There remained some suspicion of fascist methods (e.g. in the Italianization campaign in the Alto Adige)18; Franco‐Italian squabbling in the Balkans was seen as ‘entirely ridiculous’, but generally there was little to upset The Times’ claim that the British and Italian empires were in ‘perfect harmony’.19 By the end of the decade, Mussolini’s foreign policy was earning favourable reviews.
The Times (7 June 1928) found that the Duce had been ‘indefatigable and successful’ in winning for Italy the place of a Great Power. There was no need to worry about fascist rhetoric while Mussolini was there to regulate it. The Telegraph (10 December 1928) approved the ‘uncompromising realist’ who had an ‘honourable record’ on peace and disarmament. The Foreign Secretary, Sir Austen Chamberlain, long a devotee of Italy’s holiday sunshine, was on terms of personal friendship with the Duce. ‘I am confident that he [Mussolini] is a patriot and a sincere man; I trust his word when given and I think that we might easily go far before finding an Italian with whom it would be as easy for the British Government to work.’20
[…]
The Telegraph eagerly applauded the fascist labour laws, which it considered a ‘daring innovation’ inspired by ‘pure patriotism’ to change the lackadaisical Italian spirit.27 The Times was more doubtful of fascist laws, recording that Mussolini was too much of a statesman to be ruled by theory. Nevertheless the paper did feel that the fall of the régime would be ’too horrible to contemplate’. The Times was not specific, but for Italy it clearly preferred Mussolinian fascism to giolittismo or communism. The Italians had not reached the British level and so needed to be ruled in a different fashion.28
This was the paradox long underlying British conservative attitudes to […] fascism: only a few foolish extremists wanted to introduce it in Britain, even under the stress of domestic troubles like the General Strike. But for Italy [fascism], whatever the doubts clouding the future, was for the present salutary.
[…]
[Fascism’s] economic [developments] reached a wider audience. The effect of the Depression in Britain shook the assumption that nothing could be learned from other countries. At the end of 1932 The Telegraph (22 December), the businessman’s organ, writing of Italy’s economic successes, attributed them to fascist policies.
‘The country has a government conscious of what it wants to do, and generally able to do it. It has proved its efficiency. One notable example of many that could be cited is the success of its enormous programme of public works, and of land reclamation in particular, which has changed the face of Italy and brought her within sight of being self‐sufficient in wheat.’ […] In fact, before 1933 there was a general belief that Mussolini’s régime had improved Italy’s material well‐being. The Times headlined its report on land reclamation near Rome as ‘an example from Italy’, and asserted that Sicilian prosperity had increased because of the extinction of the Mafia.33
[…]
The record of the press is almost too good to be true. There was, after all, a strong right wing in Britain. Moreover fascism was such a vague philosophy that politicians and publicists from Milnerites like Lord Lloyd to Christian anti‐communists like Sir Henry Page-Croft can be found expressing favourable opinions of fascism in Italy or nationalism, order, and planning at home.37
To praise Mussolini’s services to Italy, or to advocate similar theories in England, was not the same as accepting a BUF imitation of fascism. Mosley was no Coriolanus. The British Right, submerged in the National Government after 1931, showed little desire to introduce the system of so paltry a country as Italy. Not for nothing were British conservatives conservative. They knew British methods were best. Fascism was foreign and, as J. L. Garvin remarked, ‘crude’.38
[…]
Praise for [Fascist] Italy was more often heard in discussions of foreign policy. At both the Naval and Disarmament Conferences, Mussolini’s cautious realism received a favourable press. [Rome] was seen as pursuing a sensible middle course. In June 1932 the internationally minded Round Table found reason for praise.
[…]
In the Foreign Office the strategic importance of Italy the Great Power received greater recognition. Privately, Austen Chamberl[ai]n compared Mussolini to Bismarck; Sir John Simon greatly approved of the Four Power Pact and considered [Fascist] Italy ‘the real key to European peace’, but in the same breath predicted that [German Fascism] would overwhelm Austria.44 His policy continued to drift, and the press saw no grounds for criticism.
(Emphasis added.)
As we can see, while the press did have its reservations, and it was disinterested in officially adopting fascism, it was nevertheless very tolerant and accepting of it in Italy; only when the Fascists competed with liberal imperialism by invading Ethiopia was the press less positive and more centrist.
Tellingly, the Fascist atrocities in Libya are completely unmentioned.
Click here for events that happened today (November 13).
1894: Arthur Nebe, SS functionary, disgraced the earth with his existence.
1933: The Reich Chamber of Culture was officially launched under the auspices of Goebbel’s Ministry of Propaganda. Under former Freikorps fighter and NSDAP member Hans Hinkel’s executive presidency, the chamber assumed responsibility for all cultural activity in the Third Reich.
1934: Fascist Christians held a rally at the Sportpalast in Berlin, during which the NSDAP officially announced what amounted to another fascistization of Christianity.
1938: Failures in communications in the city of Changsha, Hunan Province led to the commencement of a scorched earth operation which was only suppose to take effect when the city was about to fall into Imperial hands. Somebody started fires at pre‐arranged locations around the city, starting the Wenxi Fire that would burn for five days, killing three thousand people and destroying a great number of buildings.
1939: As U‐23 completed her fourth war patrol, Berlin repostponed its invasion of France and issued directive № 9 (which called for German aircraft and submarines to attack British shipping and port facilities), whereas German newspapers falsely reported that the attempted murder of Adolf Schicklgruber which happened yesterday in Munich was the work of British secret service agents. Most oddly of all, somebody awarded Kurt Fricke the Order of the Yugoslav Crown 2nd Class with Star of Yugoslavia.
1940: Schicklgruber, Ribbentrop, and Molotov continued their awkward meeting in Berlin, where they purportedly tried to entice Molotov with geopolitical offers, but he remained disinterested. Meanwhile, the Allied submarine HMS Tigris sank French trawler Charles Edmonde west of Bordeaux, but the Axis submarine U‐137 torpedoed and sank Allied ship Cape St. Andrew northwest of Ireland, massacring fourteen crew and one gunner yet leaving fifty‐three alive. Axis bombers also damaged British destroyer HMS Decoy at Alexandria, Egypt, massacring eight and wounding three, but by the end of the day, Greece’s troops had successfully pushed most of the Fascists troops in northern Greece back to the Albanian border. On a more peaceful note, Tatsuta Maru arrived at San Francisco.
1941: Axis troops fighting near Moscow were struggling with temperatures as low as −8℉ (−22℃), but as the mud froze the German Fascists prepared for a new offensive amidst increasing casualties (partly) due to weather. In contrast, Berlin ordered its Navy to restraint from assaulting Yankee ships (but should German warships be fired upon by the Yankees, they were to fire back in defense). Axis Admiral Yamamoto gathered his commanders at Iwakuni air base at Yamaguchi to discuss Pearl Harbor tactics, likely while Comandante Cappellini departed Le Verdon‐sur‐Mer, Aquitaine, France at 0800 hours and arrived at La Pallice, La Rochelle, France at 1700 hours. Axis submarine U‐126 sank Allied merchant vessel Peru at 0042 hours, but all fifty aboard survived. Similarly, Axis submarine U‐81 sank Allied aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in the Mediterranean Sea east of Gibraltar at 0437 hours, killing one but leaving 1,487 alive, and while destroyer escorts did counterattack with depth charges, U‐81 successfully escaped them. On the other hand, Axis troops at Tikhvin suffered a Soviet assault.
1942: Berlin promised France that it would leave the French fleet at Toulon alone, and somebody awarded Hauptmann Wilhelm Antrup and Oberleutnant Albert Koller of the Kampfgeschwader 55 wing the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Around the time that Axis troops arrived at Munda Point, New Georgia, to construct an airfield, and the Empire of Japan lost its battleship Hiei, Kamikaze arrived at Ominato, Aomori Prefecture for patrols in the Tsugaru Strait area. Axis submarine U‐431 (Wilhelm Dommes) sank Allied destroyer Isaac Sweers in the Mediterranean Sea with two torpedo hits, massacring nearly half of its crew, and U.S. and Axis ships engage in an intense, close‐quarters surface naval engagement during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
1943: Berlin officially upheld Kaiser Wilhelm II’s previous decree and bestowed upon Alfried von Bohlen und Halbach the name Krupp, making him the official head of the Krupp family conglomerate Friedrich Krupp AG. Shokaku returned to Truk, Caroline Islands, but an Axis convoy in the Mariana Islands suffered Allied four torpedoes, with the oiler Shiretoko taking a hit.
1944: As the Reich’s forces withdrew from Skopje, Yugoslavia, and the Upper Rhine out of Alsace, France suffered an Allied assault, Attun Palalin, a.k.a. Private Teruo Nakamura of the Imperial Army 4th Takasago Volunteer Unit, was declared dead on Morotai, Dutch East Indies, and the Fugaki Squadron, based in the Philippine Islands, conducted its first tokko mission with five converted Ki‐67‐I Kai To‐Go aircraft, without success. The Axis also lost Type‐B1 submarine I‐38, but landing ship № 115 was complete and transferred to the Imperial Japanese Army.
1954: Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, Axis field marshal, bit the dust.
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