Il Duce and His Women

by Roberto Olla

  Rome, 29th September 1923. Today at 13.00 the director general of the Bank of Italy has informed the Ministry for Foreign Affairs that it has received a telegram from the National Bank of Switzerland, authorizing the Bank of Italy to transfer to the Italian Treasury, on behalf of the Greek government, the sum of fifty million lire received in deposit. With this transfer of money the crisis, at least from the financial point of view, is definitively resolved. It has also been agreed that the Italian government will continue to make diplomatic efforts to persuade the Greek government to track down and punish the perpetrators of the atrocious massacre which took place at Ioannina. In proof of the fact that the Italian government, in asking for and obtaining the sum of fifty million lire, was not guided by its own financial interests but wished to impose a sanction for reasons of political morality, His Excellency the Prime Minister of Italy has issued instructions that ten million lire immediately be placed at the disposition of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to distribute in aid to the Greek and Armenian refugees from Asia Minor who are now in Corfu and elsewhere in Greece.14

  Public opinion and a majority of the parliamentary deputies backed Mussolini’s show of strength, and saw it as evidence that Italy was beginning to play a role once more in the Mediterranean – the Romans’ mare nostrum – as a sphere of influence which it was entitled to dominate after its victory in the war. There was a wide social consensus backing Mussolini’s actions: the man of strength was seen as making the entire nation strong. “The Fascist government strives to give Italy and all Italians in the Old and the New Worlds, wherever their energetic wanderings have taken them, a strong sense of being Italian, directed but also supported by a strong government. The occupation of Corfu, though the event itself played out rapidly, was nevertheless a worthy and indispensable consequence of this new sense of pride in Italy’s reacquired dignity.”15

  The admiration for Mussolini’s show of strength was marked by his receipt of some unusual gifts. Cesira Carocci opened the door of the apartment in Via Rasella to take delivery of one; for a moment she didn’t realize what was happening. An enormous cat leapt on her and then ran into the house. She fainted, and it was only after she came round that she found out a circus owner had decided to present Mussolini with a female lion cub. The Duce called her “Italia”, arranged living quarters for her in the drawing room and started to talk about what she got up to as if she were a puppy rather than a lion cub. The news spread through the whole country, and in his enthusiasm Mussolini took to walking her on a lead through the streets of Rome. He boasted he could control her merely through the power of his gaze. Nevertheless, neither his housekeeper nor his mistress was pleased with the gift: Cesira thought that the animal would dirty the house, and Margherita Sarfatti thought it would make Mussolini look ridiculous. One day Italia tore one of Mussolini’s leather jackets to shreds and, finally realizing he wasn’t dealing with a puppy, he reluctantly had her transferred to the Rome zoo. He continued to pay her visits; he would enter her cage to touch her and come out thinking he smelt like a lion. Sarfatti added the image to the myth she was constructing in her biography. Many years later Mussolini recalled the lion in talking to Petacci: “She was beautiful. When I entered her cage, pam! – she would stand up on her hind legs and put her front paws on my shoulders and start digging her claws in. Then I would suddenly wrestle her to the ground. There were always people watching, they would be frightened, and the women would scream when she jumped up.”16

  Mussolini enjoyed another opportunity to play the strong man on the international stage when he secured, in March 1924, the definitive integration of Fiume into Italian national territory. The King awarded him the Order of the Annunziata, the highest honour he could bestow, for this widely acclaimed achievement. The success not only bolstered his growing reputation but occurred on the eve of the general election on 6th April. Mussolini had been responsible for the idea that the Fascists should present a single countrywide list of candidates – known as the “big list” – and made sure that his approval was needed for all the names on it. Naturally much was made of his international successes in Corfu and Fiume during the campaign, while Fascist violence against the opposition parties increased even further in intensity. Democrats, Socialists, members of the People’s Party and even dissident Fascists were attacked, beaten up and sometimes murdered. Hundreds of trade-union and party offices and associations were destroyed. The forces of public order were sent in to break up political meetings. In a particularly notorious incident, one of the opposition’s most distinguished figures, Giovanni Amendola, was attacked and beaten to within an inch of his life.

  A few days before the election, Mussolini went on a visit to Milan, officially to take charge of the local campaign in the city. Cesare Rossi paints a different picture:

  Mussolini was going through one of his not infrequent phases of sexual excitement, during which he paid scarce attention to government business and then only with the greatest reluctance. He chose to sleep in the prefecture rather than with his family in their new apartment in Via Mario Pagano. He spent every evening with Margherita Sarfatti until the exasperated Rachele decided to take herself off to Forlì, together with the little Bruno. […] Dr Binda, a friend of the family as well as their doctor, called on me and told me without explaining why that I should leave immediately for Forlì. […] I thought some argument must have broken out in the local party over the distribution of the preferential votes – the ras hated elections and always got worked up at any threat to their status and the little fiefdoms they controlled – but he then clarified: “Signora Mussolini has stormed off, you must go and bring her back.”17

  Mussolini was present in the room when this conversation took place; although he was not part of it, he immediately caught its drift and going over to the two men stopped them from doing anything to bring Rachele back. He told them not to worry, that his wife would return of her own accord. It was just one of her usual fits of unreasonable jealousy. Mussolini was completely unconcerned about any possible effects such a domestic scandal might have on his electoral prospects. He had secured considerable financial backing for an aggressive electoral campaign from industrialists and landowners. He was also using his private militia, though he took care not to be seen to be involved personally in what they got up to. He easily won the election with his “big list”: out of seven million votes cast he received 4,653,488, to which he was able to add 347,000 from other Fascist splinter groups. Under the new electoral system introduced with the Acerbo law, Mussolini ended up with 375 deputies in parliament, against only 161 for all the opposition parties put together. It didn’t escape Mussolini’s attention that the opposition had won the majority of votes in the north of the country, from the workers in the industrial heartlands of Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and the Veneto. The spread of violence had served his purpose, but at the same time had strengthened the position of his internal opponents within the party, the local ras who sent their squads to carry out attacks and then arranged for the murderers to evade justice.

  As prime minister Mussolini now enjoyed an unprecedented parliamentary majority, but he was also exposed to divisions within the Fascist Party. He started to send covert signs to the opposition parties that he was interested in creating openings for them in his government, even with a position for a leading socialist figure such as Turati. The King, Victor Emmanuel, was aware of Mussolini’s efforts once more to adjust the balance of the party towards the left, as his son, the future Umberto II, in an interview given long after the fall of the regime, recalls him saying:

  I knew what was going on, and I must say I wouldn’t have been scandalized if he had succeeded. The future for Italy would have turned out very differently without a doubt. Nor would my father when he was king have been dismayed – the word socialism, in the constitutional sense, didn’t frighten him. The entry of socialists into the Fascist government would have benefited enormously the great mass of workers, who would no longer have been
vulnerable to political exploitation by revolutionaries and who would have seen their role in the country’s economy recognized on a par with that of the entrepreneurs. I believe that Mussolini by then had given up all thought of revolution, except when it came in useful in his speeches, and had opted instead for a cautious process of gradual reform in order to avoid putting the fragile recovery of the country’s economy at risk. It was unfortunate that not all his associates, as you know, agreed with his point of view…18

  Mussolini’s contacts with reformist socialists – in the Partito Socialista Unitario (United Socialist Party), which had split from the Italian Socialist Party in 1922 – proceeded cautiously, with secret agreements and official denials. Some among the United Socialists started to demand that Mussolini “lay his cards out on the table”, in other words that formal negotiations should be opened so it could be seen what the government’s real intentions were in the matter. Unconfirmed rumours abounded as Mussolini held meetings with Bruno Buozzi and other leading Socialists and the more extremist factions among the Fascists grew increasingly restive. Other figures were brought into the party, D’Annunzio among them. A trade-union delegation went to visit him at his home in Gardone in the hope that his presence might help to bring about a reunification of the country’s unions, much to the alarm of a Fascist like Roberto Farinacci, who feared the potential effects of D’Annunzio’s prestige. Farinacci declared that any move towards a united trade-union front could only come about if all other political forces “unilaterally” agreed to submit to the Fascists in power.

  Mussolini was on an official visit to London at the time, but was kept informed of what was going on around D’Annunzio. In September 1923 he had assigned a police officer, Giovanni Rizzi, to watch over D’Annunzio, ostensibly to protect him but in reality to spy on him and report back on his activities. The reaction of some elements in the Fascist Party to what was happening forced Mussolini to intervene before the situation got out of hand and he was no longer able to control it. While still in London, he issued an official denial that he was seeking a political agreement with the Socialists and declared that he would block any move towards trade-union unification, but back in Italy he once more started to make tentative approaches towards the opposition and even hinted at what he was doing in speeches in the Chamber. But these attempts came up against two strong opposing forces: the by now familiar intransigence of the extreme right-wing Fascists, the ras, and a new opposition from the left-wing, organized round the dynamic figure of the United Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti. In the interview with Ludwig, Mussolini complained that “[he] had accepted democracy on its own terms and held out to the Socialists the possibility of their joining the government. Turati, who’d just died, might have agreed, but once again the Waldensians and the rest of them let the opportunity slip by, as they had on all the other occasions, because of their obstinate refusal.”19

  Under Matteotti’s leadership the socialists’ opposition to Mussolini was becoming more outspoken and defiant: it was not just a question of being prepared to fight in defence of the principles of liberty, justice and democracy; they also launched a fierce attack on the regime and its financial supporters in the business world, an attack which had the potential to become the focus for a new wave of organized anti-Fascist protest. On 30th May 1924 Matteotti made what was to be his last speech in parliament, attacking the results of the elections and demanding they were declared invalid; he put the motion to the vote amid tumultuous scenes of shouting and abuse from the deputies. Matteotti’s proposal was clearly intended as a provocation, and as such succeeded: he intended to demonstrate to the Fascists that the opposition had roused itself from its stupor after the March on Rome and that he personally would block the participation of any Socialist in Mussolini’s government. And this was not all: Matteotti was prepared to launch a series of new and well-founded accusations against the government and its backers. Many years later, in the final period in Salò, Mussolini recalled these days in talking to the doctor Hitler had sent to look after him, Georg Zachariae: “I hoped that the Socialist Party under Matteotti would join my government: I knew many of them, and it was my belief that with their energy they had a lot to contribute to the Fascist movement. My contacts with them were very close, so close that I hoped it was only a matter of days before I could greet some of them as colleagues round the cabinet table.”20

  Matteotti had already been attacked violently by Fascist squads. He had been subjected to torture and sexual abuse, but refused to be silenced. On the contrary he had already declared he would give a speech in parliament denouncing the links between Fascist politicians and the world of business and finance which Mussolini had created. But he never gave it: on 10th June 1924, in the centre of Rome, near the Tiber, he was kidnapped by a squad of Fascist thugs under the command of Amerigo Dumini. They were members of a newly formed secret corps which had been created in the wake of the elections on 6th April, apparently after Mussolini had remarked that the party needed an internal police force. How this internal corps was organized and who belonged to it have never been properly clarified. It was known as the Fascist Cheka, after the name of the Bolshevik secret police. Mussolini always denied its existence while at the same time Cesare Rossi, his right-hand man – and the head of the party’s press office – was secretly setting it up, recruiting its members and planning its first operations. At half-past four on that June afternoon, Dumini, one of Rossi’s close collaborators, and other members of the Cheka forced Matteotti into a car that belonged to the editor of the newspaper Corriere italiano, Filippo Filippelli. Matteotti disappeared, never to return. The opposition rose up in protest. Many Fascists left the party. What was left of the free press launched an attack. Mussolini was increasingly isolated, his regime tottered, and the country held its breath.

  Chapter 14

  The Art of Power

  The weather had turned bad: it was sultry, the sky was livid. And it kept getting worse. If only one of those summer storms would come – a torrential downpour, announced by a couple of gusts of wind, followed by a sudden darkness, and then echoing crashes of thunder and a deluge of rain which cleans the streets. Instead the tension remained in the air. He wished he could disappear. A chauffeur sees and hears everything, and yet must become invisible at the steering wheel when necessary. But he couldn’t. He had to keep an eye on his boss, who for some days now had been going around with a grim face, as if ready for a funeral or a fight, sitting alone on the back seat. The police escort car behind them kept a discreet distance, disappearing for a moment every time they went round a corner and then suddenly reappearing. The policemen placed at regular intervals along the route looked bored, but always turned to take a close look at the car as it sped by. As soon as he opened the door for his important passenger to get in the car, Boratto had smelt his bad breath and put it down to problems with digestion. He’d been like this for a week; the halitosis was strong enough now for Boratto to smell it from his seat in front. As the car drove towards the parliament building, turning the first bend in the Via Veneto, he looked in the rear mirror and no longer saw him in the back. He slowed down so he could turn round and take a proper look. Mussolini had slumped to his knees with his face barely raised. His skin was grey, his mouth was set and his eyes squeezed tight as if in pain. He tried to get up, pressing both hands down on his stomach. Boratto stopped the car, the police escort drew up alongside immediately. Mussolini didn’t even see his chauffeur’s hand stretched out to help him. As he slowly fell to his knees again, he vomited. He tried to hold back but couldn’t. Boratto saw he had vomited blood and realized he needed to be got home as soon as possible. He gave him his own handkerchief, placing it over his knees, got back in and drove off. It was difficult to get him out of the car as he was bent double – Boratto called Cesira down to help him. Under the protection of the police escort, the chauffeur and the housekeeper practically carried him up to his bedroom, where he lost consciousness. His condition seemed serio
us, and two eminent specialists were called to the house, Giuseppe and Raffaele Bastianelli. When Cesira had called them, they had told her not to wash anything and to leave everything as it was. When they came, they carried out a thorough examination – of the handkerchiefs, his faeces, which were as black as coffee grounds, and the traces of blood in his vomit. They pronounced that he had a duodenal ulcer. Margherita Sarfatti, the only woman apart from Cesira who’d been allowed by his bedside, asked for a second opinion from another specialist, Professor Aldo Castellani, who was also a senator, and wrote off alarmed letters to the minister in charge of Internal Affairs, Luigi Federzoni, telling him how anxious she was. She also brought a famous Jewish doctor, Bellom Pescarolo, to come and see him, another senator. “The problem was his digestion, which he always maintained he had ruined by eating tinned meat during the First World War. After lunch, tea or dinner he would literally be bent in two with stomach cramps. He used to say that the only way to alleviate them was to stretch out on the floor.”1

  Mussolini suffered from ulcer problems for a long time. In the search for specialists to treat him, Alice De Fonseca Pallottelli also became involved, as Gianni Scipione Rossi has shown: “It is somewhat curious that on 26th November 1926 it was Alice and not Margherita who asked Castellani to intervene. Both women seem genuinely worried and express their concern in very similar terms, almost as if – but it can only be speculation – there had been some communication between them. […] It is obvious that Alice’s concerns, like those of Sarfatti’s, are both personal and political. But it is not easy to penetrate the mystery that surrounds her.”2