Carabinieri

Carabinieri are presented as an armed force of the Italian state whose work unfolds amid political violence and institutional crisis. They cordon off demonstrations, reinforce Bologna during a tense municipal confrontation, arrest armed militants, and join regular troops in the attack on Fiume. Across these episodes, their presence signals the state’s attempt to control the streets and suppress armed resistance, but the narrative also shows how limited and consequential that control could be.

Public Order in the Streets

During the confrontation in Milan on April 15, 1919, Carabinieri form a cordon that blocks the outlet from Via dei Mercanti, separating a large socialist procession from a smaller counter-demonstration of officers, Arditi, and Futurists. The two groups face one another across the barrier. When it opens, armed men advance from the Piazza del Duomo side and the clash lasts about a minute. The account distinguishes the Carabinieri maintaining the cordon from the groups who move forward and fire: their role is to contain the confrontation, but the barrier’s opening precedes its sudden escalation.

A separate clash with unarmed peasants shows a more directly violent consequence of the force’s intervention. After a soda siphon strikes a wall and a deputy inspector is slightly injured, Carabinieri fire roughly fifty shots. Eight people are killed and about thirty wounded. The account emphasizes that nearly all those killed were shot in the back, and that one of the first speakers at the gathering was killed with a bayonet. The deaths transform a local confrontation into a provincial crisis: the Chamber of Labor calls a three-day general strike, and local business and professional groups organize in response, accusing the state of failing to protect them from socialist violence. The episode makes state coercion not an abstract policy but an immediate cause of wider political mobilization.

Bologna: Reinforcement, Arrests, and Failure to Secure the Scene

In November, as Bologna prepares for the swearing-in of its newly elected socialist administration, police chief Poli negotiates with the Fascists over the conditions under which they will not attack. At the same time, he urges the prefect to send reinforcements. On the morning of November 21, the reported forces converging on the historic center include 800 Carabinieri, alongside 900 infantrymen, 200 cavalry, and 600 royal guards. The piazza around Palazzo d’Accursio is barricaded, its entrances closed, and a cordon of Carabinieri secures it. The scale of the deployment makes clear that the city is being treated as a place under siege, even before the confrontation inside and around the municipal building is resolved.

In another Bologna episode, Fascists arrive outside the Bologna Chamber of Labor, where armed Red Guards have barricaded themselves. Shooting begins from both sides, and a Fascist is wounded in the street. A platoon of Carabinieri then arrives with rifles leveled. Ercole Bucco, the Chamber’s maximalist secretary, greets them with relief and invites them inside; the account reports that he may have called the police command center after the first shots. The Carabinieri escort the Red Guards out in chained groups, arrest their deputy commander, and take Bucco into custody as well. They charge him with possessing dozens of rifles and large quantities of explosives concealed in fruit crates.

The arrests do not restore control of the building. After the detainees are led away, the Chamber of Labor is left open and unguarded, and Fascists loot it. The narrative assigns the Carabinieri a decisive role in disarming and arresting the occupants, but not in preventing the subsequent seizure of the premises. That gap matters: the force can intervene effectively in a specific encounter while the political consequences of its intervention remain beyond its control.

Fiume and the Reach of the State

During the attack on Fiume on December 24, 1920, Carabinieri units advance alongside strong Alpine units as Italian government forces press against D’Annunzio’s legionnaires. The assault comes from several parts of the front, extending from Val Scurigna to the sea. D’Annunzio does not promptly order his men to fire: it takes Major Vagliasindi an hour to obtain authorization, by which time the first legionary garrisons near Cantrida have already been surrounded and captured by regular troops of the Royal Italian Army.

The Carabinieri’s presence places them within a state offensive against a force that had claimed readiness to die for Fiume. Yet the attack does not immediately settle the contest. After receiving the order to open fire, the legionnaires reinforce breaks in their defensive line and counterattack; by nightfall, the line around the city has been re-formed. In this episode, the Carabinieri belong to the state’s military pressure on Fiume, but the immediate result is not a clean or instant victory.

Narrative Significance

The force’s appearances vary between containment, arrest, and participation in armed repression. In Milan, Carabinieri hold a line between hostile processions; in Bologna, they enter a barricaded labor center and carry out arrests, then leave a space that Fascists exploit; around Palazzo d’Accursio, their numbers help define the city’s state of siege; at Fiume, they advance with regular troops against the legionnaires. The organization is therefore not depicted through a single institutional portrait but through the changing demands made of it in moments of crisis.

That variation sharpens the book’s account of the postwar state. Carabinieri embody its capacity to deploy armed personnel and exercise authority, but their presence does not guarantee political stability or neutral outcomes. Their interventions can disperse, arrest, or confront opponents; they can also become part of the chain of events that widens conflict. The narrative’s attention to cordons, troop counts, arrests, and the fate of the spaces left behind turns the Carabinieri into a measure of state power under strain: visible and forceful, yet unable by themselves to resolve the political struggles surrounding them.