it came out in the mid 30s and did good work as a torpedo bomber (despite the severe inter-service rivalry problems that plagued Italy in the war). However, in its designated "Douhetist" strategic role (the point of the pic post!:p) it was lacking in payload and defensive armament and definitely suffered for outrunning its escorts (admittedly the latter was not a fault of the bomber). They did very well in Spain against an inferior air force and gained a rep for invincibility, but when used against an equipped enemy like the UK they fared rather poorly, being hacked out of the air in Malta by the "contemporary tech" Gloster Gladiators. Much of their rep was simply the fact that it was a good bomber in 1936, but had no business flying against modern fighters in 1940.

Also, keep in mind that the above is written from the POV of ATL, where they saw combat against experienced Luftwaffe pilots in ME109s and FW190s.

[Geekhis Khan]

Here it is, finally, the full update! Note that additional text and images (and footnotes) have been added to the text from the Teaser, so don't skip! Sorry for the delay. Enjoy! -GK...

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Chapter 5: Aviator, Minister, Air Marshal

“[The essential needs for a large air force include] the vulnerability of the peninsula from the aerial point of view, the possibility of organizing via the air force the only effective defense, that is to say lightning and probably decisive reprisals against the enemy, and the relatively small economic exertion which the air force required from the country in return for its great efficiency relative to the other armed forces.” – Air Marshal Italo Balbo debating the Aeronautica budget as recounted by Emilio Canevari in Retroscena della disfatta, vol. I

“Your brothers and comrades of Ferrara, the black shirts whom you have always led along the path of their most arduous duties, undertaken for their country and for the Duce, greet you with a cry of love which voices our most sincere good wishes for your enterprise and our firmest hopes in you. The soul of fighting Fascism, the true Fascist spirit, ascends into the air in company with your mighty wings, to accompany you and escort you through the mysterious paths of the skies of the world, in which the rhythmic triumphal chant of your engines will tell the admiring nations of the revival of the spiritual power of Fascist and Roman Italy, which has been the achievement of the Duce. Ferrara awaits your triumphant return with unshatterable confidence.” – Telegram to Balbo from Italian Federal Secretary, Consul Chierici before the second transatlantic flight, 1933.



http://www.ladestra.info/public/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/italo-balbo.jpg
Italo Balbo, Aviator


Following his resignation from the MVSN under the duress of the Minzoni affair, Balbo’s career appeared to be on the decline. Many similarly powerful and influential Fascists had burned out quickly, and there was no reason for any of his contemporaries to expect otherwise from Balbo. […] But while the scandal forced his resignation, Balbo refused to shift blame to the Party or Mussolini even when pressed to do so. This small act of loyalty, combined with a notable lack of the flagrant corruption many of his fellow Ras indulged in, kept him in the good graces of the regime. […]

On December 31st, 1924, a group of about thirty consuls made a “new year’s” greeting to Mussolini. […] The real purpose of the meeting was a challenge: if Mussolini did not suppress the growing criticism of the opposition, they would instigate a “second wave” Fascist revolt. Whether this meeting was a genuine revolt or as some have posited a Machiavellian scheme to intimidate the king and Parliament, or a bit of both, remains unclear. What is clear is that three days later Mussolini made his infamous “full responsibility” speech that heralded the dictatorship. While speculation has placed Balbo as a part – or even mastermind – of this so-called “revolt of consuls”, there is no hard evidence to support his involvement. […]

In 1925 Balbo’s career appeared to be on the rise again. In April of that year he founded what would become his signature newspaper and semiofficial mouthpiece, Corriere Padano, the “Newspaper of the Fascist Revolution.” The paper gained a reputation for lively debate, intelligence, and independence and was considered the newspaper of the intransigent faction. This independence would continue even in the face of Mussolini’s draconian controls over the press, being one of the few papers in the nation to openly question decisions made by the government, Party, and Mussolini. When Balbo became Duce this tradition continued to a point; the editor and Balbo’s adoptive nephew Nello Quilici allowed in print opposition viewpoints as long as said viewpoints remained civil and did not openly defy Balbo’s right to rule. […]

Balbo’s star was indeed again on the rise. In the fall of 1925 he was chosen to investigate incidents of Squadrist violence against Masons and other societies in Florence. His central role in the Blackshirts perhaps lent him an air of Squadrisimo that the Florentine Squadristas would be willing to listen to. As a former Squadrista and Mason both, the job certainly tested his loyalties. […] His work appeared to have met official approval, for he was soon appointed Undersecretary to the Minister of National Economy.

The whys surrounding Balbo’s appointment as Undersecretary are hard to grasp at first. He had no economic experience and, though he’d shown some loyalty in the aftermath of the Minzoni affair, he remained a vocal critic of Mussolini and the regime. But a political analysis of the situation makes evident the logic of the appointment. First, it was the first major appointment of an intransigent Squadrist to a high position and a step towards the desired “normalization” between Blackshirts and the PNF. Second – and perhaps the more Machiavellian in the “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” vein – it buried Balbo in an ocean of paperwork and bureaucracy. There, perhaps, the intransigent’s burning energies could be taken up in day-to-day work. Above him as Minister was the moderating force of technocrat and veteran public servant Giuseppe Belluzzo, later author of such economic policies as the Stabilization of the Lire and the Battle for Grain.

Balbo took to his new position with his usual ardent energy. He helped deal with the thorny Squadrist problem by restructuring the Royal Corps of Fish and Game Wardens into the Milizia Forestale (forest militia), which was expanded and filled with former Blackshirts (many of them personal allies) as a “safe” occupation and outlet for their restless energies. In time they came to supplement the MVSN during the war and eventually many served as the core for partisan activities during the occupation. […]

As an official representative of the Ministry he made many speeches, which he usually used to extol Fascism and the regime. He chaired two major economic committees and dealt with such diverse issues as the tourist industry, natural resources (he urged his listeners to conserve the natural resources with the vigor in which they fought the Great War), imports and tariffs, and agriculture. He gained valuable skill as a bureaucrat and a politician and made many contacts which would serve him well later, including economist Felice Guarneri, industrialists Vittorio Cini and Antonio Benni, and agricultural specialist Filippo Cavazza. […] Rather than bury Balbo in a dead-end position, Mussolini had inadvertently set him up for even higher achievements. […]

Yet Balbo grew predictably tired of the bureaucratic routine, and once the Milizia Forestale was completed he lacked an outlet for his talents as a military organizer. He jumped at any chance to leave the confines of the office. One of these trips, a routine trip in April 1924 with Mussolini to the colony of Tripolitania in Libya, proved fortuitous. On the 14th he landed on French Tunis. When engine trouble delayed his flight back, he spent the unplanned two-day visit mingling with the roughly 100,000 members of the local Italian expatriate community. He managed to stir up nationalist sentiments long suppressed by the French government and praised the Italians’ patriotism and faith in Mussolini. In doing so he effectively gave them official Italian government sanction to resist French naturalization. Needless to say, this did not please the French, who accused Balbo of impertinence and disrespect. However, the visit managed to coincide with one of Mussolini’s goals: the display of Italian military might and the announcement of Italian expansionist aims.

This moment was a watershed for Balbo. In a moment he’d gone from intransigent provincial Ras to heroic aviator, the role that would gain him international fame. He also became an ardent emissary of the international Italian expatriate community and de facto ambassador of the “new Italy”. Six months later Balbo became Undersecretary of the Regia Aeronautica, the position that he would make his own. While Balbo like many Fascists, Mussolini among them, had gained his pilot’s license, unlike many of his subjects and later rivals he had no military aviation experience and save some brief flights during the war never would. The appointment was a curious one and spoke much of Balbo’s symbolic role as an aviator, and his of his growing political role in the new regime.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.


http://hsgalleries.com/ba65cb_1.htm
Artist’s rendition of the Breda Ba 65 ground attack/bomber aircraft
(thanks to AMF for finding this image)

As Fascism transitioned from theory to practice, fissures began to appear along its factional lines. As one might expect from such a diverse gathering of viewpoints (the only thing all factions could agree on was that they opposed Marxism, and even then some closet Socialist sympathies remained) there was great debate as to what this new concept of Fascism was and what it meant. The two main foundations of the movement were Alfredo Rocco’s and Segio Panunzio’s nationalized Syndicalism and Enrico Corradini’s authoritarian Nationalism. The former remained committed to the collective roots of Syndicalism and collective organization [and sought] to create an organized structure of bureaucratic controls which would limit the power of the industrialists and agrari and protect the workers. The latter was committed to a strong centralized state with a dictatorial leader. […]


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MqsZaZZDC_I/SXmcB5BnQXI/AAAAAAAABAo/zIuqUWj06Hw/s320/Sergio.jpg http://passapalavra.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/artigo-iv-15.jpg
Sergio Panunzio, Syndicalist, and Enrico Corradini, Nationalist
(scale relative to their influence over Mussolini’s developing view of Fascism ;))

Rocco’s and Panunzio’s syndicalism found itself drifting towards a nationalized hierarchical structure. […] The basic tenants of Panunzio and Rocco were formalized by the philosophies of Ugo Spirito and Giovanni Gentile, the latter founder of the Neo-Hegelian philosophy of Actualism. […] Believing in the inherent collective nature of human thought, Gentile and Spirito laid the philosophical groundwork for a state and economy founded on collective units structured for maximum efficiency, a bee-like structure with a central leader and an organized productive class. Productive elements, be they owners or workers, managers or specialists, were all to work for the collective benefit of the nation-state. […] Spirito and Rocco would build further upon this foundation…resulting in the theory of the Corporative State. Corporativism foresaw the creation of this idealized collective society through the development of national Corporations, state-controlled organizations that encompassed all the aspects of production from supply to labor to management to executive decision-making. Each national Corporation would settle labor disputes through mandatory mediation and would, in theory, promote a collective sense of vision. In practice, such Corporations generally quashed labor movements and management lockouts in the best interests of productivity. […]

[B]http://www.campaniarchitetti.org/files/images/Rocco.jpg http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/wp-content/giovanni-gentile.jpg
Alfredo Rocco and Giovanni Gentile, the philosophers of Fascism

On the opposite end of the Nationalist-Corporatist divide was Corradini. When the Nationalist “Blueshirts” were incorporated into the Fascist Party his hard, authoritarian nationalist philosophies began to find a sympathetic ear in Mussolini. […] Mussolini was very engaged in the Corradinian ideas of the authoritarian, all-consuming state that repressed any criticism and opposition as such ideas dovetailed with his own personal quest for power and control. […] This authoritarian nationalism manifested in the idea of Totalitarianism. When nested with the Corporativism of Spirito, the resultant Fascist state took on an all-consuming nature whereby the Head of State (Mussolini) would control not just the political and military aspects of the state, but the economic and social aspects as well. […]

http://www.vulture.ilcannocchiale.it/mediamanager/sys.user/124654/altri/Ugo%20Spirito.jpg
Ugo Spirito, Fascist Corporativist theorist

The pre-war artistic and aesthetic movement of Futurism soon found a place at the Fascist table. This movement as indicated by the “Futurist Manifesto” of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti stressed the new, the now, the young, the way forward and progress. […] Conflict and violence were but one way to advance human progress. "Art […] can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice,” Marinetti said in his Manifesto. […] The philosophies of Futurism meshed well with Fascism. Its tenants of progress through conflict, youth and mechanization fit well with the Fascist objectives. Futurists found a receptive ear and willing patron in Mussolini and later Balbo. […]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/FilippoTommasoMarinetti.jpg

Futurist philosopher F. T. Marinetti


http://artysmarties.net/images/boccioni2.jpg
Futurist art: Charge of the Lancers by Umberto Boccioni

Future Duce Italo Balbo was taking a more critical eye on these new socio-economic experiments [such as Corporativism]. While he was influenced by Syndicalists like Panunzio and his close friend and fellow quadrumvir Michele Bianchi, and paid lip service to Syndicalism, Balbo the Mazzinian held an innate distrust of centralization and bureaucracy, referring to corporative institutions like “committees, technical councils, corporative chambers” as “institutional snares” that would simply empower the Crown and “reduce to dust” the ability of the government to act. […]His newspaper Padano declared as early as July 3rd, 1925, that “Fascism does not need a ‘Corporative state’.” For Balbo, the Corporations were not the new and revolutionary “third way” between Capitalism and Socialism, but a throwback to the Guilds of the medieval and renaissance eras, “that same corporativism of the Middle Ages that knew nothing of the nation.” Spirito’s “proprietary corporativism” in which the Corporations would own the land and factories he called nothing more that “Bolshevism”. For Balbo, Fascism was by nature anti-bureaucratic and anti-centralization, destined to liberate the nation “from the fetters of a bureaucracy that lacked soul, faith, and principles.” […] Like Mussolini, Balbo preferred a more conservative path, opposing radical Corporativist attempts to dismantle the Parliament, the Church, or the Monarchy…a far cry from his anticlerical and antimonarchist stances of before.

From Warriors, Diplomats, Statesmen, Dictators – the Political and Diplomatic History of Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Eric Spellman, Harvard University, 1994


http://stormomagazine.com/AviationArt/bideriva_2.jpg
Artist’s rendition of the C.R.D.A. Z1007 Noturna (Night Bomber)
(thanks to AMF for finding this image)

Many forget that the term “totalitarian” began with Fascist Italy. Originally devised in 1923 by Mussolini’s critics to describe the Fascist attempts at unprecedented control over all aspects of the nation, the term was soon adopted by the regime itself. Fascism was to be such a totalitarian entity where, in Mussolini’s own words, “all is for the state, nothing is outside the state, nothing and no one are against the state.” […] Upon his ascension to true dictatorship in the aftermath of the Matteotti affair, Mussolini took immediate and drastic steps to secure power. The office of Prime Minister gained new and unequivocal executive powers [and was] soon renamed Capo del Governo (Head of Government)…the fasces or littorio became the official state symbol and Duce soon became an official title. […]

Former Blackshirt thugs were now employed in an official capacity doing basically what they had been doing all along: suppressing socialists and political dissidents and anyone else who opposed Fascist rule. Even the official police were soon employed to such measures. Communists were to be “repressed by whatever means possible.” “[M]eetings, assemblies, parades or other public demonstrations” were forbidden for any party…even for Fascists! […] New laws effectively legalizing state-run squadrism in pursuit of “order” were pushed through the Houses of Parliament…a branch of the government which begun to lose any real independence eventually becoming simply a mouthpiece for Mussolini’s executive desires. […] Slowly, all non-fascist political parties became subsumed…or crushed entirely. […] Even boys’ organizations were subsumed, with all competing organizations absorbed into the Opera Nazionale Balilla (Fascist Boy Scouts).

Freedom of the press suffered as well [with] state decrees issued through [Luigi] Federzoni banning any reportage of “verbal sedition”, “aggressive polemics” or criticism of the government. […] Only registered Fascists were allowed to practice journalism. […] Print, radio, and film were all taken under de facto state control. […]

The internal divisions of the party resultant from the nationalist/syndicalist co-origins were dealt with in a similar totalitarian manner [through the creation of] the Corporations. These Spirito-inspired manifestations of Corporativist theory were supposedly there to promote the Fascist ideal of unity in vision—all factions, owners and workers and managers and suppliers, united in co-interest for the betterment of the state. These Corporations on the surface represented workers’ rights by forcing mandatory arbitration of trade disputes. In practice, they worked to the betterment of the state, damn the workers, and strikes and lockouts were brutally repressed in the name of efficiency. […] Eventually all aspects of the state, factories, agriculture, commerce, trade, military, monarchy, and even the Catholic Church were assigned a part in the Corporative structure—each a vertical organization, one rod in the unbreakable bundle of the state littorio. […]

Mussolini, not satisfied with mere dictatorship, sought continued direct control over all things. He named himself interim Minister for every department of his government: Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior, Minister of War, Minister of the Navy, Minister or Air, even the newly formed Minister of Corporations! His subordinates, who ran the day-to-day aspects of these offices, were, save for a short period of delegation in the late 1920’/early 1930’s, merely “Undersecretaries”. […]

In truth, Mussolini, despite his air of totalitarian dictatorship, held on to power only by the tacit consent of the existing institutions, namely the monarchy and the army. Despite all the talk of the “new government”, Futurism and Youth, the ancient Piedmontese traditions held sway over the army, and the army kept Mussolini in power. He ran the economy with the tacit approval of the same big business interests he once railed against and reformed the culture with tacit allowance by the Church. […]

In all, Italy’s great transformation and the “new politics” amounted to more of the same. The old institutions were still in place, but with a new set of cronies in the positions of authority. Fascism was simply providing a new, flashier unified façade to the same ancient, parochial Italy…the same old ship with a new coat of paint.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.



http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4200/pantelleria6wd4.jpg
Mussolini as Duce of Italy

The apex of the Museum is the famous Balbo Hall under the East Wing rotunda. Dedicated to the former Capo del Governo and father of the Aeronautica Italo Balbo, of course, the Hall features many of the icons and items from the Marshal’s life and work.
Right at the entrance the visitor is greeted by an “honour guard” made up of two of Balbo’s famous uniforms, the first being his squadrist General’s uniform from the MVSN and the second being his Air Marshal’s uniform with ceremonial Baton. Beyond this portal the visitor will enter the spacious hall with its tall domed ceiling. Natural light and lush greenery gives the hall an open, earthly feel rather in contrast with the cold academic atmosphere of your typical museum.
Around the perimeter are display cases featuring the Marshal’s many achievements: his Great War service, including his gold and silver medals and a field uniform, his service in the Revolution, including his Quadrumvir’s uniform and cudgel, his service in the Air Ministry, including many of his uniforms and flying leathers and models of his many aircraft, his service as Colonial Governor of Libya, including his ceremonial uniform and sword, and finally his long service as Capo del Governo, including formal uniform and Baton.
In the center, in prominent display, is I-BALB, his famous Flying Boat from his second Transatlantic voyage. One of the last surviving examples of the graceful twin-hulled Savoia-Marchetti SM.55 [1], and the only SM.55X, I-BALB is a rare treasure indeed. Standing boldly before the aircraft is a bronze statue of the man himself in his Transatlantic aviator’s leathers, facing the western horizon in memory of his voyage. In a circle around I-BALB are a series of bronze plaques, each depicting one of the brave Atlantici that travelled with him on his epic voyages. In true Fascist honour to the collective spirit, equality, and nobility of men, each of the men, regardless of rank or position, is given equal measure of honor.

Text from the 1964 English version of the visitor’s brochure for the Museum of the Regia Aeronautica in Rome.



SM.55X Specifications

http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/3viewSM55.jpg

Type: Twin-hull monoplane flying boat

Powerplant: Two 18-cyl. Isotta Fraschini Asso 750 engines, 597 kW (800hp) each

Accommodation: Two pilots, a radioman and a flight engineer/mechanic

Max fuel: 3780L (1000 gal) carried in seven tanks in each hull


Performance:
Max speed at sea level: 280 km/h (151 kts; 174 mph)
Cruise speed: 217 km/h (117 kts; 135 mph)
Service ceiling: 5000m (16,400 ft)
Ceiling, fully loaded: 4115m (13,500 ft)
Range: 3000km (1620 nm; 1863 mi)
Fuel consumption during cruise: 30 gph per engine
Takeoff speed: Just under 113 km/h (61 kts; 70 mph)


Weights:

Empty: 5760 kg (12,686 lb)
MTOW: 8263 kg (18,200 lb)


Dimensions:

Wingspan: 24m (78 ft 8.5 in)
Wing area: 93m² (990 sq ft)


(from: http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/7-00.html)



Balbo’s legacy as Air Minister remains disputed and clouded by politics and revisionism [2]. In the official Fascist history, compiled mostly during Balbo’s tenure as Duce, Balbo is credited not only as the father of the Aeronautica, but given credit for its emergence as a modern and world-class air force. Much of the branch’s early-war difficulties have been laid upon the lamented head of Balbo’s successor Guiseppe Valle, possibly unfairly. […] However, modern and recently declassified papers from the early Fascist years spread some doubt in some circles as to how much of the contemporary Aeronautica’s modern reputation is deserved and how much of it is a product of what has of late been dubbed the “Great Bluff”. […]

At the start of his tenure as Undersecretary of the Air Ministry , Balbo’s predecessor General Alberto Bonzani claimed the Aeronautica possessed 800 combat-ready aircraft with 800 more in reserve, making Italy the second-greatest air power in the world at the time after France (approximately 1,500 ready, 4,000 reserve) and notably ahead of Great Britain and the United States (each approximately 700 ready, 700 reserve). These numbers appear rather optimistic. Upon taking office Balbo studied records for several days and revised this figure to 405. Testing this further, he ordered a full readiness test: all planes capable of flight were to take to the air, fighters to stay aloft for two and a half hours, bombers and all others for three. Only 200 successfully completed this test. Balbo declared that Italy could probably only really count on about 300 ready aircraft. He also noted numerous discrepancies with ground facilities and logistics, including fields which lacked electricity and running water, hangars with leaky roofs, and shortages in fuel and munitions. […]


[B][I]http://aerobaticteams.net/images/Fiat_CR.32_Team.jpg
Fiat CR.32 Acrobatic Squadron in Flight

Balbo’s goals for the Aeronautica were grand indeed. “Now,” he wrote, “it is necessary to begin building military aviation and its weaponry has not even been studied. First of all it is necessary to build a sporting air force, then one that is disciplined, and, finally, one that is militarily efficient.” He certainly succeeded on the first measure, spending large portions of his budget on such sporting events as record chases and the Schneider Cup seaplane speed trials, Italy winning the latter in 1926 …and finally on his famous mass flights of the Mediterranean and Atlantic. He arguably succeeded on the second part of his goal, adding a measure of discipline and collective thinking among the pilots, and working hard to overcome the “prima donna” attitude common in early pilots. His mass flights were in many ways designed for this reason: an attempt to move beyond the individual daring of single pilots and prove the effectiveness of formation flight and disciplined squadrons. He always claimed the flights demonstrated the ability of any trained pilots to achieve such feats and showed that any Italian flier was capable of such flight, though this is to say the least an overstatement.


[B]http://www003.upp.so-net.ne.jp/hirano/images/m52/640jpg/516.jpg
The Macchi M.52 Schneider Cup racer, derivative of the 1926 Cup-winning M.39
(thanks to AMF for finding this image)

As to the third of his aims, to create a “militarily efficient” air force, there is debate on how effective his work was in this area. Official Fascist histories cite his efforts at building discipline via the mass flights and further cite his tendency to lead by example as the cornerstones of the eventual emergence of the Aeronautica as a combat-ready force. Many consider his efforts at promoting air-mindedness as the foundation of Italy’s continued contributions in aerospace. It is likely that the quality of the officer corps improved under his tenure; their quantity certainly increased. Merit-based promotions, including vastly greater promotion potential for younger officers, replaced the old Savoy traditions of seniority-based promotion. The Aeronautica was without doubt the youngest branch of the military in both age and spirit, with a reputation for aggressive daring.

His more critical biographers, however, have cast doubts as to how much his actions contributed to military readiness, and how much of the budget and energy was instead wasted on stunts of questionable military value such as his mass flights and Schneider Cup pursuits [3]. Some have gone as far as to cast blame on him for such things as the Aeronautica’s continued reliance on biplanes long past when other nations had moved on to all-metal monoplanes. In his defense the future of monoplanes was still in doubt during his tenure, with pilots of the time requesting aircraft with maneuverability, fast rates of climb, and the ability to land on rough and often make-shift airfields—all areas where the biplane was superior. Furthermore it should be noted that the famous monoplanes of the war, like the Messerschmitt 109 and Supermarine Spitfire, were first developed years after Balbo had been removed from office and was serving his term as colonial governor in Libya. Whether Balbo would have done any better than Valle in the years leading up to the war is, of course, a matter of speculation. […]

Many critics find fault in his aircraft acquisitions, noting (with probable accuracy, the records remain rather fuzzy and often contradictory) that the Aeronautica’s growth rate never substantially increased over that of his predecessors’. In part this can be explained by a constant lack of funds. […] Others cite his continued and some claim obsessive habit of letting his personal feelings for an airframe cloud his judgment in aircraft selection. His passionate love for the outdated twin-hulled SM.55 flying boat kept the aircraft in service for decades past their expected lifespan and led to the development of the three-engine SM.66 passenger version over the probably more logical option of constructing license-built German Dornier Wal passenger flying boats. […] Most blatant was the purchase of two Dornier Do X super flying boats, mammoth twelve-engine, 150 passenger behemoths intended to compete with airships in transoceanic luxury travel. These acquisitions turned out to be massive White Elephants, soaking up a large part of the yearly budget, yet with no serious customer demand and no notable military purpose. […]

Balbo’s mass flights served to boost the image of the Aeronautica abroad, perhaps giving an inflated view of their capabilities. Whatever the Aeronautica’s actual readiness, the pilots and aircraft themselves were certainly the equals of any contemporary European or American rivals. Aircraft sold well abroad, despite the limitations of Italy’s industrial potential, and Italian aircraft saw service in many nations across the Balkans and Eastern Europe and among the Scandinavian states. Even the Soviet Union and Japan made Italian aircraft purchases. One American entrepreneur even attempted without success to build and sell license-built SM.55 flying boats following the Atlantic cruises. […] Balbo was also very successful in building up the civil aspect of the Aeronautica despite international competition and a lack of domestic demand. Under Balbo, the mail and passenger services were greatly expanded with regular flights between Rome and the major cities of Italy and Europe, but also to Tripoli, Alexandria, Tunis, and other colonial cities. These latter required skilled diplomacy considering the tension between the European powers, particularly France and Italy. […] Balbo saw such civil air travel as a necessary symbol of Italy’s growth and rebirth. […] Under Balbo the various airline companies, all of whom by necessity operated with hefty government subsidy (as was the case with most world airlines), were consolidated into a national airline that would eventually become Ala Littoria…controversially renamed to Alitalia in 1978. […]

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/aeromarino/Savoia_S-66.jpg
Savoia-Marchetti SM.66 flying boat, 17-passenger civil version of the SM.55

As Undersecretary and later Air Minister during Mussolini’s short-lived experiment at delegation, Balbo lead from the front but dictated from the top. Dynamic and energetic yet demanding and domineering, traits that became world famous in later decades, Balbo succeeded in making the Aeronautica a truly independent armed force. He also succeeded in making it his armed force. Learning well from his Duce, Balbo cemented his own hold on power, played rivals off of one another, and, when his position was threatened, was not afraid to take down any potential rivals, whatever their prior contributions. Famed aviators and rivals such as record flier Francesco De Pinedo and airship pioneer Umberto Nobile were isolated, discredited, and ultimately suffered for their opposition to Balbo (De Pinedo died in a crash at the start of a record flight while Nobile ultimately ended up in exile). […]

One solid legacy of Balbo’s tenure is the Palazzo dell'Aeronautica building in Rome. The large early Littorio style building, grand yet coldly bureaucratic with its Romanesque brick pillars and concrete pilot’s wings, was a marvel of efficiency for its day. In addition to the necessary workspaces, pains were taken to enforce work over dalliance: the cafeteria, for example, boasted no chairs, a heavy-handed but ultimately effective method of counteracting the Italian tradition of long and leisurely lunches. […] Under Balbo, the Aeronautica cemented its reputation as the most “Fascist” of services, favoring youth and modernity over tradition and seniority. Yet ironically Balbo opposed overt methods by the Party to infiltrate the service…opposing methods such as free party memberships to officers [and] allowing promotions even to those who showed no party affinity. Whether this was due to any hidden personal policy or simply another attempt to maintain discrete control is a matter for speculation. […]


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2268/2265354665_32071bbd6a.jpg
The Palazzo dell'Aeronautica, Rome

See also: Front view…too large for the web page (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/MinisteroAeronautica.jpg)

While Balbo’s position within the Aeronautica was being secured, his position in the greater government and military establishment was one of constant struggle. Inter-service rivalry, which Mussolini encouraged in order to secure his own position, remained bitter and contested. Balbo’s own bombastic personality, “forward thinking” and reformist ways, and his relative lack of prior military command experience all led to clashes with the Regia Esercito [Royal Army] and Regia Marina [Royal Navy] and also with then Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale [Chief of the Major General Staff], Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Culture clash between the aggressive “young” and Fascist Aeronautica, the defensive and tradition-minded Marina, and the conservative “Savoian” Esercito compounded the already hotly contested fight for the nation’s limited funds and industry. […] At first Balbo fared poorly in such budgetary duels where his lack of experience cost him. One of his early faux pas involved a lengthy and heated defense of the advantages of wooden construction in aircraft over metal construction. After that particular episode Balbo learned to rely on the expertise of his many more experienced and educated underlings. […] Occasionally his normally engaging speaking ability faltered, such as on long and droning budgetary speech in 1927 that Galeazzo Ciano compared to flying with the engines off. […] Occasionally his rivals managed to catch him in a statement that directly contradicted earlier statements, some of which cost him at budget time. […]

Later as Balbo gained experience in his position he managed a few successful bureaucratic coups, the most notable being cementing the Aeronatuca’s hard-won independence from the other services [and] found some success in opposing the use of air power by the rival services, gaining primary control of aircraft and air doctrine for the Aeronautica. He roughly “broke even” in the battle with [Army head Lieutenant General Alberto] Bonzani over air defense, being unsuccessful in his assertion that fighter defense was superior to anti-aircraft artillery (in the end Italy, rather wisely, adopted a mix of interceptors and air defense guns). […] Balbo, like any skilled bureaucrat, continuously pressed for a greater budget and blamed any setbacks or limitations of the Aeronautica on budgetary woes. He is not without merit on this complaint: while other nations’ air force budgets increased yearly, the Aeronautica’s budget remained fixed at 700 million lire (a quarter to a third that of France, Britain, or Germany and a sixteenth that of the United States according to contemporary Italian records). […] [This drastically smaller budget] is understandable considering the limits of Italy’s domestic product. […]

Balbo followed the Douhetist line that Air power was intrinsically less expensive than ground or naval power with the greatest return of power-for-spending, a situation Italy was supposedly perfectly suited to. […] Balbo claimed that a huge industrial aircraft production rate of 30,000 aircraft-a-year was possible with the necessary funding of 3 billion lire a year and an extra 30 billion over ten years. Even he admitted to the absurdity of the sum. […] He never was successful in gaining the budget he desired. In part this is due to the limitations of his nation, in part due to inter-service rivalry, in part to his own limitations as a bureaucrat, but also undoubtedly in part due to purposeful limitations imposed by Mussolini to contain this growing rival.

Air Power in the 20’s and 30’s was a weapon in its infancy, and air theorists were greatly divided on how to best employ it. Should it be used in conjunction with land and naval units, or as an independent strategic arm in its own right? One of the most fanatical devotees of the latter was Italy’s own Giulio Douhet… [whose writings] espoused a theory of strategic bombing as the highest use of air power. He envisioned armadas of “battle plane” aircraft, large and heavily-armed aircraft capable of flying unescorted and unopposed over any ground forces to pummel the enemy into submission through city bombing…the disruption of enemy industry and communication lines… [and] the devastation of civilian morale through area bombing. In Douhet’s world, land and naval forces would exist only to impede the enemy until the air forces could crush all opposition. Douhet’s principles found many admirers around the world including England’s Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris and America’s General William “Billy” Mitchell. […] Opposing, or at least contrasting Douhet’s view was General Amedeo Mecozzi… [who] advocated use of air power at least in part in “auxiliary” roles, what would later come to be called “tactical” use (ground support, naval bombardment, etc.). While Douhet scoffed at such secondary roles as a distraction from the ultimate combat potential of “pure” air power (i.e. strategic bombing), Mecozzi argued that such adjunct roles not only increased the fighting ability of the other forces, but supported the strategic primary bomber force…what we might call a “unified arms” approach today.

Balbo attempted to bridge the difference, stating “Neither of these theories [Douhet’s or Mecozzi’s] can be altogether discarded…I think there is virtue in both.” […] Balbo was less than confident in the infallibility of Douhet’s battle planes and still saw fit to acquire defensive aircraft, fighters, ground attack, and torpedo bomber aircraft (his beloved SM.55 filling the latter role). He also saw the logistical advantages of aircraft for communications and transport. […] When it came time to argue budgets, however, Balbo was more than happy to wear a Douhetist hat [where] the theorist’s doctrine of a well-funded independent air force served as a useful political lever in the often heated Italian inter-service budget skirmishes. He similarly used Douhetist arguments to limit or eliminate the air arms of the competing services [and] opposed the development of aircraft carriers as unnecessary, as Italy was by his reckoning itself an unsinkable aircraft carrier capable of covering the Mediterranean. He similarly opposed the development of airships as limited, vulnerable, and expensive. […] Balbo constantly argued for increased budgets to support a large offensive strategic bomber arm despite the industrial limitations of his nation that made such a force forever an elusive dream. […] In hindsight the Aeronautica may have been served better by pursuing a single air doctrine. It certainly would have been served better by a greater sense of collaboration between the three services, and Balbo bears a part of the blame for this crippling rivalry. Though in Balbo’s defense his Duce’s paranoia led the latter to encourage such conflict among his subordinates as a useful distraction from potential power plays and conspiracies. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/SM79_193.jpg
Savoia Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero bombers – one of Italy’s less-than-successful attempts at a Douhetist strategic bomber

If it was Balbo’s Squadrist actions which brought him recognition in Fascist Italy, it was his aerial spectacles that brought him world fame. Beginning in 1928, Balbo led his best pilots through a series of mass flights around the Mediterranean and ultimately across the Atlantic. […] The first mass flight…led sixty-one seaplanes in a loop around the western Mediterranean. [From the main base at] Orbetello the flight progressed to Elmas Sardinia, then on to Los Alcazares and Puerto Alfaques in Spain, to Berre in France, and finally back to Orbetello. […] Other than some storm damage to aircraft while moored in port, the flight went smoothly. […] The next Mediterranean flight (35 aircraft) followed the northern shore of the eastern Med [travelling through Athens, Istanbul, and Varna, Bulgaria] ultimately to an initially chilly but soon enthusiastic reception at Odessa in the Soviet Union. This last stop reflects a curious diplomatic development as the ostensible enemies – Fascism and Communism – showed the beginnings of the off-and-on détente of their long co-history [4]. […]

The most audacious of the mass flights were the two trans-Atlantic journeys; the first was across the South Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro and the second and most famous journey was across the North Atlantic to Chicago and then ultimately back to Rome. This first flight of thirteen aircraft, all Balbo’s beloved SM.55 flying boats, traced the coast of North Africa down to Bolama (south of Dakar) before making the dangerous 3000 km leap across the Atlantic to Natal in Brazil [and then] traced the coastline south to Rio. This journey, though intricately planned, met near disaster almost immediately when a cyclone almost destroyed the armada in flight…a result of Balbo’s impatience to take off spurred by the eager press at Orbetello. The armada was less lucky in the later legs of the flight: I-BOER and I-RECA both crashed on takeoff from Bolama, the former exploded with all crew lost, the latter suffered a smashed float from a rogue wave or floating object, killing the mechanic. During the long leg I-BAIS and I-DONA had to ditch in the ocean, I-BAIS being lost to the waves though fortunately all crew of both aircraft were rescued. In all, the flight was considered a roaring success despite the losses. Considering how dangerous Transoceanic travel was in that age before reliable navigation and weather reporting or even pressurized cabins, the loss of life was relatively small. Still, though, the losses of the flight made an indelible impact on Balbo, who would be much more careful in planning his next even greater flight.


http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/orbetello.jpg http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/salutano1.jpghttp://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/salutano1.jpg
The Air Armada at Orbetello and the Armada taking off in formation


The second Transatlantic flight was even more audacious than the first [5]. Not only would they be tackling the finicky weather of the North Atlantic, but unlike the one-way Brazilian venture Balbo planned for the entire flight to return the way they came—a double-crossing! Furthermore the scale of the venture was increased to 25 aircraft (again the venerable SM.55X) and the political stakes were increased with the visit to the wealthy up-and-coming world power the United States…coinciding with Chicago’s World’s Fair (the theme: “A Century of Progress”). […] Carefully and intricately planned to the finest detail, enlisting international cooperation on travel, resources, and weather monitoring, the Second Armada attempted to leave nothing to chance. The crew trained for over a year at Orbetello [and] despite the official stance to the contrary encompassed the absolute best of the nation’s airmen. […] The journey began with a perilous flight over the Swiss Alps, flying at the limit of the SM.55s’ ceiling (a political necessity as France was hesitant to allow a potential recon flight over their southern fortifications). From there it stopped in Amsterdam [where] the aircraft I-DINI hit a dyke on landing and was destroyed, killing one of the crewmen. The journey then took the Armada to a hero’s welcome at Londonderry, Northern Ireland…and [then on to] Reykjavik, Iceland. […] After the many days of weather delays, the Armada finally took off on the long 2400 km Transatlantic leg to Labrador…encountering a near-constant fog and icing conditions. Balbo’s accounts in his memoir of the trip, My Air Armada, recount his constant worries over the shifting weather and the fate of his aircraft. […] All aircraft made it safely… [and the] rest of the journey [via Nova Scotia and Montreal] was uneventful. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/ItaloFlight.jpg http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1933/1101330626_400.jpg
Italian poster of the Armada flight and Time magazine cover featuring Balbo

Video Link (http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/bpNYH5wl4E8-sottofasciasemplice-idrovolante.aspx)
Modern compilation video of the flight with rare footage and audio

The arrival of the Armada in Chicago on July 15th [1933] was by all accounts a breathtaking affair, the otherworldly and “futuristic” Savoia flying boats descending in vees among the city’s fabled skyscrapers. Those who witnessed the events never forgot them… As with every other port of call, the Armada was greeted as conquering heroes and given VIP treatment…cries of “Viva Italia! Viva Balbo!” erupted from the ecstatic Italian-American population. […] The day was named “Balbo Day” by Mayor Kelly and Balbo was handed the keys to the city. To this day Balbo (formerly 7th) Avenue commemorates the event, as does a riverside monument made from a Roman column given to the city by Balbo. Even the Sioux Nation joined in the celebration, treating Balbo to a feathered headdress and proclaiming him “Chief Flying Eagle”. […] For that moment Italy was the center of the world.


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/rditalianusaarrivalpinfrtsm.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2351/1636164851_4abd669e2b_m.jpg
Commemorative pin for Balbo's transatlantic armada visit and Roman Column given to the city by Balbo


http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/1594/200412410045bal71.jpg
Balbo initiated into the Sioux Nation as “Chief Flying Eagle”
(thanks to lounge60 for finding this image)

The return flight took the Armada to New York City and a tickertape parade. Greeted always by adoring crowds, he was led to send his Duce a telegram from New York stating: “I am convinced now that there is no truth in the reports about anti-Fascism in America. We have not found the faintest trace of anti-Fascism here. During the ovations that have been accorded to us by thousands of our fellow-countrymen and by immense crowds of Americans there has never been the slightest discordant note. If some negligible anti-Fascist minority exists, it is definitely swamped by the passion for Italian nationalism and by the new sense of pride which our fellow-countrymen feel in the glory of your Excellency.” […]


http://www.military-art.com/mall/images/stk0181.jpg
The Armada over New York City (Balbo’s Amazing Flight (http://www.military-art.com/mall/more.php?ProdID=12648) by artist Stan Stokes)

Balbo, though weary from the flight and the constant celebrations, made the journey to Washington, D.C., where he dined with President Franklin Roosevelt. The meal made an indelible impression on both men. As Balbo recounts in My Air Armada: “Like all Americans the President is a man of extraordinary courtesy and genial and easy demeanor. He is a very charming conversationalist. Throughout the meal he talks of Italy. He has a great appreciation for the Duce, whose tremendous performance during a space of ten years for the regeneration of Italy at home and the restoration of her prestige abroad he very warmly appreciates. I intent to incorporate into my telegraphic report to Mussolini the President’s tribute to him, and his warm approval of his views about relieving congestion of the cities. The President speaks very enthusiastically to me for his own scheme of putting the surplus populations of the cities on the land. I cannot say whether he is veering towards Fascism or not. Decidedly, he too is a dictator. Not for one moment during luncheon does the President fail to rivet my earnest attention and that of his guests with his animated conversational power. I feel all the time that I am in the presence of a statesman of tremendous breadth of vision and tireless energy.” […]


http://www3.hi.is/~maurizio/trasvolata/artlug1.jpg
New York parade in honor of Balbo during his 2nd transatlantic flight, 1933

Balbo had found in America in that moment a common link that would last throughout the former’s life and career. Balbo’s fame spanned the world, but nowhere, even in his home country, did it burn with such ardor as in America…he went on to endorse aviation fuel, was the subject of flattering cartoons and articles, and even found himself lovingly lampooned by the Marx Brothers in Night at the Opera. He proclaimed to Mussolini that he’d been given “everything but rest and sleep”.


http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2042/bal4.jpg
Balbo with Mayor Kelly in Chicago
(thanks to lounge60 for finding this image)

Video Link (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7q0lg_marx-bros_shortfilms)
Scene from Night at the Opera: Chico Marx assumes the role of a bearded Italian aviation hero (compare to the above image)

But not everyone was pleased with Balbo’s reception. Anti-fascists, socialists, and others who deplored his nation’s government and his own thuggish past decried the event. The Italian Socialist League and the Italian League for the Rights of Man distributed “flaming circulars” and air-dropped leaflets attacking Balbo and Fascism. Anti-Fascist organizations demanded that Mayor Kelly refuse a public reception for Balbo. Some journalists reminded their readers of Balbo’s Squadrist past, including his supposed involvement in the Don Minzoni murder. George Seldes wrote of Minzoni and Balbo, “while millions cheer, a few remember.” IWW leader Carlo Tresca went as far as to send Balbo a telegram signed “Don Minzoni” stating, simply and menacingly, “I am watching you.” Even many of the more laudatory papers made a point of differentiating between their admiration for the achievement of Balbo and the Atlantici, their appreciation for continued Italo-American friendship, and their suspicions or dislike of the authoritarian regime itself. Furthermore, Balbo’s perceptions on the American view of Fascism were a bit distorted as he’d only really witnessed Chicago and New York, both places with large Italian-American populations. Had he taken up the offer to crisscross the country he would undoubtedly have encountered many more dissenting opinions. […]

Weather continued to plague the expedition on the return voyage [and] the fateful decision was made to make the return journey across the Mid-Atlantic to the Azores… [where] I-RANI flipped on landing, causing a second fatality. That only two aircraft…and only two lives…were lost on such a bold and dangerous expedition is a testament to the rigorous planning and diligent caution that went into the flight. […] When the Armada finally arrived back in Rome…Balbo was greeted with a Roman Triumph under the Arch of Constantine (the first such event since Imperial Roman times) and a much-desired Baton as Maresciallo dell’Aria (Air Marshal) – a promotion he’d desired since 1931. He was also greeted with a “promotion” – and exile – to the colonial governorship of the poor and failing Italian colony of Libya.

Balbo’s growing fame – and growing ambition – had become a direct threat to Mussolini’s position. Mussolini was not unfounded in these fears. Balbo was certainly ambitious, revealing a desire to become Minister of Defense or else replace Badoglio as Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale—a promotion which would have effectively singled Balbo out as Mussolini’s successor, a position which Mussolini went to great lengths to keep ambiguous. Farinacci appeared to be backing Balbo, publicly supporting Balbo’s claims that his presence on the Transatlantic flights increased their value 70% and going as far as to say at the Chamber of Deputies “Balbo has created a Fascist air force while Gazzera has created an anti-Fascist army.” Whatever the full extent of Balbo’s plans, his aims on the reorganization of the Italian military were revolutionary, and controversial. His plan involved scaling the army back to 20 divisions (five armored, ten motorized, and five alpini) increasing the navy and air force budgets 3 billion lire a year, and adding another 60 billion lire in extraordinary allocations over ten years, half going to the air force.

Official Fascist histories, notably assembled with Balbo as Duce, speak well of the forward-thinking of the plan and blame Mussolini’s dismissal of the plan for Italy’s troubles during the war. Yet these obviously biased histories fail to give the big picture behind Mussolini’s decision. First, this plan would have culminated in 1942—notably later than Mussolini’s expectations for a European war. Furthermore, the reorganization Balbo planned would have interfered with Mussolini’s planned invasion of Ethiopia. Balbo’s plan was also a direct threat to the army’s power base. Had Mussolini gone along with such a plan Gazzera and a major segment of the traditional “Piedmontese” army staff would certainly have resigned. Mussolini could have lost the loyalty of the army…a prerequisite for his continued hold on power.

Balbo’s plot may have gone deeper as well: a rare non-expunged copy of Grandi’s diary (Feb. 10, 1923 entry) reveals the Foreign Minister’s astonishment when Balbo revealed to him that he and the other Quadrumvirs regarded Mussolini as finished, that the party was no longer behind him, and that they intended to go to the king who would make “that old imbecile” De Bono head of the government. This planned coup of “efficiency” was supported by Farinacci and Giuriati, and possibly also by General Grazioli and Marshal Caviglia, and planned to make Mussolini a figurehead Minister of Defense with Balbo as Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale. Whether Balbo was sincere in this planned Party coup, or whether this was simply a power-play or testing Grandi’s goals for some less drastic internal maneuvers, remains a source of debate and controversy. […]

But the case against Balbo may be more than merely political. While the Aeronautica had proven an effective propaganda arm it did not appear to be making as much progress as the other two forces. Like his army and navy rivals and his air force predecessors and successors, Balbo regularly made exaggerated claims as to his force’s strength, growth, and readiness. Balbo’s grand claims to the numbers and quality of the aircraft he delivered were debated. A week after Balbo’s removal from the Air Ministry Mussolini wrote to Balbo stating that of the 3,125 aircraft Balbo had claimed to be handing over to Valle only 911 were ready for war, adding that he considered this “satisfactory”. An irate Balbo replied that he’d always included planes still in production and that the 1,824 war planes in the inventory were ready “relative to the potential of the adversary”. […]

Regardless of the overall success of Balbo’s tenure with the Aeronautica, his contributions to promoting and organizing the Aeronautica should not be dismissed. It is certain that his efforts gave the Aeronautica a worldwide reputation for skill and bravery during his tenure. Many of the limitations were imposed by forces beyond his control, including budgetary limitations, inter-service rivalries encouraged by Mussolini, and most notably his nation’s severe lack of production capacity. While the military value of his mass flights is debatable, they brought international recognition to the Aeronautica and Fascist Italy…and personal fame and glory to Balbo himself. With a beer budget he succeeded in giving the Aeronautica a Champaign reputation [6]. […]

In the end, Balbo and the Aeronautica are inseparable. The Italian Regia Aeronautica was, is, and likely will ever be the Branch of Balbo.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.


Video Link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXhez2mNmM)
Mussolini address to America (English)



http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/5663-2/fiat_cr_42_falco_s
Fiat Cr.42 Falco fighters in flight (rare color image)


Italy’s diplomatic position during the early Fascist era suffered from the internal divisions within the Fascist power structure and from the confused diplomatic environment of the League of Nations era. Confounding matters, Fascism’s overt imperialistic and revisionist goals, aims not at the time attainable with the limits of the Italian military, alienated many foreign powers. […]

Mussolini’s foreign minister in the early years was Dino Grandi. The former Ras of Bologna held fundamental differences of opinion with Mussolini on things diplomatic [and] held doubts as to the Duce’s ability for the Machiavellian deception necessary in his eyes of a good diplomat. […] Still, the two were in agreement on a few clear issues: first, irredentist and imperial aims must be fulfilled, most likely through war, second, the Italian military was not yet in position to act on these aims, and third, the nation must walk softly and appear the instrument of international peace until the nation was ready for the desired war(s). In Grandi’s words, “It is necessary to give the sensation that Italy wants Peace, cries for Peace, and has a horror of war. This is the ‘face’ of Italy as I must present it abroad.” To this aim, Grandi and Mussolini acted the part of open and willing participants in disarmament talks such as the London Naval Conference of 1930 where they hoped to lull hated France into a false expectation of Italian naval arms reduction. In truth, the expansion of the Regia Marina was to be initiated in full, with the explicit aim of parity or better with France.

The death of Germany’s Chancellor Gustav Stresemann, the election of the Labour government in the UK and the resultant end of the entente cordiale, opened new diplomatic opportunities for Italy at the London Conference. Grandi saw in this an opportunity to open diplomatic channels to Germany and to also make diplomatic overtures to the UK and US…backing the Anglo-American anti-submarine proposals with the hope of driving a wedge between the Anglo-Americans and the French. This effort proved fruitless as Mussolini’s strict insistence on naval parity, and Grandi’s overestimation of his nation’s bargaining power, caused inflexibility in negotiations and Italy missed opportunities to exploit Anglo-American-French divisions over naval tonnage and calculation methodology. […] In the end little would come of the conference for France or Italy…neither nation ratified the treaty and both searched for ways around it. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Grandi.jpg
Dino Grandi, Fascist Foreign Minister, 1929-1932

The London Conference demonstrated the growing philosophical divide between the Duce and his Foreign Minister that led to the latter’s dismissal in 1932. […] Grandi saw Italy’s diplomatic role as that of the peso determinante (decisive weight), a flexible power who would act as the counterbalance between the greater powers, shifting focus to where her smaller power could tip the scales and thus be a diplomatically potent force. This, of course, contrasted with Mussolini’s more overt aggressive diplomatic aims.

Mussolinian foreign policy was driven by the new dictator’s innate hatred of France and his revisionist desires in the Balkans (war with Yugoslavia was considered “unavoidable”). Still driven by irredentist claims over Yugoslav Dalmatia, Mussolini directed his generals to prepare for war with the hated Slavic state. […] Complicating matters was close Franco-Yugoslav relations…and France’s growing strategic interest in the Balkans as a whole…as witnessed by the formation of the Little Entente. […] Italian attempts to form an anti-Yugoslav alliance, literally hoping to surround the hated nation with a coalition made up of Greece, Albania, Turkey, Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, fell flat as the individual states saw little reason to align their own interests with those of Rome. Turkish overtures to France and the Little Entente helped to unravel much of this plot. Furthermore, Greek relations were dealt a blow by the arrival of Balbo’s eastern Mediterranean squadron in 1929, an event which drove home to the Greeks the threatening reach of the Fascist nation. […]

For years scholars have debated this “little big man” attitude on Italy’s part and wondered why the nation, in hindsight, took such a strategic gamble in the Great Bluff. When one looks at Italy’s strategic and economic position in the early half of the 20th Century, these irredentist and imperialistic aims make more sense. A thin peninsular nation with few natural resources and a growing population in need of work, Italy needed land, resources, and defense. Such a geographical and economic position made Italy wholly dependent upon, and vulnerable to, sea power and the emerging threat of air power. Italian cities, many located on the coast or very close to France or Yugoslavia, were vulnerable to attack by air and sea or vulnerable to an advancing army from any of its land neighbors. In particular, the Dalmatian coast and the French island of Corsica offered forward bases for air or naval interdiction and threatened the vital Italian shipping lanes. British-held Malta offered another potential dagger aimed at the Italian mainland.

Italy, in order to defend her vulnerable geographic position, needed a navy and air force capable of at least facing France and Yugoslavia together. Even then, raiders from either Corsica or Dalmatia could easily attack Italy. The need for resources drove imperial aims, as did a general feeling of inferiority in the face of the grand world-spanning empires of France and England. Colonies offered both potential resources and potential land for Italy’s large and poor populous. Hoping to plug the Italian Diaspora, colonial aims in Libya and the African Horn aimed also to provide an outlet for the population pressures of the peninsula. The presence of large numbers of Italian nationals in French-held Tunisia (another potential invasion and attack route only a short distance from Sicily), a minority facing French suspicions and pressures to conform to French culture, added another reason for Italian distrust of France.

For many Fascists, France, a power apparently at her political and military apogee, replaced the ancient Austrian enemy as Italy’s natural menace. For this reason Mussolini and many Fascists looked to the recovering Germany as a natural counterbalance to France. Even in the early 30s Mussolini sought to build up Germany against France, and had he lived may have continued to tighten his nascent “axis” with Nazi Germany. As he told General Pietro Gazzera a few days before the 1932 Geneva disarmament conference, “Either everyone disarms or Germany arms. We must support her. We must be extremists in this respect…France will not want to disarm. And blame will be hers. Our historical-dialectical position is to oppose France.”

With the ascension of a complementary Authori-Collectivist regime in Germany, Hitler’s Nazi Party, the diplomatic situation changed notably [and] by all appearances a central bloc of totalitarian nations appeared imminent.

From Warriors, Diplomats, Statesmen, Dictators – the Political and Diplomatic History of Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Eric Spellman, Harvard University, 1994



http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1926/banda2q.jpg
The Men behind Mussolini…a United Front(?)
(thanks to lounge60 for finding this image)

************************************************

Note a piè di pagina:

1 – OTL the only surviving SM.55 is the JAHÚ in Brazil. It was used by João Ribeiro de Barros on his own Transatlantic flight in 1928 (Brazil to Africa). It is currently undergoing renovation following an extended and degenerating stay in storage. Several historical and contemporary renovation images are available here (http://www.seawings.co.uk/sm55gal.htm).

2 – ITTL many of the Fascist records available OTL (captured after the fall of Rome) were lost, destroyed, or even subject to blatant political revisionism over the decades of Fascist rule. The official Fascist histories are, needless to say, radically expunged and edited for political reasons. According to these expunged/revised ATL records Balbo could do no wrong and any errors or shortcomings that occurred under his watch were blamed on subordinates, personal enemies, or others who fell out of favor. Some bits and pieces have emerged from records found buried in forgotten closets, records stashed by various politicians as “insurance policies”, political weapons, or blackmail material, or from nuggets in various diaries and journals. What this means to this ATL is that many of the “facts” written here will be patently wrong and easily contradicted through OTL sources not available ITTL. I’ll make the effort to document these ATL fallacies through footnotes.

3 – Unlike Britain and America, whose respective Schneider Cup efforts netted powerful and legendary high-speed inline engines such as the Merlin and Allison, Italy due to both policy and engine complexity issues never capitalized on engine development from the Cup, and instead continued to rely on underpowered radial engines. The underpowered fighters and clunky tri-engine medium bombers that fared so poorly during OTL’s WWII were one result of this.

4 – OTL!! Even Mussolini began warming to the idea of Italo-Soviet relations in the late 20s and early 30s, notably wondering following Stalin’s five-year plans and similar authoritarian measures if his Soviet counterpart was going “Fascist”.

5 – Interestingly, this was scaled down from Balbo’s original plan to circumnavigate the globe!

6 – I stole this line fair and square from Claudio Segrè.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thoughts?


Coming up: Balbo in Libya, mostly OTL but........with TL POD!!!

[Jimbrock]

I wish I had the time to read all this...;)
Ill try to read the bits when the actual TL starts, though.

[Germaniac]

Once again Brilliant, and am exceedingly excited about the upcoming POD. Love the hints to the future war.

[lounge60]

Brilliant,absolutely brilliant!
Complimenti!;)

[lothaw]

I think we can go ahead and give you the 2010 Turtledove. :p

[Jimbrock]

Dont want to dampen the atmosphere, but, guys, the TL hasnt started yet...:p
You should get the 'AH Historian of the Year Award' instead:D

[Dr. Strangelove]

It has started in the sense that it is being written from the perspective of the timeline itself; so even if everything so far has been OTL, it is OTL told with a bias.

[maverick]

God fucking damnit that's long...

I'll comment with greater detail once the actual AH part is begun, but for the moment I ask, from where do you get those marvelous pictures?

[Kara Iskandar]

Fascinating updates (it's like reading a good histoy book), and the Alt Hist part hasn't started yet...impressive! must be truly time consuming.

[Geekhis Khan]

First...wow, thank you all. This is a big and time-consuming project and a labor of love, so I'm glad it's finding an audience even pre-pod.

And POD comes next post! Be warned...it's a seemingly minor one, "Want of a Nail" sort of thing.

I wish I had the time to read all this...;)
Ill try to read the bits when the actual TL starts, though.

Hey, if I can find time to write it... :p

Once again Brilliant, and am exceedingly excited about the upcoming POD. Love the hints to the future war.

Viele dank.

Brilliant,absolutely brilliant!
Complimenti!;)

Grazie, grazie. And thank you for the images!

I think we can go ahead and give you the 2010 Turtledove. :p

Dont want to dampen the atmosphere, but, guys, the TL hasnt started yet...:p
You should get the 'AH Historian of the Year Award' instead:D

Heh, thanks! I'm humbled and humored all at once. And yes, Jim, the "actual TL" is one the way. Patience, grasshopper! :p

It has started in the sense that it is being written from the perspective of the timeline itself; so even if everything so far has been OTL, it is OTL told with a bias.

Glad you caught that, Dr. ;)

God fucking damnit that's long...

I'll comment with greater detail once the actual AH part is begun, but for the moment I ask, from where do you get those marvelous pictures?

Yes, that was the longest...and will probably remain the longest. Definately the longest of the OTL chapters. Since that was *the* moment in Balbo's OTL life and serves as the foundation for a lot of his ATL actions, it warranted a big post. In hindsight I should have split it up into two posts.

The images came courtesy of a) web searches and b) the gracious assistance of lounge60 and AMF who posted or sent images on their own. My great thanks to both of them.

Yet there are so many images in the books I'm reading that I'd so love to put in the TL. Some have made their way to the interwebs, but others have not...and I'm most hesitant to scan myself and put up on photobucket due to continued copywrite concerns.

Fascinating updates (it's like reading a good histoy book), and the Alt Hist part hasn't started yet...impressive! must be truly time consuming.

Thank you...and yes, SOOOO time consuming on top of everything else. I'm glad there's a receptive audience, because otherwise I couldn't justify the time spent other than out of the labor of love the project has become.


And I too yearn for the actual TL. There's so many ideas that swim about in my head. Just this morning I had a brainstorm on the Balkans post-war, frex. Man, the 50's and 60's will be WILD ITTL! :cool:


Thanks again, all. Next chapter hopefully in a couple weeks...and nowhere near the scale of the last. ;)

[Jimbrock]

I wouldnt worry if I were you, if this is the intro, the TL will most probably be epic.:p

[Kara Iskandar]

Thank you...and yes, SOOOO time consuming on top of everything else. I'm glad there's a receptive audience, because otherwise I couldn't justify the time spent other than out of the labor of love the project has become.


You have just created a monster!
The kind of monster we all like here...:D

[Hashasheen]

Shite.....


You sir, are quite possibly my new hero. I salute you.

[Archangel]

Excellent update!:)
It's interesting to see the hidden faccionalism inside the Fascist Party.

[Paul MacQ]

Well written and exciting .The Illustrating adds a great touch.

Well thought and the detail on the players in this story makes allot of sense

Will be following closely . Keep up the great work

[Geekhis Khan]

I wouldnt worry if I were you, if this is the intro, the TL will most probably be epic.:p

Thanks, Jim. PS: when's One Stroke getting an update?

You have just created a monster!
The kind of monster we all like here...:D

IT'S ALIIIIVE!!!

Shite.....


You sir, are quite possibly my new hero. I salute you.

Aw, shucks. :o

Excellent update!:)
It's interesting to see the hidden faccionalism inside the Fascist Party.

Thank you! And yes, Fascism was never a united front but always a hodge-podge of disparate elements. That factionalism will be a major issue during the post-Mussolini power vacuum.

Well written and exciting .The Illustrating adds a great touch.

Well thought and the detail on the players in this story makes allot of sense

Will be following closely . Keep up the great work

Thanks! And welcome aboard!

[Jimbrock]

Thanks, Jim. PS: when's One Stroke getting an update?



Im working on a minor update, a map illustrating the Third War of Independence, but a full scale written update will probaly need to wait till december.:(

[Japhy]

Well, I just started reading and I'm all caught up now. I'm really loving this. All the documents seem to be "real" for the timeline, which is excellent. I'm subscribed and can't wait for more.

[Geekhis Khan]

Well, I just started reading and I'm all caught up now. I'm really loving this. All the documents seem to be "real" for the timeline, which is excellent. I'm subscribed and can't wait for more.

Thanks, Japhy, and welcome aboard! :)

I've started working on the next (and last pre-POD) post. No ETA yet, but the images I'm digging up are amazing. Thank you Google for hosting Life images!

[Turiddu]

Fascinating stuff! I can't wait to read more! :)

[Geekhis Khan]

Fascinating stuff! I can't wait to read more! :)

Thanks, and welcome to the boards!

[The Sandman]

I'm definitely looking forward to the next part.

[AMF]

And so am I!

[Geekhis Khan]

Teaser Time!


Tripoli, 1937

The snowflakes landing on your shoulders
are a first in this city, in this colony you rule.
The guard who carries your briefcase
tells you snow had never fallen here.
You ask him to leave. It's safe to walk
the streets now, the rebels long subdued
by Graziani. In the square you stroll
he strung up hundreds, once leaving

five dangling for a week until a film crew
(experimenting with color) arrived from Rome.
This is not your method. The few
you catch now are shot far away,

two bullets to the head, unmarked graves.
Your mind drifts back to the snow.
You want a picture of it before it melts.
You want to show it to your fellow Ferraresi,

to the farmhands milling about Napoli
and Trieste. You want to tell them
there is enough water for their vineyards
and orange groves, enough grass for their sheep,

and trash for their pigs. You will have
to exaggerate about the brick homes
you will build them, and the natives'
helpful cowardly ways. And why

would they not believe you General,
their valiant hero who defended the Piedmont,
the fascist youth traveling the countryside
preaching Mazzini and Il Duce's New Rome,

the photogenic ex-veteran who rid Ferrara
of the Red Leagues' "other Austrians," harnessing
the "Bolshevic avalanche," a sapphire studded
dagger strapped to your waist? They will believe

you "Il Padre D'Aeronautica" who crossed
the Atlantic leading a fleet of hydoplanes,
star of the Chicago World's Fair. "Balbo,
Balbo," New York greeted you with downpours

of confetti in a Broadway ticker tape parade.
Roosevelt shook your hand firmly two days later,
poured your coffee, another medal on your breast.
Children are playing in the snow now.

They stop when they see you; the older ones,
who will polish the shoes of your countrymen
or become their hired men, their kitchen help
and part-time pimps, stiffen up in fascist salute.

Their fathers rush to greet you, brushing
snow off your shoulders and cap. You enter
one of the houses for tea, the house of the man
who felt no shame kissing your left hand.

General Italo Balbo, a (recent) OTL poem by Libyan-American poet Khaled Mattawa


Officially this poem doesn't exist ITTL due to Butterflies, but hey, it's too perfect for the upcomming section. :p

[Geekhis Khan]

BTW, I've begun posting this on CF.net too:

http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/showthread.php?p=70596&posted=1#post70596

You can view up through the March on Rome all on one page! ;)

[Geekhis Khan]

Fantastic images! :eek:

Found this box of Balbo images from the 2nd Transatlantic flight for sale on Italian Ebay (for under 5000 Euros! ;)). The images themselves are brilliant and there's a lot of them! All it seems can be seen on the post.

http://cgi.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360168302586&indexURL=

[Brancaleone]

Plzzzzz , I am eagerly waiting for the followup!

[Geekhis Khan]

Welcome aboard, Brancaleone! And thanks for your enthusiasm. :)

And don't worry, I'm working on it. Give me another week or so. These big posts take time, I'm afraid.

[Geekhis Khan]

GHAAAA! Dammitdammitdammitdammit!!! My laptop fell off the desk and was destroyed. It took with it about two weeks of work! Including all my work on the upcoming update :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I'll try to dig it off the hard drive if possible.

Shit.

[Greenlanterncorps]

GHAAAA! Dammitdammitdammitdammit!!! My laptop fell off the desk and was destroyed. It took with it about two weeks of work! Including all my work on the upcoming update :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I'll try to dig it off the hard drive if possible.

Shit.


"As God is my witness, I thought laptops could fly..."

- Arthur C. Carlson, Radio station WKRP (aka Geekhis Khan)

:)

Long version:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/322/wkrp-in-cincinnati-turkeys-away

Short Version:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wkrp+turkeys&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=86f4SvDLLY_mM5n6iekF&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQqwQwAA#

[Germaniac]

GHAAAA! Dammitdammitdammitdammit!!! My laptop fell off the desk and was destroyed. It took with it about two weeks of work! Including all my work on the upcoming update :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I'll try to dig it off the hard drive if possible.

Shit.

I am extremely upset to hear about that, not because the lack of an update, but because what probably was another brilliant update is lost. I really hope you get it back and hope the loss of a laptop doesn't end the chance at a TL which will likely go down as one of the greats.

[Geekhis Khan]

"As God is my witness, I thought laptops could fly..."

- Arthur C. Carlson, Radio station WKRP (aka Geekhis Khan)

:)

Long version:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/322/wkrp-in-cincinnati-turkeys-away

Short Version:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=wkrp+turkeys&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=86f4SvDLLY_mM5n6iekF&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQqwQwAA#

Thanks, Lantern, I needed a chuckle. :)

I am extremely upset to hear about that, not because the lack of an update, but because what probably was another brilliant update is lost. I really hope you get it back and hope the loss of a laptop doesn't end the chance at a TL which will likely go down as one of the greats.

I'm heading back to the store tomorrow. Hopefully the hard drive is ok and they can salvage the work. If not, I'm fairly certain I can recreate most of it. Still, a real pisser.

[Kara Iskandar]

GHAAAA! Dammitdammitdammitdammit!!! My laptop fell off the desk and was destroyed. It took with it about two weeks of work! Including all my work on the upcoming update :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I'll try to dig it off the hard drive if possible.

Shit.

Oh shit...I feel sorry for you.

[Archangel]

GHAAAA! Dammitdammitdammitdammit!!! My laptop fell off the desk and was destroyed. It took with it about two weeks of work! Including all my work on the upcoming update :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

I'll try to dig it off the hard drive if possible.

Shit.
Sorry to hear that, Geekhis.:(
Hope you can recover it!

[Greenlanterncorps]

Thanks, Lantern, I needed a chuckle. :)



I'm heading back to the store tomorrow. Hopefully the hard drive is ok and they can salvage the work. If not, I'm fairly certain I can recreate most of it. Still, a real pisser.


You're welcome. I've been there with broken technology. You have my sympathy.

Good luck pulling the data off of your old drive. Send me an e-mail if you have questions about it. I have some small experience in that area in real life.

It will be either very easy or very hard depending on what data connectors are on the drive and if the drive was damaged in the fall.

If the data connectors are standard (a 44-pin IDE laptop or a Serial ATA connector) you should be good. If they are proprietary then you will have a problem finding the correct adapter.

[Geekhis Khan]

YES!!! YES!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I've salvaged the files!

The TL is saved! Or at least the next update is back on track.

I tore the hard drive out of the dead old laptop and mounted it in an external enclosure, so now in addition to rescuing the files I now have an additional external HD. Thanks to Greenlanterncorps for the assistance and suggestions. The next chapter's dedicated to you, glc!



I'm also announcing a change in TL format. Instead of the mega-info-dump chapters I'll be splitting it up into smaller posts, roughly one subsection ("book excerpt") per post. This way I'll be able to salvage lost data more quickly, update more often, and so Jimbrock no longer has any excuses for not reading this TL! :p

I'll get the next update (Chapter 5, part 1) out soon.

[Germaniac]

Thank you!!! The wait has been killing me

[Kara Iskandar]

F***** good news! :)

[Archangel]

YES!!! YES!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I've salvaged the files!

The TL is saved! Or at least the next update is back on track.

I tore the hard drive out of the dead old laptop and mounted it in an external enclosure, so now in addition to rescuing the files I now have an additional external HD. Thanks to Greenlanterncorps for the assistance and suggestions. The next chapter's dedicated to you, glc!



I'm also announcing a change in TL format. Instead of the mega-info-dump chapters I'll be splitting it up into smaller posts, roughly one subsection ("book excerpt") per post. This way I'll be able to salvage lost data more quickly, update more often, and so Jimbrock no longer has any excuses for not reading this TL! :p

I'll get the next update (Chapter 5, part 1) out soon.
Excellent!:)

[Geekhis Khan]

Chapter 6: Exile – Colonial Governor of Libya

“Perhaps it is the monotonous uniformity of the flat, gray, limitless surface of the ocean that makes a voyage across it seem far longer than a similar voyage over land. There is nothing to relieve the tired eyes. The realm of reality seems to merge into that of fantasy. The unfettered imagination, like the untrammeled wind, loses itself in brooding over this seemingly endless merging of sky and sea in an ever-receding horizon. The dreary loneliness of an ocean crossing is calculated to generate curious obsessions in one’s mind. One clings instinctively to the solid, material things in one’s environment—one’s travelling companions, the sheltering cockpit and the contours of the wings. As the hermit of the desert clings to his cell, the aviator on the high seas clings lovingly to his frail flying home. A feeling of intimacy between him and his craft develops. A veritable domestic atmosphere is created. The hours pass very slowly, and the longest hours are the last.” – Italo Balbo, describing the North Atlantic crossing in My Air Armada.



http://www.sapere.it/tc/img/Geografia/percorsi/ItaEstero/ItaloBalbo1934.jpg
A reluctant Balbo assumes the Governorship of Libya

Part a: the Exile of Italo Balbo


In the autumn of 1933 Balbo was seemingly at the top of the world. Fascism, and Mussolini, had brought him fame, power, fortune, glory, friends, and family. His Atlantic flights had made him an international celebrity and earned him a Marshal’s baton. He had a loving and loyal wife, two beautiful daughters and a proud son. He was the center of the Roman social life (a position he’d soon unwillingly hand over to rival Galeazzo Ciano). His friends and colleagues included Roman nobility, industrialists and financiers, including Agnelli, Cini, Volpi, and Caproni, and writers and critics like Leo Longanesi and Curzio Malaparte. He had a fascinating mistress from the Roman nobility (one of many in a long line of extra-marital affairs). He ruled his home city of Ferrara like a king, “greeted by everyone, knows everyone, calls everyone by name,” wrote friend and author Ugo Ojetti, who noted that Balbo knew how “if necessary” to deal out “kicks” to maintain this status. Also according to Ojetti, Balbo felt himself to be, after Mussolini, “the most popular leader in Italy (and outside of Italy).” [1]

The radical revolutionary and squadrist was gone, replaced by a man more reactionary, more entrenched into the old social and economic orders he once rallied against. He praised Mussolini’s “positive vision” and the “rule of youth, the Italy of Vittorio Veneto in power, the Fascist state”, yet the great “revolution” had really amounted to little more than a changing of the guard, a new, more youthful circle of elites (like Balbo) directing the same old power structures. The great antimonarchist, anticlerical, social revolutionary movement now supported the House of Savoy, had compromised with the church through the Lateran Pacts, worked directly with the industrialists and land owners, and had co-opted the unions. Balbo, meanwhile, enjoyed his newfound prestige and claimed to no longer worry himself with politics or revolution; these things didn’t “interest [him] anymore.” He would “stick to aviation”.

But his apolitical claims are not supported by the weight of evidence. Balbo remained politically active and involved even in his Libyan exile, constantly talking, meeting, networking. He maintained contacts in Rome and among the gerarchi and business elites, contacts which would benefit him well in 1937. […]

The appointment to the governorship of Libya came as a shock and an insult. The implied exile and “polite retirement” might as well have been imprisonment for a man of Balbo’s restless energy. He was leaving his beloved Italy with “death in [his] heart”, giving up “a person I’ve always loved”, and “leaving his heart behind”. He was well aware that the motivation for this sudden exile was Mussolini’s jealousy. “He did it specifically to get me out from under foot” he told De Bono, noting from Mussolini’s “glower” after the popular celebrations following the Atlantic cruises that the Duce was “afraid of my popularity—which I don’t care about—without thinking that the honors are not to my political person but to the aviator.” His anger then erupted: “If he thinks he can do with me as he’s done with others, he’s miscalculated.” […]

Mussolini didn’t stop with the exile either. He drafted letters that separated Balbo from any of the Aeronautica’s accomplishments and implicated him in any shortcomings, and held these letters in reserve as insurance for Balbo’s continued loyal service. He went further to purge the Aeronautica of any “Balbians” and replaced them with loyal Mussolinians. Mussolini attempted to sweeten the pill, mentioning it to be a position that suited his new rank. Others tried to comfort him. The King mentioned, presciently as it turned out, the position’s potential as a stepping stone to greater responsibilities and the colony’s representation in miniature for the state. Still, Balbo anguished and contemplated refusing the post, a move which would definitely have ended his career in Fascist Italy. […]

But Balbo the soldier, the loyal Italian, the adherent of omertà [duty] relented to his new unwanted office. “Great chief! As always, your orders” he told Mussolini, and dutifully entered his new fiefdom and exile. […]


[I]http://www.libya-watanona.com/letters/v2005b/p28nov5b.jpg
Libyan women saluting Balbo’s motorcade

Libya of 1933 was not today’s oil-wealthy province and tourist destination. It was also a far cry from Pascoli’s poetic vision of a “fourth shore” and pastoral paradise in the rough. Only a small number of Italian colonists populated the crumbling cities that clung desperately to the Mediterranean coast. “New” Tripoli was a young and unattractive bureaucratically-designed new city surrounding the ancient crumbling Old City of the Arab-Berbers. Agriculture amounted to a few water-starved farms. The vast interior was still the land of Tuareg and Berber nomads. Oil, the eventual savior of the Italian Kingdom, was decades from discovery. This was a provincial backwater just recently “pacified” by Badoglio and Graziani through extreme tactics: public executions, concentration camps, torture, decimation of flocks. Sanusi insurgent leader Omar el Mukhtar, whose guerilla attacks had plagued Italian pacification efforts for two decades, had only recently been captured and executed. Bandits still roamed a vast desert run by military law and patrolled by the army. By all intents and purposes it was little changed from the days when the Arabs first overran the narrow strip of coastland in antiquity. […]

Balbo arrived to little fanfare and with little personal enthusiasm. An admirer mentioned how the “conquering eagle of the transoceanic flights” felt “caged among the palm groves of Tripoli.” “Have you come to see the exile?” he asked journalists at the opening of the Tripoli Trade Fair in 1934. Yet for Balbo, a man not prone to sit idle even in anguish, the new exile soon presented new opportunities. The Pascoulian vision of a fourth shore to be built beckoned. Despite continued antipathy with the native Libyans, Balbo’s ascendency gave an opportunity for a break with the violent past and Balbo quickly endeavored to extend the olive branch. For the lofty ideal of the fourth shore Rome offered ample material and political support. With the proper political will, many thought, the fourth shore could become manifest reality, and if ever there was a man for the job in that day and age it was Balbo. If Mussolini had hoped to shelf a political rival in Balbo’s exile, his hopes would prove fleeting.

From Roman Eagle, the Biography of Italo Balbo by Giuseppe Bosco, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.




************************************************

Note a piè di pagina:

1 – OTL quotes from Ojetti’s diary.

[Jimbrock]

YES!!! YES!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I've salvaged the files!

The TL is saved! Or at least the next update is back on track.

I tore the hard drive out of the dead old laptop and mounted it in an external enclosure, so now in addition to rescuing the files I now have an additional external HD. Thanks to Greenlanterncorps for the assistance and suggestions. The next chapter's dedicated to you, glc!



I'm also announcing a change in TL format. Instead of the mega-info-dump chapters I'll be splitting it up into smaller posts, roughly one subsection ("book excerpt") per post. This way I'll be able to salvage lost data more quickly, update more often, and so Jimbrock no longer has any excuses for not reading this TL! :p

I'll get the next update (Chapter 5, part 1) out soon.
Thats right, no excuses. And an excellent update this has been! Balbo shall not be caged!;)

[The Professor]

Yay it's back!
Go you!

[xt828]

Very nice - it looks me we as though we're still historical, how many more parts before we move out of OTL?

[Brancaleone]

Back on track , keep it rolling!:)

[Geekhis Khan]

Thanks, all! Glad to be back on track and glad you're all enjoying it.



Very nice - it looks me we as though we're still historical, how many more parts before we move out of OTL?

We're almost to POD. It'll be in this "chapter", likely in the next 4-5 sub-section posts (hint: hecho en Espania). The chapter after this one will be all ATL. :)

[Manfr]

Just a small mistake, omertà is a term associated with Mafia-slang, meaning the classical "I'd not seen, nor heard, anything, and won't speak". Duty is better translated as Dovere :) !

As for the rest, wonderful as always !

[Geekhis Khan]

Just a small mistake, omertà is a term associated with Mafia-slang, meaning the classical "I'd not seen, nor heard, anything, and won't speak". Duty is better translated as Dovere :) !

As for the rest, wonderful as always !

Thanks, Manfr...though I noticed that the word omertà was specifically used by Segre in his biography of Balbo to describe Balbo's devotion to Mussolini despite their growing political differences. Perhaps he was being ironic.

The ever-accurate wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0) states it as a Southern Italian thing not limited to Mafiosi.

[Manfr]

Thanks, Manfr...though I noticed that the word omertà was specifically used by Segre in his biography of Balbo to describe Balbo's devotion to Mussolini despite their growing political differences. Perhaps he was being ironic.

The ever-accurate wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omert%C3%A0) states it as a Southern Italian thing not limited to Mafiosi.

Yes, it's basically used when you deny your presence in a crime, either as the offender or simply as an innocent bystander, due to a sense of loyalty to to the criminals, to fear or to ... well, when you are so used to these things that you pretend not to see them, hoping that problems won't be yours.

I think that Segre was being VERY IRONIC, if he used such a term for Balbo. :D

[Geekhis Khan]

Part b: Starace's Culture War

Fascism as a political and cultural movement saw massive expansion in the 1930s under the tenure of Party Secretary Achille Starace. Enamored with spectacle and show, Starace made sweeping additions to Fascist ceremony. He encouraged mass gatherings which demonstrated “spontaneous” enthusiasm for Duce Mussolini and Fascist dominance. He organized marches and encouraged the public display of uniforms and Fascist symbols and hoped to instill a “Fascist” mindset upon the Italian people.


http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/50612249.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=4996399091E831869F43A33EFD109038C6E7E4E2CE924510
Balbo with Mussolini and Starace (left in black MVSN uniform) in Libya, 1937 [1]

Starace, a former Bersaglieri [sharpshooter/ranger] and decorated Great War veteran, had made a prominent name for himself early in the rise of the Fascist movement and the later PNF. From regional secretary roles he quickly assumed vice secretarial roles within the fledgling MVSN and later the PNF. In 1931 Mussolini named him Party Secretary, the role he would be most associated with. With the exception of a brief leave of absence to fight in the Second Italo-Abyssinian war, Starace was the dominant figure in the PNF throughout the critical years of the 1930s and an extension of Mussolinian policy. This sudden and steep ascendency had more to do with his fanatical and unquestioning loyalty to Mussolini than to any particular organizational skills. As a result, his accomplishments were mixed.

Massive parades and marches were his hallmark, but also propaganda and information control…and Starace served a crucial role in Mussolini’s growing personal dominance over all forms of media and information. […] For Starace, to serve the nation and Fascist Party was not enough. He demanded a complete and total cultural overhaul. He supported Mussolinian initiatives for “Italianization” and ethnic “cleansing” [4(3)]. Virulently anti-Semetic, he was a principle backer of Farinacci’s Cultural Purity initiatives. But his cultural “Reforms” didn’t stop at ethnic minorities. He demanded the constant use of the Roman salute by not just Party members but all Italians. He encouraged measures to merge Fascist neo-culture into existent Italian culture with the eventual goal of completely reordering Italian society along Fascist lines. Such totalitarian social measures dovetailed well with the growing political and economic totalitarianism of the Mussolinian regime. […]


http://www.ronterpening.com/slides/symb/balilla_1926.jpg http://www.ronterpening.com/slides/symb/hymn.jpg
The Opera Nazionale Balilla (Fascist Youth), a failed attempt at youth Fascist paramilitary indoctrination

But despite Mussolini’s and Starace’s grand unified vision for a clockwork Italy, Fascism’s myriad internal divisions and Italy’s continued internal cultural and economic divisions limited the success of Fascist cultural reorganization. While Starace succeeded in increasing party membership under his tenure, he failed in reforming the Opera Nazionale Balilla (Fascist Youth Organization) along the lines of the Hitler Youth (it essentially remained and remains to this day an organization more akin to the American Boy Scouts) and failed to mould the national consciousness along Fascist lines. Internal opposition within the government and party to Starace’s reorganization also grew…and Starace made many political enemies in his heavy-handed attempts…including future Duce Italo Balbo. […] Starace would never achieve the successes of the German Nazi Party he so admired in bending national and collective will towards party will. That much of the Nazi cultural methodology and ceremony was derived from Starace’s vision is an irony that illustrates the contrasts between the superficially similar Fascist and Nazi movements.

From Fasces Ascendant, the Rise of Fascism in Italy by Dr. John McDonnell, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Prospero_Gianferrari_all%27Alfa_Romeo_2.JPG

Starace (center in uniform) and Balbo (first from right) at the Alfa Romeo factory.


************************************************

Note a piè di pagina:


1 – This image actually OTL from Mussolini’s 1940 visit (post-POD); please forgive the “impossibility” ATL.

2 – OTL (and pre-POD) Mussolini urged the “cleansing” [sic] of Istria and Alto Aldige of non-Italian culture. This ethnic cleansing or “Italianization” fell short of genocide (ATL the term “ethnic cleansing” has a less ominous but equally racist connotation). Instead, it amounted to the forced cultural assimilation of minorities, Italification of names, and the adoption of Italian language and culture. An upcoming subsection will deal with this in greater detail.

[Geekhis Khan]

Yes, it's basically used when you deny your presence in a crime, either as the offender or simply as an innocent bystander, due to a sense of loyalty to to the criminals, to fear or to ... well, when you are so used to these things that you pretend not to see them, hoping that problems won't be yours.

I think that Segre was being VERY IRONIC, if he used such a term for Balbo. :D

LOL, yea, he's a sneaky one, that Segre. The delivery of that one was so dry I missed it, even when I'm familiar with the term's use by the mafia. :D

[Manfr]

BTW, there's a book by journalist Vittorio Bardotti, edited in France (I think) that talks about a possible coup led by Amedeo d'Aosta, the future hero of Amba Alagi, against Mussolini and the King, with Balbo's help: they apparently had thought of proclaiming Italian Eastern Africa independent as a new Ethiopian Empire and declaring neutrality, in the event of an Italian entrance in WW2 along the Germans. The Duke of Aosta in the end apparently declined the offer, out of sense of duty to his King.

I don't think the Allies would have recognized such a entity, but maybe a Balboist Italy born in such a way could retain Eritrea, Somalia and Northern Ethiopia.

There's also a AH scenery written by my Contemporary History teacher, which imagines a anti-German coup much similar to 25 July 1943, only immediately before the war, at the hands of Arturo Bocchini, OVRA's leader, general Emilio de Bono and Italo Balbo himself. Later, Germans invade Italy and Balbo leads the Resistance :D.

[Manfr]

Aahahahahaahahaha Starace ! :D Great update !

To be fair with Mussolini, he wasn't much worse than Liberal governments had been, with German and Slav minorities, even though he ruthlessly crushed insurrectionalist attempts (actually, the only opponents even sentenced to death under Fascism before the Italian Social Republic were Slovenian terrorists). Especially as the former Catholic linked with the Giustizia and Libertà (Justice and Freedom) liberalsocialists of Rosselli, which were heavily organized, and especially active in Spain, although limited in popular support (they had among them some of the best and sharpest minds of Italy, but just got 1,5% in 1946, after their fighting squads had been the second greatest after the Communists, and well ahead of Socialists' Brigate Matteotti).

[Geekhis Khan]

BTW, there's a book by journalist Vittorio Bardotti, edited in France (I think) that talks about a possible coup led by Amedeo d'Aosta, the future hero of Amba Alagi, against Mussolini and the King, with Balbo's help: they apparently had thought of proclaiming Italian Eastern Africa independent as a new Ethiopian Empire and declaring neutrality, in the event of an Italian entrance in WW2 along the Germans. The Duke of Aosta in the end apparently declined the offer, out of sense of duty to his King.

I don't think the Allies would have recognized such a entity, but maybe a Balboist Italy born in such a way could retain Eritrea, Somalia and Northern Ethiopia.

There's also a AH scenery written by my Contemporary History teacher, which imagines a anti-German coup much similar to 25 July 1943, only immediately before the war, at the hands of Arturo Bocchini, OVRA's leader, general Emilio de Bono and Italo Balbo himself. Later, Germans invade Italy and Balbo leads the Resistance :D.

Cool, news to me! I'm not sure how serious such a coup attempt might have been, but there's another AH TL in that for sure.

I'd love to read the AH scenario your teacher made. Is there a text version you could PM or email me? I can't read Italian, but I'll give babelfish a shot at it.



BTW, all: new section up! Don't lose it in our cross-talk!

[Geekhis Khan]

Aahahahahaahahaha Starace ! :D Great update !

To be fair with Mussolini, he wasn't much worse than Liberal governments had been, with German and Slav minorities, even though he ruthlessly crushed insurrectionalist attempts (actually, the only opponents even sentenced to death under Fascism before the Italian Social Republic were Slovenian terrorists). Especially as the former Catholic linked with the Giustizia and Libertà (Justice and Freedom) liberalsocialists of Rosselli, which were heavily organized, and especially active in Spain, although limited in popular support (they had among them some of the best and sharpest minds of Italy, but just got 1,5% in 1946, after their fighting squads had been the second greatest after the Communists, and well ahead of Socialists' Brigate Matteotti).

Good info, and thanks!

And funny you should mention Rosselli and company... :cool:

[Manfr]

Cool, news to me! I'm not sure how serious such a coup attempt might have been, but there's another AH TL in that for sure.

I'd love to read the AH scenario your teacher made. Is there a text version you could PM or email me? I can't read Italian, but I'll give babelfish a shot at it.



BTW, all: new section up! Don't lose it in our cross-talk!

Unfortunately it's a video, he made it for La Storia siamo noi, a wonderful tv show by Giovanni Minoli: he also made another one for a People's Front victory in 1948

Basically, Bocchini doesn't die of uber-parties :D, and in 1938, after the signing of the Axis, allies with Balbo and old monarchist fascist De Bono, ousting Mussolini.
The three of them make up a partially DDR- partially Franco - partially Pinochet government (which means, extensive use of secret police cloaked with respectable means, loyalty to the monarch and slow democratization, especially after the war, and liberal economics): they become Churchill and Roosevelt's best friend, and even achieve a transit corridor in Sudan between Libia and Ethiopia. Then WW2 explodes, Germany invades Italy after a while installing either Mussolini or Farinacci as a puppet, I don't remember, and Balbo shapes the Fascist Party into the National Union of Fashes, a national-conservative party which leads the resistance. I don't remember wheter this had extensive butterflies on WW2 too, as it was mainly focused on Italy, but I think that all this mess ends the conflict a year or two before, maybe thanks to a Valkyrie-like plot.

[lothaw]

Good to see this epic TL up and kicking again.

Balbo shall return to Italy in glory. I can't wait.

[Japhy]

I'm immensely glad to see this back, can't wait for the next update.

[Germaniac]

I am so happy that this is back

[Geekhis Khan]

Glad to BE back, all. :)

I about lost it when my old notebook got smashed and am so glad I was able to salvage the half-complete lost chapter.

Thanks again for the support!

GK...

[Geekhis Khan]

Part c: Diplomatic Gambits


Hitler’s ascension to the Chancellery of Germany threw the already volatile diplomatic situation of Europe into chaos. Charismatic, fierce in oratory, and unabashedly revisionist and in favor of rearmament, the soon-to-be dictator would see his nation rule the continent or burn in Gotterdammerung. […] Initially Mussolini saw great hope in this new assumptive dictator. Not only had Hitler remodeled his own authori-collectivist National Socialist (Nazi) party after Mussolini’s own Fascism, creating an ideological bridge, but the resurrection of a strong German Empire gave Mussolini a much-desired counterbalance (and potential cobelligerent) against hated France. Over the coming decades Mussolini, despite the misgivings of many of his underlings including Balbo and Grandi and even his own son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano, would work to build up the German military as a bulwark against France. […]

The burgeoning Italo-German friendship was shaken badly by the Nazi assassination of Austrian authori-collectivist dictator Engelbert Dollfuß…a close ally and friend of Mussolini’s [whose] family was with the Italian dictator at the moment of the assassination. Already ardently opposed to any form of Anschluss for strategic reasons, the strain of the incident nearly led to war [with] armies of both nations amassing on the Austrian borders. […] This tension led to a short-lived détente with France [and the creation of] the Stresa Front, an agreement between France, Britain, and Italy that reaffirmed the Locarno Treaties [and the] independence of Austria. […] The Stresa Front proved ephemeral, however. Continued British fears over the growing power of the Soviet Union and continued distrust of French intentions by both Britain and Italy led to…hopes that a rearmed Germany might act as a bulwark. Furthermore, none of the three nations were willing to go to war to enforce the edicts of the front. Britain maintained an open door policy with Germany. Italy began to reevaluate their position regarding Germany when opposition appeared over their Abyssinian plans. Within two months Britain had signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement…a “betrayal” that led Mussolini to discard any worries about angering the UK [with an] invasion of Abyssinia. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Engelbert_Dollfuss.png
Austrian Chancellor and authori-collectivist Engelbert Dollfuß in 1933

Anglo-Italian relations were at an all-time low with the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement…while Franco-Italian relations were improving. Ever concerned over the growth of Nazi Germany, Laval made several overtures to Italy as a potential ally. […] Mussolini was in an enviable diplomatic position. French rapprochement gave Italy all but the right to dictate terms [while] Germany still offered the potential for Germano-Italian combined naval parity with France. […] The growing concern was now Britain and the British navy. British naval dominance and control of both Gibraltar and the Suez Canal threatened disaster both to any Abyssinian plans and to metropolitan Italy herself…which Italian military planners were only just starting to admit to themselves. Italian naval claims that it could handle the British navy with the assistance of the air force fell apart under scrutiny. […]

Of all the issues that plagued Italy and any potential for diplomatic coup, Mussolini remained fixated on the conquest of Abyssinia . All diplomacy was now vested in securing the tacit approval or at least nonintervention of France and Britain. The first was relatively easy to secure, Laval being willing to bend over backwards for Mussolini under the shadow of the growing German threat. Britain, however, was a harder sell [and British acquiescence] was the lynchpin of any East African plans. Things appeared to turn critical when British foreign secretary Sir Samuel Hoare gave a statement that appeared to declare a British willingness to go to war to enforce the League of Nations covenant [against Italian adventurism in Abyssinia]. Ships from the British Home Fleet were dispatched to Malta to bolster the Mediterranean fleet [and] the threat of an Italo-British naval clash or even a land war in Africa loomed. Then Libyan Governor Air Marshal Italo Balbo urged action, seeing perhaps an opportunity to bring himself back into the limelight. This sudden belligerence is in stark contrast to Balbo’s opposition to the invasion of Ethiopia (which he thought an unnecessary risk with little return) and to his continuing Anglophilia. […] Interestingly, in the rush to put ships in theater many the British ships lacked sufficient ammunition and an Italian attack could have lead to a major initial naval victory. However, such a military coup might well have proven short-lived as the overwhelming might of the Royal Navy was brought to bear and would have similarly brought with it diplomatic problems which would have continued to plague Italy well into the coming war. […]

But Britain was willing to work with Italy at least behind closed doors. […] This backroom dealing led to the infamous Hoare-Laval Pact, a planned partition of Abyssinia wherein Italy would be given large territorial gains and economic hegemony over Ethiopia in exchange for agreeing to a rump Ethiopian state and some token League censure and minor sanctions. When this treaty was leaked to the press mere days before Mussolini’s planned signatory, it caused an international outrage which led directly to the resignations of both Hoare and Laval. […]


[B]http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/710/diwan1.jpg http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/00/25200-004-D3B6E1C3.jpg
Sir Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval, architects of the Hoare-Laval Pact


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Map_of_Hoare-Laval_Pact.jpg
Map of the proposed measures of the Hoare-Laval Pact

Italy would face condemnation by the League and sanctions, yet none of the sanctions included war-critical resources such as petroleum. Furthermore, passage through the Suez canal, a prerequisite for war in East Africa, was never revoked. Though diplomatically embarrassing, the measures had no teeth…though they would ultimately result in renewed rapprochement with Nazi Germany and the eventual declaration of the Axis. […] In the end, Mussolini had his Abyssinian war.

From Warriors, Diplomats, Statesmen, Dictators – the Political and Diplomatic History of Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Dr. Eric Spellman, Harvard University, 1994

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I had to go look up "gerarchi". I had no clue, even from context, that it was a Fascist reference.

(apparently 'Fascist party officials'. I wanted to make it related to 'gerontocracy' a leader of which could be a 'Gerarch', I suppose. It seems instead to be related to the Romance root 'to direct/manage'....)

[Geekhis Khan]

"Gerarchi" in Fascist terms were the "big men" of Fascism: Ras, party leaders, Quadrimvirs, politicians, Secretaries...

[Geekhis Khan]

Part d: the Ethiopian War


“Soldiers, this is the most risky, most difficult and most important venture of the campaign. Don't waste a shot. We are carrying all the ammunition we are going to have on this trip. This column must be like an electric live wire. Death to the touch! Truck drivers must learn to keep to the right of the road under pain of severe penalties...

“Britain is a rich country, Italy is a poor country, but the people of poor countries have hard muscles. The only way to explain the action of the English is that they thought they had only to mass a war fleet in the Mediterranean and Premier Mussolini would take off his hat and bow in submission.

“Instead he reared up like a thoroughbred horse and sent his soldiers into Africa. Viva Il Duce!” – Speech by Colonel Achille Starace, known during the war as "the Panther Man" (L'uomo pantera), to his Bersaglieri/Blackshirt units prior to the capture of Gondar during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.


“I still have in mind the spectacle of a little group [of Ethiopian horsemen] blooming like a rose when some of my fragmentation bombs fell in their midst. It was great fun.” – Vittorio Mussolini, son of Benito, in his memoirs.



Fascist Italy saw its first military test in the Second Italo-Abyssinian war of 1934-1936. This war of colonial conquest is an interesting study in the political and diplomatic ramifications of colonial war and is credited as one of the incidents that highlighted the failure of the League of Nations. It also demonstrates the limitations of an inflexible and antagonistic command structure. The invasion showcases the deadly potential of air and artillery dominance as a force multiplier and the saw the widespread use of air and probably chemical assets in the suppression of massed Ethiopian infantry. It also demonstrates the limitations of armor assets in difficult terrain against a determined enemy. […]

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was determined to conquer the African nation of Abyssinia (one of the few independent of European colonization) both in an effort to establish the legitimacy and military might of his burgeoning new empire and to avenge the Italian humiliation in the First Italo-Abyssinian war a generation earlier. Lengthy planning and mobilization efforts were initiated leading up to the war and complex and labyrinthine diplomatic efforts were initiated to prevent British or French interference in the venture. […] Large scale road-building efforts and similar efforts (supervised by the designated commanding officer General De Bono) provided both for the necessary infrastructure to support the invasion and acted as an official smoke screen for the personnel build-up. […]

Mussolini urged a variety of schemes to antagonize the Ethiopian Empire and provoke an incident which would grant the necessary justification for war. The infrastructure efforts provided some of this and helped bring Ethiopian troops to the border. […] The greatest of these antagonistic efforts was the construction and garrisoning of Italian forces at the Walwal (Ual-Ual in Italian) oasis well within Ethiopian territory. […] The resulting small-scale action left 150 Ethiopians and 50 Italians dead and elicited international outrage in what became known as the Abyssinian Crisis. […] In the end the League exonerated both sides in the incident. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1e/ItaloAbyssinianWarpainting.JPG
Ethiopian Painting from the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (note Eritrean Askaris in front of Italian lines)

In October of 1934 De Bono initiated the invasion…a surprise attack without a declaration of war. De Bono began a cautious advance from Eritrea spearheaded by armored assets and native Eritrean infantry (Askaris) and covered by aerial assets. Additional forces under Graziani waited defensively in Italian Somalia. […] Though he had a significant materiel advantage, De Bono’s numerical inferiority (possibly fearing another Adowa-style defeat) led a slow and deliberate advance [perhaps hoping to] goad the Ethiopian forces into damaging charges against Italian machine guns. Poor road conditions and mountainous terrain exacerbated the slow advance. […] De Bono was making slow but steady advancement, but Mussolini, fearful that every month of combat increased the likelihood of foreign intervention, urged a speedier advance. […] When De Bono proved unable or unwilling to advance at the desired swiftness, Mussolini replaced him with the more aggressive Pietro Badoglio. […]


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/Pbadoglio.jpg
Marshal Pietro Badoglio

Hoping to exploit the command shakeup, Emperor Haile Selassie ordered a major offensive in the winter of 1934…hoping to split and route the Italian forces. The so-called Christmas Offensive sent an overwhelming 190,000 Ethiopian infantry supported by the regime’s few outdated armor and air assets against the Italian columns. […] The offensive met with initial success [and] stalled the Italian advance. […] Bold and innovative tactics were employed against the Italian light tanks [with] infantry rolling boulders in front of and behind the tanks, trapping them to be finished by infantry swarm tactics. […] Major Criniti’s forces were surrounded and almost destroyed…barely [managing to] break out of the envelopment with 50% casualties. […] The major reversal in Italian fortunes came to be known as the “Black Period” of the war by the Italians [and demonstrated] many of the command limitations of the Italian army. […] It was under the shadow of the Black Period that Mussolini was on the verge of accepting the limitations of the Hoare-Laval pact. […]

Despite the initial advances of the Christmas Offensive, the Italian superiority in weapons soon began to show. Machine guns and modern artillery proved as deadly on the Ethiopian highlands as they did in the trenches of World War One. […] The Christmas Offensive stalled [and the] Italian advance was renewed, likely aided by the use of chemical weapons (mustard gas and possibly phosgene). While the official histories of Fascist Italy denied any use of the banned weapons, eyewitness accounts from survivors and Red Cross personnel report widespread use. Unconfirmed reports mention using aerosol sprayers from low-flying aircraft, spraying Ethiopian soldiers and possibly even civilians like crop dusters. Ethiopian veterans of the conflict spoke openly of “burning rains”. The Italian air force still officially denies the use of such tactics, though the Italian Socialist Party has on occasion brought up calls for a formal apology to the Ethiopian people for the use of chemical weapons against civilian targets [1].

Accusations of indiscriminant chemical weapons use were even uttered to the League of Nations, including a speech by Emperor Haile Selassie:

“It was at the time when the operations for the encircling of Makale were taking place that the Italian command, fearing a rout, followed the procedure which it is now my duty to denounce to the world. Special sprayers were installed on board aircraft so that they could vaporize, over vast areas of territory, a fine, death-dealing rain. Groups of nine, fifteen, eighteen aircraft followed one another so that the fog issuing from them formed a continuous sheet. It was thus that, as from the end of January 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes, and pastures were drenched continually with this deadly rain. In order to kill off systematically all living creatures, in order to more surely poison waters and pastures, the Italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again. That was its chief method of warfare.”

Such speeches roused international outrage at the time, but were later dismissed as exaggerated propaganda when Italy’s cooperation against Nazi Germany and later the Soviet Union was needed.


http://www.corbisimages.com/images/IH167617.jpg?size=67&uid=C960BF2C-C1C9-46FD-BED9-DC4F9A490DAC
Ethiopian Soldiers in 1935

Air and probable chemical attacks combined with the Italian technological advantages on the ground successfully halted the Christmas Offensive for good at the First Battle of Tembien (a tactical draw) [and] soon a renewed northern offensive destroyed Ras Mulugeta's army and captured the city of Amba Aradam. […] The armies of Ras Kassa and Ras Seyoum were destroyed at the Second Battle of Tembien [and] Ras Imru saw his army destroyed at the Battle of the Shire [while] Graziani’s southern forced advanced [completing the pincer] .[…] By spring of 1936 the Ethiopian military was devastated. Though they had fought bravely and inflicted notable casualties on the Italian armies, the technological lopsidedness made the difference. In April of 1936 Badoglio launched the “March of the Iron Will” which led to the capture of Addis Ababa and the effective end of major land operations. Though the Italian occupiers would continue to face armed insurgerncy for years to come, including an attempted assassination of Graziani in 1937, for all intents and purposes the conquest of Ethiopia was complete. […]


http://www.stockphotopro.com/photo-thumbs-2/stockphotopro_150786GYA_.jpg
Italian Machine gunners in Ethiopia, 1935

For Ethiopia the war was a death knell. The ancient African empire was crushed. Emperor Haile Selassie, a great symbol of African skill and power and even messianic figure of the burgeoning “Rastafarian” religion, would die in exile in Bath, England, in 1970 never again to step foot in his beloved homeland [2]. He remained to the end a vocal critic of imperialism, colonialism, and western rapprochement with Fascist Italy and is best known today as a statesman and activist. A rump Ethiopian state would only emerge again in 1972, and even then only at the will of their conquerors’ aging Duce.

For Italy, however, the war marked the emergence of the new Italian Empire under the helm of Fascism. Benito Mussolini would become a national hero and living legend. He would use the event as a call to duty, uttering the now famous phrase "at last Italy has her empire. The Italian people have created an empire with their blood. They will fertilize it with their work. They will defend it against anyone with their weapons. Will you be worthy of it?” The war served to elevate Mussolini to a near divine aura among his people almost in a dark reflection of the Ethiopian Emperor’s perceived semi-divinity. It would also lead the first Duce into further and further isolation from his nation and people.

The war also served as a testing ground for Italian military tactics and weapons. It, along with the upcoming Spanish Intervention, would inadvertently lead Italian war planners to a false sense of superiority and reinforce outmoded tactics and reliance on outdated technology like biplane fighters. These tactical illusions would be harshly broken in the crucible of the Second World War.

From Italy at War, 1914-1973 by Maj. General Thomas Landover, West Point.


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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – OTL the liberal use of chemical weapons by Fascist Italy against soldiers and civilians in Ethiopia has been well documented. ATL the Fascist government (and later Allied and NATO governments) worked hard to suppress or downplay the Italian use of chemical weapons in the conquest of Ethiopia. Fascist records were expunged and witnesses hushed up. Even then it remains one of ATL history’s worst-kept secrets.

2 – ATL he dies of heart failure on October 4th, 1970, likely the result of decades of stress and frustration at his inability to free his homeland or secure censure of Italy for their crimes against his land, even from his British home-in-exile. He is, as the text notes, best known ATL as an international activist, regular speaker including at the UN, and a hero of antifascists and anti-colonialists everywhere. The Rastafarian religion officially denies his actual temporal death, instead celebrating October 4th as the date of his immaculate Christ-like ascension to Heaven.

[Jimbrock]

A good few parts, Geekhis. The bit about an Italian empire lasting till the seventies are rather exciting, as well as the 'cooperation with the Soviets'...

[xt828]

You mean cooperation against the Soviets.

Looking good, though now you've raised expectations with several excellent updates in a very short timeframe. More!

[Archangel]

Nice touch on Haile Selassie!:)

[Rakhasa]

I would comment on the update, but the sheer awesomenes of the church painting -with what seems a Virgin Mary holding a machine gun on the lower left corner- has left me speechless.
Why, oh why, has Catholic Religious Art abandoned that epic style?

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I would comment on the update, but the sheer awesomenes of the church painting -with what seems a Virgin Mary holding a machine gun on the lower left corner- has left me speechless.
Why, oh why, has Catholic Religious Art abandoned that epic style?
That wasn't Roman Catholic.

She was holding a machine gun defending the Ethiopians. So it was Ethiopian 'Orthodox' style.

[Geekhis Khan]

A good few parts, Geekhis. The bit about an Italian empire lasting till the seventies are rather exciting, as well as the 'cooperation with the Soviets'...

You mean cooperation against the Soviets.

Yes...to both. ;) The cold war ITTL will be...interesting (in the Chinese way).

Looking good, though now you've raised expectations with several excellent updates in a very short timeframe. More!

I'll try to live up to it. FYI, though, many of these were complete or partly complete from before the laptop crash, so don't expect a post-a-day every day.

Nice touch on Haile Selassie!:)

Thanks! He's such an interesting figure in any TL. I felt bad for what I had to do to him, but such is the way of the (alt) world. TTL promises plenty of changes...not all of them positive.

I would comment on the update, but the sheer awesomenes of the church painting -with what seems a Virgin Mary holding a machine gun on the lower left corner- has left me speechless.
Why, oh why, has Catholic Religious Art abandoned that epic style?

That wasn't Roman Catholic.

She was holding a machine gun defending the Ethiopians. So it was Ethiopian 'Orthodox' style.

Yes, that's Ethiopian Orthodox, "heretical" to the Catholic hierarchy of the time. It's up on the wikipedia site for the Second Italo-Abyssinian war. And yes, it's breathtaking.



Thanks again, all! :)

The great news is only two more posts until POD!

[Rakhasa]

That wasn't Roman Catholic.

She was holding a machine gun defending the Ethiopians. So it was Ethiopian 'Orthodox' style.

I know that -that why I complained than the catholics had abandoned the style, as, it seems, opposed to the... Ethiopian Copts? maybe?, who clearly still appreciate proper religious art with lots and lots of Smiting :D

[Brancaleone]

A related question please ; apart from the "revenge for Adua" mentality , what did Abyssinia have to offer to the Italians as a colonial asset? At least Somalia had a strategic location .

[Geekhis Khan]

A related question please ; apart from the "revenge for Adua" mentality , what did Abyssinia have to offer to the Italians as a colonial asset? At least Somalia had a strategic location .

That, my friend, is the trillion-lire question. Other than martial glory/revenge/dreams of empire/"great power" recognition, a few cash crops (coffee), and a vague idea of a place for Italians to move to stem the flood of emigration (the latter never materialized) there was little strategic or financial reason to take Ethiopia. It actually ended up costing four times the domestic product per year to maintain and was a drain on the coffers. It proved a white elephant. There's a reason it was the last major independent African nation.

[xt828]

I know that -that why I complained than the catholics had abandoned the style, as, it seems, opposed to the... Ethiopian Copts? maybe?, who clearly still appreciate proper religious art with lots and lots of Smiting :D

Ethiopian Orthodox. They are related to the Coptic Orthodox Church in that both are Oriental Orthodox, who split from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches over the result of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. The Ethiopian Church was under the aegis of the Patriarch of Alexandria until 1959 IOTL, but Coptic generally refers specifically to the Egyptians.

[DuQuense]

A related question please ; apart from the "revenge for Adua" mentality , what did Abyssinia have to offer to the Italians as a colonial asset? At least Somalia had a strategic location .A land route to connect Eritrea and Somalia.

No I'm not kidding - This is one of the reasons put forth back in the 30's

[Brancaleone]

Ethiopian Orthodox. They are related to the Coptic Orthodox Church in that both are Oriental Orthodox, who split from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches over the result of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. The Ethiopian Church was under the aegis of the Patriarch of Alexandria until 1959 IOTL, but Coptic generally refers specifically to the Egyptians.
The mounted guy on the upper middle of the icon is ,of course, St George . Just another piece of trivia; Ras Tafari Makonen, the "Lion of Juda" also bore the name Haile Selasie ,("with the power of the holy triad" in english) . He unwillingly became the figurehead of the rastafarian religion , in fact ,during the 70's the jamaican government pleaded with the then venerable emperor-in-exile to visit the country and renounce his divine status . Interestingly , religious icons of rastafarism retain a distinctively easten orthodox style :D

[Geekhis Khan]

Part e: "Italianization" and Ethnic Cleansing

“While millions cheer, a few remember.” Those were the words of George Seldes in 1933. He spoke of Italo Balbo, squadrist murderer, who was then being greeted as a hero in America following his transatlantic mass flight. As we reach the thirtieth anniversary of that event those words continue to ring true. Five years ago Balbo, this time as his nation’s undisputed dictator, repeated the flight to equivalent fanfare. As our western nations continue to celebrate the Fascist regime in Italy, citing their meteoric rise, their “renewal” of Italy, their “civilization” of parts of “Backward Africa”, we ignore the nation’s past and continued abuses.

The resurgent “Roman” empire of the Italian state, begun in the “Liberal” state, perfected in Fascism, may delight in spectacle and feigned accomplishment, but even a cursory peek behind the curtain reveals a situation far grimmer than the state propaganda office reports. The great spread of “civilization” and western technology has come with a very human cost that continues to be glossed over in the name of solidarity against the Soviet menace. Slovenians, Croats, Albanians, Libyans, Eritreans, Somalis, Ethiopians, even Germans in Alto Adige…the list of those subjected below the Italian boot is as diverse as it is long. Not only were lives lost in their wars of conquest and “pacification”, but great pains were taken to destroy existing indigenous cultures and replace them with Italian and Fascist culture. They called it “cleansing”. They called it “Italianization”. […]

The cost in lives has been high. The former Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, wrested in a war of conquest and Romanized into “Libya”, saw its native Berber and Arabic peoples drop nearly in half in a war of pacification and cultural subjugation. Cyrenaica’s population, for example, dropped from 225,000 in 1928 to 142,000 in 1931. The tactics were brutal: concentration camps which any Nazi or Stalinist would endorse, mass and public executions, torture, imprisonment, retribution slayings. […] Even as recently as the 1940’s the brutal subjugation of the native Empire of Abyssinia, here Romanized as “Ethiopia”, saw a return to such tactics. The brutal repression of the country—that it was accomplished through liberal use of poison gas is no secret—was nothing compared to the retribution campaigns following the attempted assassination of Graziani and the uprising during the war. The cultural war that followed, and the continued internecine slayings the Roman government tacitly condones, would break the back of an ancient and noble culture which may never recover in full even if they manage to finally throw off the Roman yoke. […]


http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/94972462ffd8a7b7_large
Balbo and Mussolini review “enthusiastic” local youth in Libya, 1937 [1] (image too big to post)

Closest to my personal experience was the Italianization of the Dalmatian coast. Here the methods of Ethnic Cleansing were more subtle but no less destructive. My born name as listed in the records of the City of Fiume was “Niccolo Bruno”, one of thousands of my contemporaries of Slavic origins who were forced to don an Italian mantle, to speak Italian, to act and think Italian. “Barbarians” such as ourselves must be handed the torch of “civilization”, after all. Those who spoke the old language or practiced the old traditions were harassed, beaten, imprisoned. Many were killed, though we will likely never know the full extent. My uncle Andrejcek, or “Andrea” in his imposed name, was carried off to a dark cell and tortured for uttering an old Slovenian proverb: “All roads do not lead to Rome.” […]

The subject peoples of the Italian Empire did not just lie down and take the abuse. Many stood up to oppression at great personal risk to themselves and their families. Sansui rebels in the Gebel, Ethiopian guerillas in the highlands, even Croatio-Slovenian freedom fighters in Istria and Dalmatia stood up to the Fasces. My uncle Andrejcek fought with TIGR, a partisan resistance group active from the annexation up until their bloody suppression in the 1940s. The name is an acronym for Trst, Istra, Gorican, and Reka (or Trieste, Istria, Gorizia, and Rijeka in Italian), the regions ceded to Italy without the consent of their principle residents. The group fought hard and fought well against impossible odds. That they by necessity fought alongside the Nazis should be viewed in light of similar objectives rather than similar beliefs.

While ultimately defeated, TIGR stood up for the inalienable rights of their fellow ethnic countrymen. And they definitely made their mark. In 1937 they sheltered an Italian anti-fascist, a man named Camillo Berneri. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. […]

Perhaps we Slavic peoples under Italian Rule are fortunate in some small way, though. The bloody reprisals faced by the Ethiopians were far worse. The fates of the Jews and Gypsies in Hitler’s Reich prove how much worse things could have been. However, the Italians’ soft genocide of cultural assimilation by force should not be ignored for its callousness, its inhumanity, and its barbarism.

From “Italianization – the Forced Cultural and Ethnic Assimilation of Italy’s Minorities” by Dr. Nikola Borna, Culture and History, July 1963

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Note a piè di pagina:

1 – This image actually OTL from Mussolini’s 1940 visit (post-POD); please forgive the “impossibility” ATL.