At Triest, a city dear to every Italian, which had always kept alive the flame of faith and enthusiasm, a great Fascist meeting was held. At the head of the Triest Fascists was Giunta, a member of the Italian Chamber and an ardent and valiant Fascist from the first call to action. He knew, in various circumstances, how to raise formidable barriers against this Slavic inroad and against the stupidity of the men who had taken authority in Triest. The gathering was held at the Rossetti Theatre. There I spoke. I set forth our fundamental principles, not only for the Fascists but for all those who were interested in a new and complete Italian policy. After a panoramic examination of the knotty problems which at that time were vexing Italian foreign policy, I demanded a complete, definite withdrawal of the Rapallo Treaty by which Sforza and Giolitti had signed away Fiume. I acknowledged, none the less, the impossibility of setting oneself, at that moment, against the tragic consequences of the treaty—the fruit of a long disintegration fostered by those who had led us into a morass.
“The fault of the renunciation,” I affirmed, “is not to be attributed entirely to the negotiators at the last hour; the renunciation had been perpetrated already in parliament, in our journalism, even in a university where a professor has published books—translated, of course, at Zagabria—in order to demonstrate according to his style of thinking that Dalmatia is not Italian!
“The Dalmatian tragedy lies in this ignorance, this bad faith and utter incomprehension. We hope to put a stop to these grotesque errors by our future work. We will know, love and defend Italian Dalmatia.
“The treaty signed, it was possible to make it void by one of the following means: Either a foreign war or by insurrection at home. Both are absurd! It is impossible to excite the man in the street against a treaty of peace after five years of bloody calvary. Nobody is able to perform a miracle!
“It was possible to awake in Italy a revolution in favor of the intervention, but in November, 1921, it was not possible to think of a revolution in order to annul a peace treaty which, good or bad, has been accepted by ninety out of every hundred of Italians.”
Having delineated clearly the uncertain and transitory position in which Italy found herself at that time in respect to the Fiume tragedy and herself, having shown the impossibility of creating a revolution which would have been premature and condemned to failure, I laid down and fixed by firm, precise tacks and nails what was to be the political programme of the Fascists in 1921.
“From these general premises,” I said, “it follows that the Italian Bundles of Fight should ask:
“First, that the treaties of peace be re-examined and modified in parts which are revealed as inapplicable or the application of which can be a source of hatred and incentive to new wars;
“Second, the economic annexation of Fiume to Italy and the guardianship of Italians living in Dalmatian countries;
“Third, the gradual disengagement of Italy from the group of the Occidental plutocratic nations by the development of our productive forces at home;