We felt then—we, who were not penitent Magdalens; we, who had always had the courage to uphold intervention and reason in those days of 1915; we, who were not ashamed of having barred the way to Austria on the Piave and having crushed her at Vittorio Veneto; we, who wished for a victorious peace, felt at once, almost before the exultation of victory had passed, that our task was not ended, and I, myself, felt that my work was not done. As a matter of fact, at every turn of events it was said that my task and the task of the forces I lead was accomplished. In May 1915, when the Fascismo of Revolutionary Action had swept away all neutralists from the streets and squares of Italy, even in the smallest villages, it was said: “Mussolini has no more to say to the nation.” But when the tragic days of Caporetto came and Milan was grey and ghastly for those who felt that if the Austrians passed and came to the city of the Cinque Giornate it would be the end of Italy, then we felt that we still had a word to say. And again, after victory, when there arose the more or less democratic school of renunciation which was intent upon mutilating the victory, we Fascisti had the supreme and unprejudiced courage to proclaim ourselves Imperialists and against all renunciation. That was the first battle, fought in the theatre of the Scala in January 1919. But how did it happen? We had won; we had sacrificed the flower of our youth, and they came to us with bills of usury and extortion! They disputed with us the sacred boundaries of the country, and there were Democrats in Italy, whose democracy consisted in Imperialism for others and no Imperialism for us, who threw this ridiculous accusation at us, because we intended that Italy should be bounded on the north by the Brenner, as she shall be while there is Italian blood in Italy! We intended that the eastern boundaries should be at the Nevoso, because that is the just and natural confine of our country; and they accused us because we did not turn deaf ears to the appeal of Fiume, because we feel in our hearts the sufferings of our brothers in Dalmatia, because, in fact, we feel those bonds of race to be alive and vital which bind us, not only to the Italians of Zara, Ragusa and Cattaro, but also to those of the Canton Ticino and Corsica, to those beyond the oceans, to all that great family of fifty million men whom we wish to unite in the same pride of race. (Applause.) Already we have noticed the first signs of the Socialist offensive. On 16th February, Milan was the witness—to the fear and terror of the trembling middle classes—of a procession of 20,000 Bolshevists, who, after having hymned Lenin from the top of the castle towers, proclaimed that the Bolshevist revolution was imminent.