Word: duces
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...including "reestablishment and reorganization of economic life," and, in an unspecified manner, shift some ethnographic groups-possibly German Jews to central Poland and "splinters" of "German nationality" back into the Reich. This "south and east" business was the part of the speech that caused apprehensive Italians to grumble: "Our Duce could have said it better...
...London (where he used to be Ambassador) to talk things over. That the pressure came not only from abroad was indicated by whispered gossip in Rome that Fascist Secretary Achille Starace had formed a cabal backed by the King, the Army and the peasantry, which would oust II Duce from his job if he went to war on Germany's side. What was significant about this tidbit was not so much whether it had a basis of fact, but that it could get around...
...Duce still had one good card in his hand. If he could persuade Adolf Hitler to give up a sizable chunk of Poland for a buffer state, and present this offer to Britain and France as Germany's concession for peace, he still had a chance-though a long one-of becoming the Peacemaker of Europe, and of taking as his commission therefor some Mediterranean and African concessions. With some such proposition Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano flew to Berlin to see Adolf Hitler this week. Abruptly-after barely 24 hours and only one talk with Herr Hitler...
Plea for peace, and a slight rap at the Allies, though it was, it did not sound as if Il Duce expected peace. He praised the wisdom of Britain and France in not declaring war on Russia (but wondered, in that case, why they were still fighting Germany). Then he announced Italy's stand: "My policy was fixed in the declaration of September 1, and there is no reason to change it." In other words, Italy would stay neutral unless attacked...
Goings-on in Italy backed up the belief that Il Duce would continue to play ball with both sides. While he was speaking in Bologna, it was announced in Rome that Italian garrisons were being withdrawn from the Dodecanese Islands off Greece, a gesture in the Allies' favor. A few days earlier Italy and Greece had both moved back from the Greco-Albanian frontier. Italy sent an Ambassador, Giuseppe Bastianini, to the Court of St. James's, where she has had none since June. Italy made no protest last week when the British stopped an Italian ship...