Word: duces
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...committed to the big military job of maintaining Austria's independence against Germany that, on that issue and certain others vital to Adolf Hitler, suave British diplomatists could flirt politely with Berlin's Nazis, leaving Italy to bear the brunt of German wrath. By last week Il Duce had all Europe guessing whether he and Der Führer may not soon get together in a deal as to Austria's future, and in London the welkin rang with reverberations of anti-British editorials splashed out in Rome...
Shouting into his mouthpiece, Il Duce wanted to know if his Geneva delegate remembered what day this was. It was the 20th anniversary of Italy's entry into the War. Throughout Italy since dawn it had been as fine a fiesta of flag waving as any Fascist could remember. From Naples 2,200 more troops had sailed for East Africa. There were parades and speeches in every provincial capital. In Rome gnarled little King Vittorio Emanuele presented new colors to 16 new regiments. Celebrating the ninth Fascist levy 150,000 young men throughout Italy joined the Fascist Militia...
Shortly after 9 o'clock the telephone rang again. This time it was Signer Mussolini calling. Capt. Eden spilled his coffee. Il Duce had thought of a compromise. He would agree to arbitrate the Abyssinian question-in principle-if Britain and France would let him continue to send troops to Africa. Italy was perfectly agreeable to Abyssinia's two chosen arbitrators: Professor Albert de la Pradelle of France and Professor Pitman Benjamin Potter of Long Branch, N.J., onetime instructor in political science at Harvard and in history at Yale...
France and Britain privately might be willing to let Italy go as far as she liked in Ethiopia in return for assorted favors in Europe, but the British Government for one could not afford to let British Liberals think so. "Steps" might be a distasteful word to Il Duce. Distasteful steps were promptly taken. Sir Eric Drummond, onetime Secretary General of the League of Nations, now Ambassador to Rome, was suddenly called back to London for a conference with the Cabinet. Hard-working Capt. Anthony Eden, only just recovered from a heart attack, was appointed British agent for a suddenly...
...Chair, has hung for centuries on the wall of Florence's Pitti Gallery. The director got a curt notification to take it down and pack it for shipment to Paris. At the same time the director of the Uffizi, having read a similar command from Il Duce, was reluctantly packing Botticelli's masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, Michelangelo's Holy Family, Titian's Flora. At the Bargello it was Verrochio's David. At Milan's Brera it was Raphael's Nuptials of the Virgin and Bellini's Pietà. From Padua, Giotto...