July 25, 1943 Mussolini’s lethargy. With Corriere, article by Emilio Gentile

We think we know everything or almost everything about some historical event. There are standardized versions that circulate over time in the media and enter the collective imagination. but It may happen that views change with the discovery of unpublished documents Different reconstructions and interpretations make their way. A case of this kind is the session of the Fascist Grand Council where the famous Grandi Agenda, which was crucial to setting in motion the events leading to the downfall of Benito Mussolini, was voted on. Emilio Gentile book July 25, 1943on July 25 On newsstands with Corriere della Sera.in this respect an important turning point, which allows us to resolve many questions and deny the adequate versions put forward by the heroes of that dramatic story.

The venue for the session of the Grand Council is well known. After three years of war, the military situation of Italy and the political stability of fascism were greatly endangered. On July 10, 1943, the Anglo-Americans landed in Sicily and were preparing to complete the occupation of the island. The meeting between Mussolini and Adolf Hitler that took place near Feltre on July 19 ended in a stalemate: the hypothesis of negotiating a separate peace with the Soviet Union to turn all forces against the Allies, raised by the Duce, was of no interest to the German dictator at all. On 19 July, Rome was also subjected to massive Allied bombing, which resulted in a large number of civilian casualties.

Three days earlier, a delegation of fascist leaders had presented themselves to Mussolini with a request to convene the Grand Council. In fact, it was not the supreme organ of the order, because the Duce considered it a seat merely to validate its decisions. Among other things, he had not met for a long time: the last meeting was in December 1939, when the war had already begun, but Italy was still in an obscure state known as “non-hostility”. But in July 1943, the regime collapsed, and Mussolini agreed to confrontation.

During the meeting, which took place between 17.15 on July 24 and the early hours of the next day, the agenda presented by Dino Grandi, at that time President of the Chamber of Fasci and Companies, was voted on by majority. He. She Mussolini called for prayer to King Vittorio Emanuele III To assume the “actual command of the armed forces”, delegated in 1940 to Duce, “that supreme decision-making initiative which our institutions ascribe to him”.

The next day, Mussolini went to the King at Villa Savoia and the King announced his decision to abolish the office of Prime Minister, to be replaced by Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio. On the ex-dictator’s departure, he was stopped by policemen, who loaded him into an ambulance and took him to a barracks.. Then he will be transferred to Ponza Island. On the evening of July 25, 1943, word spread of the change of government and Badoglio turned to the Italians, announcing that the war would continue.

These are the established facts, which leave open many questions about the progress of the Grand Council, the intentions of Grandi and the other signatories to the approved agenda, the behavior of Mussolini. There is no official record of the discussion. Many heroes, starting with the Duce, have left memoirs, interviews, and written books. But these testimonies are seriously contradictory or “modified” over time. In his book, Emilio Gentile analyzes them with keen interest and assesses their reliability with a linguistic reprimand. The resulting image is a summation of the different versions. It is no coincidence that the historian evokes in this regard Rashomona film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, in which the characters present completely different reconstructions of the same tragic episode.

Gentile in his work, originally released in Laterza in 2018, uses hitherto unpublished papers from the archives of Luigi Federzoni, former Minister and former President of the Senate. These are the notes taken by the President of Bologna during the session of the Grand Council and “a handwritten report compiled by several hands in the form of transcripts in the Federzoni house, probably between the end of July and the beginning of August” of the year 1943. To these documents, which are precious because they were drafted in a hot shot, the annotations for the portraits of Alfredo de Marsico, transcribed on July 25, 1983, were added in the note of the Minister of Justice. by scholars.

Examination of these holdings and close comparison with other testimonies allows Gentile to draw conclusions that may seem surprising. To give just one important example, the main point of the version given by Mussolini in 1944 is unreliable. The Duce wrote in Corriere della Sera that during the fateful session he had been warned The signatories to Grande’s agenda, before and after the vote, asserting that that document would have provoked a “crisis of the system.” But no trace of these expressions can be found in the most reliable documents, and therefore it must be concluded that they were the result of an invention useful to justify the shooting of Galeazzo Ciano and four other hierarchs convicted of “treason” following the show trial in Verona in January 1944.

The Internationalist’s article therefore represents a great step forward in understanding a decisive episode in the history of the twentieth century for our country. It highlights the resigned and helpless attitude of Mussolini who was aware that he had lost his grip on the people and on the fascist leaders themselves. Analyze the various protagonists’ confusing motivations, and their intentions are far from clear. Above all, it gives us an eloquent picture of the state of chaos in which a libertarian regime with immoderate ambitions has been reduced, making the country pay dearly for its evil political choices.

Volume on newsstands for a month

Emilio Gentile’s book hits newsstands with Corriere della Sera on July 25. “July 25, 1943”, at €8.90 plus the cost of the newspaper. The volume, still on sale for a month, constitutes the latest reconstruction of the events that led, eighty years ago, to the fall of the fascist regime after the disastrous course of the Second World War, into which our country entered three years earlier, by decision of Benito Mussolini, on June 10, 1940. In this article, originally published by Gatriosa in 2018, he also corrects it in this article, originally published by Latriosa in 2018. Commit Wa, even recently, recounted the progress of the meeting held in the Palazzo Venezia between 24 and 25 July 1943. At that session of the Grand Council of Fascism, the agenda presented by Dino Grandi as the first signatory was approved: a document that appealed to King Vittorio Emanuele III to resume the supreme command of the armed forces operating later, which Mussolini did not write later. Avoid the vote result. The political novelty formed by the Manifesto of the Supreme Council of the Army and the King made it possible to implement the plan already developed to get rid of Mussolini. But the most serious problem of ending the war remained. The ruling class proved unable to do so without causing a vertical collapse of the state and armed forces in the face of the reaction of the former German allies. September 8th came and Italy found itself divided in two.