Abstract
Fidac is not a commercial society, as the name could erroneously suggest. It is, instead, an effective initiative of French comrades who, once returned home from the frontline, thought it was possible to create the Federation Interalliée des Anciens Combattants. After the five words’ initials had been merged, the Fidac was established with its seat, of course, in Paris. […] What does Fidac do? It meets once a year and, for a very moveable propagandistic purpose, in a different country. Those who attend the convention are due to wear a morning dress, a tuxedo, a tailcoat and, as stated by the last conference’s newsletter, many morning dress’ shirts. Since the convention is continuously touring, it would be otherwise difficult to get a blanchissage. The attendees can also share some news about the assistance of veterans in their country. Because Fidac’s meetings had already used European capitals up, this year the conference took place in America. Therefore, we shouted all together: Good bye, America!1
That is the half-serious report of the 1930 FIDAC meeting in Washington, written by the First World War veteran Titta Madia, in the official bulletin of the Associazione Nazionale Mutilati e Invalidi di Guerra (ANMIG, National Association for War Mutilated and Disabled), La Vittoria.2 Giovanni Battista Madia, known as Titta, was both a member of ANMIG and a deputy, who had first been elected to parliament in the ranks of the Fascist Party in 1924.3
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Notes
Titta Madia, ‘Il Congresso della F.I.D.A.C. a Washington (Resoconto semis-erio, senza licenza delli Superiori)’, La Vittoria, October 1930, p. 23.
Henry C.Wolfe, ‘War Veterans Who Work for Peace’, World Affairs, 98, no. 3 (1935), p. 172.
I use the term INGOs as illustrated in Thomas R. Davies,The Rise and Fall of Transnational Civil Society: The Evolution of International Non-Governmental Organizations Since 1839, Working Paper, Working Papers on Transnational Politics. (London: City University, April 2008). I also refer the reader to Davies’s chapter in this volume.
Antoine Prost, ‘Brutalisation des sociétés et brutalisation des combattants’, in Bruno Cabanes and Edouard Husson (eds.), Les sociétés en guerre 1911– 1946 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2003), p. 111.
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning and Recovery (London: Granta, 2004), esp. p. 27.
Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 295 and 323.
I mostly refer here to the arditi led by Mario Carli, who participated in the assault against the premises of the socialist newspaper Avanti!, in Milan, in 1919. Nonetheless, the arditi’s movement, although small, was extremely composite. Cf. Ferdinando Cordova, Arditi e legionari dannunziani (Padova: Marsilio, 1969);
Giorgio Rochat, Gli arditi della grande guerra (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1981). Moreover, few arditi decided to organize armed resistance against fascist violence, cf.
Eros Francescangeli, Arditi del popolo. Argo Secondari e la prima organizzazione antifascista (1917–1922) (Roma: Odradek, 2000).
Ute Frevert, ‘Europeanizing German History’, GHI Bulletin, 2005, pp. 13–14.
Emilio Gentile, Le origini dell’ideologia fascista (1918–1925) (2nd ed .) (Bologna : Il Mulino, 2001).
Benito Mussolini, ‘Trincerocrazia’, Il Popolo d’Italia. Milan, December 1917. Reprinted in Edoardo Susmel and Duilio Susmel (eds.), Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, (Florence: La fenice, 1951–63), vol. 10, pp. 140–143.
Gianni Isola, Guerra al regno della guerra! Storia della Lega proletaria invalidi reduci orfani e vedove di guerra: (1918–1924) (Florence: Le Lettere, 1990).
Cf. Annette Vidal, Henri Barbusse: Soldat de la paix (Paris: Les Editeurs Français Réunis, 1953).
Fabio Fabbri, Le origini della guerra civile: l’Italia dalla Grande Guerra al fascismo (1918–1921) (Torino: UTET, 2009).
Cf. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il fascista. L’organizzazione dello Stato fascista, 1925–1929 (Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1968).
‘Congresso internazionale di Ginevra’, Il Bollettino, 1 February 1922; ‘Première réunion d’experts pour l’étude des questions intéressant les mutilés’, Revue international de la Croix-Rouge, 1922, pp. 313–319; Antoine Prost and Jay M. Winter, René Cassin et les droits de l’homme, le projet d’une génération. (Paris: Fayard, 2011), p. 84 ff.
About this organization see Giovanni Sabbatucci, I combattenti nel primo dopoguerra (Bari: Laterza, 1974), pp. 86–90.
Emilio Gentile, ‘La politica estera del partito fascista. Ideologia e organiz-zazione dei Fasci italiani all’estero (1920–1930)’, Storia contemporanea XXVI, no. 6 (1995), pp. 897–956;
Luca de Caprariis, ‘“Fascism for Export?” The Rise and Eclipse of the Fasci Italiani all’Estero’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35, no. 2 (April 1, 2000), pp. 151–183; João Fábio Berthona, ‘Emigrazione e politica estera: la “diplomazia sovversiva” di Mussolini e la questione degli italiani all’estero, 1922–1945’, Altreitalie, no. 23 (2001), pp. 39–60;
Francesca Cavarocchi, ‘Propaganda e associazionismo fascista nelle comunità di emi-grazione: il caso di Parigi (1922–1939)’, Società e storia, 31, no. 120 (2008), pp. 279–307.
Claudia Baldoli, Exporting Fascism: Italian fascists and Britain’s Italians in the 1930s (London: Berg, 2003), p. 2.
Francesca Cavarocchi, Avanguardie dello spirito. Il fascismo e la propaganda culturale all’estero (Rome: Carocci, 2010).
Richard Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World 1860–1960 (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 43.
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Salvante, M. (2013). The Italian Associazione Nazionale Mutilati e Invalidi di Guerra and Its International Liaisons in the Post Great War Era. In: Eichenberg, J., Newman, J.P. (eds) The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137281623_9
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