Mussolini's March on Rome handed fascism a country
On this day · 28 October 1922
On October 28, 1922, Blackshirt columns converged on Rome and a hesitant king handed Benito Mussolini the keys to Italy's government.
On the night of 27–28 October 1922, columns of Fascist Blackshirts — perhaps 30,000 men, poorly armed and rain-soaked — converged on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta asked King Victor Emmanuel III to declare martial law and disperse them.
The king refused to sign. Instead, he invited Benito Mussolini, who had prudently waited in Milan, to come south and form a government. Within days the agitator who had threatened a coup was sworn in as Italy’s youngest prime minister, arriving by overnight train rather than at the head of an army.
The “march” conquered nothing; the surrender came from the top.
Mussolini later mythologized the episode as a heroic seizure of power. In truth it was a transfer of power, made legal by a frightened establishment unwilling to face down the squads it feared.
Full dictatorship took a few more years. But October 1922 is when fascism first took control of a modern European state — and gave Adolf Hitler a template he would soon try to copy.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
