At night there reached me the first news of bloody clashes in Cremona, Alessandri and Bologna, and of the assaults on munition factories and upon military barracks. I had composed my proclamation in a very short and resounding form; it had impressed the whole of the Italian people. Our life was suddenly brought into an ardent atmosphere of revolution. News of the struggles that were taking place in the various cities, sometimes exaggerated by the imaginations of reporters, gave a dramatic touch to the revolution. Responsible elements of the country asserted that as a result of this movement there would at last be a government able to rule and to command respect. The great mass of the population, however, looked out astonished, as it were, from their windows.
None of the subversive or liberal chiefs showed himself. All went into their holes, inspired only by fear. They understood quite thoroughly that this was the striking of our hour. Every one felt sure that the struggle of Fascism would have a victorious outcome. I could sense this even from far away. The air was full of it. The wind spoke of it. The rain brought it down. The earth drank it in.
I put on the black shirt. I barricaded the Popolo d’Italia. In the livid and gray morning Milan had a new and fantastic appearance. Pauses and sudden silences gave one the sensation of certain great hours that come and go in the course of history.
Frowning battalions of Royal Guards scouted the city and the monotonous rhythm of their feet sounded ominous echoes in the almost deserted streets.
The public services functioned on a reduced and meagre scale. The assaults of the Fascisti against the barracks and on the post offices were cause for fusillades of shots, which gave to the city a sinister echo of civil war.
I had provided the offices of my newspaper with everything needful for defense against attack. I knew that if the government authorities desired to give a proof of their strength they would have directed their first violent assault at the Popolo d’Italia. In fact, in the early hours of the morning, I saw trained upon the offices and upon me the ugly muzzles of the mitrailleuses. There was a rapid exchange of shots. I had my rifle charged and went down to defend the doors. The neighbors had barricaded entrances and windows and were begging for protection.
During the firing bullets whistled around my ears.
A major of the Royal Guard finally asked for a truce in order to talk with me. After a brief initial conversation, we agreed that the Royal Guard should withdraw as far as two hundred metres and that the mitrailleuses were to be removed from the middle of the street and placed at a crossing of the street, about a hundred metres away. With that sort of armistice began for me the day of October 28th!
At night a group of deputies, senators, and political men of Milan, the best-known and most responsible figures of the Lombard parliamentary world—among whom were senators Conti, Crespi and the deputy De Capitani—came to the offices of the Popolo d’Italia to ask me to desist from a struggle which they asserted would be the beginning of a violent, grave and reprehensible civil war. They proposed to me a sort of armistice and a truce with the central government. Perhaps a ministerial crisis might save, they said, the situation and the country.
I smiled back at the parliamentarians because of their innocence. I answered them in words like these: