Week 5

For around a month we covered some ground on the events of Caporetto and the reaction of the Italian society and political world, paying closer attention to the interventionist field. Well rooted in the middle of that field – even if he had no proper political role at the time – stood Benito Mussolini. A former Socialist leader, supporter of the intransigent wing at the Reggio Emilia Congress in 1912, vehemently opposed to the Libyan War, he had turned around during the polemic battle over the Italian Intervention, with the foundation of his newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, provoking his expulsion from the Socialist Party and following then – during the 1915-17 years – on interventionist positions. Like many other interventionists, Mussolini had volunteered persistently and finally obtained to join the Army around the time his class was to be re-drafted (Mussolini was over 30 years old at the time, having escaped military service early in the century) – from the front, he had continued the opinion battle in favor of the War with a series of general pieces and a war diary; he had thus became well known, both to the public – who had an obvious interest in war correspondence – and within the Italian establishment. His reputation had also improved to some extent, due to his good state of service^1 .

If we follow De Felice in one of his most controversial^2 points; between the end of 1917 and the end of 1918 […] in Mussolini's political position, an extremely significant evolution took place […] the most decisive of his life. […] From November 1914 up until Caporetto, Mussolini was […] a “socialist sleeper”, yet still a socialist. The fact that he had been expelled from the Socialist Party, and that he argued, sometimes with extreme violence, against it, is non enough to maintain that in that period of time he wasn't really a socialist. Deep in the roots of his political and psychological mindset he remained a socialist, like many others that the war had driven out of the party. The logic of the war […] brought in the front of the scene the interventionist but did not erase the socialist.

Two and a half years of Italian participation to the European war and, most of all, the crisis around Caporetto had proven to him the weakness – the non existence even, behind the rhetoric patterns and propaganda […] - of interventionism [as a single political force]. […] From there his political instinct prevented him from committing himself to any specific group […] and pushed him to distance himself from socialism and to look beyond it […] inside the formula of a new society of the veterans/fighters and producers [that he would summarize with the key concepts of trencherism and trench aristocracy]

In the face of immdediate danger, for Mussolini a reaction was necessary. Not unlike the other interventionists, he identified two main lines of action: a land reform – summarized by the formula of the “land to the veterans” - and strong measures against the sources of defeatism within the Army and the Country.

The first point, which gained popularity among the interventionist field around the time of Caporetto, was discussed by Mussolini in the pieces^3 of November 16^th (Patria e terra – Land and Homeland) and November 20^th (La Patria ai combattenti – Give the Homeland to the veterans) where he stated that, as the agrarian classes were the most touched by the war effort and also the most susceptible to defeatist propaganda, the way of tying the land workers to the Nation was to give the land to the peasants; in fact, he argued, think of the huge impact that a formal promise mad by the Government would have on those workers still in the fields, that would make them see close – as an internal gain from a victorious war – the realization of that dream that has tormented for centuries the soul of the peasant: ownership of the land. The soldiers would fight like lions, because the Fatherland, and abstraction that they fail to comprehend, would offer itself to them, immediate, concrete, a treasure to protect and safeguard.

As for the second point, the solution was obvious – as Mussolini pointed out (on November 22^nd piece Col ferro e col fuoco – With fire and iron) – we refuse this new, larger, more dangerous lie, that, as the other one of the “freedom to everybody” could lead us to more miserable days. All together, yes, but only for the fight towards victory. Outside there are foreigners and enemies. But the Government, instead of getting them and crushing them once and for all – now that the time has come – holds them on the palm of their hands. Its full of care and attentions. Woe to anybody touching them! Censorship!^4 And thus they don't stop.

Such positions weren't of course unique to Mussolini, nor was he much different from the large interventionist mass. As we saw, he was at the time one figure of a composite pattern of smaller or larger influence cores, developed around and after Caporetto. He was nonetheless a prominent figure, thanks to his control of an already established newspaper – unlike many others founded in those weeks – his past experience as a socialist leader and perhaps standing taller than many of the others thanks to his firmer grasp of the Italian political situation.

Despite my best efforts, to come across whole pieces from the Popolo d'Italia is not easy. Mussolini wrote a lot during those years – likely more than one article a day – and there are more examples than those I included; but I couldn't find excerpts large enough to make the mention of them meaningful.

1 – Mussolini was put on license in 1917 and then, after the war ended, granted unlimited leave, after being wounded during the explosion of a small artillery piece. Therefore at the time of Caporetto he was back at the helm of his newspaper, still recovering from the wounds. He left the Army with the rank of Sergeant and earned himself an official (not uncommon) declaration of good behavior. But another point of developing this “new image” was the founding of the newspaper itself. Without accusing Mussolini of opportunism – leaving the Socialists had been after all a (conscious) gamble – Mussolini had founded his Popolo d'Italia at the right point of the interventionist debate; a moment when various groups were looking forward to financing that sort of press outlet. A fact that allowed him to create ties with those forces of the industrial and economical world that, as a practicing socialist, he had had fewer chances to impress before.

2 – The issue of Mussolini being a socialist, to what extent, and until when has been widely discussed in literature; so that we'll get back to this in the future. Meanwhile I'll point out the – legitimate – criticism of R. Vivarelli who remarks that, while De Felice certainly claims it, he fails to provide any definite evidence of Mussolini's socialism, asking instead for evidence of his non-socialism. De Felice's opinion on the matter is nonetheless relevant and it is true that various former socialists would “leave” the Party during the War, while going back to functionally socialist positions after.

3 – These program statements worked as a commentary on the first feelers over a law project (“in favor of the military combatants”) by the reluctant interventionist and Parliament member Ettore Ciccotti – that we will discuss again in a few weeks. But they also were part of a thread dating back to the Libyan War (see what Mussolini wrote in 1909: [The Nationalists] should have thought that before the conquest of Trento and Trieste or the Tripolitana, we needed to conquer Italy. To bring water to the Puglie region, land clearings in the Agro Romano, justice in the South, alphabetization everywhere); a process of reclaiming unused lands to the agricultural production – whether through land clearings or breaking up of large funds; a theme that resurfaced now that it appeared unlikely that the war would end with large territorial gains for Italy, and that would remain popular in the following years.

4 – The reference was on the censorship process that had hit the publication of polemic appeals on the Popolo d'Italia during the previous weeks (see f.e. Mussolini's telegram to Hon. Bonicelli of November 27^th I must protest over the unqualifiable way of censorship proceedings, exceptional measures against [Popolo d'Italia]. Wonder why censored appeal Florentine students freely published Roman papers. Wonder if dis-Honorable De Giovanni has risen to holy, intangible, untouchable for Milanese censorship. National unity can't impose silence, connivance, passivity with defeatists. Benito Mussolini.) But various pieces for the Popolo d'Italia were censored during war time, especially those that criticized the Prime Minister (or Interior Minister) Orlando or the Church.

Sources:

R. De Felice: Mussolini

F. Di Bartolo: “La terra è dei combattenti” - I programmi di redistribuzione della terra (1915-18)

What I want to know is the origin of this myth-cycle. Some of it is certainly coined by modern theosophists themselves, since the myths exhibit strong sings of 19th century geographical and historical consciousness. The question is whether there is any genuine Oriental folklore behind it. And if so, of hat race? Hindoo? I must read up in this line if I ever get the time. The only treatise of the sort which I ever saw was Scott-Elliot's "Atlantis & the Lost Lemuria."

• H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, March 1933, Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill 409

One of my ongoing interests is the influence of Theosophy on speculative fiction in the early 20th century, especially pulp writers like H. P. Lovecraft and his friends, who would discover things on their own and share information about it, though none so far as I'm aware actually joined the Theosophical Society or any of its offshoots, or actually believed in it - a lot of Theosophy seems fairly quaint today, a synthetic syncretism of late 19th-century science, occultism, and some trappings of Indian religions, but it was a fairly big deal at the time, and considerably influential on creators like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Kirby. Despite some claims, there's no evidence that Theosophy directly inspired the Cthulhu Mythos - but Lovecraft & do make some interesting references to it in their letters and fiction, so there was certainly some influence there.

TIL that Andrew Johnson was very drunk when he was sworn into office as Vice President on March 4, 1865, and that his speech before the Senate was a meandering, mumbled disaster. Fortunately, that was followed about an hour later by Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, considered one of his finest speeches ever. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Johnson's final two drinks of the day before being sworn in were given to him by Hannibal Hamlin, veep during Lincoln's first term but not chosen for the second.

Some things I've been up to recently:

• C-SPAN

• Washington Post

• Harper's Magazine

• Grading!

I've been thinking it might be fun to cook some dishes that could have been made before the Columbian Exchange. Does anyone have any recommendations of interesting recipes they've come across that might qualify?

Is there a resource to look up Vietnam/specific orders given to troops during modern war times?

My dad had this Vietnam story where he was in the navy (as a comm officer on a river boat) and he got retreat orders. As part of the orders, his ship was to only take on 250 vietnamese people, and then "Shoot anyone who attempted to board until they were under way.". He brought these order to his Commanding officer of the and told him he refused to give the order himself.

The people they would be shooting were translators, cooks, nurses, villagers, etc. My dad describe them as his friends and poker buddies.

The CO (I think it was the captain of his ship, not sure.) said something along the lines of, " We will not leave this shore until either every person in this base is on board, or we are throwing buckets of water over the side of a sinking ship."

I was wondering if there was a way I could find this specific order since it was a full retreat from some medium sized base up a river. I have the name of his ship if that helps anything. I wanted to know what resulted in their subordination, or what they said to the higher ups for their actions.

I'm reading a document that is supposed to be written by Chief Joseph the Younger of the Nez Perce tribe. In it, he describes his father's death. His father was also called Joseph, and was known as Yellow Bird, or Peopeomoxmox. It's well documented that Chief Joseph the Elder died at the Battle of Walla Walla, as a hostage of the US Army, to ensure his tribe didn't attack the encampment in Frenchtown, WA. Here is the link to the document, page 419: http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;idno=nora0128-4;node=nora0128-4%3A7;frm=frameset;view=image;seq=427;page=root;size=100

To what degree do you think it is true that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it?

After thanksgiving, was wondering what the life expectancy was of Native Americans, specifically in the SF Bay Area (ohlone tribes), prior to colonization.

Is this known/knowable ? appreciate any links to read :)