42 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
weathercock, knocked off its perch and broken Into
pieces, fell into the muddy waters of the Naviglio.5
In the meantime his alliance with the arditi became
closer, and his body-guard was swollen by new members
whom he had summoned to Milan towards the end of
1919, and whom he paid with the money subscribed for
Fiume. A committee of inquiry investigated, on Feb-
ruary 20, charges made against him by two former editors
of the Popolo d3 Italia, including one concerning the formation
of gangs drawn from c mercenary elements collected from
Fiume and several other Italian towns, paid thirty lire a
day and considerable sums for expenses, and organized for
purposes of intimidation and violence,3 Mussolini had no
alternative but to admit it, and told the court committee :
c There were some hundreds of men in all, divided into
squads commanded by officers, and naturally all under
my command. I was a sort of commander-in-chicf of this
little army.3 A commander who controlled it without ever
leaving the offices of his paper.
When the Fiume subscription was used up, or no longer
available as a result of the scandal raked up by the two
dismissed journalists, it was big business money that enabled
Mussolini to keep up his c little army \ Towards the end
of the year large sums were coming in from industrialists,
and Mussolini began a big drive for naval and aerial
armaments and for the development of the mercantile
marine. On December 23 he declared that he was going
to press for an expansionist foreign policy, and announced
at the same time that the Popolo d"Italia would * in the new
year be provided with the indispensable typographical
resources for a paper with a huge circulation '. Clearly
he had no doubt that he could get all the money he wanted.
Further, the Fiume adventure of cTAnnunzio and his
* legionaries' was an unexpected blessing. Mussolini, by
supporting it at first and then turning traitor, was to profit
from it greatly.