208 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
outstripped them because, besides keeping a sharp look-out
for anything likely to affect the disposition of political forces
in the country, he could see further ahead. He wanted to
attain power quickly and by any possible means, so as to
direct Italy's foreign policy,1 This alone could satisfy his
ambition and round off the adventure which began with his
break with the socialists in October 1914. A few days
before the cabinet crisis broke out he delivered a violent
attack, in the Popolo d" Italia of July 8, on Schanzer, the
foreign minister in the Facta cabinet, who had just returned
from London where he had been negotiating with the
British government over the compensations promised to
Italy by the April 1915 agreement. Once more Mussolini
expounded his own foreign policy, which was to be followed
by his own government after the march on Rome.
c What does Signor Schanzer's visit to London really
amount to ? Setting aside the bombastic humbug about
" European reconstruction", have Italy and England
really any interests in common ? Is there any identity of
European interests with regard to Germany and Russia ?
In appearance, yes ; in reality, no. This habitual anglo-
phile policy is doing us harm throughout the entire Near
East. It is alienating the sympathies of Islam. It is
logical for London to try and maintain the status quo.
London has arrived. She lives on her income. What
she cannot stomach she rejects. The English are a
bourgeois nation, we are a proletarian one. . . . We distrust
Signor Schanzer's policy, we distrust his reconstructionist
mentality. He is still infected with Wilsonism. He is
too much of a European to remember that it is the duty
of an Italian foreign minister to be Italian.3
Mussolini was eager to get power, because he wanted to
make Italy play her part, that is to say to play Italy's part
himself, in the concert of Europe. The old figure-heads
beyond the frontier, the overfed and drowsy nations would
meet the same fate as the old politicians and parties inside
Italy, who were befogged by their scruples and humanitarian
dreams and paralysed by their inability to put them into
1 P. 133-