The assassination of Mussolini

Just read this historical piece by way of a review of a new biography in today's Irish Times. It's a bit long but thought it might be of some interest. maybe we should start a new "History" Group? "ROME. APRIL 7th, 1926. A frail Anglo-Irish woman, the Honourable Violet Gibson (1876-1956), makes her way determinedly through the enthusiastic crowd gathered to greet Mussolini, then a leader respected around the capitals of the world. She gets as close as she can, pulls out her revolver and fires. She is not lucky. The first shot is a misfire. She fires again. She neither hits nor misses but skims the front of Benito’s nose. Instead of ending his life and saving Italy years of Fascist dictatorship and Europe a million lives, her own life is effectively ended here. She is arrested (is lucky not to be lynched) and is taken off to prison. Mussolini, shocked, recovers and will use this and later acts of aggression against him to add ballast to his aura of invincibility, indestructibility and “unmitigated masculinity” and to introduce stringent laws to gain even tighter control over his unfortunate country. Gibson will spend the immediate period in an Italian prison before being returned to Britain on the guarantee that she will remain locked up. She will spend 30 years of her life in a spiritually numbing lunatic asylum in Northampton (a mansion of despair which would also be “home” to Lucia Joyce), taking her place among the residents who were society’s unwanted and discarded, mad and depressed. It might all have been so different for Violet, who got the best possible start in life as the daughter of Edward Gibson, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who became Lord Ashbourne in 1886. She grew up in comfort and privilege between Dublin and London but was rarely comfortable in this world and was too opinionated with regard to politics and religion to obligingly slide into an allotted good marriage as her sisters would do. As the Protestant Anglo-Irish power elite gradually dissolved, Violet anxiously sought something to which to anchor herself. She suffered great loneliness and sought a psychological prop in religion, flirting briefly with Christian Science before looking to theosophy. Following her brother Willie, she came to embrace “a form of ethical socialism” and converted to Catholicism. She subscribed to a liberal Catholicism which believed that the Church had become overly authoritarian and reactionary, that the true faith was to be found in the Gospels rather than in the dictates of Rome. Individual Catholic responsibility involved helping the poor and giving alms. Not surprisingly, Lord Ashbourne strongly disapproved of Willie and Violet’s chosen religious and life paths. In 1906, Violet made her first trip to Rome and began to read the lives of the saints and was absorbed by the “moral atmosphere” she found depicted in these tomes. It was around this time that her physical and mental health began to falter and she was troubled by a succession of painful events in the family, including the death of her father and the disinheritance of her brother Willie, now not only a Catholic but also an outspoken Irish Nationalist. Her reaction was to throw herself into her religious endeavours and her work as a peace activist in what was now a time of war. She offered her pain up, believing, a medical note reads, “that her poor health was a sacrifice to be made for her religious beliefs”. Her reading of the lives of the saints was becoming the basis for her own life of self-abnegation. At this time her confessor was Fr John O’Fallon Pope, SJ, an American-born convert. She took her confessor’s spiritual advice all too literally, noting that “the degree of holiness depends of the degree of mortification”. The more dangerous message that Violet took was that true believers were obliged to intervene in God’s name in human affairs. At the same time, her attention was increasingly taken up by human affairs in Italy, a place she had idealised as the land of Dante, Fra Angelico and St Francis. She was acutely aware of the dangers posed by Mussolini and took it upon herself to eliminate him. Following her attempt, opinion was divided as to whether she had acted alone or was part of an international conspiracy. This book puts the latter theory to rest. It shows how the defence chose to play down conspiracy and play up lunacy in the hope of saving her. What emerges most clearly is a portrait of what might be called Violet’s lucida follia, set beside the lucid madness of Mussolini himself and the complacent underestimation by world leaders of the threat he posed. Violet was, essentially, ahead of her time in identifying Il Duce as a totalitarian dictator. At the same time, she must be considered mad, at least some of the time, her mind overwhelmed by the tradition of martyrolgy and sacrifice, steeled in the belief that, as she told one of her jailers, “it was against the will of God that Mussolini should continue to exist”. But Mussolini too is shown to have lived “in the borderland of insanity” making similar decisions to Gibson’s for thousands of his victims. Most of those who perpetrated heinous acts in Mussolini’s name escaped unpunished following his fall; in hindsight, and based on the evidence in this book, it seems singularly unfair that Violet Gibson’s punishment was a life sentence – not because the law demanded it – but because her custodians, her doctors and her family consistently refused to lend a sympathetic ear to her pleas to spend her final years in the relative freedom of an enclosed convent. Frances Stonor Saunders’s justified indignation at her protagonist’s fate – and her description of letter after letter Gibson wrote asking for help which her custodians never sent adds considerably to the power of this revealing and compelling biography.

I found the story most interesting, Postmac. Thank you.

really nice from you to share it with us! I wouldn't mind a History group! Go ahead! a long article is much more informative than a short quotation :D

A history group would be a good idea as i have a badge with G.I.L and a large M above it. Its from a box of bits and pieces from my mums uncle who went down in 1943 on the HMS Penelope of the coast of North Africa it seems the badge would be fastened to a hat probably a fez. On the reverse of the badge is some writing ' commando generale' ' modelo depositato' and an address in Firenze i think. I have looked into it and it seems it was a party of young fascists set up n 1937 i guess the large M is for mussolilni but there is a date on the badge which predates 1937 it says R.D.L. 7-11-1925. If anybody has any more info regarding this party G.I.L. i would be very grateful. Sadly how my great uncle came by it will always be a mystery.

Hi Nils, yes the G.I.L. was an organization set up in 1927 " la Gioventù italiana del littorio" it was the organization of young facists. it's "mission" was precise, it was set up to ensure the spiritual ,sporting and para military perparation of the young.At it's peak it vanted nearly 9.000.000 enrolled in it's "ranks" they typically used a black fez as headgear.

I really enjoyed reading this post. What a tragic, complicated story. I'm inspired to look into this story more deeply. I also think a history group is an excellent idea. Thanks for a most interesting read.

I also enjoyed your article and also think a history group is an excellent idea!!!!

Me too - I have my own privste obsessions with italian history which I would love to share!

It would be great to have a group for members interested in History. There could be some very interesting discussion. There is plenty to talk about...