REVOLUTION CROSSES THE ADRIATIC 51
march on Rome without Mussolini, hastened to tell the
whole story in the pages of the Popolo d'Italia.
In this way any chance of associating the Fiume enter-
prise with a popular revolution in Italy was ended. The
£ march on Rome * was to corne from the right. The
occupation of Fiurne, as time went on, provided fascism with
a model for its militia, its uniforms, the names of its units,
its war cries and its creed. Mussolini borrowed the whole of
d'Annunzio's scenario, including his crowd scenes. Realiz-
ing that d'Annunzio was above all a poet, and as such could
not get very far, he waited patiently to succeed him.
D'Annunzio was the victim of the worst plagiarism ever
known. c For the fascist conquest of Italy,' said Count
Sforza, with his usual discrimination, c has been the most
literal and the least original copy of d'Annunzio's wild epic,
the Fiume adventure/