Bullets in the Back

To a group of anti-Fastisti who plotted his death in Paris cafe corners. Premier Benito Mussolini is known as "The Big Dog." In Rome last week two Italians who had tried unsuccessfully to blow "The Big Dog" into small bits met the special death that Italy reserves for spies and traitors--shooting in the back. Last summer 13 bombs exploded in Genoa, Bologna and Turin, killing three idlers and a policeman. One Genoese bombing almost coincided with the arrival of King Vittorio Emanuele. In September another bomb went off in a Genoese apartment, killing the mother of one Domenico Bovone. Police immediately arrested Bombmaker Bovone and eight co-plotters, including a Viennese dancer named Margherita Blaha with whom Conspirator Bovone had been touring the country in an expensive motor car. Fortnight ago they were ordered to trial before a military tribunal. On that day in Rome arrived the ashes of Anita Garibaldi, wife of Italy's famed liberator. With hundreds of other black-shirted patriots II Duce followed the bier through the streets, then dropped out of the procession within 200 yards of the Piazza di Venezia. Lurking in the Piazza was one Angelo Sbardellotto. In his pockets police found two bombs and a pistol. Pope Pius felicitated the Premier on his escape. Sbardellotto went to trial with Bovone & friends.

Bomber Bovone explained to the tribunal last week that the "antiFascist concentration" in Paris had offered $50,000 for the assassination of Signor Mussolini, $5,000 for Crown Prince Umberto, lesser amounts for members of the Grand Fascist Council. He said he had no personal fondness for assassination, but found that the bombing business enabled him to support his mistress in luxurious style. Sbardellotto professed to be an idealist, announced that he was carrying on the work of the executed Michele Schirru. He said he had been chosen to kill the Premier by lots cast in Brussels. Had Signor Mussolini not dropped out of the procession, said he, "I would have done my job."

The tribunal promptly sentenced Bo-vone and Sbardellotto to death, Signorina Blaha and five others to 30 years' imprisonment, the remaining two men to ten years. Bovone signed a plea for clemency, Sbardellotto scornfully waved the paper aside. Next morning at daybreak in the courtyard of Fort Bravetta they were chained to chairs. While 500 militiamen shouted, "A Noi!" (To us!), a firing squad smashed the plotters' backs with hard Fascist bullets. "For Benito Mussolini!" cried the commander. "Forward March!"

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