Fasci Italiani di Combattimento
The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (English: "Italian Fasces of Combat", also translatable as "Italian Fighting Bands" or "Italian Fighting Leagues"[19]) was an Italian fascist organisation created by Benito Mussolini in 1919.[20] It was the successor of the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, being notably further right than its predecessor. The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento was reorganised into the National Fascist Party in 1921.
Fasci Italiani di Combattimento
23 March 1919
9 November 1921
National Fascist Party
Fasci nazionali (dissident minority)
Squadre d'azione (also known as Squadristi or Blackshirts)
187,588 (May 1921)[2]
The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento was founded by Mussolini and his supporters in the aftermath of World War I, at a meeting held in Milan in March 1919.[21] It was an ultranationalist organisation that intended to appeal to war veterans from across the political spectrum, at first without a clear political orientation.[22] It was closely associated with Mussolini's newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and Mussolini served as the leader (Duce) of the movement throughout its existence.
After a very poor result in the Italian election of 1919, in which no members of the Fasci were elected to any office, the organisation moved further to the right and developed a reputation for using paramilitary violence against its political opponents, especially members of the Italian Socialist Party.[23] Through the support of its blackshirts militia and a political alliance with the government of Giovanni Giolitti and the Italian Nationalist Association, the Fasci was able to enter the Italian Parliament for the first time after the election of 1921.[24][25] In November of that year, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento renamed and restructured itself as the National Fascist Party.
History[edit]
Background[edit]
Benito Mussolini fought in the Royal Italian Army during World War I until he was wounded in February 1917 and discharged from the army after six months in the hospital.[26] After making his way back to Milan, Mussolini returned to the position of chief editor of Il Popolo d'Italia, the newspaper he had originally founded in November 1914 to advocate for Italian entry into the war.[27] The readership of the newspaper had declined in his absence, but Mussolini successfully revived the paper with a focus on war commentary. He sought to appeal to the former members and supporters of the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, who had been ardent pro-war activists under his leadership in 1915.[11] Mussolini envisioned a new political movement led by war veterans, argued that only those who had fought for their country were fit to govern,[26] and called for a "government by men in the trenches" who would become a new ruling class, the "aristocracy of tomorrow".[11]
In 1917 and 1918, as the war continued, Mussolini and Il Popolo d'Italia received great funding from major arms manufacturers and businessmen in Milan.[28][26] Historian Denis Mack Smith writes that "possibly this inflow of money from big business in no way affected the politics of his paper", but that Mussolini's enemies asked, "why these firms would support such a small newspaper unless it was for services rendered."[28]
In 1919, after the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles resulted in Italy obtaining South Tyrol, Trentino, Istria, and Trieste from Austria-Hungary. Italian nationalists also wanted Fiume and the region of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast; hence they felt treated unfairly and spoke of a "mutilated victory". The Italian special forces from the war, known as the Arditi, were angry about the problems in Italy. Mussolini sympathised with them, claiming he shared their war experiences; hence they joined his movement, eventually becoming the Squadrismo.
Mussolini used his newspaper in 1919 to espouse an eclectic mix of "dramatic and eye-catching" proposals inspired by views from across the political spectrum, as he was "far more concerned with tactics than with ideas" and discovered that inconsistency did not bother his readers.[29] Mussolini at this time "appeared successively as champion of the League and then nationalist, as socialist and then conservative, as a monarchist and then republican" and actively wished to keep all his political options open.[29]