No. 1 Facist

Returning alone and tired to his Villa Torlonia home one evening some years ago, Benito Mussolini decided on the spur of the moment to go into a cinema. He entered and took a seat, unrecognized. Presently, his own limber face flashed on the screen. Everyone present stood up and applauded, except Il Duce. His secret enjoyment of the demonstration was interrupted by a man behind him who leaned over and whispered: "Better stand up and clap, pal. They'll arrest you if you don't."

This incident, which is supposed to have happened early in the days of Il Duce's power, might easily have taken place again last week. Once more the Dictator was alone and tired. Italians still salaamed to his face on screens, his name on walls, but there were certain new mental reservations in their reverence. Foreign journalists in Rome received anonymous letters: "The Italians desire the end of the dictatorship which renders impossible prosperity and peace. Viva Italia! Viva la libert`a !"

Each morning last week, in his monstrous office, Il Duce's heart was not cheered by the reports on the country's state of mind given him by Chief of Italian Police Arturo Bocchini. Italy's Himmler--an efficient, honest, courageous, unpublicized bustler who hangs a sign over his desk which says: "Please make it snappy"--daily reported the findings of his intricate wiretapping, eavesdropping machine, and the sum of the findings was not to Il Duce's taste: Italians want peace.

Since the Year One (of Fascism--1922) Benito Mussolini had given his people a martial slogan: "Believe! Obey! Fight!" He hurried from naval reviews to maneuvers at sea, from military exercises to parades to grandiose mock campaigns on land. He learned to salute like Caesar, scowl like Napoleon, wear uniforms like the Kaiser. Of all his Cabinet portfolios, his favorites were those of War, Navy, Air Force. He raised a whole generation of young Italians--among them his own sons --to live dangerously, to consider pacifism a bourgeois vice, to take sensuous, esthetic pleasure from the pattern of exploding bombs and the music of gunfire. He told them time & again that supine neutrality is a cowardice fit only for decadent democracies.

He gave Italy an Empire, won in blood, albeit from some poor colored people and a handful of Adriatic hillbillies. He made his countrymen feel that Spain's victory was Italy's. He held out the Axis to his people as a double-bladed fasces which would cut a big place in the sun for Italy.

By last week Benito Mussolini was a thoroughly disillusioned warrior. The first step in the process of his disappointment was the frenzied joy with which Italians greeted him back from Munich--a far more spontaneous ovation than any military triumph had ever earned him. On the Piazza Venezia balcony that day he made no martial speech, but said only: "You wanted peace. I have brought you peace," then turned gloomily and went indoors. Next came the German-Russian Pact, which he was not told about until the last minute and which at one slap put down any extravagant hopes Il Duce may have reposed in his partnership with Adolf Hitler. Worst of all was what happened last autumn.

Up the valley of the Po, through Italy's richest industrial area, swept in mid-August a proud Italian Army, bent on repulsing an imaginary "Red" (French) invasion. Suddenly, mysteriously, the maneuver ended. As suddenly, Hitler invaded Poland, the Allies declared war. Il Duce disappeared from public view. It was rumored that he had had a heart attack. Whether or not he was sick, his heart was certainly sore. After 17 years of martial preparation for the second World War, he had been forced by his generals to realize that whether or not Italy wanted to fight, Italy could not fight.

Having cried for years that Italy's might rested on 8,000,000 bayonets, he suddenly was told that the country could neither feed nor clothe 1,500,000 men. Boots were lacking, to say nothing of bayonets. The country had tankage capacity for only three months' normal consumption of oil. And the tanks were not more than two-thirds full. Weary from two wars, Italy had insufficient reserves of cotton, scrap iron, copper. Above all, there was no will to war among the people.

Niccolo Machiavelli once wrote that though the French might be greater fighters, the Italians were those who understood statecraft. Far from being completely crushed (as any French Premier would have been) by his military disappointment, heartsick Premier Mussolini set about trying to make his military lemon into diplomatic lemonade. To his and his Florentine precursor's credit, Mussolini has done a pretty good job of it. As of last week the most important single question in Europe's war had more than ever become: What will Italy do?

Benito Mussolini's extraordinary talent for mystification served him well in building up this question. "The Italian people." he said recently, "have realized that the pilot must not be disturbed, especially when he is engaged in stormy navigation. nor must he be asked questions about the course." Because he determined to explain nothing, to make no commitments, everyone wanted to ask questions of the laconic pilot whose course was puzzlingly zigzag--now pointing for one belligerent shore, now toward the other, back & forth.

Up Ciano. After the Po maneuver's fiasco, Il Duce cleaned house. As his first step, out went his Under Secretaries for War and Air, Alberto Pariani and Giuseppe Valle, because they had concealed the true state of Italy's war machine from their boss. Out went violently pro-German Fascist Party Secretary Achille Starace and Minister of Popular Culture (Propaganda) Oboardo Dino Alfieri. These dismissals had the effect of raising the prestige of Il Duce's son-in-law, Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, who loathed Ribbentrop and Hitler for treating him like a naive youngster in politics, and who won an immense popular following by backing the policy of peace.

Count Ciano made his position unassailably strong when he got a rough-&-tumble pal of Ethiopian days, much-decorated Ettore Muti, appointed to Starace's job. Muti looks like a handsome U. S. gangster, and, not being too quick of brain or tongue, is the subject of merciless punning (muto = dumb). Last week Signor Muti had a gold medal pinned on his chest by Il Duce for having carried out 160 admirable bombing raids during the Spanish campaign.

Wants. Next step of Il Duce in his new frame of mind was to make perfectly clear that Italy's minimum aims remain in time of war what they were in peace: 1) Djibouti; 2) representation on the board of directors of the Suez Canal Co.; 3) guarantees for the Italian minority in Tunisia. He made it equally clear that anything above minimum would be in no sense repugnant to Italy.

Thereupon Premier Mussolini and Count Ciano punked the fuse of an extraordinary chain of diplomatic firecrackers. Italian envoys popped up all over Europe. Il Duce and his son-in-law played faction against faction, until no nation could be sure whether he was coming or going. At first the Allies were favored. Insulting press attacks on the Allies, particularly on Great Britain, were toned down; so was praise of the Axis. Friendly Giuseppe Bastianini was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Trade talks with a British delegation were nurtured.

When Count Ciano took a flying trip to Berlin and was again snubbed as a meddling boy, Italy countered by turning the heat on Germany's silent partner Russia. Later Russian Ambassador-designate to Rome Nikolai Gorelchin was given such a roasting press reception that he was recalled before he had even seen King Vittorio Emanuele III; and home to Rome went Italian Ambassador to Moscow Augusto Rosso (whose name means Red).

The Finnish war put Mussolini's hand on many a pressure valve. He made a show of sending planes to Finland over Germany's protest and territory. When the Allies seemed on a spot, he called off the British trade talks, got into a jam with Britain over coal, in the end managed to have most of his coal and burn Ribbentrop too. Last week he had everyone utterly bewildered. There was talk of sending an Ambassador back to Moscow, even though Premier Molotov was making such aspersive remarks about Italy's Albanian grab that the Italian press would not print them. Il Duce moved to renew the British trade talks, and French Premier Reynaud had a long and apparently pleasant talk with Ambassador Raffaele Guariglia. But as French Ambassador Andre Franc,ois-Poncet returned to Paris, L'Oeuvre commented: "It's not a secret that he didn't obtain impressive results at Rome."

Impressive indeed was the way in which devious Benito Mussolini meanwhile made himself the patron saint of a Balkan peace bloc. Hungary, which is geographically in Germany's sphere, swung back politically into Italy's (where she was before Anschluss). Foreign Minister Count Stephen Csaky was received by Count Ciano in Venice and last week Premier Count Paul Teleki was made to feel very happy in Rome--even though Benito Mussolini told him Hungary must not dream of getting Transylvania from Rumania until war's end. An Italian economic mission showed up in every Southeastern European country except Turkey, which sent a mission to Rome.

Union Now. So anxious are the small nations of Europe to stay at peace and keep what trade they have, that by last fortnight the way had been prepared for a tacit European federation--embracing all but the Allies, the Low Countries, and Turkey. Undemocratic, a brotherhood of fear, it represented the antithesis of what the democracies hope will emerge from the war, and had in it the seeds of defeat for the Allies. The Balkan nations had little choice in the matter. The great cereal bowl of the Danube sends Germany in peacetime some 50% of its produce, and though blockade and winter have so far hampered movement, the German demand has greatly increased since war began. Almost exclusively agricultural, the Balkans depend in turn on Germany for industrial goods. Every Balkan nation lives in fear of some sort of revisionist aggression. Caught in a triangle more tragic than any dramatist could invent, Central Europe depends on Germany, fears Russia, looks to Italy for police protection. After the Finnish collapse, Scandinavia too fell under the strategic hegemony of the totalitarian powers.

To capitalize on the possibility for such a convenient brand of European federation, Hitler invited Il Duce to Brennero fortnight ago. There are good grounds to believe that Herr Hitler proposed:

> Reaffirmation of the Axis.

> The inclusion of Russia in Axis arrangements through Germany, without a direct Italian-Russian Pact, which Catholic Italy would certainly not tolerate.

>In the event all peace moves fail, Germany to attack at her own discretion as to time and place. Italy to remain neutral until such time as she thinks she can deliver a coup de grace on behalf of Germany.

>Italy to receive (eventually) Russian coal and oil via Germany, and German coal to the full capacity of rail and sea routes.

>The Balkan status quo to be preserved unless the Allies open a campaign in which case Germany and Russia would try to stop the Allies by invading Rumania, eventually partitioning that country with Hungary and Bulgaria. Italy to be permitted to move into Yugoslavia to guarantee a 100% Italian Adriatic.

> Germany and Italy to try to woo Turkey away from the Allies.

> Germany, Russia and Italy to act in tight, self-interested entente at the peace conference after the war, no matter which side wins.

> Japan to be assisted.

> Emissaries to be sent at once to all Europe's neutrals to try to sell them this plan.

What Mussolini replied was not divulged. But it was very strongly hinted in Rome last week that certain of the points were distasteful to Italy, and that the whole idea of extending and bending the Axis was not well received.

Today, Tomorrow, Any Time. The pattern of Italy's future was still as obscure last week as Benito Mussolini's skill could make it. But from the doubt emerged certain strong probabilities:

> Italy would not go into the war on the side of the Allies. Her experience in and after the almost profitless last war is too vivid a memory. Besides, she has nothing to carve from Germany. If an Allied victory became probable, Italy would stay out right until the end, and then wield the nuisance value of an intact army to force general redistribution of the spoils at the peace conference.

> Close collaboration with Russia could not be crammed down Italian throats as it was down German. If there is any sort of tripartite collaboration, it will probably be only economic.

> In case the war goes Germany's way, Italy might enter, but only when the issue is clear and the last battle half-fought. In the last analysis Italy has far more to gain from beating the Allies with Germany than from watching the Allies win--to wit, a juicy slice of the French colonial empire, plus a share in control of Central Europe.

Despite the magnificent performance of political juggling Il Duce has put on in the last six months, Italy's future may not coincide with Benito Mussolini's personal desires. Reason: he still wants to fight--today, tomorrow, any time; and his people, who are not and never have been fighters since the days of Charlemagne, want to stay out--for keeps.

Athlete. Napoleon Bonaparte rode his power for a span of just less than 20 years. Benito Mussolini has been in the saddle 18. He is getting on, and he knows it. If he is ever to lead a Roman triumph up the Quirinal, it must be soon.

Il Duce carries his 56 years with desperate virility. Every morning before going to work he takes a fierce ride in the grounds of Villa Torlonia. Every afternoon between 2 and 3 he plays tennis with a professional who gets $50 a month.

Roman electricians say they have been busy lately connecting private telephone wires between Government offices and the apartments of certain blonde ladies--so that no matter what or where his exercise, Il Duce can get last-minute bulletins on the international situation and issue instant orders.

Fifteen years ago, he suffered an operation for stomach ulcers, and ever since he has lived ascetically. He never smokes.

His breakfast consists of about two pounds of fruit, and caffe e latte (half-&-half coffee and milk); for lunch spaghetti, rarely meat and seldom wine, a huge salad, fruit for dessert; for dinner about the same things as for lunch, and fruit and milk before retiring.

Reports that he is sick infuriate him.

When they were in circulation, he used to call reporters to his home and ride like mad up & down before them to demonstrate his soundness. But of late he has appeared less in public than he used to, has not spoken from the Piazza Venezia balcony since October, almost never receives the press. Last autumn for the first time in many years he failed to appear--stripped to the waist, swinging a pitchfork, sweating up his massive chest--at the Pontine Marshes harvest.

His energy is certainly still Gargantuan, and he still keeps tabs on everything and everyone. Last week he conferred with Count Dino Grandi on the codification of labor laws; talked with Hungarian Premier Count Teleki; witnessed experiments with thermite incendiary bombs and defenses against them; rewarded aviators and received journalists who served in the Spanish war; turned the crank of an invention designed to extract iron ore from black sand along the coast near Rome; conferred with Crown Prince Umberto about that half of the Army which the Prince commands.

Benito Mussolini is still a virtuoso of politics, a wizard with economic and military gadgets, an athlete, a leader of men. It makes him very sad that no one, not even his beloved countrymen, pays much attention to him as he clatters eagerly up & down Europe's sideline, warming up. They believe that if he gets into the game at all it will be just long enough to win his letter.

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