During December rumors too vague to be set in type began to filter from Italy that a plot to dethrone the King and proclaim Signer Mussolini Emperor had almostsucceeded.
The concensus of reports to date: 1) During November, Undersecretary for Aviation Italo Balbo and General Emilio De Bono, Governor of Tripolitania, perfected the details of the plot. (They with Signer Mussolini led the famed march on Rome [1922] which brought Fascismo into power.) 2) A letter from General De Bono to Secretary Balbo concerning the plot fell into the hands of General Pietro Badoglio, the Army Chief of Staff, and a staunch, loyal monarchist. 3) General Badoglio promptly called a cavalry regiment and two artillery regiments to Rome, ordered them to guard King Vittorio Emanuele and the royal family. 4) The plot, timed for Dec. 23, fizzled. 5) Chief of Staff Badoglio has now been “promoted” to a new office invented by Premier Mussolini, and called “Supreme Chief of Staff.” At his new post General Badoglio’s theoretical rank is higher, but he is deprived of his onetime authority to order the movement of troops.
Significant is the fact that the present royal House of Savoy has reigned for only 66 years over all Italy. The Imperial as opposed to the merely Royal tradition dates from Augustus* (B.C. 63—A.D. 14), the first Roman Emperor. The Byzantine Emperors reigned over Italy from 476; the Frankish Emperors from 800; the German Emperors from 962. But during all this time Italy had been breaking up into petty kingdoms; and from the 9th Century to the 19th “Italy” lost its meaning as a political entity and became a region of separate states—some free cities, some republics, some ruled by kings, princes, dukes or petty nobles. Thus Italians owe to the House of Savoy no such agelong allegiance as Hungarians feel toward the Habsburgs, or Japanese toward their 124th lineally descended Emperor.
*Strictly speaking, his name was Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, and his title was Augustus (from “augeo,” “increase”) : the Illustrious, the Sublime.