Marching into infamy

RJB Bosworth reveals how the March on Rome which saw Benito Mussolini's Fascist squads seize power a century ago - set Italy on a path to totalitarianism

- RJB Bosworth

The night of 27-28 October 1922 was a restless one for the Amendola family in their Rome flat. It was raining heavily, perhaps a portent of approaching winter. The eldest of four children in the family, Giorgio, was approaching his 15th birthday. More than 50 years later, he would record his memory of those days.

Giorgio was far from the only person to chronicle the extraordinary events of October 1922, but what gives his account added potency is the fact that his father, Giovanni, was one of the most powerful men in Italy.

Giovanni held the post of minister of colonies in Italy's government - and as the rain tumbled down, that government was on the brink of collapse.

Ever since Italy's states had coalesced into a unified nation in the 1860s, successive governments had been plagued by infighting and weakness. Things were little different in the autumn of 1922. The administration in which Giovanni served found itself pulled this way and that by various competing political interests, each jockeying for power.

Luigi Facta, Italy's prime minister, was a Liberal. Socialists had had their party since 1892, although, in recent months, its supporters, enthused or embarrassed by Russian revolution, had split into three: communist, maximalist and reformist. Catholics had established their Partito Popolare (Popular Party) on 18 January 1919.