172 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
e I have never believed in, even when it is suggested by
unemployed generals, who always think they have an
infallible remedy for the world's troubles/ besides, * dictator-
ship is a high card, which can only be played once, and at a
frightful risk' ; alternatively an appeal to the country
through new general elections ; or, finally, a coalition
government. But who was to form it ? Not Nitti, for the
fascists were strongly opposed to him. c Signor Giolitti ?
This statesman has always enjoyed great popularity. Besides,
history is a succession of logical and sentimental points of
view, and one does not fix one's loves and hates for ever.
Yesterday's friends become to-morrow's enemies, and vice
versa ; such is life.' With regard to the general situation,
if it was necessary to choose between civil war and a policy
of pacification, the fascists felt themselves strong enough to
accept pacification.
* It is time the Italian people stopped fighting at home
and looked beyond their own frontiers, watching the new
developments which are destined once more to change the
map of Europe. For the choice lies between treaty
revision and a new war. Italy must enter the lists solidly
united and undistracted by internal disorder, so as to
show the world—since from now on our life is neither
national, nor even European, but world-wide—that Italy
is about to enter the fourth and most brilliant period of
her history.5
Reading this speech again to-day, one is struck by its
incoherence. It would have been easy to refute it and show
up its countless contradictions. Nobody did so, because in
order to drive Mussolini and fascism into a corner it would
have been necessary to take a firm line and shoulder
definite responsibilities,, not only over fascism but over the
whole field of Italian politics. Mussolini could afford to be
incoherent, because none of the others, from socialists to
liberals, were ready to pay the price of a coherent policy.
He knew the weakness of his opponents and profited by it.
Their torpor gave him freedom to manoeuvre. What he
was out to prevent was the hardening of vaguely democratic
feeling in the Chamber into a definite coalition from which