Tag: Benito Mussolini

On a British Spy

I love a good British spy story. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is one of my favorite films for this reason. There’s something about the spycraft of it all, the casual business-like calm, the, well, Britishness of spying that makes those types of stories interesting to me. Take the story of one such spy recruited by Britain during World War I.

Many people don’t know that the British Government spy agency, commonly known as MI-5 (short for Military Intelligence, Section 5) got its start before World War 1, in 1909. Britain could read the tea leaves, so to speak, and knew that war with the aggressive regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany was going to happen sometime in the near future. Therefore, the British planned ahead. MI-5 was set up to identify and monitor possible German spy activity in Britain in the buildup to the war. The head of the agency, a General Vernon Kell (known only in the agency as “K,” of course), also knew that, when war came, it would be vital to have British agents in the nations that could help Britain win the war. So, he planned to plant British spies in nations like Romania (whose king was a relative of Britain’s George V, as were most European monarchs), Denmark, and Italy.

Italy was especially important to Britain because of their large navy in the Mediterranean Sea and the fact that they bordered Austria-Hungary on their eastern side, a nation that most assuredly would side with Germany during the war. And General Kell sought out Italians who weren’t in the miliary to be his spies; he felt that people with “normal” jobs would draw less attention in their intelligence gathering than would people who would be obvious candidates for spying. On the other hand, the occupation of these people should give them access to people, places, and events that would prove to be valuable sources of information if and when the need arose. Teachers made good spies. Transportation administrators did as well. Art dealers, book publishers, and reporters were also on the list.

Thus, one of the spies MI-5 supported during World War I in Italy was a journalist. In his capacity as a British agent, this guy could not only have access to important people but he would also be able to help sway public opinion in favor of the Allied cause. Of the several dozen spies in Italy during the war, this one was a particularly good investment. Records show the man was paid well by the British every week to provide information and also help mold the opinions of the Italian people into supporting the Allies. In fact, payments made to this journalist at the time equaled about $8,000 per week in today’s money.

As Italy’s government began fighting for the Allies, the work this spy performed made a difference in keeping Italian morale up and providing actionable information for his minders. As the war ended in November, 1918, the need for such spies also ended. Kell saw MI-5’s budget cut drastically after the war, going from hundreds of staff members to only a handful. However, the onrush of World War II brought the agency it back to life as the original Axis of Evil (Germany, Japan, and Italy) threatened the world.

Of course, Italy’s threat to Britain in the 1930s might not have been so great had it not been for the rise of the Black Shirts of the Fascist Party in the 1920s. And you know the man who led that political movement, right?

The same journalist the British paid so well to be a spy during the previous war: Benito Mussolini.

On a Lord’s Honorable Daughter

Violet Gibson. I tell you her name here at the start because you’ve mostly likely not heard of her at all. She was the daughter of an Irish Lord, Edward Gibson, Baron Ashbourne. Violet was born into this part of high society in 1876, and she was raised as all upper-class women were in the very heart of the Victorian Era. She received the same education as other girls of her station, and she went through the proper debutante rituals of the time. Her parentage entitled her to use the title The Honorable before her name. Today, a plaque honors her memory, placed on the outer wall of her childhood home in Dublin. Musicians and writers have created works in her honor.

Historians debate whether or not Violet was truly honorable. You be the judge.

Violet had health issues most of her life. Besides physical ailments, she also suffered severe mental health issues as well. A nervous breakdown in the early 1920s led her family to place her in a mental health facility for two years. When she was released, she traveled to Rome because of her strong Catholic faith led her there, in part, for possible healing from her issues. Sadly, Violet attempted suicide in Rome in 1925. She was 49 years old.

Violet recovered from her suicide attempt, but the mental anguish she lived with continued to dog her. She claimed to have angelic visions–which, in Rome, was not a claim too unusual for that religious climate–and some of these visions told her that she must fight against the then-rising tide of fascism.

The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, had taken control over that country in 1922. In Mussolini’s mind, the Italian nation needed to re-create the power of the Roman Empire. Towards that end, Mussolini chose the Roman symbol of a sheath of bound sticks with an axehead at the top. This symbol, known as a fasces, was a Roman sign of unity and the power of a magistrate. It’s where we get the words fascist and fascism.

Violet hated this political philosophy. She swore that she would fight it to her death. She said that her actions against fascism would “glorify God” and bring justice to those in the despotic Mussolini regime who had injured or imprisoned people she felt were innocent.

This daughter of an Irish lord, this honorable woman, was put in a mental hospital in England in 1926, and she died there in 1956.

So, what makes her honorable in the minds of many? What did she do that makes her have a plaque and have songs and films created about her?

It was in April of 1926 that The Honorable Violet Gibson took a revolver and shot Benito Mussolini.