Cesare Maria De Vecchi – Fascist politician

Mussolini supporter helped to lead historic march

De Vecchi served as Governor
 of Italian Somaliland

Cesare Maria De Vecchi, one of the four leaders of the March on Rome in 1922 that resulted in Benito Mussolini’s Fascist party winning power in Italy, was born on this day in 1884 in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont.

De Vecchi was both a soldier and colonial administrator and he was accused of committing the first war crime of Fascist Italy when, under his leadership as Governor of Italian Somaliland, 100 civilians were killed while he pursued a ‘scorched earth policy’ between 1925 and 1927.

After graduating in jurisprudence, De Vecchi had become a successful lawyer in Turin. He took part in the final events of World War I, finishing with the rank of captain and decorations for valour.

On his return to Italy, he became a supporter of the National Fascist Party and went on to become head of his local Fascist squadre, or militia.

In 1921, De Vecchi was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and he later became under-secretary at the Treasury and under-secretary at the Finance Ministry during Benito Mussolini’s Government.

In October 1922, Fascist Party leaders planned a march on Rome and, on October 28, Fascist demonstrators led by De Vecchi, Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo and Michele Bianchi approached the capital.

The Italian Prime Minister, Luigi Facta, wished to declare a state of siege, but this was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel III, who wanted to avoid bloodshed.

He persuaded Facta to resign and on October 30, 1922, he appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, transferring political power to the Fascists without armed conflict. On October 31 the Fascists paraded in Rome, while Mussolini formed his coalition government. 

After becoming Governor of Italian Somaliland in 1923, De Vecchi left the Italian political scene for a while to serve abroad and he was made Count of Val Cismon, a new title created for him by Victor Emmanuel III.

He was made a Senator by the king in 1925 and, during the 1930s, he chaired the Piedmont committee for the history of the Risorgimento and organised events and lectures to celebrate the period.

De Vecchi (2nd right), with (from left) De Bono, Bianchi,
Mussolini and Balbo, leaders of the March on Rome

As Minister for Education, De Vecchi promoted a version of history that identified the House of Savoy as the link between Imperial Rome and the Rome of Fascism.

He reformed the education system by  giving control of all high school education to the government, which could decide scholastic curriculums and apply censorship on textbooks before and after their publication. 

While De Vecchi was serving as Governor of Rhodes, he enacted the Italian racial laws, which stripped Jews of their assets and restricted their rights. He forced Jews to move their cemetery and give up the tombstones of their ancestors to provide materials for the rebuilding of the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. 

On March 6, 1940, Count Galeazzo Ciano, wrote in his War Diaries: ‘For the first time I found a person who wants to declare War with the Germans against France and England. This person is no less than the intrepid Cesare Maria de Vecchi di Val Cismon! The Americans say that a sucker is born every minute; one only has to look for him. This time I have found one. Cesare Maria is, above all, a man of pomposity and vain illusions, who dreams of obtaining a marshal's baton and decorations and hopes to gain them through the blood of others.’

After the announcement of the Armistice of Cassabile in September 1943, De Vecchi authorised German forces to enter the port of Piombino in southern Tuscany and forbade any act of resistance. However, units of the Royal Italian Navy and Royal Italian Army supported by local people prevented the Germans from landing at Piombino. They killed about 100 of them and captured more than 200 Wehrmacht soldiers. 

The following day, De Vecchi ordered the freeing of the Germans and the returning of their weapons to them, after which he signed the surrender of his division to the Germans. On September 13, De Vecchi, with a pass given to him by German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, took refuge in Piedmont. 

In early October 1943, De Vecchi went into hiding from Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, which had condemned him to death in his absence. After the war he escaped to Argentina on a Paraguayan passport.

After returning to Italy in 1949, De Vecchi supported the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement but refused to accept any political or institutional office within the movement. De Vecchi died in Rome in 1959.

Piazza Mazzini, the main square in Casale
Monferrato, where Cesare De Vecchi was born

Travel tip:

Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, where Cesare Maria De Vecchi was born, is situated on the south bank of the Po river, about 60km (37 miles) east of the regional capital, Turin, at the foot of the Monferrato hills.. A town with around 36,000 inhabitants today, it was founded in Roman times and later turned into a major citadel by the Gonzaga family. At the heart of the historic centre is Piazza Mazzini, which grew on the site of the Roman forum. The square is dominated by an 1843 equestrian statue by Abbondio Sangiorgio of King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia.  To the east of the square is the Lombard Romanesque cathedral of Sant'Evasio, founded in 742 and rebuilt in the early 12th century, occupying the site of a Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter.  The Castello dei Paleologi, on Piazza Castello, is a hexagonal fortress that probably dates from 1000 and was rebuilt in the 15th century with corner towers and a moat. The town is famous for Krumiri Rossi, traditional curved dry biscuits created in the 19th century. Sitting in the heart of the Monferrato wine region, its local wines include Barbera and Grignolino.

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The Alps provide a mountainous backdrop to Turin, the
regional capital of Piedmont that was once Italy's capital

Travel tip:

Piedmont in northern Italy is the second largest region after Sicily. It borders France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Aosta Valley and a small part of Emilia-Romagna. Piedmont was acquired by Otto of Savoy in 1046 and its capital was established at Chambery, which is now in France. The Savoy territory became the Duchy of Savoy in 1416 and the seat of the Duchy was moved to Turin in 1563 by Duke Emanuele Filiberto. After Victor Amadeus II became King of Sardinia in 1720, Piedmont became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Turin grew in importance as a European capital city. It was at the centre of the fight for the unification of Italy and was the region of birth of the first prime minister of Italy, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. Turin was the first capital of the unified Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1865, before the capital moved to Florence in 1865 and later to Rome in 1871. The mountainous areas of Piedmont, which make up more than 40 per cent of the region, including several major sections of the Western Alps, play a vital part in the power production of the region and of northern Italy as a whole. The region’s hydroelectric plants supply energy for industry, transportation, and domestic use. The Alpine and sub-Alpine meadows afford excellent pasture for cattle as the base of a prosperous dairy industry, while the lowlands produce wheat and rice, vegetables and fruit. The hills south of the Po are noted for the production of some of Italy’s highest-quality wines, both of the sparkling and still varieties. 

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Further reading:

Galeazzo Ciano, the son-in-law Mussolini had executed as a traitor

Italo Balbo, the former Blackshirt thug who was Mussolini’s ‘heir apparent’

The March on Rome - the insurrection that put Fascists in power

Also on this day:

1812: The birth of Maria Cristina of Savoy

1812: The birth of poet and patriot Aleardo Aleardi

1893: The birth of writer and novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda

1897: The death of soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, second wife of Giuseppe Verdi

1949: The birth of painter Enzo Cucchi

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Italo Balbo - Fascist commander

Blackshirt thug turned air commander was Mussolini’s ‘heir apparent’

Italo Balbo was the commander of
Italy's air force in the 1930s

Italo Balbo, who rose to such a position of seniority in the hierarchy of the Italian Fascists that he was considered the man most likely to succeed Benito Mussolini as leader, was born on this day in 1896 in Quartesana, a village on the outskirts of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.

After active service in the First World War, Balbo became the leading Fascist organizer in his home region of Ferrara, leading a gang of Blackshirt thugs who became notorious for their attacks on rival political groups and for carrying out vicious reprisals against striking rural workers on behalf of wealthy landlords.

Later, he was one of the leaders of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922.

As Maresciallo dell'Aria - Marshal of the Air Force - he rebuilt Italy’s aerial warfare capability. At the height of his influence, however, he was sent by Mussolini to be Governor of Italian Libya.

Many believed that Mussolini saw Balbo as a threat and when, early in the Second World War, Balbo was killed when the plane in which he was travelling was shot down - seemingly accidentally - by Italian anti-aircraft guns over Tobruk, there were immediately those among Balbo’s supporters who believed the incident was not an accident.

Balbo (second right), with Mussolini and other Blackshirt
leaders of the March on Rome in 1922

Balbo had been at odds with Mussolini over the dictator’s race laws, which he deeply opposed. He was also the only leading Fascist to speak out against the alliance with Nazi Germany, on the basis that Italy, he felt, would merely be Hitler’s lackeys in the partnership.  He advocated that Italy should side with the British.

Balbo was politically active from a young age. After Italy initially declared itself as neutral in the First World War, Balbo joined in several pro-war rallies. Once Italy entered the war in 1915, he served with the Italian Royal Army.

He enlisted in the Alpini mountain infantry and won two silver medals for military valour, rising to the rank of captain. Later, after obtaining a degree in Social Sciences in Florence, Balbo went back to Ferrara and joined the Fascist Party, quitting his job as a bank clerk to be branch secretary.

Party members increasingly formed gangs and would behave aggressively towards opponents.  Balbo proved himself as an adept gang commander. For several years, he led a unit called the Celibanisti, named after the squad’s ritual of ordering a specific cherry brandy in the afternoons at Caffè Mozzi in Piazza del Duomo.

An illustration from an American
newspaper showing Balbo's squadron 

The Celibanisti directed their violence towards Socialist, Communist, and Democratic party members. Balbo was implicated in the murder of a parish priest in Argenta, another town in the Ferrara province, and left the area to move to Rome.

Balbo held a number of senior positions in the Fascist hierarchy under Mussolini, including Commander in Chief of the Militia (1922), Secretary of State for National Economy (1925), Undersecretary of the Air Force (1926), General of the Air Fleet (1928) and Air Minister (1929).

As commander of the air forces, he organised many spectacular displays of air power, often involving formation flying.  His prestige soared after a visit to America in 1933 when, having made it his business to learn to fly, he commanded a squadron of sea planes that flew to Chicago to take part in the Century of Progress Fair.  He was welcomed as a hero and President Roosevelt awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Just as his popularity was growing at home, however, Balbo was ordered to Libya as Governor-General of the Italian colony.

The appointment was an effective exile from politics in Rome, however. Mussolini was wary of Balbo’s close relationship with the suspected anti-Fascist Prince Umberto, the king’s son. Mussolini became so paranoid that he ordered that Italian newspapers could not mention Balbo's name more than once a month.

The site of the crash, including a makeshift grave, in which
Balbo died when his place was shot down over Libya

He was an effective leader in Libya. He bolstered the economy by improving railways and roads, including the Litoranea Libica coastal highway which stretched across the Libyan coast.  He was a major supporter of colonising Libya with Italian peasants.  By 1940, approximately 110,000 Italians were living in Libya. Ultimately, 12 per cent of the Libyan population was of Italian origin.

Balbo died on June 28, 1940. He was a passenger on a plane that attempted to land at Tobruk airfield shortly after an attack by British aircraft. Italian anti-aircraft batteries defending the airfield misidentified his aircraft as a British fighter and opened fire. 

His remains were buried outside Tripoli and later moved to the cemetery at Orbetello in Tuscany, close to the airfield from which he flew his sea plane squadron to the United States in 1933, by Balbo's family.  He is buried with many other airmen associated with the base.

The Este Castle at Ferrara in winter snow

Travel tip:

Apart from the impressively well preserved Castello Estense right at the heart of the city, Ferrara - situated midway between Bologna and Venice in Emilia-Romagna - has many notable architectural gems, including many palaces from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Among them is the striking Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds. The palace holds the National Picture Gallery, which houses many works from the  masters of the 16th-century School of Ferrara, including Lorenzo Costa, Dosso Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi and Benvenuto Tisi. Ferrara was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598 and it was they who built the magnificent castle, work on which began in 1385.

The entrance to what remains of the
seaplane base at Orbetello

Travel tip:

The remains of the Orbetello seaplane base, the military structure built at the beginning of the century and best known for its links to the squadrons commanded by Italo Balbo, are still visible in the town of Orbetello, which occupies a narrow peninsula surrounded by a natural lagoon on the coast of Tuscany, about 44km (27 miles) south of Grosseto.  The field was used by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War and the town was therefore hit by frequent air attacks. By the end of the war it was being used as an American base.  Nowadays, it is in a state of semi-abandonment. The western area that was in charge of housing the officers' families is now called Parco delle Crociere and is used as a playground. Some structures are still standing, including the entrance, which bears the name of Agostino Brunetta, a seaplane pilot.

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