Dateline- Toronto

by Ernest Hemingway

  The Fascisti are a brood of dragons’ teeth that were sown in 1920 when it looked as though Italy might go Bolshevik. The name means organization, a unit of Fascisti is a fascio, and they are young ex-veterans formed to protect the existing government of Italy against any sort of Bolshevik plot or aggression. In short, they are counterrevolutionists, and in 1920 they crushed the Red uprising with bombs, machine guns, knives and the liberal use of kerosene cans to set the Red meeting places afire, and heavy iron-bound clubs to hammer the Reds over the head when they came out.

  The Fascisti served a very definite purpose and they crushed what looked like a coming revolution. They were under the tacit protection of the government, if not its active support, and there is no question but that they crushed the Reds. But they had a taste of unpenalized lawlessness, unpunished murder, and the right to riot when and where they pleased. So now they have become almost as great a danger to the peace of Italy as the Reds ever were.

  When the Fascisti hear that there is a Red demonstration on, and I have tried to indicate the casual and childish nature of ninety-seven out of every hundred Red demonstrations in Italy, they feel in honor bound as the ex-preservers of their country in time of peril to go out and put the Reds to the sword. Now the North Italian Red is father of a family and a good workman six days out of seven; on the seventh he talks politics. His leaders have formally rejected Russian communism and he is Red as some Canadians are Liberal. He does not want to fight for it, or convert the world to it, he merely wants to talk about it, as he has from time immemorial.

  The Fascisti make no distinction between Socialists, Communists, Republicans or members of cooperative societies. They are all Reds and dangerous. So the Fascisti hear of the Red meeting, put on their long, black, tasseled caps, strap on their trench knives, load up with bombs and ammunition at the fascio and march toward the Red meeting singing the Fascist hymn, “Youth” [“Giovanezza”]. The Fascisti are young, tough, ardent, intensely patriotic, generally good-looking with the youthful beauty of the southern races, and firmly convinced that they are in the right. They have an abundance of the valor and intolerance of youth.

  Marching down the street, the Fascisti, marching as a platoon, come on three of the Reds chalking a manifesto on one of the high walls of the narrow street. Four of the young men in the black fezzes seize the Reds and in the scuffle one of the Fascisti gets stabbed. They kill the three prisoners and spread out in threes and fours through the streets looking for Reds.

  A sobered Red snipes a Fascisto from an upper window. The Fascisti burn down the house.

  You can read the reports in the papers every two or three weeks. The casualties given are usually from ten to fifteen Reds killed and twenty to fifty wounded. There are usually two or three Fascisti killed and wounded. It is a sort of desultory guerrilla warfare that has been going on in Italy for well over a year. The last big battle was in Florence some months ago, but there have been minor outbreaks since.

  To prevent any Fascisti-Red rows happening in Genoa, the fifteen hundred military police have been brought in. They are none of them natives of Genoa, so they can shoot either side without fear or favor. Italy is determined on order during the conference, and the carabinieri, as the military police are called, wearing their three-cornered Napoleon hats, with carbines slung across their backs, with their fierce upturned mustaches and their record as the bravest troops and the best marksmen in the Italian army, stalk the streets in pairs, determined that there shall be order. And, as the Fascisti fear the carabinieri, when they have orders to shoot, as much as the Reds fear the Fascisti, there is a pretty good chance that order will be kept.

  Objections to Allied Plan

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 13, 1922

  GENOA.—The Allied proposals seek to reduce Russia to the level of Turkey, George Tchitcherin declared today.

  The Russian leader announced objection to the Allied experts’ plan which was submitted to the subdivisions of the conference as a basis for European rehabilitation, and asked twenty-four hours in which to prepare a formal negative reply.

  The Genoa Conference was to get down to the bedrock of its work today, with four commissions—political, economic, financial and transportation—considering the experts’ proposals which were laid before them in great detail at yesterday’s sessions. The Russian refusal, anticipated by Allied leaders, presented an immediate snag at peaceful progress of the conclave.

  The Allied proposals regarding Russia were more drastic than had been anticipated. They included Russian recognition of czarist and provisional government debts and guarantees for non-aggression and for safety of foreigners in Russia. This was expected. But a French proposal for establishment of foreign tribunals within the borders of Russia and a measure of supervision over Russian internal affairs also was included in the experts’ plan. It was to this last suggestion that Tchitcherin indicated Russia never would agree. He declared his delegation was willing to give financial and other guarantees in the name of his government, but that it was impossible to grant special tribunals, infringing upon Russian sovereignty.

  The Russian spokesman today prepared a list of counterproposals based on the following program:

  1. That Russia be granted a loan of $500,000,000.

  2. Russia will guarantee the safety of foreigners within her borders in exchange for similar guarantees by other countries.

  3. Russia will agree to recognize czarist debts and those of the Kerenski regime, but will ask for a moratorium, and for payment of damage caused by attacks of Wrangel, Denikin, Kolchak and other commanders, backed by the Allies in futile attacks against the Soviets.

  4. Russia will insist upon absolute sovereignty and will under no circumstances permit Allied supervision of her internal affairs.

  Tchitcherin today said the Allied plan apparently contemplated a regime of capitulations on the part of Russia.

  Germany also will object to the Allied experts’ proposals regarding finance, it was understood. The German reply was to be submitted today.

  Russian Claims

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 14, 1922

  GENOA.—“No country intends to pay its war debts; France does not intend to pay the United States; to pay Allied claims would make Russia a slave state; Russia will not calmly agree to pay what four years of war could not force from her; we must find a common basis” was the Russian delegation statement today. Russian counterclaims make the first big snag in the conference. Russians will offer a counterclaim for each Allied demand.

  Parisian Boorishness

  The Toronto Star Weekly

  April 15, 1922

  PARIS.—The days of Alphonse and Gaston are over. French politeness has gone the way of absinthe, pre-war prices and other legendary things. It has become so bad that French newspapers have carried columns of discussion on the question of how the French can regain the position they once held as the politest people in the world.

  There is such pushing in the Paris subway, cheating women of their seats in the crowded buses, violent rows over prices, barefaced demands for tips in the once polite city that the person who knew Paris in the days before the war would turn away in horror. It is a very different Paris from the old days when the French people enjoyed a world reputation for pleasant gentleness, affability, and instinctive kind attention.

  Cabdrivers, of course, always have been discourteous. They are so because they expect never to see their fares again, in a city of tens of thousands of drifting cabs, and have one object: to see how much they can get out of their trip.

  It is a safe generalization that no non-French-speaking person ever paid the fare shown on the cab meter and supplemented it with a ten percent tip without having the cabby follow him into his destination cursing and raving that he has been cheated. It is simply a case of the cabdriver having found that there is as much money in doing that as in driving a cab.

  The Paris buses provide the worst instances of the n
ew rudeness. You rise in a bus to offer a lady your seat and a walrus-mustached Frenchman plops into it, leaving you and the lady standing. If you say anything to him, he will roar something like this at you: “Eject me if you dare. Try it! Lay just one finger on me and I will have you before the police!”

  As a matter of fact, he is in a strongly entrenched position. No matter what the provocation, a foreigner must keep his temper in France. The French engage in some terrific battles with each other, but they are entirely verbal. Once you put a finger on a man, no matter how aggravating the circumstances, you are guilty of assault and go to jail for a term running upward from six months.

  Next to the buses and subways, the minor government officials give the most offense to courtesy. These are the men in parks and museums, not the police; for the police, through the most trying times, have remained courteous, polite and obliging.

  For instance, there is the reptile house in the Jardin des Plantes, the great Paris zoological gardens. People were coming out of the door of the reptile house when I went up to it. It was placarded as being open from eleven to three o’clock. It was twelve o’clock when I tried to enter.

  “Is the reptile house closed?” I asked.

  “Fermé!” the guard said.

  “Why is it closed at this hour?” I asked.

  “Fermé!” shouted the guard.

  “Can you tell me when it will be open?” I queried, still polite.

  The guard gave me a snarl and said nothing.

  “Can you tell me when it will be open?” I asked again.

  “What business is that of yours?” said the guard, and slammed the door.

  Then there is the office where you go to get your passports stamped in order to leave Paris. There is a large sign on the wall saying employees are paid and that it is forbidden to tip them. The visa costs two francs forty centimes. I gave the clerk, back of the long board counter, five francs. He made no move to give me any change and when I stood there he sneered at me and said, “Oh, you want the change, do you?” and slammed it down on the counter angrily.

  Those are all samples of the type of thing one encounters daily in Paris. Marcel Boulanger, writing in the Figaro, holds out hope for the future.

  “But I believe that the soul of good society is still fine enough and at bottom—clear at the bottom, alas—sufficiently gracious,” he says, after deploring the present state of politeness in France.

  “Three centuries of civilization and of the spirit of the salon are not to be lost in four or five years. Nothing good is done without trouble. Observe the fashion in which, except in the homes of the newly rich, one introduces the son of a celebrity! One never says in a breath, ‘Monsieur So and So, son of the illustrious Monsieur So and So,’ as if the only reason the son had to exist were to carry the name of his famous father. On the contrary, one shades the introduction in spite of himself: ‘Monsieur So and So,’ says one. Then, after an instant, and smiling gently: ‘Monsieur So and So is the son of the illustrious Monsieur So and So.’ Thanks to the pause, the remark takes on the air of a courtesy between you, as if you were congratulating the father on having such a son.

  “A thousand precautions of taste still are part of the current conversation and may be reinstated. They form a powerful arm which in ordinary times a man carries against wretchedness.”

  Woman Takes Crumbs

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 15, 1922

  GENOA.—Women have little part in the Genoa Conference. There is not one on any of the thirty-four delegations as a responsible member. Mme. Alexandra Kollantay, leader of the feminist movement in Russia, objected because the secretary of the conference did not include a woman member, and the women leaders of Germany and the Central European countries at once drew attention to the slight they had suffered. However, several prominent women are included on the various staffs, and the clerical forces of nearly all the delegations consist largely of the gentler sex. Signora Oliva Rossetti Agresti is the chief interpreter employed in translating the Italian addresses into English at the important sessions. She is a granddaughter of the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and has attracted particular attention owing to her unusual ability to remember long addresses and deliver them immediately in another language without the benefit of notes.

  Signorina Italia Garibaldi, granddaughter of the famous Italian patriot, who attended the Washington Conference, with the Italian delegation, has been loaned to the Russian delegation by the Italian foreign office.

  Signora Ungaretti is an important member of the Italian government’s publicity staff, and is entrusted with the task of keeping the Japanese and American correspondents advised on news matters.

  Russians Hold Up Progress

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 17, 1922

  GENOA.—Progress at Genoa waits on Russia. The Bolshevik delegation’s official reply to the Allied proposals is not expected before Thursday. Meantime the conference marks time.

  Many delegates went home over the Easter holidays which, in Europe, include Easter Monday. Only two subcommissions of the parley met today.

  The critical situation at Genoa today is that which concerns recognition by Russia of her debts, and recognition of Russia by the Allies. The political commission, of which the leading statesmen of the conference are members, has this matter in hand.

  The Soviet delegation here, which seemed on the point of capitulating, has been granted time to confer with the Kremlin, seat of the Bolshevik government at Moscow. This is unfortunate for progress, because the Soviet leaders at home are far more intransigent than those who have come into contact with Allied and European delegates and viewpoints here.

  The Russian difficulty is as follows:

  1—Through the initiative of Lloyd George, Russia and the Allies have been brought to a point where they agree in principle upon the following: (a) Russia will recognize her pre-war (czarist) debts; (b) A method for adjusting war debts and counterclaims has been worked out; (c) The Allies agree that if these matters are arranged, recognition of Russia, with a wiping clean of the Bolshevik past, can follow.

  2—The difficulty lies in the fact that Russia, when she had secured tentative agreement by the Allies as to the justice of the counterclaims by the Soviet for damage done by Denikin, Wrangel and others, made the bill so large that it outweighed the entire Russian war debt and left the Allies owing Russia money.

  3—Besides this, the first consideration of the Soviet delegation is to secure a large loan, and this is frowned upon by the Allies.

  There the Russian situation rests, with the next word due from the Soviet delegation. If that word constitutes a refusal to accept the Allied experts’ proposals, the conference may have to deal firmly with its Russian guests.

  GENOA.—Premier Facta of Italy, as president of the economic conference, issued a sudden summons this afternoon for a conference at 3 p.m., of the heads of the inviting powers now in Genoa. It is believed one reason for the calling of the conference was the announcement of the signing of the Russian-German treaty.

  The announced object of the meeting was to adjust by consultation the attitude of the Allies toward the Russian question. The Japanese were included in the invitation.

  German Machiavellianism

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 18, 1922

  GENOA.—The conference is wabbling like a ship in a hurricane. The Russo-German treaty, which is really a political alliance, is regarded by the Allies as a return to German Machiavellianism.

  German Blow—Disloyal?

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 18, 1922

  GENOA.—Corriere Mercantile, the first Italian paper to comment on the new agreement, says:

  “This is the most sinister blow Germany was able to deliver at the Allies. It constitutes the most striking act of disloyalty German diplomacy has ever accomplished. We express the most emphatic indignation against those abusing the Allies’ confidence. They have compromis
ed a situation founded upon a policy of peace.”

  The British delegation has not been far behind the French and Italians in expressing profound disapproval of the Russo-German treaty. Lloyd George was quoted as saying that Britain could only regard it as the first step toward a Russo-German alliance.

  The German treachery, for as such it is universally regarded, has unquestionably imperiled the very existence of the conference, delegates of many smaller nations agreed. The Little Entente of Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Rumania has joined in the chorus of disapproval.

  Barthou Refuses Conference

  The Toronto Daily Star

  April 18, 1922

  GENOA.—France will take no further part in conferences at Genoa with either Russia or Germany, Louis Barthou, head of the French delegation, declared today, if the treaty signed at Rapallo by Tchitcherin and Rathenau is not immediately abrogated.

  Allied leaders met at 11 o’clock. Other committee meetings were canceled in view of the importance of the decision to be taken regarding the Russo-German pact.

  Well-informed observers declared the Allied leaders considered the Treaty of Rapallo jeopardizes success of the entire conference.

  When the heads of the Allied delegations went into conference, Barthou was armed with instructions from his government declaring the agreement signed at Rapallo to be in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles.