Of the rather long text drawn up by Count Grand! we quote the final paragraph, which invited "the Head of the Government to request His Majesty the King, towards whom the heart of all the nation turns with faith and confidence, that he may be pleased, for the honour and salvation of the nation, to assume the effective command of the armed forces on land, on the sea and in the air, according to the article of the Statute of the Realm, and that supreme initiative of decision which our institutions attribute to him and which, in all our national history, have always been the glorious heritage of our august dynasty of Savoy.”
As can be seen, this text, in spite of its verbosity, was cleverly drawn up since, without actually opening up a government crisis, it put the onus on the dictator to go to the King and hand over the command of the Italian armed forces. Moreover, the party hierarchy’s formal disavowal of its leader by a majority of nearly eight to three authorised the sovereign to remove Mussolini from power.
Mussolini’s attitude on the day following his defeat was incomprehensible. The Japanese Ambassador Hidaka, whom he received during the morning of July 26, found him full of confidence, and when the Duce went on to his audience with the Kinghe took with him documents designed to show, as he wrote later, that "The Grand Council’s motion committed nobody as this body waspurely consultative.”
What followed is well known. Mussolini presented himself at the Villa Savoia at 1700 hours and was informed by the King that it was his intention to relieve him of his powers and to appoint Badoglio as head of the government. Twenty minutes later the fallen dictator was requested to leave in an ambulance and was taken to a military police barracks. From here he was put on a boat on the following Tuesday for the island of Ponza.
Marshal Badoglio reported the King’s account to him of this meeting with the Duce; "Mussolini asked for an audience which I arranged to be held here at 1700 hours. At the time in question he presented himself and informed me as follows; the Grand Council had passed a motion against him, but he did not think that this was binding. I then told him that 1 could not agree because the Grand Council was a body of the State set up by him and ratified by the two houses of the Italian Parliament and that, as a consequence, every act of this Council was binding. 'So then, according to your Majesty, I must resign?’ Mussolini said with evident effort. 'Yes,’ I replied, 'and I would advise you now that 1 am accepting without further discussion your resignation as head of the government.’
"His Majesty then added; 'At these words Mussolini bent forwards as if he had received a violent blow in the chest and muttered; 'This is the end then.’ ” There was sensation in Rome and throughout Italy, but no reaction in favour of the Duce either among the population in general or within the party. With rare exceptions, such as that of Roberto Farinacci who reached Germany dressed in a Wehrmacht uniform, everyone rallied to the new government. The new Foreign Minister was Baron Guari-
A Mussolini’s downfall from 1936 to 1943, as seen by David Low: emperor of the Mediterranean, warlord, and ghastly flop.
> The spectre that haunted the dictators’ dreams.
V Hitler, as head of the chimaera of the Tripartite Pact, asks "How dare you lay hands on my dear Benito?’’ The question could as aptly be asked of most of Italy as of the Allies.
Glia, formerly Italian Ambassador in Ankara. His was the job of getting Italy out of the war. But as everyone was afraid of Hitler’s reaction there was an immediate proclamation: "The war goes on!” As for the Fascist conspirators of July 25, they were kept away from all participation in the new government. Count Ciano thought it wiser to seek refuge in Germany.
World History
