Saturday, May 24, 1930

Milan:  Dictator Benito Mussolini wraps up a tour of Tuscany with another fiery speech, although toned down from his last two.  “We are well enough informed of the spirit dominating some of our neighbors,” he says, another thinly veiled reference to France.  His audience again responds with cries of “Down with France!”  He also takes the opportunity to deny what he claims are rumors that Italy had sent troops to Albania to aid King Zog. 

Kiel, Germany:  Communists and nazis clash again, injuring 12.  

Tuesday, May 20, 1930

Ludwigshaven, Germany:  Consistent with yesterday’s announcement, the commander of French forces occupying the Rhineland gives orders for the first 2,000 troops to prepare to leave.  A total of 40,000 troops will evacuate by June 30. 

Prague:  A socialist newspaper alleges that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini has plans to put Otto von Hapsburg, the last crown prince of Austria-Hungary, on the throne of Hungary as part of his designs to dominate eastern Europe. 

Milan:  Meanwhile, “Il Duce” keeps up the speechmaking.  At a ceremony honoring the fascist dead and inaugurating a new headquarters for the fascist party here, Mussolini calls fascism the “hope of Europe.”  

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.  

Saturday, May 17, 1930

Florence:  Dictator Benito Mussolini, after months of relative quiet, gives a bellicose speech before 200,000 screaming fascists, emphasizing the military might of Italy and her readiness to battle her enemies.  “There are people who think they can isolate Italy, and who would not be adverse from starting war against the Italian people, even through the territory of a third power.”  It is widely understood that Mussolini refers to France, whose relations with eastern European countries, Italy believes, are intended to isolate Italy.  “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.” 

The French Ambassador to Italy visits Italian Foreign Minister Dino Grandi to express his displeasure. 

Paris:  Foreign Minister Aristide Briand has presented a proposal to the 26 European countries that are members of the League of Nations, calling for a federation of European states.  Some in the U.S. press are calling the idea a “United States of Europe.”  Briand first floated the concept in a speech last year, but now has presented it, fully formed, in a “Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union.”  It is a bold proposal, though not without some precedent in European history.  Some fear Italy and Germany will view it as an attempt to isolate them and expand French influence over the continent.

Berlin:  Three people are killed when communists and nazis, on their way home from various political gatherings, clash in street brawls.

New York:  Police battle a crowd of 2,000 communists when they attempt to free picketers who had been detained after ignoring a court injunction not to demonstrate.  Four are arrested.

Monday, 4 November 1929

Rome:  

In a speech marking the 11^th anniversary of Italy’s victory at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, Dictator Benito Mussolini is back to his belligerent talk.  “History teaches us when there are serious crises, it is arms and war which solve them.  If I had the terrible responsibility of governing a country in wartime, I would make a clean sweep of all powers of discord and defeatists.  I would impose stern discipline behind the war front.”  He added that he thought there was too much talk about peace and disarmament in the world.  Vittorio Veneto was the crucial battle in ending combat on the Italian Front in the World War, and a major factor in the end of the entire war two weeks later. 

Kyoto:  

At the Institute of Pacific Relations conference, the topic of Japan’s presence in Manchuria tops the agenda.  Japan maintains troops in Manchuria to protect its South Manchuria Railway concession, as other nations do in their concessions.  However, China alleges that Japanese troops are involved in acts of intimidation and terrorization of the population.  Japan, on the other hand, says its interests in Manchuria are comparable to Great Britain’s interests in Egypt, or the United States’ interests in Cuba.  A Japanese delegate says China, Japan and the rest of the world all really want the same thing in Manchuria.  “Japan is interested in the development of Manchuria so that she may draw on that country for raw materials which she may turn into manufactured products and which she may sell to the steadily increasing population of Manchuria.”  A delegate from Great Britain pays tribute to Japan for helping maintain peace in Manchuria when the rest of China is in turmoil. 

New York:  

The stock market drops 4.5%, reversing the brief rally that followed last week’s crash.

 

London:  

The government begins deliberations in parliament on plans to spend 42 million pounds on unemployment grants and railway and road improvements, in order to provide jobs to Britain’s unemployed, which now number more than 1 million.  Nevertheless, J.H. Thomas, Minister of Employment, is not optimistic that the “blight of unemployment” can be wiped out so easily.  “In some districts of the country there is no hope whatever of work for thousands and hundreds of thousands of our fellow men, no matter what is done.” 

Photo of J.H. Thomas

Sunday, 27 October 1929

Russia: 

THE SOVIETS KILL 26 more OF THEIR CITIZENS.  Today it's mostly “kulaks” (rich peasants), who oppose having their lands confiscated as part of soviet collectivization.  In the village of Gari, one of those shot is a priest, allegedly for spreading a rumor that the government would destroy the local church cemetery and close the church.  In Maly Penky, two kulaks are shot for burning their grain and terrorizing local communists in opposition to collectivization.  Five more are shot in Taskoava for killing a government grain inspector.  

In Kimri, another priest is sentenced to death -- in his case, when soviet authorities showed up to close his church, he ran to the church tower and rang the bells, bringing out a mob who attacked the government officials.  

Rome:  

Dictator Benito Mussolini gives an inflammatory speech before a raucous crowd on the 7^th anniversary of the “March on Rome” that put him in power, saying his fascist Italy is strong, ready for war, and courageous.  "Italy today is really as I wished it, an army of citizens and soldiers ready for works of peace, laborious, silent and disciplined."  He follows this, however, with a question for the crowd: would they respond it he called on them should any country disturb Italy?  The crowd responds with a resounding yes.  "After seven years, we are younger, stronger and more implacable than before," he went on.  

Standing on the balcony of the Venezia Palace, Mussolini also reviews 40,000 “blackshirts” – his fascist militia -- and army regulars.  Mussolini makes fond references to the “Manganello,” a club which his blackshirts used to beat anti-fascists in earlier years.  “This club,” he says, “has now been laid aside, but could promptly be dusted and made to refunction.  Besides this instrument we also have rifles and machine guns.”  His speech is interrupted at times by shouts of "Death to political exiles," thought to be a reference to the would-be assassin who fired a shot at Prince Umberto last week in Brussels.  

London:

Several hundred communist demonstrators attempt a march from Trafalgar Square to the U.S. Embassy to protest the treatment of textile workers in North Carolina.  Bearing signs and banners reading, "Textile Workers Starved and Murdered in Gastonia," the marchers try to smash windows on vehicles as they march past.  The real trouble starts when they are informed that the U.S. Ambassador won't receive them; the communists then rush police near Victoria Station, and the police counter-charge on horseback.  It takes roughly 30 minutes to restore order.

Vienna:  

The nationalist Heimwehr paramilitary organization holds a 10,000-man parade, complete with cavalry.  But there is no violence.