SPEECH DELIVERED BY PREMIER BENITO MUSSOLINI
Rome, Italy, February 23, 1941 [1]
Blackshirts of Rome! I come among you to look you firmly in the eyes, feel your temperature and break the silence which is dear to-me, especially in wartime. Have you ever asked yourselves in an hour of meditation, which every one finds during the day, how long we have been at war. Not only eight months, as a superficial observer of events might believe, not from Sept. 1, 1939, when through guarantees to Poland, Britain unleashed the conflagration with a criminal and premeditated will....
....But developments in history, which sometimes are speeded up, cannot be halted any more than the fleeting moment of Faust could be halted. History takes one by the throat and forces a decision. This is not the first time this has occurred in the history of Italy! If we had been 100 per cent ready we would have entered the war in September, 1939, and not in June, 1940. During that brief period of time we faced and overcame exceptional difficulties....
...We are not like the English. We boast that we are not like them. We haven't elevated lying into a government art nor into a narcotic for the people the way the London government has done. We call bread bread and wine wine, and when the enemy wins a battle it is useless and ridiculous to seek, as the English do in their incomparable hypocrisy, to deny or diminish it....
...Churchill has not the least idea of the spiritual forces of the Italian people or of what Fascism can do. We can understand Churchill's ordering the shelling of industrial plants at Genoa to disrupt work, but to shell the city in order to break down its morale is a childish illusion. It means that the British do not at all know the race temperament of the Ligurian people in general and the Genoese in particular. It means that they are ignorant of the civilian virtues and proud patriotism of the people who gave the fatherland Columbus, Garibaldi and Mazzini....
...Rome comrades! Through you I want to speak to the Italian people, to the authentic, real, great Italian people, who fight with the courage of lions on land, sea and air fronts; people who early in the morning are up to go to work in fields, factories and offices; people who do not permit themselves luxuries, not even innocent ones.
They absolutely must not be confused or contaminated by the minority or well-known poltroons, anti-social individuals and complainers, who grumble about rations and regret their suspended comforts, or by snakes, the remains of the Masonic lodges, whom we will crush without difficulties when and how we want.
The Italian people, the Fascist people deserve and will have victory. The hardships, suffering and sacrifices that are faced with exemplary courage and dignity by the Italian people will have their day of compensation when all the enemy forces are crushed on the battlefields by the heroism of our soldiers and a triple, immense cry will cross the mountains and oceans like lightning and light new hopes and give new certainties to spirit multitudes: Victory, Italy, peace with justice among peoples!
[1] New York Times, February 24, 1941.
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