Ti Duce shouted his war announcement to an estimated 150,000 Italians who jammed Venice Square and all streets leading into the square. Additional hundreds of thousands of Italy heard the call to arms over the radio.
"We are entering the battlefield against the plutocratic, reactionary Democracies of the West which at all times have opposed the march of events and often plotted against the very existence of the Italian people," Premier Mussolini declared, "Some of the past half decade's most recent history can be summed up in these words: phrases, promises, threats, and finally crowned by the ignoble siege by the league of 50 nations. (The League of Nations embargo against Italy during the Italo-Ethiopian War.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.