Mussolini, irredentism and Switzerland
Lausanne, Bern, Geneva, Bellinzona, Locarno, Dongo
Key figures: Benito Mussolini, Giuseppe Motta, Teresa Bontempi, Aurelio Garobbio
HLS (German): Benito Mussolini, Irredentism
A young emigrant (1902–1904). In July 1902, aged nineteen, Benito Mussolini arrives in Switzerland “in a spirit of adventure”. He writes for L’Avvenire del Lavoratore, the newspaper of the Italian socialists, speaks at meetings of emigrant workers, does odd jobs and is secretary of the Italian bricklayers’ and labourers’ union in Lausanne. In June 1903, for supporting the general strike even by violent means, he is arrested in Bern, photographed and registered by the police, then expelled and handed over to the Italian police at Chiasso, who release him. In April 1904 the Geneva police arrest him again for forging the expiry date of his passport: thanks to protests by the Geneva socialists and the intervention of the Ticino government he is set free in Bellinzona instead of being handed over to Italy, where a sentence for desertion awaited him. He attends Vilfredo Pareto’s lectures at the University of Lausanne and in November 1904 returns to Italy under an amnesty.
The “Gotthard border” (1921). Having become leader of the fascist movement, in June 1921 Mussolini makes a speech in the Chamber of Deputies alluding to the Gotthard as Italy’s border: the Confederation bans him from entering the country. This is irredentism, the idea of annexing Italian-speaking lands to Italy. In Ticino it is spread from 1912 by the weekly L’Adula of Teresa Bontempi and Rosetta Colombi, founded as an Italophile cultural paper and drawing ever closer to fascism; the most combative is Aurelio Garobbio, who in 1937 founds a group in Milan to claim Ticino, Valais and the Grisons. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland stresses that irredentism had almost no political weight in Ticino; in 1935 Bontempi and Emilio Colombi are arrested for high treason and the Federal Council closes L’Adula.
The Duce and the Confederation (1922–1940). Head of government from 1922, Mussolini returns to Switzerland for the Lausanne conference (1922) and the Locarno pact (1925). On 24 April 1933 he receives Federal Councillor Giuseppe Motta in Rome, their only meeting, at which the Italian character of Ticino is also discussed. In 1937 the University of Lausanne awards its former student an honorary doctorate, a decision that will cause bitter controversy. Despite declarations of friendship, Mussolini funds the Swiss fascists of Arthur Fonjallaz and Georges Oltramare and, according to the diary of his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano, speaks contemptuously of Swiss democracy. In Ticino local fascism fails: on 25 January 1934 some sixty armed fascists attempt a “march on Bellinzona” and find hundreds of antifascists in their way.
The end (1944–1945). At the end of the war Switzerland becomes an escape route. In January 1944 Mussolini’s daughter Edda Ciano manages to enter Switzerland; in April 1945 his wife Rachele and their children are turned back at the Chiasso border. On 27 April 1945 Mussolini, fleeing along the western shore of Lake Como with a German column, is recognised and captured by partisans near Dongo, probably while trying to reach Switzerland. The next day he is shot with Claretta Petacci at Giulino di Mezzegra, while at Dongo the partisans shoot the fascist leaders who were with him. That same 28 April, at Chiasso, hundreds of German soldiers surrender at the border (see the stage).
Benito Mussolini’s police record card drawn up by the Bern police on 19 June 1903, with profile and front photographs and fingerprints
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Mussolini with Lord Curzon and Raymond Poincaré outside the Beau-Rivage hotel in Lausanne during the conference, 20 November 1922
Agence Rol, Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The note written by Mussolini after his arrest: “The 52nd Garibaldi Brigade captured me today, Friday 27 April, in the square of Dongo. The treatment I received during and after the capture was correct”
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The Locarno conference, October 1925: heads of state and government around the table, with the list of participants, among them Mussolini
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The gate of Villa Belmonte at Giulino di Mezzegra, where Mussolini and Claretta Petacci were shot on 28 April 1945, 2011
Photo kibira, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain