I was rushed to the hospital of Ronchi, a few miles from the enemy trenches. Doctor Piccagnoni and other surgeons took care of me with the greatest zeal. My wounds were serious. The patience and ability of the physicians succeeded in taking out of my body forty-four pieces of the grenade. Flesh was torn, bones broken. I faced atrocious pain; my suffering was indescribable. I underwent practically all my operations without the aid of an anæsthetic. I had twenty-seven operations in one month; all except two were without anæsthetics.
This infernal life of pain lasted until a furious bombardment burst into pieces one wing and part of the central building of my hospital at Ronchi. All the wounded were rushed to a far-away refuge, but my condition would not permit my removal. Unable to move, I remained for days under the intermittent fire of the enemy guns among the dirty, jagged ruins of the building. I was absolutely defenseless.
From a photograph by A. Badodi, Milan.
A photograph of Mussolini in the war, published in the Popola d’Italia
Translation: The most recent snapshot of our editor and his captain taken at a point of the extreme lines on the Carso.
In spite of all, my wounds began to heal. Better days and relief came. I received numberless telegrams of solicitude and once His Majesty the King called; his warm sense of humanity toward all soldiers and toward the victims of the war will never be forgotten by me or by Italy.
After some months I found myself in a war hospital in Milan. In August I began to walk with crutches, on which I swung about for many months. My limbs were too weak to support my weight.
I took my place as a fighter in my newspaper office. The acute situation created by the incredible and inconceivable failure of the Russian front was putting upon us new duties. It was necessary to face them. To all this there was added a subtle propaganda in the land. That despicable poison had as a slogan the vile sentence of a Socialist member of parliament: “We will desert the trenches before the winter comes.”
There was need to fight to a finish these mysterious forces which were playing upon the sentiments and sufferings of the people. Soldiers, after a fortnight’s furlough, were returning to the trenches in a sullen frame of mind. Life in the cities had all the characteristics of revelry. It was the psychological moment in which it was necessary to have the people feel highly the strength of authority. It was necessary that the government should stand up in its shoes.