We entered another phase of defeatism.
In 1920 there was adopted among the railway employees the systematic practice of preventing the movement of trains carrying soldiers, carabinieri or policemen. Sometimes a similar policy extended also to the clergy. Against this inconceivable abuse of power, I alone protested. The Italian people were suffering passively from a stupid conception of their opportunities and from blindness which closed their eyes to their own power and pride. Those who dared to resist and were critical of the bureaucracy or of government policy were persecuted by the government itself.
There was the incident of the station master of Cremona, Signor Bergonzoni, which fell within my observation. He, by an energetic act, ordered the railway men subject to his authority to hook onto a train a car conveying some troops to Piacenza. For this episode, exhibiting the most ordinary case of regularity in routine, the Railway Syndicate, dominated by Socialists, demanded of the Ministry of Public Works the dismissal of the station master, Bergonzoni. And because the ministry by its firmness rejected this demand of the syndicate, Milan, which had nothing to do with all this matter, had imposed upon it a railway strike lasting thirteen days. Milan, a city of 900,000 inhabitants, choked by an enormous traffic, found itself incommunicado from its suburbs and the whole world. It was thrown back on the use of stage coaches, autos, camions, and was obliged to use even the small boats along the Naviglio River.
Milan, our greatest modern city, was in the power of political anarchy. Those same military forces who would have been able easily to take the situation in hand and dominate it were put at the mercy of the local authorities. They were even obliged to ask the authorities for the flour to make bread for the troops! The stations, situated at the boundaries of the district of Milan, had in store heaps on heaps of goods; of course these stores decayed or deteriorated and were at the mercy of ware-house and freight-car robbers. At length, after thirteen days, on the morning of June twenty-fourth and after a meeting on behalf of the striking railway employees during which there was a fusillade of firearms, with dead and wounded, the railway men, overpowered by the indignation which had spread through the whole body of citizens, were convinced that it was better to return to work. But the state’s authority was dead; it was now ready for the grave.
The Giolitti ministry muddled amid a quantity of financial difficulties. Giolitti himself hoped to be able to appease the Socialists with the project of general confiscation of all war profits, and still more with a plan to institute a strong tax on hereditary succession. This latter measure, wholly socialistic, would have annihilated the family conception of a patrimonial line. It would have threatened the rights of an owner to bequeath to his heirs his riches with his name. It had consequences which were not only economic but also moral and social. Capital as an institution is only in its infancy; the right of disposal is necessary to foster the functioning and development of this instrument of ambition, of human welfare and of civilization.
In international policy, Count Sforza, Minister of Foreign Affairs, concluded the agreement of Spa, signed the protocol of Tirana with the renunciation of Valona and Albania, signed the weak treaty of Sèvres with Turkey, and prepared by fits and starts to attempt an end also of the question of Fiume. This last happened at the conclusion of the treaty of Rapallo.
The application of the pact of London, by which Dalmatia was assigned to Italy, seemed to have been twisted without a single justifiable reason into something not to be argued. And Senator Scialoia, a gentleman of the old stamp, said amid the weak voices of the senate that the London treaty “has continually been tricked out of force and effect by those who are themselves Italians.”
Believing with all my being that it was necessary to stop the flood of decadence in our foreign policy, I began to use our Fascisti organization and the Popolo d’Italia. I tried to raise some dikes. It was difficult to hold back the dirty water. There was a tendency to go toward communism whatever the cost. The power of Lenin—I admit it—had assumed a quality of potency only paralleled in mythology. The Russian dictator dominated the masses. He enchanted the masses. He charmed them as if they were hypnotized birdlings. Only some time afterward did the news of the dreadful Russian famine, as well as the information furnished by our mission which had gone to Russia to study Bolshevism, open the eyes of the crowd to the falsity of the Russian paradise-mirage. Enthusiasm ebbed away little by little. Finally Lenin remained only as a kind of banner and catchword for our political dabblers.
The aviation fields of Italy had been closed, the machines were being dismounted. There had been, however, some attempts to engage in civil aviation. One of the most unhappy and dramatic episodes of that time came out of the sky above Verona. Returning from a trip to Venice, a big airplane fell upon the city. The mishap caused the death of sixteen persons, including the pilots. Among the dead there were several journalists from Milan. The tragedy affected all Italy. Mourning was general. But to my horror the authorities seized this opportunity to abandon discussion of aviation and to dismantle the few machines, motors and wings which were left.
It was just at that period that I wanted to take lessons to become a pilot. The machine which crashed in Verona had been guided by a neighbor of my birthplace, Lieutenant Ridolfi. His body was carried to the churchyard of Forli. I had gone to Forli for a rest, with some political friends. My reception in my own home district had been cold and even hostile. My efforts to be agreeable and my willingness to learn to fly just after Ridolfi had lost his life seemed to be quite wasted. Anything in those days that did not have a material value seemed to be superfluous. Those were years when men’s hearts were gray. For the same reason the state for which Gabriele d’Annunzio was preparing a durable form in Fiume did not catch the imagination of mankind.