ABSTRACT
The Socialist city government was forced to resign. The Fascists took over the city, taking it outside the national government's control as well. It commanded one of the three access roads to Rome. The government precipitately proclaimed a national holiday for that date and announced a patriotic demonstration in Rome. The spectacular parade of the squarish would provide a cloak for the web of conspiracies, compromises, desertions; the legend of a seizure of power through a mass rising by the people would become a political force in the future. In the Italian Socialist Party's congress in Rome the Maximalists decided to expel the social democrats, who founded the Unitarian Socialist Party. The town of Terni, which commanded the Rome-Ancona railway, fell under Fascist rule.
