Italo Balbo (6 June 1896 – 28 June 1940) was an Italian fascist politician and Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Italian Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. Due to his young age, he was sometimes seen as a possible successor to dictator Benito Mussolini.
After serving in World War I, Balbo became the leading Fascist party organizer in his home region of Ferrara. He was one of the Quadrumvirs, the four principal architects (Quadrumviri del Fascismo) of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922, along with Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono and Cesare Maria De Vecchi. In 1926, he began the task of building the Italian Royal Air Force and took a leading role in popularizing aviation in Italy, and promoting Italian aviation to the world. In 1933, perhaps to relieve tensions surrounding him in Italy, he was given the task of governing Italian Libya, where he resided for the remainder of his life. Balbo, hostile to antisemitism, was among a minority of leading Fascists to oppose Mussolini's alliance with Nazi Germany. Early in World War II, he was killed by friendly fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns who misidentified it.Taylor, Blaine, Fascist Eagle: Italy's Air Marshal Italo Balbo
Early life
In 1896, Balbo was born in Quartesana (part of Ferrara) in the Kingdom of Italy. Balbo was very politically active from an early age. At 14 years of age, he attempted to join in a Revolt in Albania under Ricciotti Garibaldi, Giuseppe Garibaldi's son.Smith, Italy: A Modern History, p. 273.
As World War I broke out and Italy declared its neutrality, Balbo supported joining the war on the side of the Allies. He joined in several pro-war rallies. Once Italy entered the war in 1915, Balbo joined the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) as an officer candidate and served with the Alpini (mountain infantry). His first assignment was with the Alpini Battalion "Val Fella", 8th Alpini Regiment, before volunteering for flight training on 16 October 1917. A few days later, the Austro-Hungarian and German armies broke the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, and Balbo returned to the front, now assigned to the Alpini Battalion "Pieve di Cadore", 7th Alpini Regiment, where he took command of an assault platoon. At the end of the war, Balbo had earned one bronze and two silver medals for military valour and reached the rank of Captain (Capitano) due to courage under fire.Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to the Present, p. 234.
After the war, Balbo completed the studies he had begun in Florence in 1914–15. He obtained a law degree and a degree in Social Sciences. His final thesis was written on "the economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini", and he researched under the supervision of the patriotic historian Niccolò Rodolico. Balbo was a Republican, but he hated Socialists and the unions and cooperatives associated with them.
Balbo returned to his home town to work as a bank clerk. In 1920, Balbo was initiated in the regular Masonic Lodge "Giovanni Bovio", affiliated to the Gran Loggia d'Italia. Subsequently, he received the degree of Orator in the Masonic Lodge" Girolamo Savonarola" in Ferrara,Rosario F. Esposito, La massoneria e l'Italia. Dal 1800 ai nostri giorni, Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 1979, p. 362. joined by various other party officials.Vittorio Gnocchini, L'Italia dei Liberi Muratori. Brevi biografie di Massoni famosi, Rome-Milan: Erasmo Edizioni-Mimesis, 2005, p. 22. He left the lodge on 18 February 1923,Rosario F. Esposito, La massoneria e l'Italia. Dal 1800 ai nostri giorni, Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 1979, p. 372. just three days before the vote of the Grand Council of Fascism which forbade fascists to be members of the Freemasonry.
Blackshirt leader
In 1921, Balbo joined the newly created National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, or PNF) and soon became a secretary of the Ferrara Fascist organization. He began to organize Fascist gangs and formed his own group nicknamed Celibano, after their favorite drink. They broke strikes for local landowners and attacked communists and socialists in Portomaggiore, Ravenna, Modena, and Bologna. The group once raided the Estense Castle in Ferrara. Balbo had become one of the Ras, adopted from an Ethiopian title somewhat equivalent to a duke, of the Fascist hierarchy by 1922, establishing his local leadership in the party. The Ras typically wished for a more decentralized Fascist Italian state to be formed, against Mussolini's wishes.Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to the Present, p. 234; Smith, Italy: A Modern History, p. 365.
At 26 years of age, Balbo was the youngest of the Quadrumvirs: the four main planners of the March on Rome. The Quadrumvirs were Michele Bianchi (age 39), Cesare Maria De Vecchi (38), Emilio De Bono (56), and Balbo. Mussolini himself (39) would not participate in the risky operation that ultimately brought Italy under Fascist rule. In 1923, as one of the Quadrumvirs, Balbo became a founding member of the Grand Council of Fascism (Gran Consiglio del Fascismo). This same year, he was implicated in the murder of anti-Fascist parish priest Giovanni Minzoni in Argenta. He fled to Rome and in 1924 became General Commander of the Fascist militia and undersecretary for National Economy in 1925.
Aviator
On 6 November 1926, though he had only a little experience in aviation, Balbo was appointed Secretary of State for Air, with powers similar to a minister. He went through an intensive course of flying instruction and began building the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica Italiana). On 19 August 1928, he became General of the Air Force and on 12 September 1929 Minister of the Air Force.
Italians at this time showed great interest in aviation. In 1925, Francesco de Pinedo flew a seaplane from Italy to Australia to Japan and back again to Italy. Mario De Bernardi successfully raced seaplanes internationally. In 1928, Arctic explorer Umberto Nobile piloted the airship Italia on an arctic polar expedition.
Balbo organized two air cruises: the first in the Western Mediterranean (25 May-2 June 1928), the second in the Eastern Mediterranean (5-19 June 1929). In the following two years he led some transatlantic flights. The first such flight saw twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats travelling from Orbetello Airfield, Italy to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 17 December 1930 and 15 January 1931. Some aircraft were lost and there were some casualties.
The Decennial Air Cruise () featured the so-called "Italian Air Armada". From 1 July to 12 August 1933, twenty-four seaplanes flew a round-trip from Rome to the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago, Illinois. The outbound flight had eight legs: Orbetello – Amsterdam – Derry – Reykjavík – Cartwright – Shediac – Montreal – Lake Michigan near Burnham Park, Chicago – New York City. In honor of this feat, Mussolini donated a column from Ostia to the city of Chicago: the Balbo Monument. It still stands by the Lakefront Trail, a little south of Soldier Field. Chicago renamed the former 7th Street "Balbo Drive" and staged a great parade in Balbo's honour. The Newfoundland Post Office overprinted one of their 75-cent airmail stamps, issued just two months previously, for the event: "General Balbo Flight, Labrador, The Land of Gold".
From Chicago, the "Armada" flew to New York City with an escort of 36 U.S. airplanes. New York gave a warm welcome to the pilots on Broadway. Millions of people watched the parade of dozens of cars escorted by police horses along the streets of Manhattan. Balbo featured on the 26 June 1933 cover of Time.
During Balbo's stay in the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt invited him to lunch and presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.Italo Balbo comandosupremo.com He was awarded the 1931 Harmon Trophy. The Sioux even honorarily adopted Balbo as "Chief Flying Eagle".Taylor, Fascist Eagle: Italy's Air Marshal Italo Balbo, p. 63. Balbo received a warm welcome in the United States, especially from the large Italian-American populations in Chicago and New York City. To a cheering mass in Madison Square Garden, he said: "Be proud you are Italians. Mussolini has ended the era of humiliations."Time Life Books, World War II: Italy at War The term "Balbo" entered common usage to describe any large formation of aircraft.
The return flight from New York stopped in Shoal Harbour at Clarenville, Newfoundland, on 26 July 1933. A road overlooking the bay used by the flying-boats was renamed Balbo Drive, a name it still carries today. On 12 August 1933, Balbo's formation departed Clarenville for the Azores, Lisbon, and Rome. Back home in Italy, Balbo was promoted to the newly created rank of Marshal of the Air Force ().
Following his return to Italy, Balbo proposed his vision for a reorganised Italian military. He advocated reducing the Royal Italian Army to twenty divisions: ten motorised, five Alpine and five armoured, all well-equipped, trained and prepared for amphibious warfare; while the navy would have three marine divisions. The proposed reorganised army would become an expeditionary force that could rapidly deploy by sea or train to Italy's borders (including Libya). However, such a proposal proved financially impossible: it would have required an unprecedented increase in the Italian defence budget.
Governor of Libya
On 7 November 1933, Balbo was appointed Governor-General of the Italian colony of Libya. Mussolini looked to the flamboyant Air Marshal to be the condottiero of Italian ambition and extend Italy's new horizons in Africa. Balbo's task was to assert Italy's rights in the indeterminate zones leading to Lake Chad from Tummo in the west and from Kufra in the east towards the Sudan. Balbo had already made a flying visit to Tibesti. By securing the "Tibesti-Borku strip" and the "Sarra Triangle", Italy would be in a good position to demand further territorial concessions in Africa from France and Britain. Mussolini even had his sights set on the former German colony of Kamerun. From 1922, the colony had become the League of Nations mandate territories of French Cameroun and British Cameroons. Mussolini pictured an Italian Cameroon and a territorial corridor connecting that territory to Libya. An Italian Cameroon would give Italy a port on the Atlantic Ocean, the mark of a world power. Ultimately, control of the Suez Canal and of Gibraltar would complete the picture.Kelly, Saul, The Lost Oasis, p. 102
As of 1 January 1934, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan were merged to form the new colony and Balbo moved to Libya. At that stage, Balbo had apparently caused bad blood in the party, possibly because of jealousy and individualist behaviour. Being appointed Governor-General of Libya was an effective exile from politics in Rome where Mussolini considered him a threat, both for his fame and, more importantly, because of his close relationship with the possibly anti-fascist Crown Prince Umberto. Italian newspapers reportedly could not mention Balbo's name more than once a month. "Benito in Balboland," an article in 22 March 1937 issue of Time Magazine, played with the conflict between Mussolini and Balbo. Balbo was still well known in the United States for his visit to the Century of Progress exhibition.Time Magazine Benito in Balboland While Governor, Balbo ordered Jews who closed their businesses on the Sabbath to be whipped. Balbo commissioned the Marble Arch to mark the border between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. It was unveiled on 16 March 1937.
Abyssinia crisis