March on Rome and Mussolini's rise to power

Date

28–30 October 1922

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Southern Europe (Italy)

Era

Modern

Significance

In late October 1922 tens of thousands of Fascist Blackshirts converged on the Italian capital in a coordinated show of force orchestrated by Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party.

Rather than authorise martial law to disperse them, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign the emergency decree requested by Prime Minister Luigi Facta and on 30 October invited Mussolini to form a government. The transfer of power was constitutional in form but enabled by paramilitary intimidation. Over the following years Mussolini dismantled parliamentary democracy, banning rival parties, muzzling the press, and constructing the first European Fascist one-party state. The March on Rome became a foundational myth of Fascism and a model studied by other radical-right movements, including Hitler's, who attempted his own coup in Munich a year later.

Empires active in 28–30 October 1922

• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League of Nations
  28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920)
• Russian Revolutions of 1917
  March & November 1917 (February & October Revolutions, O.S.)
• Sykes-Picot Agreement partitions the Ottoman Middle East
  16 May 1916
• Hitler's appointment and Nazi consolidation of power
  30 January 1933 – August 1934
• The Xinhai Revolution and the fall of the Qing
  1911–1912 (Wuchang Uprising 10 October 1911; abdication 12 February 1912)
• Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror)
  1936–1938

Also relevant

• Founding of the Turkish Republic and Atatürk's reforms
  29 October 1923 (reforms to 1934)

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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