Fascism, Violence, and Italian Colonialism

ABSTRACT

The foundations of Italy’s colonial empire in Africa were laid when Italy was an aspirational and well-meaning liberal nation. In the 1920s and 1930s, like its predecessor, Mussolini’s Fascist state also looked to Africa to expand. Focusing on the Italian reconquest of Libya in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as the brutal massacre of civilians that took place in Ethiopia in 1937, this article looks into the nature of Italian colonial violence and asks what difference Fascism made. Looking back at the Italian massacre of Libyans in Tripoli in 1911 as well, it argues that Fascism did not so much turn Italians into Mussolini’s ‘willing executioners’ – though they did indeed kill willingly in Africa – but rather that the regime succeeded in removing certain factors, such as free press and political plurality, which had been present in the liberal era and had acted to restrain the use of unlimited violence in the colonial setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Italian Fascism
• colonialism
• Ethiopia
• Libya

Notes on contributor

Giuseppe Finaldi teaches modern European history at the University of Western Australia. His latest book is A History of Italian Colonialism, 1860–1907: Europe’s Last Empire (Routledge 2017).

Notes

1 Duilio Susmel and Edoardo Susmel, (eds.), Benito Mussolini: Opera Omnia, vol. XXIX (Florence: La Fenice, 1959), p. 117. The book in question is Partito Nazionale Fascista, Il Gran Consiglio del fascismo nei primi quindici anni dell'era fascista (Bologna: Stabilimenti poligrafici editori de Il Resto del Carlino, 1938).

2 Quoted in Angelo Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente? (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2005), p. 177.

3 Paolo De Vecchi, Italy’s Civilizing Mission in Africa (New York: Brentano’s 1912), p. 41.

4 Libya was also home to some 20,000 Jews, who mostly lived in the coastal cities. See Rachel Simon, Change Within Tradition of Jewish Women in Libya (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992), p. 6.

5 Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia: Dal Fascismo a Gheddafi (Milan: Mondadori, 1994), p. 185.

6 Nicola Labanca, Oltremare. Storia dell’espansione coloniale italiana (Bologna: Il Mulno, 2002), p. 175.

7 Angelo Del Boca, (ed.), I gas di Mussolini (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1996), pp. 17–8.

8 Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente?, p. 179.

9 Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia, p. 183.

10 Antonella Randazzo, L’Africa del Duce, I crimini fascisti in Africa (Varese: Arterigere, 2008), p. 133.

11 The title of Graziani’s campaign memoirs: Pace romana in Libia (Milan: Mondadori, 1937).

12 Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia, p. 183.

13 Eric Salerno, Genocidio in Libia (Milan: Sugarco, 1979).

14 Del Boca, Gli Italiani in Libia, p. 183.

15 Renato Paoli, Nella colonia eritrea (Milan: Treves, 1908), p. 301.

16 On this see Giuseppe Finaldi, “The Peasants did not Think of Africa: Empire and the Italian State’s Pursuit of Legitimacy, 1871–1945,” in John M. MacKenzie, (ed.), European Empires and the People (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 195–228; also see Mark Choate, Emigrant Nation, The Making of Italy Abroad (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

17 Stephen Bruner, “Leopoldo Franchetti and Italian Settlement in Eritrea: Emigration, Welfare Colonialism and the Southern Question,” European History Quarterly, vol. 39 (2009): pp. 71–94.

18 Alberto Aquarone, Dopo Adua: politica e amministrazione coloniale (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 1989), p. 138.

19 Roberto Battaglia, La Prima Guerra d’Africa (Turin: Einaudi, 1958), pp. 793–807; Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa Orientale: Dall’unità alla Marcia su Roma, vol. 1 (Rome and Milan: Laterza-Mondadori, 1992), pp. 701–10.

20 See Giuseppe Finaldi, A History of Italian Colonialism, Europe’s Last Empire 1860–1907 (Oxford: Routledge, 2017), pp. 116–64.

21 Paoli, Nella Colonia, p. 302.

22 Ibid.

23 On the episode, see Stephen Bruner, Late Nineteenth-Century Italy in Africa: The Livraghi Affair and the Waning of Civilizing Aspirations (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017).

24 Ferdinando Martini, Nell’Affrica italiana (Milan: Treves, 1895), p. 61.

25 This is the argument of Bruner, Late Nineteenth-Century Italy in Africa.

26 Ferdinando Martini, “L’Italia e l’Eritra,” in Società di Studi Geografici e Coloniali, L’Eritrea economica (Novara-Rome: Istituto Geografico De Agostini, 1913), p. 3.

27 Ibid., p. 4.

28 Denis Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 119. See the recent “Italia, Francia, Gran Bretagna e la questione etiopica durante la prima guerra mondiale,” Nuova Rivista Storica, vol. 101, no. 3 (2017): pp. 829–70, by Luciano Monzali, who, for example, divines covetous Italian eyes cast on Ethiopia during World War I.

29 See Federico Chabod, Storia della politica estera italiana dal 1870 al 1896. Volume primo: le premesse (Bari: Laterza, 1951).

30 See Roman Rainero, L’anti-colonialismo italiano da Assab a Adua (Milan: Comunità, 1971).

31 Atti Parlamentari, Camera dei Deputati: Legislatura XVI, 3 February 1887, p. 2018.

32 Andrea Costa, Il ritiro delle truppe dall’Africa (Siena: Marchetti, 1887), p. 16.

33 Cesare Bodini, L’Abissinia degli abissini (Florence: Tip. Coperativa, 1888), p. 8.

34 Daniele Comboni, Piano per la rigenerazione dell’Africa proposta da D. Daniele Comboni, missionario apostolico dell’Africa centrale (Rome: Propaganda Fide, 1867).

35 Pope Leo XIII, Catholicae Ecclesiae: On Slavery in the Missions (encyclical given in Rome, November 20, 1890), available at http://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13slv.htm.

36 See Gaspare Colosimo and Ministero delle colonie, Relazione al Parlamento sulla situazione politica, economica ed amministrativa delle colonie italiane presentata alla Camera dei deputati il 23 febbraio 1918 ed al Senato del regno il 28 febbraio 1918. Con XXIV annessi, nove carte e una tavola (Rome: Tip. del Senato, 1918), p. 489.

37 Ibid.; see also Silvana Palma, “Half Devil and Half Child: Africanist Historical Studies and Studies on Colonialism in Italian University,” in Paolo Bertella Farnetti and Cecilia Dau Novelli, (eds.), Colonialism and National Identity (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), p. 69.

38 Guglielmo Massaia, In Abissinia e fra i Galla (Florence: Ariani, 1895), p. xiv.

39 Oreste Baratieri, Memorie d’Africa (Turin: Bocca, 1898), p. 144.

40 Atti Parlamentari, Camera dei Deputati: Legislatura XXIII, 12 March 1910, p. 5996.

41 Leopoldo Franchetti, L’avvenire della colonia eritrea (Rome: Civelli, 1895), p. 9.

42 Oreste Gorra, Storia annedotica della guerra d’Africa (Rome: Perino, 1895), p. 1.

43 See Richard Bosworth and Giuseppe Finaldi, “The Italian Empire” in Robert Gerwarth, (ed.), Empires at War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

44 See Daniela Rossini, Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy: Culture, Diplomacy, and War Propaganda (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

45 See especially chapter six, “Lo Statuto (1 giugno 1919): oltre la logica coloniale?,” of Simona Berhe, Notabili libici e Funzionari italiani: l’amministrazione coloniale in Tripolitania (1912–1919) (Soverio-Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2015), pp. 259–70.

46 Angelo Del Boca, “Graziani, Rodolfo,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 58 (Rome: Dizionario-Biografico, 2002); Daniela Baratieri, “Rodolfo Graziani,” The Encyclopedia of War (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2012).

47 Duilio Susmel and Edoardo Susmel, (eds.), Benito Mussolini: Opera Omnia, vol. XXVII (Florence: La Fenice, 1959), p. 269.

48 Ian Campbell, The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy’s National Shame (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 50.

49 Ibid., p. 51.

50 Ibid., p. 53, 56.

51 Quoted in Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa orientale III. La caduta dell’impero, (Milan: Mondadori, 1992), p. 84.

52 Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, p. 60.

53 Ibid., p. 69.

54 Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa orientale III, p. 85.

55 Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, p. 361.

56 Ibid., pp. 327–9.

57 See Elizabeth Laird, The Lure of the Honey Bird: The Storytellers of Ethiopia (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2013); Josepha Sherman, Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore (Oxford: Routledge, 2015), p. 154.

58 Ian Campbell and Degife Gabre-Tsadik, “La repressione fascista in Etiopia: la ricostruzione del massacro di Debra Libanos,” Studi Piacentini, vol. 21 (1997): p. 111.

59 Del Boca, Italiani, brava gente?, pp. 220–3.

60 Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa orientale III. La caduta dell’impero, pp. 105–6.

61 Giuseppe Bottai, quoted in Nicola Labanca, Una guerra per l’impero (Turin: Einaudi, 2005), pp. 102–3.

62 Giuseppe Bottai, quoted in Angelo Del Boca, introduction to XX Battaglione Eritreo, by Indro Montanelli (Milan: Rizzoli, 2013), p. 24.

63 Del Boca, (ed.), I gas di Mussolini, p. 29.

64 Vittorio Mussolini, quoted in Labanca, Una guerra, p. 196.

65 Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, p. 329.

66 Giorgio Rochat, “L’attentato a Graziani e la repressione italiana in Etiopia nel 1936–37,” Italia Contemporanea, vol. 26, no. 118 (1975): pp. 3–38.

67 See conclusion of Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, pp. 351–3.

68 See, for example, Ian Campbell and Degife Gabre-Tsadik, “La repressione fascista in Etiopia: la ricostruzione del massacro di Debra Libanos,” Studi Piacentini, no. 21 (1997): pp. 79–128.

69 Moustapha Akkad, The Lion of the Desert (Libya: 1981).

70 Ken Kirby, Fascist Legacy, (UK: BBC, 1989).

71 Alexander De Grand, “Mussolini's Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase 1935–1940,” Contemporary European History, vol. 13, no. 2 (2004): p. 139.

72 Davide Rodogno, Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation During the Second World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

73 Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, p. 69.

74 For a good explanation of the concept, see Jorge Dagnino, “The Myth of the New Man in Italian Fascist Ideology,” Fascism, vol. 5, no. 2 (2016): pp. 130–48.

75 Paul Corner, “Italian Fascism: Whatever Happened to Dictatorship?” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 74, no. 2 (2002): pp. 325–51; Paul Corner, (ed.), Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes: Fascism, Nazism, Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Paul Corner, The Fascist Party and Popular Opinion in Mussolini’s Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

76 Michael Ebner, Ordinary Violence in Mussolini’s Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

77 Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, the Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

78 Renzo de Felice, Mussolini il Duce. I. Gli anni del consenso 1929–1936 (Turin: Einaudi, 1974).

79 Emilio Gentile, Fascismo di pietra (Bari-Rome, Laterza, 2007), p. 128.

80 Quoted in Mathew Feldman, (ed.), A Fascist Century: Essays by Roger Griffin (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 14.

81 Robert Mallett, Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933–1940 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Macgregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Macgregor Knox, Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); John Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

82 Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, p. 251.

83 See, for example, his article in La Lotta di Classe, no. 87, 23 September 1911, reprinted in Duilio Susmel and Edoardo Susmel, (eds.), Benito Mussolini: Opera Omnia, vol. IV (Florence: La Fenice, 1952), p. 59.

84 Benedetto Croce, Storia D’Italia dal 1871 al 1915 (Bari: Laterza, 1928), pp. 271–2.

85 Letter to The Daily Express, quoted in De Vecchi, Italy’s Civilizing Mission in Africa (New York: Brentano’s, 1912), p. 7.

86 Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia, Tripoli bel Suol d’Amore (Milan: Mondadori, 1993), p. 110.

87 Del Boca, Italian, brava gente?, pp. 111–2.

88 Francis McCullagh, Italy’s War for a Desert: Being Some Experiences of a War-correspondent with the Italians in Tripoli (Chicago: Browne and Co., 1913), p. 202.

89 Del Boca, Gli Italiani in Libia, Tripoli, p. 114.

90 Quoted in McCullagh, Italy’s War for a Desert, p. 253.

91 Del Boca, Gli Italiani in Libia, Tripoli, pp. 114–5.

92 Special correspondent, “The Arab Rising,” The Times, 31 October 1911, p. 8.

93 Campbell, Addis Ababa Massacre, p. 352.

94 See Valerio Castronovo and Nicola Tranfaglia, (eds.), La stampa italiana nell’età fascista (Rome: Laterza, 1980).

95 See on this especially Richard Bosworth, “War, Totalitarianism, and ‘Deep Belief’ in Fascist Italy, 1935–43,” European History Quarterly, no. 34 (2004): pp. 475–505 and his book Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Dictatorship (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006).

96 See Agostino Giovagnoli, “Il Vaticano di fronte al colonialismo fascista,” in Angelo Del Boca, (ed.), Le guerre coloniali del Fascismo (Rome: Laterza, 1991), pp. 112–31.

97 Carlo De Biase, L’Aquila d’Oro: storia dello Stato Maggiore Italiano (1861–1945) (Milan: il Borghese, 1965), p. 165.

98 Ennio Flaiano, A Time to Kill (London: Quartet, 1992), pp. 270–1.