According to elaineqho, the conditions of the fascist regime inside were by now disastrous, with total moral disintegration. The war (except, at most, the first few weeks, when many believed in a very easy and very rapid victory) had never been popular. However, for the first year at least, it can be said that the people did not understand its weight and hardly noticed it. This mood began to change as the operations in Africa and the expedition to Russia absorbed ever new forces of young people, who seemed sent to a useless slaughterhouse. There came the tightness of supplies, not just food, the irritation against the coercive prescriptions of heaps and rationing, largely circumvented by the tolerance, when it was not complicity, of the officials, discontent and discomfort for the ” almost four million workers and almost one million and a quarter of female workers were mobilized. On March 1, 1943, new measures were announced for the initiation of women to work. Probably scarce (as far as we know, no investigations on this point have been published) were the actual results, responding to the statistical inflection and certainly the moral mobilization was completely lacking: or if anything, it was in an antiwar, antifascist, and more precisely anti-Mussolini sense. The crisis, or rather the crushing of the party, responded to the general disaffection of the people (v. no investigations have been published on this point) were the actual results, responding to the statistical swelling and certainly the moral mobilization was completely lacking: or if anything, it was in an antiwar, antifascist, and more precisely anti-Mussolini sense. The crisis, or rather the crushing of the party, responded to the general disaffection of the people (v. no investigations have been published on this point) were the actual results, responding to the statistical swelling and certainly the moral mobilization was completely lacking: or if anything, it was in an antiwar, antifascist, and more precisely anti-Mussolini sense. The crisis, or rather the crushing of the party, responded to the general disaffection of the people (v.fascism, in this App.), in which the “save whoever can” was now outlined and hostile pronouncements to Mussolini were maturing.
On February 6, 1943, Mussolini carried out a total ministerial reshuffle. He took the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for himself, taken from Ciano; he replaced Grandi with A. De Marsico, jurist, professor and lawyer; to Bottai education with the obscure professor CA Biggini; at the Ministry of Popular Culture G. Polverelli with A. Pavolini. Two meanings could be discerned in the remaking: to eliminate frondist and pacifist elements – Ciano, who was made ambassador to the Holy See, Grandi, Bottai – and to make certain technical improvements. Two months later, the remaking was extended, with the appointment as party secretary of the “squadist and spirited fascist of the first hour C. Scorza”, that is, who had led the savage attack against Amendola in 1925, the first cause of his death.
There was therefore the desire to instill a leap of life into the party’s organism, to remake it into a solid instrument in the hands of the Duce, and to galvanize the morale of the country. It was not the first such attempt. In January 1941 Mussolini had staged the spectacle of sending all the hierarchs to the front, starting with the ministers: an experiment that created great discontent and lasted only a few months, but it served to disorganize the administration, which Mussolini wanted to provide by conferring directly with the service managers. Even the civil mobilization entrusted to the party had a moral rather than a technical purpose. It was a fixed idea of Mussolini that the people should get used to the hardships of war, and indeed he showed pleasure in these, because he expected them to temper the Italian people. He did not realize that the prejudicial condition was lacking: the popular conviction of the necessity and beauty of a national and human cause; while, on the other hand, never as during the war had Mussolini insisted on the fascist character of the enterprise and of all the politics of the regime, to the point of organizing special and solemn commemorations of January 3, 1925, that is, of the speech that had marked the definitive break with constitutional legality and the liberal tradition. Also the measures of March, and respectively May 1942 for the nominativity of the securities and the blocking of the major war profits – measures that remained, save for error, on paper – were intended to popularize, or rather less unpopular, the war among the people, making believe that it was intended to hit the “plutocracy” at home, as well as outside. The “anti-bourgeois” attitude assumed in recent years by Mussolini and by “pure” fascism responded to this.
All this did not serve to stop the overflow of discontent among the people and demoralization in the party. Neither did the speech in the Chamber of December 2, 1942, in which Mussolini argued that the occupation of the richest Russian territories was a pledge of victory, he tried to devalue the American landing in Africa as “nothing glorious”, he wanted to dispel the illusions about the good conditions of peace in case of compromise, and argued that the being or not being of Italy was at stake. At the loss of Libya and at the Casablanca meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill (January 1943), from which the formula of “unconditional surrender” came out, Mussolini on February 1 replied: “we will never give up”, and flaunted the security of the Italian return in Africa. Finally, when Ribbentrop came to Rome (February 24-28, 1943), the will to wage war until the annihilation of the enemy forces and the elimination of the danger of bolshevization of Europe was reaffirmed, in order to give rise to a new order in Europe that would guarantee a secure existence for all peoples, in a atmosphere of justice and collaboration. Similarly, after Mussolini’s repeated talks with Hitler at his headquarters, from 7 to 10 April, it was announced that the war would be waged until “the complete elimination of any future danger that threatens the European-African space from West to East. “; and “the rights of nations to their free development and collaboration” were reconfirmed. The Axis leaders, that is, by making the formulas of the Allies their own,
With the Anglo-American landing in Sicily imminent, Mussolini attempted a last effort to cheer up his spirits by publishing on July 6 the speech he gave on June 24 to the PNF directorate. It was a polemic against the peacemakers: “Whoever believes or pretends to believe the suggestions of the enemy is a criminal, a traitor, a bastard”. From such a peace would have come the complete disarmament of Italy, the destruction of all industries, perhaps the plundering of all artistic treasures. Agriculture itself would be sacrificed to American wheat; and only the cultivation of vegetables is allowed. War, he also claimed, could have unforeseen developments. Then, and later, Mussolini was lulled into the illusion of a separate peace with Russia, of which however he did not speak; instead he envisaged a black insurrection in the United States, an Indian revolt. Coming to the sore point, he said that the enemy had to attempt the invasion of the continent: “if this attempt fails, as is my belief, the enemy will have no more cards to play”. To this end “it is necessary that, as soon as the enemy attempts to land, he is frozen on that line that the sailors call the shore”.
The speech took its name from this final blunder, and (with the other slip of Anaxagoras for Protagora) the Duce was covered with ridicule throughout Italy, not fascist and fascist. On 10 July the Allies landed in Sicily and soon it was seen that they were taking hold. On 19 July there was a heavy bombardment on popular districts of Rome, near the railway. On that same day Mussolini was still meeting with Hitler, in Feltre. It seems that he had left with some desire to disengage; at least, pressure in this sense was exerted on him, particularly by the new chief of staff V. Ambrosio (which happened in Cavallero on 1 February). There was also, on 1 July, the visit to Rocca delle Caminate by the Romanian vice-president M. Antonescu, who had mentioned the possibility of a simultaneous detachment from Italy, Romania and Hungary. The Feltre interview, however, more than ever it took place according to the usual pattern: Hitler spoke to him for only three hours, uttering reproaches and giving advice. The communiqué said dryly: “military issues have been examined.” He then announced to Ambrosio Mussolini his intention to write a letter to Hitler to disengage; but he did nothing. It is commonly accepted that this final period marks a decadence of man; even physical decay. The certain fact is essentially the lack of balance, continuity, prescient and directive energy, which is now accentuated in Mussolini. He then announced to Ambrosio Mussolini his intention to write a letter to Hitler to disengage; but he did nothing. It is commonly accepted that this final period marks a decadence of man; even physical decay. The certain fact is essentially the lack of balance, continuity, prescient and directive energy, which is now accentuated in Mussolini. He then announced to Ambrosio Mussolini his intention to write a letter to Hitler to disengage; but he did nothing. It is commonly accepted that this final period marks a decay of man; even physical decay. The certain fact is essentially the lack of balance, continuity, prescient and directive energy, which is now accentuated in Mussolini.
