2Q2 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
now he became more and more hesitant. The leaders of the
Association of Disabled Soldiers, Ruggero Romano and Carlo
Delcroix, went to Gardone to persuade the ' Commandant'
not to depart from his plan. This step failed, for on the 2 7th it
was announced that the ceremony of November 4 would not
take place, ' to prevent the noble impulse of the wounded
and the name and person of d'Annunzio from being made
to serve the ends of shady political intrigues.' Facta got in
touch with the king and with Mussolini, and asked both of
them to come to Rome. The king, who was enjoying a
country holiday in San Rossore, was in the capital by eight
in the evening. Mussolini refused. That evening Facta
called on the king and handed him the resignation of the
cabinet. The king, apparently, was not at all pleased at
the turn taken by events, but Facta reassured him and tried
to show that the situation was not too serious, and that the
measures taken left time for a solution to be found. For
he too had his solution. In his Naples speech Mussolini
had praised his ' straightforwardness * and censured the
c anti-fascism' of the ministers Taddei, Amendola, and
Alessio.1 Might not a third Facta ministry be possible, in
which they would be replaced by three fascist ministers ?2
But the statements made to the press by Bianchi on the
evening of the 2 7th and on the 28th removed any hope
of such a solution : c This is an extra-parliamentary crisis,'
he said, £ the Chamber is left out of it. It has made no sign.
The succession therefore must pass to those who, outside
parliament, have precipitated the crisis ; that is the
fascists. . . . In the light of common sense there ought to be
a Mussolini cabinet. ... A Salandra, Giolitti, Orlando or
Giolitti-Orlando cabinet does not make sense ; and in
1 P. 283.
2 Count Sforza, in his Builders of Modem Europe, has divulged the confidences
imparted to him after October 1922 by Giolitti and the senator Taddei :
* When I expressed my astonishment to Giolitti that he had not thought it his
duty to come to Rome and take power in autumn 1922, the reply I received
was that he was probably wrong, but that the objections of every kind raised
by Facta to prevent him stirring from his country house at Gavour were endless
and inexhaustible. Facta even telegraphed, once his departure from Cavour
to go to Rome had been determined on, to say that the floods had made the
journey dangerous. Giolitti's explanation was that Facta had allowed himself
to be taken in by private overtures from the fascists, who had dangled before
him the hope of remaining premier in a new cabinet containing Mussolini and
other fascists.'