My presence redoubled the great enthusiasm. I read in the eyes of those young men the divine smile of triumph of an ideal. With such support I would have felt inspired to challenge, if need be, not only the base Italian ruling class, but enemies of any sort and race.
In Rome an indescribable welcome awaited me. I did not want any delay. Even before making contacts with my political friends I motored to the Quirinal. I wore a black shirt. I was introduced without formalities into the presence of His Majesty the King. The Stefani agency and the great newspapers of the world gave stilted or speculative details about this interview. I will limit myself, for obvious reasons of reserve, to declare that the conference was characterized by great cordiality. I concealed no plans, nor did I fail to make plain my ideas of how to rule Italy. I obtained the Sovereign’s approbation. I took up lodgings at the Savoy Hotel and began to work. First I made arrangements with the general command of the army to bring militia into Rome and to have them defile in proper formation in a review before the King. I gave detailed and precise orders. One hundred thousand black shirts paraded in perfect order before the Sovereign. They brought to him the homage of Fascist Italy!
I was then triumphant and in Rome! I killed at once all unnecessary demonstrations in my honor. I gave orders that not a single parade should take place without the permission of the General Fascist Command. It was necessary to give to everybody from the first moment a stern and rigid sense of discipline in line with the régime that I had conceived.
From a photograph by Strazza.
King Victor Emmanuel III and Mussolini.
I discouraged every manifestation on the part of army officers who wanted to bring me their plaudits. I have always considered the army outside and above every kind of politics. The army must, in my opinion, be inspired by absolute and conscientious discipline; it must devote itself, with the deepest will, only to the defense of frontiers and of historical rights. The army is an institution which must be preserved inviolate. It must not suffer the slightest loss in its integrity and in its high dedication.
But other and more complex problems surged about me at that moment. I was in Rome not only with the duty of composing a new ministry; I had also firmly decided to renew and rebuild from the very bottom the life of the Italian people. I vowed to myself that I would impel it toward higher and more brilliant aims.
Rome sharpened my sense of dedication. The Eternal City, “caput mundi,” has two Courts and two Diplomacies. It has seen in the course of centuries imperial armies defeated under its walls. It has witnessed the decay of the strong, and the rise of universal waves of civilization and of thought. Rome, the coveted goal of princes and leaders, the universal city, heir to the old Empire and the power of Christianity! Rome welcomed me as leader of national legions, as a representative, not of a party or a group, but of a great faith and of an entire people.
I had long meditated my action as a man of party and as a man of government. I had carried these thoughts as I walked by day and even as I slept by night. I had won and could win more. I could have nailed my enemies to the wall, not only metaphorically but in very fact if I had wished—those enemies who had slandered Fascism and those whom I hated for having betrayed Italy in peace as they had betrayed her in war.