Fascist Spectacle.pdf

Fascist Spectacle http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft18700444&chunk.id=0&doc.v...
negotiate the polyvalent meanings he was attributing to power, war, and empire. This image
constituted a constant motif in the regime's discourse. As such, it prepared the ideological and
symbolic terrain on which fascism founded its justification for war as the time approached for Italy to
initiate its Ethiopian conquest.
The fascist regime's interest in Ethiopia followed a history of Italian expansionist attempts
beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, during the governments of Agostino De Pretis and
Francesco Crispi. Both prime ministers focused their search for new territories in the African area
around the Red Sea; during their regency Italy initiated its penetration of Eritrea, Somalia, and
Abyssinia, although amid some unfavorable circumstances. A most significant failure occurred in 1893,
during Crispi's second government, when Italy advanced its politics of expansionism in Abyssinia. The
emperor Menelik reacted to the Italians' military threat by organizing a strong army, and in 1896 he
managed to inflict a large defeat on the Italians at Adowa, where Italy lost six thousand soldiers. The
defeat remained vivid in popular memory and became a symbolic moment in Italy's colonial struggle, a
humiliation to be revenged. With the beginning of the new century, Italy's colonial politics was still
oriented toward the northern African coast. Diplomatic agreements established between 1902 and
1904 with France, England, and Tunisia acknowledged Italy's interests in Tripolitania (Libya) and
Cyrenaica. In 1911, backed by this political support, Giolitti, then prime minister, decided it was time
for Italy to actualize its colonial goals. Although Italy had no economic interest in those regions,
questions of prestige and the geopolitics of the time [91] encouraged Giolitti's government to declare
war on Turkey, on whom Libya depended. Within a month, because of the political and economic crisis
of the Ottoman Empire, the Italian army was able to occupy a strategic point in the Tripolitania region,
but in the long run the
― 168 ―
persistence of sporadic warfare created several obstacles to the successful completion of the invasion.
Within this context, and because Giolitti's government intended to avoid a compromise peace pact,
two months after the first attack, and well before the war was concluded, Italy printed a royal decree
establishing its absolute sovereignty over Libya. A year later the Lausanne peace treaty conferred
upon Italy the right of sovereignty over Libya, and public opinion acclaimed the country's first colonial
success.
With respect to its colonial politics in Ethiopia, Italy's military preparation during the 1900s and
1910s was conceived primarily in terms of a defensive strategy against an eventual Abyssinian
invasion of the Italian possession of Eritrea. [92] In the 1920s Mussolini's fascist government continued
the policy of the liberal government and even signed a treaty of friendship with Ethiopia in 1928. [93]
By the end of the decade, however, the fascist regime called for a politics of force that would pursue
the disintegration of the Ethiopian empire. [94] Thus, in 1932, with Mussolini's consent, Minister of
Colonies Emilio De Bono officially began the preparation for an aggressive campaign in Abyssinia.
At its inception, the campaign's exact goals were not clear, nor was the beginning date decided.
The operation actually underwent several changes over the following year, partly because of the
presence of two different centers of power, the military and the politicians, whose opinions on war
objectives and strategies differed widely. [95] In February 1934 Mussolini convened the first meeting
on the operation and communicated his decision to begin the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. [96] Military
leaders expressed concern about this early date because, according to them, it did not leave adequate
time to prepare for what they envisioned as a war of conquest. The course of events, however,
contributed to determine this early start to the colonial war. The relations between Italy and Ethiopia
having deteriorated drastically at the end of 1934, rumors spread about an Abyssinian mobilization.
The rumor proved to be unfounded, but the situation motivated Mussolini—who was convinced for a
series of reasons that "time works against us"—to prepare a final plan of aggression in Ethiopia. The
invasion, as he wrote in his memorandum to the highest authorities of the regime, was supposed to
take place in 1935; and, Mussolini added, it needed to aim at the "total conquest of Ethiopia."
The problem of the Italo-Abyssinian relations recently moved to a different level: from diplomatic problem it has become
a problem of force . It is a historical problem that we need to solve with the only means with which such problems have
always been solved: with the employment of arms. . . .
― 169 ―
Committed to this war, the objective cannot but be the destruction of the Abyssinian armed forces and the total conquest
of Ethiopia. The empire cannot be done otherwise. [97]
99 of 199 7/11/2006 12:54 AM