In 1926, in the month of April, when I inaugurated the International Congress of Medicine, a crazy and megalomaniac woman of English nationality, exalted by fanaticism, came near my motor car and at close range fired a shot that perforated my nostrils. A centimeter’s difference and the shot might have been fatal. It was, as I said, a mad, hysterical woman, led on by elements and persons never clearly identified.
I abandoned her to her destiny by putting her beyond the frontier, where she could meditate on her failure and her folly.
Just after the occurrence, before my nose was out of its dressings, I was speaking to a meeting of officials from all parts of Italy. I felt impelled to say, “If I go forward, follow me; if I recoil, kill me; if I die, avenge me!”
Another attempt which might have had grave results was that of an anarchist, called Lucetti, who had come back from France with his soul full of hate and envy against Fascism and against me. He waited for me in the light and large Via Nomentana, in front of Porta Pia. He was able to meditate his crime in silence. He had been eight days in Rome and carried powerful bombs. Lucetti recognized my car, while I was going to the Palazzo Chigi, and as soon as he saw it he hurled at me the infernal machine, which hit an angle of the car and bounced back on the ground, exploding there after I had passed. I was not wounded, but innocent people were hurt and taken to the hospital.
When arrested, the miserable man could justify his crazy act only by his anti-Fascist hate. I did not attach a great importance to the episode. Having to meet the English ambassador, I went directly to the Palazzo Chigi and the conversation with the foreign diplomat continued calmly enough until a great popular demonstration in the streets interrupted us. Only then the English ambassador, somewhat amazed, learned of the attempt against my life.
The last attempt was made on October 31st, 1926. It was in Bologna, after I had lived a day full of life, enthusiasm and pride.
A young anarchist, egged on by secret plotters, at a moment when the whole population was lined up for the salute, came out from the ranks and fired a gun at my car. I was sitting near the “Podesta” of Bologna, Arpinati. The shot burned my coat, but again I was quite safe. The crowd, in the meanwhile, seized by an impulse of exasperated fury, could not be restrained. It administered summary justice to the man.
Other attempts were baffled. The exasperation was now surpassing any limit. I understood that it was time to stop the doleful game of the adversaries. The secret societies, the opposition press, and deceitful political cults had only one aim: it was to hit the chief of Fascism, so that all Fascism should be hit. The entire movement that dominated Italy they believed turned on one pivot, on a name, on a lone man. All the adversaries, from the most hateful ones to the most intelligent, from the slyest ones to the most fanatical, thought that the only way of destroying Fascism was to destroy its chief. The people themselves perceived this and demanded grave punishments for the criminals. The exasperated Fascists wanted to admonish all those who were conspiring in the darkness.
A policy of force was absolutely necessary. I took over the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and launched the laws for the defense of the régime, laws which were to constitute the one essential basis for the new unified national life.
I abolished the subversive press, whose only function was to inflame men’s minds. Provincial commissions sent to confinement professional subversives. Not a day goes by that we do not feel in Italian life how much good has been wrought by these measures against the forces of disintegration, disorder and disloyalty.