Saturday, October 9, 1926. Il Duce leads the Blackshirts.

Mussolini made himself head of the state's national militia, the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, the Blackshirts.

Emblem of the Blackshirts.

It was a Saturday.

It was football season as well.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 7, 1926. Choral Evensong.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1926 World Series, baseball, British Broadcasting Corporation, Cao Đài, Christianity, Protestant, Radio, Saigon Vietnam, Vietnam

Monday, August 3, 1925. Black Shirts at polling stations.

Fascists won local Sicilian elections, helped in part by the staging of Blackshirts at polling stations.

Here, locally, MAGA loyalist hung around the courthouse where early voting was occuring.  Protecting the polls, was their claim.  One independent dude wondered around commenting on homosexuals.

Maybe they could spring for cap badges:

Emblem of the Black Shirts.

Mussolini was very successful in suppressing the Mafia during his rule, using strong arm tactics himself.

Released this day:

The plot involves a woman who loses her voice after giving birth to a son, causing her to hate him.  She becomes an alcoholic who raises geese. And there's a love story.  And a murder. And the mother's love returns.

It sounds pretty bad.

Last edition:

Sunday, August 2, 1925. A Date

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Cartoons, Ethel Hays, The relationship between men and women, trends

Tuesday, April 24, 1923. Black Shirts.

The Fascist Grand Council voted to approve Benito Mussolini's motion to place all the Fascists into a national militia, categorizing them as volunteers, so they didn't have to be paid.  That gave the Italian army a 500,000 men reserve, albeit not one trained as a fighting military, which was officially called the Voluntary Militia for National Security (IMilizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and unofficially the "black shirts" for their attire.

Symbol of the black shirts.  By Arturolorioli - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46385297

The militia contributed over 300,000 men to the Italian forces during World War Two, and its hard-line elements were sent to Spain during the Spanish Civil War.   The movement was the partial inspiration for many other fascists paramilitary organizations of the time, although in much of Europe military wings of political parties were already common.

Flag of the Black Shirts, By RootOfAllLight - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114802748

Just the other day I ran this item, which these events cause me to recall:

Blog Mirror: Prepare for the Shock Troops

It's interesting how authoritarian movements acquire their own militias, which glorify supposed martial values to the extreme.  Now, for the first time since the Civil War, the US finds itself, effectively, with Black Shirts.

Beverly Hills voted not to be annexed by Los Angeles and remain an independent municipality.