The Explorers' Club, № CMXII

Operation AXIOM: Between the Wars
27-29 October 1922: The March on Rome—Italo Balbo, Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono, & Cesare Maria De Vecchi (the Quadrumvirs) lead 25,000 Fascists toward Rome, while Benito Mussolini waited in Milan; King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare a state of emergency to thwart the Blackshirts; Mussolini was invited to form a cabinet & succeeded Luigi Facta as Prime Minister on 31 October.

Commentary: Mussolini did not personally lead the March on Rome, but he did pose for propaganda photographs. The March on Rome did not immediately establish a Fascist authoritarian dictatorship, but catalyzed Fascism's gradual takeover within the Kingdom of Italy's liberal constitutional order.

Lest we forget.