Sunday, May 18, 1930: Bellicose speeches from Mussolini; Austria's fascists release Korneuburg Oath

Florence:  Another bellicose speech from Dictator Benito Mussolini as he reviews a massive assemblage of Italian armed forces that includes 45 planes and 14,000 troops.  Seated on a magnificent horse, Mussolini watches a parade of soldiers, sailors and blackshirt militiamen that’s being called the largest gathering of Italian armed forces since the end of the World War.

“Italy’s friendship is precious, but her enmity is hard.  There is great ignorance about us.  People abroad think we are a minor people, but we are a nation numbering 40 million.  They think we are governed by tyranny, but it is the Italian people who govern.  I am certain that in order not to remain prisoners of the sea, the Italian people are capable of great sacrifices.  More important than my speech today are the big guns and machine guns which I shall see in tomorrow’s parade.  The new naval program will be carried out exactly as it was laid down in 1929, and new ships will be afloat because the fascist will is a will of iron.  There are people who think they can isolate Italy, and who would not be adverse from starting a war against the Italian people, even through the territory of a third power.  We will await them at the crossing.”

“Fascist Italy henceforth will be a unit so organized as to be unassailable and without mortal danger.  Though words are beautiful things, rifles, machine guns, ships, airplanes, and big guns are still more beautiful.  Right is a vain word unless it is accompanied by might.”

“If by chance something should happen on the frontier, then we people, black shirts, army and former service men, would be at our posts ready to break the proud and vain attack.”  The crowd responds with cries of, “Down with France!”

In France, the full text of Mussolini’s similarly combative speech from yesterday is reprinted in many newspapers.

 

Korneuburg, Austria:  The fascist Heimwehr paramilitary releases the “Korneuburg Oath,” a declaration condemning both “Marxist class struggle” and “liberal-capitalist economic system,” as well as rejecting the Western democratic parliamentary and multi-party systems, and calling for an authoritarian system in Austria.  A translation of the text of the oath:

“We want to renew Austria completely.  We want the Republic of the Heimwehr.

From every comrade we demand an unshrinking belief in the mother country, utter fervor of coopration and a passionate love of homeland.  We want to reach for power in the state and reorganize state and economy for the benefit of the entire people.

We must forget our own interests, must subordinate all the ties and demands of the parties to our objective, because we wish to serve the community of the entire German people.

We reject Western democratic parliamentarianism and the party state.  We want to replace it with the autonomy of the corporations and strong governance that will not be formed from party representatives, but from leading figures from the major corporations and the most capable and proven men of our popular movement.

We shall fight against the corruption of our people by the Marxist class struggle and the liberal-capitalist economic system.  We want to realize the autonomy of the economy on the basis of occupational groups.  We shall overcome the class struggle and establish social dignity and justice.

We want to increase the prosperity of our people through a native economy of public utility.  The state is the embodiment of the nation as a whole; its power and leadership ensure that the corporations remain integrated in the imperatives of the national community.

May every comrade feel and avow himself to be an upholder of the new German state thinking; may he be prepared to sacrifice property and blood; may he know the three powers: belief in God, his own firm will, and the word of his leaders.”

Harbin, China:  A raid by soviet authorities on the Japanese consulate at Blagovestchensk, Russia, is provoking an outraged response by Japan.  Russia says it suspected the consulate of being involved in smuggling food from Manchuria into Siberia, and raided the facility to investigate.  Japan countercharges that the allegations are false, no evidence of such smuggling was found, and that the real issue is that Russian farmers and fishermen are starving due to Russian food shortages.  Japan says 300 starving miners ransacked a railway station searching for food, and trains on the Trans-Siberian Railroad have been held up for food as well.  “The threatening atmosphere is deepening daily in the villages in the vicinity of Khabarovsk due to a shortage of food throughout Siberia and as a result the Red Army stationed at Vladivostok has been mobilized in order to cope with the situation.”  Japan dispatches its consul from Harbin to investigate the situation.