WEBVTT - Part Two: The Man Who Invented Fascism 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:05.880 M We're back. This is again Behind the Bastard to 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:08.399 the podcast where we talk about terrible people, and we're 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:12.319 talking about Gabriel de Nunzio, the inventor of fascism and 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:14.800 the inventor of claiming you had two ribs removed to 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.959 suck your own dick. Um, now, Sharine, how are you 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.440 feeling about this guy as we as we barrel into 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:30.640 part do you know he's fascinating? He's fascinating. I am intrigued. Um, 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.120 I thought he I mean, I was learned. Every second 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:38.600 of the last episode got more absurd as we continued. Um, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.000 and it ended with me learning what he looked like. 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.120 So now that I haven't imagine in my head, it 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.920 might be easier for me to imagine what he how 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:50.520 he's going about his life. Um. Yeah, he's his claim 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.800 to fit his he has so many claim to fames, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.360 which is he really does, which is crazy because you 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:00.120 would think, I don't know, Uh, he wouldn't quit, He 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.640 wouldn't quit. And I can't wait to learn how he 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:10.680 uh literally invented fascism, which is crazy. Yeah. This he's 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:12.360 got a lot of gas left in the tank. This 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:18.039 guy so much bullshit, He so much bullshit. He's lived 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.120 a full life of bullshit, and it's it's not even 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.800 at the halfway point. Really his activity is notable. That's 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.520 astonishing For a little I do want to say, like, 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.680 as interesting as I find this guy, his biography Gabrielle 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.200 de Nunzio, Poet, Seducer and the Preacher of War by 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.160 Lucy Hughes Hallett, I really recommend, like it's it's one 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.880 of the best biographies I've ever read. UM Like, very 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.400 compulsively readable. Um Hugh's Hallett is a is a fantastic 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.160 writer and very a very critical um I in a 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.280 really interesting way, Like I, I really appreciate her perspective 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.559 on this guy. So I very much recommend that book. 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.560 I mean, all the clothes you've read from it are 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:03.080 are amazing. Yeah. Abriel de Nunzio loved planes. Loved planes, 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.840 big plane fan. He'd been an enthusiastic fan of the 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.720 new technology since its inception. In nineteen nine. He had 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.440 made headlines at a famous air show in Brescia for 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.280 writing with an American aviator named Glenn Curtis over an 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.440 adoring crowd of thousands. The seat he sat on during 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:19.799 the flight was later auctioned off to his legions of 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.440 adoring fans. Prior to World War One, Gabrielle had repeatedly 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:26.720 pressed the Italian government to start an air force. When 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.280 the war started, Gabrielle's enormous fame and belligerent speeches managed 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.160 to secure him a lofty position in the Italian military. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.160 The government expected him to write a song of war, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.600 some brilliant poem that would light a fire in the 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.880 hearts of the Italian soldiery and helped to get the 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.359 nations fully behind a war most of them still did 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.320 not want. He was officially attached to the Third Army 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.600 as staff to the Duke of Aosta, but he was 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.600 given unlimited freedom to basically do whatever he wanted. He 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:53.400 could go to any part of the front he desired, 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.160 partake in any maneuvers or actions he wanted to partake in. 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.680 His job was generally to inspire the military in whatever 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.000 ways seemed interesting to him. So that's the job this 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.799 guy gets. At the start of World War One, Gabriel's 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.640 first trip up to the front was delayed by the 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.400 difficulty he had designing and hiring someone to sew his 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.840 custom uniforms. He eventually solved that problem while thousands of 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.840 his countrymen dashed themselves to bloody chunks and Austrian machine 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.200 gun nests. He spent so much time waiting at a 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.200 fancy hotel to get all of that sorted out that 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.080 yet again he went broke. His manager suggested he go 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.679 to Third Army headquarters and start working. He'd get free 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.359 food and lodging and be paid. But once he arrived 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:32.320 in Venice, the closest city to the front, he yet 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.880 again set him up in the fanciest possible hotel. As 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.800 much of an incorrigible dandy as he was do Nunzio's 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.160 writing during this period shows he was eager to actually 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.360 take part in war. On his way to the front, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.120 he wrote in his notebook Sense of Emptiness and Distance, 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.600 Life and the Reasons for Living, a lude me between 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.240 two streams between past and future, Tedium, lukewarm water, necessity 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.200 for action. Surprisingly, this was not just bluster. Two days 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.600 after reaching Venice, he was on a naval destroyer doing 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.960 night maneuvers, heading towards the Austrian coast. Like two weeks 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:03.880 before he did this, one of those historians had been 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.080 sunk by a mind and dozens of guys had died, 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.920 so this was a very dangerous thing to do. Um. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.280 His trip wound up not having any combat in it, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.360 but he later spent time up at the front lines, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.160 where he was under machine gun fire and artillery shelling regularly. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.040 He made friends, and he saw them die horribly. Um 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.560 and none of this dimmed the nuncio's ardor for war. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.920 Lucy Hughes Howett writes, blessed are those who are now 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.640 twenty years old. He said he worshiped and envied their 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.159 beauty and took enormous pleasure in the opportunities that war 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.120 afforded him to live alongside them as companions and arms. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.760 Their deaths were marvelous to him. When they were killed, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.080 as one after another they were, he took them into 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.560 the pantheon. He was elaborating in his writing and speeches, 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.080 making them the martyrs and cult heroes of his new 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:50.400 mythology of war. Yeah he's a guy, I mean like 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:55.320 he's he's doing exactly what he wants, which is like infuriating. 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.200 You know, he does that, that's his whole life. Yeah, yeah, out, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.920 Gabrielle is is enticing. As he found the front lines, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.839 he had no desire to actually take part in trench 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:12.320 combat because it led to all everyone dying basically anonymously 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.880 in huge groups. And if there's one thing he could 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.320 not stand, it was being part of a large, anonymous 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.520 group of men. Um he had. Yeah, so he decided 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.560 that the sky was more like the theater of war 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.960 he wanted to get involved in. UM. It had nothing Now, 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.599 this choice like had nothing to do with cowardice, but 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.640 it was intimately tied to his narcissism. He was absolutely 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.120 willing to die, and flying in any any length of 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.440 time was very dangerous at this period of time. UM. 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.400 What he couldn't abide was dying anonymously, and pilots were 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.520 at the time seen as the knights of the sky. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.599 So if he died, you know, in a plane, that 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:48.839 was a romantic enough death for him to be willing 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:54.880 to like take the risk. Very calculated. Yeah, he never 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.080 learned to fly, but he figured he was more than 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.280 capable of being a bombardier basically dropping bombs by hand 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.320 on targets like while the guy in front flew. UM. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.279 And now up at the front, he had befriended a pilot, 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.640 a guy named Meraglia, who told him that a bombing 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.279 raid had been planned for the city of Trieste, Austria's 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.560 chief port. The city had a large Italian population, was 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.000 seen by people like Gabrielle as rightfully Italy's property, and 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.800 de Nunzio here was struck by a brilliant idea. Not 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.040 only would he bomb the city, he had also devised 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.160 a way to air drop propaganda onto Trieste to try 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.279 and incite the Italian citizens to rise up against their government. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.520 This was not an easy mission. No Italian pilot had 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:33.600 ever flown this far in a single trip, and there 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.280 would be numerous machine guns protecting the port itself from 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.840 aerial attack. It was an insanely dangerous gambit, seen as 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.320 suicidal by many, and Maraglia and Nunzio would be undertaking 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.920 this mission alone. Obviously, the attack had little military value, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.799 but the propaganda value of dropping bombs on the Austrian 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.320 emplacements and propaganda for the Italian citizens was, in Gabrielle's 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.560 eyes huge. For days, he agonized over how to drop 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.479 the leaflets, which he wrote himself. He eventually went with 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:01.680 tiny and bags that would help the leaflets fall on 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.640 target rather than getting blown to and fro the message 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.719 itself was titled to the Italians of Trieste and promised 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.000 an imminent liberation. Each copy was handwritten by him, a 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.480 sign of how much the project mattered in Gabrielle's eyes. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:15.920 Once it became clear that what they planned to do, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.600 of course, the admiral in charge of Italy's air force 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.320 tried to put a stop to it. So did the 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.040 government known with any measure of power, and wanted gabriel 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.880 de Nunzio, Italy's most famous living poet and writer, to 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.200 die flying over Austria. Morale was bad enough, after the 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.280 glorious war against Austria had turned almost instantly into a 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.080 blood soaked stalemate. Instead, they wanted him to sit in 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.080 his hotel room and write the damn poem they'd been 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.360 counting on him to write to help motivate the war effort. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.880 But now up at the front, Gabrielle de Nunzio found 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.760 himself unable to write. I have a horror of sedentary work, 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.720 of the pin, of the ink of paper, of all 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.720 those things now become so futile. A feverish desire for 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.680 action takes me do. Nunzio protested against being grounded and 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.040 a battle ensued behind the scenes of the military brass. Eventually, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.560 De Nunzio went to the time Minister and tried flattery. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.040 And here's how Lucy Hughes Hallett describes it in one 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.480 of the most deliciously catty sections of her book. You, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.120 whose own spirit is so hard working and so generous, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.040 must understand me. He stressed his physical competence. He was 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.080 not a man of letters as of the old type, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.760 and skull cap and slippers. He was an adventurer. My 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.160 whole life has been a risky game, he boasted of 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.560 his past daring. I have exposed myself to danger a 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.440 thousand times against the fences and hedges of the Roman Campagna. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.240 He adored fox hunting in France. He had often been 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.680 out on the Atlantic and chancey weather, as the fishermen 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.320 of the Landez could tell you. He had ventured repeatedly 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.800 in the enemy territory on the Western Front. He visited 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.720 the front twice, staying on the safer side of the 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.840 French lines. Most importantly, I am an aviator. I have 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.120 flown many times at high altitude. This wasn't strictly true either, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.480 and he wasn't only brave. He had knowledge and skills 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.840 which could be useful. He knew Istria, he knew Trieste, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.800 he had an observant spirit. Having presented his credentials, he 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.640 made his request in the most insistent terms, I pray 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.600 I beg repeal this odious veto. He hinted that if 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.160 he were not allowed to risk his life in his 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.720 own way, he would liberately endangered by going straight to 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.360 the front to bar one with my past, my future 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.760 from living the herolic life would be to cripple me, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.040 to mutilate me, to reduce me to nothing. And the 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.960 Prime Minister was apparently impressed by his ardor, and permission 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.040 was granted for the raid. So he gets his way, 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.760 as he always tells his entire every single time, of 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.240 her her way of writing that though I love that, 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:24.560 she's just like I imagine in my head and like 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.679 in parentheses being like all this like side note, like 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.880 not true. The whole biography is written with the air 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.880 of like, yeah, she's just utterly unimpressed by a lot 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.760 of this guy's life that I love that, but also 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.320 fascinated by him and compelled to chronicle that it's an 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.600 interesting book. I mean, I will say, like in my brain. 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.280 When you were talking about him dropping uh, propaganda from 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.240 a plane, I was I was thinking, like he might 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:53.880 as well be dropping poetry books, Like isn't that one 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:55.440 of the same. Isn't that kind of what they wanted 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.800 him to do? Regardless, Like isn't like it's they wanted 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:04.199 him to inspire the people of Italy um, because like 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.680 most Italians weren't really on board with the war. Like 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:09.080 he was able to get a lot of them in 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.400 the cities on board, but like most people in Italy 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.040 were like, why are we Why would we get involved 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.000 in this stupid thing? It would be like sends our 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:16.559 suns off to die for this. So that's what the 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.760 government wanted, was him to convince them of that, and 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:25.400 instead he really wants to go be in danger um. Yeah, 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.719 and no, he just likes being a contrarian. Probably that's 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.400 part of it. So Gabrielle and his pilot set off 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.760 on August seven, and what followed was an outrageously dangerous adventure. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.679 They were shot at several times and at least one 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.360 bullet struck the plane. Just flying a hundred and fifty 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.000 kilometers in that period of time was very risky and 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.520 it's really impossible to overstate just how fucking dangerous this was. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.040 At one point, a bomb got stuck on the plane 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:51.880 and Di Nunzio had to dislodge it, an act that 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.320 could have easily led to the bomb exploding and killing 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.440 he and his pilot. Um. I'm emphasizing the danger here 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.400 because I want to make it clear that with his actions, 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.280 Gabrielle in Nzio did prove that his rhetoric wasn't empty. 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:04.240 He was not the sort of guy who would urge 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.560 others onto war and then stay safely in the background. UM. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.840 He repeatedly risked his life over the course of World 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.040 War One, but the attack on Trieste was probably the 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.320 most insanely dangerous act of his life. When he landed 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.360 safely after dropping propaganda and bombs on Trieste and the 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.600 news broke of his new exploit, De Nunzio was more 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.600 famous than ever. He became the idol of the Italian public, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.440 the nation's single greatest living hero. He could barely go 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.600 out in public without being mobbed, and he continued to fly, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.520 or at least let others fly him. He dropped numerous 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.480 bombs and fired machine guns, but his highest preference was 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.400 at deploying propaganda. Do Nunzio was well ahead of the 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.640 curve on recognizing this as the weapon of the future, 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.760 and his most famous action was dropping leaflets over Vienna, 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.160 the Austrian capital, near the end of the war. The 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.960 propaganda would be almost the last significant written work of 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.920 Gabrielle's life, As The New Republic notes, in January nineteen sixteen, 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.200 he suffered a detached retina during an air raid and 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.640 was forced to lie absolutely still for several months to 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.120 save other eye. During his enforced convalescence, he composed a 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.240 text of in poetic verse prose, written line by line 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.600 on slips of paper handed to him by his daughter Nada. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.160 These formed the basis for his memoir Naturno, which appeared 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.600 in nineteen has recently been published in supple English translation 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.600 by Steven Sartarelli. It was Denunzio's entry into the stream 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.080 of consciousness sweepstakes, his most openly modernist work, admired by many, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.800 including Hemingway, in spite of the fact that he considered 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.880 his author a jerk. Naturno was De Nunzio's last major 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:36.800 contribution to literature. I mean, god, He's just praised as 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.080 a God, his entire fucking life, and I think a 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.000 part of the reason why he risked his life, I 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.319 don't think he was actually ready to die. I think 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.040 he just feels he felt invincible, and I think he 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.360 might have been it. Yeah, I mean, like, I just 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:55.199 think there's so much um I don't know your your 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.120 brain is a powerful thing, and if you actually think 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.280 you're invincible, I think there's an element that like you will, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.920 you'll be fine, Like it's your whole life, You've gone 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.079 away with every fucking thing. You're not going to die 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.120 in a plane. And I don't think he was. He 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:10.640 I don't think he I think he knew the whole 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.679 time he was never going to die. I don't know. 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.080 He wrote a lot about being convinced that he would 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.640 die on these missions, and they were very dangerous, but 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.280 it is impossible to know, like how he really felt 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.160 in the center of this part, because like, obviously you 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.000 would have to write about being certain you were going 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:26.280 to die as part of what you're trying to do 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.360 is convince other men to go into situations where they'll 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.640 probably die. And I'm sure it was extremely dangerous and 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.400 I'm sure it was outrageously so like very fright frightening 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:38.560 and everything. But I do think there's an element to 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.000 his personality where he just thinks he's invincible because he's 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.520 gotten away with so much shit and he literally lands 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.160 and his life starts over again. He's a god, you 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.600 know what I mean. Like it's like exactly what he's 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:56.199 been since birth. Yep. And this like really is the 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.040 end of his period of time as a writer and 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.079 an artist of note, Like he stops lead producing work 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.400 after World War One, and like especially subs producing his 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.040 best work. Um. And while the war the end of 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:08.760 the war more or less brought about the end of 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.120 Gabrielle's career as an artist, it was not the end 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.120 of his career as an asshole who shoved his dick 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.400 into world affairs. Italy wound up on the winning side 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:17.959 of World War One, but they were by far the 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.400 junior partner on their side of the war. The French, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.160 British and Russians rightly viewed the misturn Coats, who got 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.760 in late and sacrificed far fewer men than their allies. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.200 As a result, Italy got very little in the way 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.440 of new territory at the end of the war. Gabrielle 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.600 de Nunzio considered this a mutilation, a disgusting stab in 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.760 the back after all the sacrifices he had convinced his 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.880 countrymen to make. One of the things that infuriated him 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:40.760 most was the fact that the territory of the Austro 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.400 Hungarian Empire was being broken up and given to its 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.200 own people. He was livid at the establishment of a 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.080 Slavic state and the Balkans, and particularly livid at the 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.280 fact that the city of Fume, with an assizeable Italian population, 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:55.520 would be a part of that state. Gabrielle Donunzio decided 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.800 he was not going to take this lying down, so 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.280 he decided to raise an army and can or the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:06.760 city for Italy on his own. Yeah. The balls on 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.880 this guy, I mean you can see him in the 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:20.640 banana hammock. They're they're they're good, good, good old old balls. Um. Wow. Yeah, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.280 the new Republican go ahead, please please Yeah. He called 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.280 in the Italian government to occupy the city, and in 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.080 September nineteen nineteen, after they failed to do so, he 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.400 took matters into his own hands. He marched on Fume 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.960 at the head of a Cadre of Arditi or daredevil 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.320 stormtroopers clad in the black and silver uniforms and black 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.960 fezs that would be aped like so much. That was 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.200 De Nunzio by the fascists. Greeted with cheers by the 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.240 Italian speaking locals, De Nunzio announced that he had annexed Fume, 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.200 expecting the government would take control, but there was no reaction. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.240 Suddenly the poet politician found himself in charge of a 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.720 city in the grip of a delirious cocaine enhanced bachanal. Eventually, Fume, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.760 with de Nunzio as its deuice, declared its independence. Yeah. 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:08.280 I keep wanting to like analyze this guy, like really okay, 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.200 I think his his fame when he was a poet, 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.560 were it was. It was revered and beautiful like like 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.840 like a beautiful like like not beautiful, Sorry I thought 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:18.640 the word I'm trying. It was he was revered as 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.560 this like artistic guy, and it was this like kind 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.480 of like a fan base that was passionate and read 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.440 his stuff, thought he was sexy whatever. But now this 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.880 kind of fame, this lesion, is this violent thing that 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.880 I think he's always wanted He's always wanted to command 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.880 people that will do whatever he says, and I think 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.760 he got a taste of that as a like during 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:48.600 the war. And it's scary the kind of power that 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.240 this guy has. He's always had, but in this scenario, 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.720 with violence and with with bringing people to literally make 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.040 an army, like he's always had some type of army, 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.000 is what I'm trying to say. His army as a 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.600 poet was different than his army is than this point 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:08.359 in his life. But it's a little scary just how um, 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:10.400 I don't know. It seems like he's really he's really 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:15.880 obsessed with being this figure and it's because he's doing 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.360 he's really good at it, I don't know well. And again, 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.280 as is always the case with these guys, everyone kind 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.960 of gives him what he wants. Um. You know, Like 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.960 obviously what he did was profoundly illegal, and like the 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.080 Allied forces were like, yeah, Fume has to go to Yugoslavia. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.200 You can't let him do this, and they sent an 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.080 army to stop him when he was marching on the city. 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.560 But that army was made up of Italians and they 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.560 loved De Nunzio. They refused to attack him, and hundreds 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.040 of soldiers deserted to join his army as he marched 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.159 on the city. That is a third power. That's crazy, 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:53.879 It's almost incomprehensible. Um. Yeah, and and so in the 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:57.199 fall of nineteen nineteen, Gabrielle de Nunzio found himself as 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.320 the dictator of a small state on the Mediterranean post. 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:10.320 He was this guy's life, Jesus, well, it's something else. Um. 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.080 He was fifty six years old and powerfully ill with 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.800 the flu As his forces marched into town. The people 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.560 of Fume did not notice his infirmity. They were enormous 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.000 fans of the celebrity poet, and thousands of them stayed 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.320 up all nights, specifically so they could welcome their new 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.960 dictator home with rapturous applause. His soldiers were greeted in 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.959 the streets with women wearing evening dresses and carrying guns, 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.720 ready to party or do battle against the Allies should 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.080 they try to stop. To Nunzio, he announced the creation 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.399 of a new city state, which he believed would be 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.320 a model for human society in the future. The state 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.600 would be based around what he called the politics of 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.560 poetry Fume. He insisted would be a searchlight, radiant in 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.439 the midst of an ocean of objection. He believed that 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:52.320 what they built there would set a fire that would 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.000 burn down the old order in the world. And so 0:18:55.040 --> 0:19:01.119 he declared, fume the city of the Holocaust. Wow. That 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:08.880 was ch that sentence. Jesus, this fucking guy. Wow. In 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:10.960 some ways, he's most similar to a guy like l 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.000 Ron Hubbard, who was like, you just kept accelerating right 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.440 up until the end, like, never take your foot off 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.919 the gas, like, not for a fucking second. Yeah, that 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:26.320 is that is crazy. It's wild. What a journey. And 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:31.360 he's he's young in comparison to the he's he's only 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:36.000 fifty something and dictator like that's a yeah, yeah, I'm 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:37.879 sure I've got listeners in their fifties white Even't you 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:44.400 taken over a small city on the Mediterranean? Established Republican poetry? Yeah? 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:50.720 Come on now, I'm gonna quote again from Lucy Hughes. 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.800 Oh wait, no, it's a it's ad break time, isn't 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.960 it is? It is? All right? Well, you know what 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.520 won't turn your city into a city of the Holocaust. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.480 Whoever the ad is, whatever, exactly, they will not do that. 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.439 They do not we do. That is one of our 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:21.919 firm lines with advertisers. Do not create cities of the Holocaust. Anyway, 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.320 We're back. So I want to start with reading a 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.720 quote from Lucy Hughes Hallett on like what happens in 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.320 Fume After after Gabrielle de Nunzio takes over quote, the 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.840 place became a political laboratory. Socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, and some 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:40.879 of those who had begun earlier that year to call 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:45.359 themselves fascists congregated. There Representatives of shinn Fine, which is 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.760 like an Irish republican extremist group, and of nationalist groups 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.320 from India in Egypt arrived discreetly, followed by British agents. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:54.280 Then there were the groups whose homeland was not of 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.280 this earth. The Union of free Spirits tending towards perfection, 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.160 who met under a fig tree in the old Town 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.680 to talk about free love and the abolition of money 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:06.400