raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the Italian King, Government, and military Commando Supremo decide to crush and disperse the Fascisti 'March on Rome' with a "whiff of grapeshot" or some machinegun fire, aircraft buzzing and strafing and teargas, and some mortaring, if that's what-it takes.
Instead of cowardly reasoning that they may be totally dependent on Blackshirts against social revolution, the formal authorities of state don't like the cut of of their jib, nor the color of their shirts, and think they've got the Reds pretty much well in hand on their own, and dislike the unpredictability of the Fascisti and especially their ex-Socialist leader, Mussolini. Between the incoherence and at times occasional anti-clerical and especially anti-capitalist and anti-financial aspects of their leadership, the established authorities are thinking these thugs may be black shirts today, red shirts tomorrow, and put them down.
What happens afterward in Italian politics of the 1920s? How healthy/unhealthy is Italian parliamentarism from 1922 on through the rest of the decade? Does Italian Street fighting and paramilitarism calm down? Does Italy end up going under a more boring, traditionalist, military or civilian form of dictatorship? What are the knock-on effects for the politics of the rest of the neighboring European countries?
Presuming we still have the American, German, and global economic depression, how does that impact Italian, and then European politics and political extremism and violence?
Instead of cowardly reasoning that they may be totally dependent on Blackshirts against social revolution, the formal authorities of state don't like the cut of of their jib, nor the color of their shirts, and think they've got the Reds pretty much well in hand on their own, and dislike the unpredictability of the Fascisti and especially their ex-Socialist leader, Mussolini. Between the incoherence and at times occasional anti-clerical and especially anti-capitalist and anti-financial aspects of their leadership, the established authorities are thinking these thugs may be black shirts today, red shirts tomorrow, and put them down.
What happens afterward in Italian politics of the 1920s? How healthy/unhealthy is Italian parliamentarism from 1922 on through the rest of the decade? Does Italian Street fighting and paramilitarism calm down? Does Italy end up going under a more boring, traditionalist, military or civilian form of dictatorship? What are the knock-on effects for the politics of the rest of the neighboring European countries?
Presuming we still have the American, German, and global economic depression, how does that impact Italian, and then European politics and political extremism and violence?