by Iris Origo
MAY 23RD
At the same time there is an emphatic re-affirmation of Italy’s “solidarity” with the victors. All that is happening, it is maintained, is the fruit of twenty-five years of criminal errors on the part of the democracies. Today, the anniversary of the Italo-German pact, the King presents Goering with the highest Italian honour, the Collare dell’Annunziata, which is equivalent to becoming the King’s cousin.
How much of all this produces the effect intended it is difficult to judge. Certainly there are dissentient voices. This afternoon we had a refreshing visit from a Colonel – a downright, choleric Romagnolo – who was looking for rooms for his family, in case of war, in Montepulciano. Crippled in the last war, his dislike of all Germans is intense and vehement. “A fine cousin for the King!” he remarks of Goering and “Raubkrieg”4 is his comment on the German successes. All the same, like every other military man, he is impressed by the brilliance and speed of the German tactics, and above all by the sheer quality and quantity of her war material – human and mechanical. “How can any of us stand up against her?” he asks. “For twenty years all her energies have gone to nothing else.” The thought of Europe dominated by Germany is repellent to him; yet he too feels that Italy must come in on her side. “We have no choice now.”
MAY 25TH
The Germans at Boulogne, and advancing towards Calais.
MAY 26TH
Another official festa, for the opening of the men’s club, the Dopolavoro. The Prefect comes, the Bishop, the Federale, and about 1000 dopolavoristi from all over the province. There is a children’s play, a basket-ball match, bowls, dancing, a movie… But it is not a festive occasion. Too much thunder in the air – and anxiety. The young man who has painted the stage scenery appears in a resplendent officer’s uniform, having spent the morning in Siena at a meeting of the volunteers for Spain and Africa. Intensely anti-German himself, like most of the volunteers in Spain, he tells me that the line taken at the meeting was to diminish the emphasis on the alliance with Germany. “When we fight, it will be for ourselves alone, for our full independence.” He does not seem very enthusiastic. Our local doctor, too, arrives in the deepest gloom, having just been called up – he is to be sent to Elba; and the maresciallo brings their summons to several of the peasants.
The news becomes more and more menacing. The Germans have taken Calais and are moving towards Dunkirk. The papers proclaim the “desperate plight of the Allied armies,” and repeat, as an acknowledged fact, the German accusation that Churchill is proposing to sink the President Roosevelt in order to bring America into the war.
We read these papers gloomily in the train, on our way to Rome. Our fellow travellers seem equally absorbed in their papers – and equally gloomy.
MAY 27TH
We return to Rome. After dinner we go for a stroll up Via Veneto and pause to look at the map. Suddenly two people – a man and a woman – come running up. “Quick, here!” says the man, and produces a bundle of leaflets; from under her coat the woman brings out a pot of paste. In a second the bill is posted up and they have run on; five minutes later the whole street is full of them. They are an appeal, signed by the “Lega Azzurra”, to Italians to come and free their brothers of Nice, Tunisia, Malta and Corsica.
MAY 28TH – 29TH
Woken by the telephone. It is Mary Senni ringing to tell me of the capitulation of Belgium. She has just heard on the radio Reynaud’s announcement and indictment of King Leopold’s surrender. The midday “special edition” of the Roman papers gives the same news, but defends the King. He has saved his people from a merciless massacre. The calumniating fury of France and England (Churchill is represented as “foaming at the mouth – a diabolic fury paralyzing his eloquence” Messaggero, May 29th) clearly proves the Allies’ intention of abandoning the Belgian Army to be massacred to cover their own retreat. The Allied position is depicted as desperate. The German advance represents “a new conquest due to the sublime spirit of self-sacrifice of the army of the Reich” (Piccolo, May 29th), while the Führer is declared to posses the “martial virtues” and “moral superiority” of Napoleon (Lavoro Fascista).
Most people, on reading all this, seem chiefly to be puzzled: they don’t know what to make of it. But in general there is approval of Leopold’s decision: “Why should the Belgians let themselves be massacred for the sake of France and England?” Reynaud’s indictment is considered violent and undignified. At the same time there is a general conviction that this is the moment that will be chosen for Italy’s intervention – and an uneasy feeling that it is not a very glorious one. “We’ll be sent to kill a dead man” says an officer uncomfortably. “Jackals, that’s what we are turning into,” says my old midwife, adding: “But I’d better shut up; I’ll get sent to the confino!”5
In private conversations, too, there is a marked change of tone since even a fortnight ago. Not only is everyone profoundly convinced of German invincibility, but, while there is still a remnant of sentimental sympathy for France, there is none for England. To the Fascists she is the personification of all they wish to destroy; to Liberals, a weak traitor. “It serves England right” says an old Liberal, once an ardent Anglophile. “For years we’ve all looked to her as the defender of international justice. And now she’s not had the strength to uphold it.”
Feeling anxious about my mother’s future position here, I try to get some information from the British and American Embassies. By the British, I am told that a veiled warning has been given by the Italians to get British citizens away; by the American, that they received a most definite order from Washington to pack off all Americans on the Manhattan on Saturday. At the Swiss legation I succeed in getting a special visa for both my mother and my stepfather, as invalids, to go to a clinic at Valmont; an ambulance carriage is granted by the Red Cross for next Tuesday.
The weekly official publication, Relazioni Internazionali, publishes (May 25th) a leading article titled “The decisive hour” which sets forth the official attitude. The approaching German invasion will mark the beginning of total British isolation. Germany is about to achieve her own. “The Italian people will break their chains in the Mediterranean… This is the time for radical solutions, the time to confirm the ideas of Mussolini’s revolution; there is no place now for cowards or for those suffering from perennial moral preoccupations. The decisive hour has come.”
JUNE 2ND
Last week, while both the English and Swiss radio stated that the negotiations between Sir Wilfred Greene, the British expert, and the Italian experts on the subject of contraband control, had led to “the establishment of a satisfactory basis for negotiation”, the Italian press did not even refer to such discussions having taken place. According to the American Ambassador, this is the story of the negotiations:
1) When the discussions between Sir Wilfred Greene and the Italian experts had reached the point of a satisfactory basis, the British expert was told that the matter could not be clinched as Ciano was away in Albania. The British delegation accordingly returned to London where (unwisely) the press made the announcement above mentioned. Whereupon Ciano, returning from Albania, sent for the British Ambassador, informed him that Mussolini was furious over this “breach of confidence” and, on this pretext, broke off the negotiations entirely.
2) Simultaneously François-Poncet, on the behalf of France, had been conveying conciliatory messages to the Duce. France, he said, was now willing to negotiate on all the main points of Italy’s claims: Tunisia, Corsica, Djibouti. He was also rebuffed.
3) Finally the American Ambassador, conveying two messages from Roosevelt to Mussolini, went still further in the effort towards conciliation. Already three weeks before he had conveyed a similar message, which had been received by Mussolini pleasantly if noncommittally. On this occasion the Duce had taken some trouble to outline, with moderation and calm, his grievances in the Mediterranean, and his views on “the new map of Europe”, which the Ambassador had repeated in full to the Pres
ident. Now Roosevelt’s message went over each of these points, going so far as to promise Mussolini Roosevelt’s full support with France and England in the attainment of his objects and guaranteeing Italy (if she refrained from intervention) a place among the Great Powers at the Peace Conference. This communication, which was received by Ciano, met with a curt refusal after a few days. Then Roosevelt followed it up by a second message, this time in a different tone. It contained, thinly veiled, several definite threats: if Italy intervened, her action would change the whole attitude of the US to the present conflict; she would then undoubtedly put all her resources immediately at the Allies’ disposal. This message was met, yesterday, with another rebuff – equally firm in its content and distinctly rude in its wording; moreover it was added that any further attempt at interference on the part of the President would have the opposite effect to that intended.
William Phillips, greatly indignant, now holds the view that all Mussolini’s avowed aims have been nothing but pretexts. In the last ten days he has been given the opportunity of achieving them all without bloodshed; and this opportunity he has rejected.
If indeed this is so, the interpretation is not far to seek. Mussolini, profoundly convinced of the inevitable defeat of England and France, is determined to seize this opportunity not only of realizing his original aspirations but of dealing a final and crushing blow to the democracies. He is aiming, not only at new territorial acquisitions, but at a new Europe. If this is so, it is clear that no concessions will be of the slightest use; the only thing that could possibly affect his decision might be an immediate military success of the Allies. Failing that, the date of Italy’s intervention can only be a matter of days.
JUNE 3RD
Today the papers are curiously colourless; obviously no further indication is to be given until Mussolini himself announces his intentions. But loudspeakers are being installed in the squares of every town and village.
I spend the day on the telephone, trying to obtain exit visas for my mother and my stepfather Percy, and writing last letters to England.
JUNE 5TH
Our fattore6 receives a telegram from the Siena authorities, instructing him to see that all the rural population be ready to flock to the nearest town or radio as soon as they are summoned. This can only mean a speech of Mussolini’s.
JUNE 6TH
Succeed at last in obtaining the visas for my family and they leave at midnight for Switzerland.
JUNE 7TH
Still no definite news. But the first outward signs of war reach our valley. In the early morning thirty-five bombers heading South fly over us, and in the afternoon about fifty military lorries, bound for the aviation camp at Castiglion del Lago, drive up the road from Rome. The peasants look up as they hear the rumble, say resignedly Ci siamo7 – and get back, while they can, to their hay.
The radio starts atrocity stories about the behaviour of the Allied troops in Belgium, including a detailed story of the “massacre” by French officers of some innocent Italian miners, and the statement that 1500 Belgian refugees have been murdered deliberately by British bombardments on the Belgian frontier. Such stories, however, don’t as yet go down well. Even two boys of sixteen and eighteen, who are staying here, merely shrug and say disgustedly: “Who do they expect to believe it?”
JUNE 9TH
The German advance on the Somme continues. In spite of a desperate stand, the Germans are rapidly gaining ground, and the Italian papers proclaim that another three days will see the fall of Paris. Meanwhile here we are still waiting. At mid-day, as we are sitting in the garden, comes a telephone message from Montepulciano: posters in the streets announce that today “at a time yet to be stated” the Italian people will hear an important announcement. We hurry to the radio for confirmation, but do not receive it. We wait all the afternoon, and eventually are given a detailed account of the Giro d’Italia bicycle race. By now my chief emotion – and I expect that of most other people – is exasperation.
Is it possible to move a country to war, against its historical traditions, against the natural instincts and character of the majority of its inhabitants, and very possibly against its own interests? Apparently it is possible. Today, four weeks after the German invasion of Holland and Belgium, it is evident that it is only a question of days before Italy comes in. In the interval, the nation’s mind has been prepared for war. To what extent has this preparation been successful? It is still difficult to say. In a people as profoundly individualistic and sceptical as the Italian, eighteen years of Fascism have not destroyed the critical spirit, and this is allied to an inborn fluidity and adaptability which causes them (now, as in the past) to interpret all general statements and theories in the light of the particular occasion and thus to attach no undue importance (especially where politics are concerned) to abstract formulas or absolute doctrines. Thus most Catholic Italians (though not all) in these last twenty years have not allowed themselves to be unduly dismayed by the abstract claims of the Fascist doctrine that the rights of the State should prevail over those of the Church, but have been content to accept the fact that, in actual practice, it has been easier in the last twenty years than in the fifty years of intense anti-clericalism after 1870, to bring up their children in a Catholic atmosphere at home. They are prepared to yield in principle, where they can gain in practice. And it is this same fluid adaptability (which, to those temperamentally opposed to it, seems a cynical opportunism) that has rendered possible the German alliance. The Axis – regarded purely as a temporary policy of self-interest, forced upon them by the “intransigent” attitude of the democracies – has been accepted by a people which, in accepting it, yet has not modified its instinctive antipathy for Germany, and for the barbaric and brutal aspects of the German Weltanschauung. The only exception to this point of view is to be found in the small group of young, restless and ambitious professional politicians, i gerarchi, who are out for nothing but an increase of their own personal power. Arrogant, half-educated (most of them self-made men), unscrupulous and sometimes corrupt, they represent the worst element in the country, and are regarded with contempt and disgust by the older men whom they have superseded and whose ideals they are betraying. Fascinated by German doctrines of force and violence and not afflicted, as they boast, by any old-fashioned scruples, they envisage the increase of German influence in Italy as likely to bring about an increase in their own power. It has been they who have been consistently in favour of the Axis and it is they, and they alone, who want intervention now. But they have youth, energy, unscrupulousness, on their side, and above all (although for different reasons) the Duce’s support.
What about the rest of the country? One is afraid to generalize and I can only, of course, speak of the comparatively small number of people with whom I have been in direct or indirect contact. But one thing has struck me equally in them all – from the peasant whose sons have been called up just before the harvest to the middle-aged officer who fought on the other side in the last war, from the university professor to the small shopkeeper: a curious, passive fatalism. They don’t pretend that they want the war; they freely admit that their admiration for Mussolini in these last nine months has been largely based on their belief in his ability to keep them out of it; yet, now that war is upon them, they are facing the prospect with this strange, melancholy acquiescence. (I must again repeat that I am only speaking of the people I have met; possibly in the industrial towns of the North the mood is entirely different.) It is not exactly patriotism. There is still, it is true, in some a blind, almost religious faith in the intuitions of the Duce. “He has led us wisely for eighteen years,” they say, “We can trust him now.” They maintain that Mussolini is a match for Hitler; that if he intervenes now, it will be not only to make use of the present chaos to obtain for Italy her independence in the Mediterranean, but eventually, when peace terms are being discussed, to throw in his weight against the establishment of a German hegemony in Europe. A few, too, who have been shocked by
the odious tone of the press, feel that it is more decent for Italy to come in, instead of merely yapping at Germany’s command. “We’ll fight our battles for ourselves.” But these are a minority. And under all the talk there is a deep, universal uneasiness.
JUNE 10TH
Well, it has come. In the morning we wake to the news that the Germans are within forty miles of Paris. At midday a telephone message from the Fascio of Chianciano orders us to summon all our peasants at 5 p.m. to the Dopolavoro, to hear the Duce speak. The radio is not yet installed in the Dopolavoro so we put ours in the loggia, and they all gather in the front garden: Antonio and G., S., the fattore and the keepers, the school teachers, the household, and about eighty peasants and workmen. “Attenzione!” brays the loudspeaker, “Attenzione!” I look at the listening faces. Except for a few boys, who think it a lark, they are all grave, expectant, anxious. “At six o’clock the Duce will speak from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia to the assembled Italian people.” Then the “Marcia reale” and “Giovinezza”. Nearly an hour more to wait. The tense faces relax, the crowd breaks up into little groups. The older men stand under the ilex trees, talking in low voices; some settle down on the steps of the loggia, open their baskets, munch a husk of bread, hand around their fiaschi; one group sits in a semi-circle on the gravel, playing cards. The radio plays a series of marches and patriotic airs. Antonio, G. and the keepers discuss the young partridges and the twin calves born that morning: one of them will not live. I join the teachers; we discuss how many evacuated children we could put up in the school. I go indoors again; a great bowl of delphinium and lupins take me back for a moment to an English garden. A whiff of jasmine blows in at the window. It is all curiously unreal and also boring. Then again “Attenzione, attenzione!” The men rise to their feet, shuffle closer to the radio. We hear the shouts of the crowd in Piazza Venezia, the cheering and the bands, and then (presumably as the scene is relayed to a German station) a harsh, guttural voice speaking German. At the incomprehensible sounds the men’s faces become blank and faintly hostile; Antonio makes a joke (I can’t hear what) and they all laugh. Then deafening cheers from the radio, presumably as the Duce appears on the balcony – and then his unmistakable voice: “Combattenti di terra, di mare, dell’aria,8 blackshirts of the revolution and of the legions, men and women of Italy, of the Empire, and of Albania, listen. An hour marked by destiny is crossing the sky of our country: the hour of an irrevocable decision. The Italian declaration of war has already been handed to the Ambassadors of Great Britain and France.” I look again at the listening faces. They wear the blank, closed look that is the peasant’s defence. Impossible to tell how much they have taken in or what they feel – except that it is not enthusiasm. The speech goes on, touching the familiar themes: sanctions, imprisonment in the Mediterranean, war between the poor and the rich peoples, between the young and the decadent. There is the affirmation, too, that Italy has done “all that was possible to prevent the storm”. But somehow none of it carries. The speaker’s voice is hoarse, strained; the applause, even from Piazza Venezia, sounds forced – very different from that which greeted last year’s speeches about Abyssinia or Munich. When at last it is over, there is a silence. Antonio says “Saluto al Re! Saluto al Duce!”9 The men salute automatically, without enthusiasm. Then they shuffle away in silence. We go back into the house and stand looking at each other. “Well, ci siamo!”10 says Antonio. “I’m going out to look at the wheat.” Flatly, gloomily, we go to fetch our hats and coats.