THE INTERNAL CRISIS OF FASCISM 149
that henceforward the political element will have a clearly
marked supremacy over the military/
What were the events which in Mussolini's opinion had
revolted public opinion ? Viterbo had been occupied on
July 9 by a squad from Rome commanded by Bottai, future
Minister of Corporations and future Governor of Rome ;
at Treviso on July 13 columns of fascists from Padua and
Bologna had destroyed the offices of a republican and a
popular newspaper and committed every sort of violence ;
at Roccastrada in Tuscan Maremma, on July 25, a punitive
expedition had killed thirteen and wounded some twenty
of the population ; the houses of the mayor and councillors,
who refused to resign, being set on fire.1 These outrages were
not very different from the hundreds and thousands of
others which had been going on for six months in several
districts in Italy and which enabled the fascist dictatorship
to be established. The Popolo d* Italia of the time contained
no word of regret, only justification and encouragement to
continue. A few days afterwards, Mussolini referred to them
in order to explain the necessity for imposing a reversal of
policy on the fascists. Actually, to attain his own ends, he
judged it indispensable to dissociate himself from such acts.
The c return to normality' coincided with his own interests
and ambitions.
The rank and file of the fascists resisted the pact. The
centre of dissent was Bologna. Dino Grandi, now Italian
ambassador in London, was the newest and youngest star
in the fascist firmament. Barrister, ex-soldier, editor of the
fascist paper, FAssalto, he was the theorist of the opposition,
the anti-Mussolini. Mussolini came to grips with him at
once, and the struggle between the c old * Milanese fascism
and the neo-fascism of Bologna began. Mussolini charged
Grandi with being only a recently joined member of the
party, and yet calling Bologna * the cradle of fascism '.
He went on :
c Do the fascists of Emilia want to desert Italian
fascism ? Personally I am indifferent, or nearly so. For
1 It was the mayor of Roccastrada to whom the Marquis Perrone Compagni
had sent, in April, the threatening letter quoted on pp. 104,, 105.