Fellow-soldiers! The task which weighs on my shoulders, but also on yours, is simply immense, and to it we shall be pledged for many years. It is, therefore, necessary not to waste, but to treasure and utilise all the energies which could be turned to the good of our country. Five years have passed since the battle of the Piave, from that victory on which it is impossible to sophisticate either within or beyond the frontier. It is necessary to proclaim, for you who listen to me, and also for those who read what I say, that the _victory of the Piave was the deciding factor of the war_.... On the Piave the Austro-Hungarian Empire went to pieces, from the Piave started its flight on white wings the victory of the people in arms. The Government means to exalt the spiritual strength which rises out of the victory of a people in arms. It does not mean to disperse them, because it represents the sacred seed of the future. The more distant we get from those days, from that memorable victory, the more they seem to us wonderful, the more the victory appears enveloped in a halo of legend. In such a victory everybody would wish to have taken part! _We must win the Peace!_ Too late somebody perceived that when the country is in danger the duty of all citizens, from the highest to the lowest, is only one: to fight, to suffer and, if needs be, to die! We have won the war, we have demolished an Empire which threatened our frontiers, stifled us and held us for ever under the extortion of armed menace. History has no end. Comrades! The history of peoples is not measured by years, but by tens of years, by centuries. This manifestation of yours is an infallible sign of the vitality of the Italian people. The phrase “we must win the peace” is not an empty one. It contains a profound truth. Peace is won by harmony, by work and by discipline. This is the new gospel which has been opened before the eyes of the new generations who have come out of the trenches; a gospel simple and straightforward, which takes into account all the elements, which utilises all the energies, which does not lend itself to tyrannies of grotesque exclusivism, because it has one sole aim, a common aim: the greatness and the salvation of the nation! Fellow-soldiers! You have come to Rome, and it is natural, I dare to say, fated! Because Rome is always, as it will be to-morrow and in the centuries to come, the living heart of our race! It is the imperishable symbol of our vitality as a people. Who holds Rome, holds the nation! _The “Black Shirts” buried the Past._ I assure you, my fellow-soldiers, that my Government, in spite of the manifest or hidden difficulties, will keep its pledges. It is the Government of Vittorio Veneto. You feel it and you know it. And if you did not believe it, you would not be here assembled in this square. Carry back to your towns, to your lands, to your houses, distant but near to my heart, the vigorous impression of this meeting.