That article was published in the Popolo d’Italia on the eighteenth of February and ended in these precise words:
If the opposition to a war that is not only finished but was victorious is now a pretext for an ignoble doubt, then we who are not ashamed to have been interventiste, but feel the glory of our position, will shout to the heavens, “Stand back, you jackals!” No one shall separate the dead. They constitute a sacred heap, as big as a gigantic pyramid that touches the skies, a heap that belongs to nobody; nobody can give or take away from the dead. They do not belong to any party; they belong to the eternal motherland. They belong to a humanity too complex and too august to be put into any wine club or into the back room of some co-operative. This political stew is supremely ignominious. Must we be forced to defend our dead from filthy profanation? Oh, Toti! Roman! One man! Thy life and thy death is worth infinitely more than the whole Italian socialism! And you files on parade—innumerable heroes that wanted the war, knowing how to want war; who went to war knowing what was war; who went to death knowing what it meant to go to death—you, Decio Raggi, Filippo Corridoni, Cesare Battisti, Luigi Lori, Venezian, Sauro, Rismondi, Cantucci—you thousands and thousands of others that form the superb constellation of Italian heroism—don’t you feel that the pack of jackals is trying to rummage your bones? Do they want to scrape the earth that was soaked with your blood and to spit on your sacrifice? Fear nothing, glorious spirits! Our task has just begun. No harm shall befall you. We shall defend you. We shall defend the dead, and all the dead, even though we put dugouts in the public squares and trenches in the streets of our city.
That was a warning blast—a trumpet call. Many, hit in the face, fled. Some around us, trembling, thought of the danger that they might get into on account of such a polemic. But some others—not many—gathered around the old banner of my newspaper.
It was necessary to organize our resistance, to take care in discussions of international character, to strengthen our position on the front of internal politics, to be guarded from false friends, to fight false pacifists and to confound the false humanitarians. We had to make a general assault upon all that bundle of various degenerate tendencies;, diverse in their appearance but absolutely identical in their utter failure to understand the logical and absolute meaning of the victory in war.
Our delegation in Paris was in a sorry strait. The ability and the injustice of some of the Allied statesmen had almost strangled it. Owing to our internal situation, it was impossible for our delegation to take a firm stand with feet well-planted. The regions to be restored to Italy were in a state of restlessness that made many of us anxious.
What a grave moment! An action of a handful of us on the public square was not sufficient; there were so many different fronts where one had to fight. We who were to defend Italy from within had to create one more unbreakable unity of strength, a common denominator of all the old pro-war partisans and loyalists, of all those who felt, like myself, desperately Italian. Then it was that I decided, after days and nights of reflection, to make a call through the medium of my newspaper for a full stop in the stumbling career toward chaos.
And on the twenty-third of March, 1919, I laid down the fundamental basis, at Milan, of the Italian fasci di combattimento—the fighting Fascist programme.
The first meeting of the Italian battle Fascists took place on the Piazza S. Sepolero in Milan. It was in a hall offered to us by the Milan Association of Merchants and Shopkeepers. The permission was granted after a long discussion among the managers of the association. Common sense prevailed in the end; a guaranty was given that no noise or disorder would occur. On that condition we got what we wanted.
The meeting was of a purely political character. I had advertised in the Popolo d’Italia that it would have for its object the foundation of a new movement and the establishment of a programme and of methods of action for the success of the battle I was intending to fight against the forces dissolving victory and the nation.
I prepared the atmosphere of that memorable meeting by editorials and summonses published in the Popolo d’Italia. Anyhow, the ones that came were not numerous. One of my fighting friends of good will was in the hall and he took the names of those who were willing to sign up. After two days of discussion, fifty-four persons signed our programme and took the pledge to be faithful to the fundamental basis of our movement.