Several thousand black-clad fascist sympathisers chanted and sang in praise of the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini yesterday as they marched to his crypt, 100 years after Mussolini entered Rome and completed a bloodless coup that gave rise to two decades of fascist rule.
Several thousand black-clad fascist sympathisers chanted and sang in praise of the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini yesterday as they marched to his crypt, 100 years after Mussolini entered Rome and completed a bloodless coup that gave rise to two decades of fascist rule.
The crowd of up to 4,000 marchers, many sporting fascist symbols and singing hymns from Italy’s colonial era, was bigger than in the recent past, as the fascist nostalgics celebrated the centenary of the March on Rome.
On October 28, 1922, black-shirted fascists entered the Italian capital, launching a putsch that culminated two days later when Italy’s king handed Mussolini the mandate to start a new government.
The crowd in Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace and final resting place in the northern Emilia-Romagna region, also were apparently emboldened by the fact that a party with neo-fascist roots is heading an Italian government for the first time since World War II.
